The Community likes to backseat dev, so: lets talk about balance and game design theory.

[SDGDen]

Oh boy, SDGDen coming in with another controversial long-read! Lets tango yall.

 

So, this isn't a new problem by ANY stretch of the imagination. but the recent "dante" issue really shows the problem quite well. Before anyone makes this entire post about dante, im just using the recent situation as an example, this post is NOT specifically about him or his nerf. I will not be going into whether the nerf was deserved or not and I will not be picking a side on what DE should do/should have done or shouldnt do/shouldnt have done.

 

the posts on both the forums and reddit discussing the dante nerf generally fall into one of two categories:

>the emotional reaction
>the backseat dev

quick word on the emotional reaction: these are posts that mostly just lament the nerf, which is normal and expected. People do not like it when something they enjoy gets nerfed. That's a simple fact and that dislike is entirely fine. Having an emotional reaction to the nerf, being upset, grieving even, that's simply par for the course and not what i'm here to discuss today.

 

the second group, the backseat developers, are who i'd like to talk about. the players that like to claim that DE did something wrong and that actually, they should have done X or Y because of Z reason. This is the group that is trying to argue DE is a bad development company because of a "logical" reason. 

One thing that frequently bothers me is that these people.... don't have a clue about game design. It's a great example of "a user isn't a developer and doesn't think the same way or have the same goals".

 

you can explain that in a pretty simple way: in ANY gaming community. not just warframe, ANY gaming community. the PLAYERS like strong things and want more and stronger things. however almost every single game, the DEVELOPERS do NOT want to constantly pump out stronger things because they're concerned about balance. something the players are not concerned about at all (as long as it's unbalanced in their favour)

 

this difference in mentality is also where a very common idea that the community has comes in: "buff, don't nerf.", the idea that balance SHOULD be achieved but ONLY through buffing what is underpowered. From a player perspective this makes sense, because players like strong things. However, actually implementing balance in this way has some issues.

before I explain *What* the problem is, lets set up a little concept: different types of power (or rather, different types of OverPowered)

in warframe (and most other games) the player can be overpowered in 3 broad categories:

>mechanically

>numerically

>globally

 

mechanically overpowered means the mechanic itself is doing the heavy lifting, and would need to be changed to change the power of the item.

numerically overpowered means that some of the numbers are too high or too low, and if you were to tweak those (without changing the item mechanically) it'd be balanced

globally overpowered means that the item itself is fine, but due to its interaction with a global system, it ends up being much stronger than desired. 

 

at face value, "buff dont nerf" works fine, as long as you're purely talking *numerical*. after all, if you have a gun that deals 100 damage and you buff it to deal 200 damage instead, you can always just buff enemy health to compensate resulting in balance being kept. the problem is that this doesn't work with mechanical power. 

a good warframe example of this is revenant. revenant's mesmer skin is mechanically overpowered. it doesn't matter how much you tweak the numbers or how much damage the enemies deal, as long as the revenant player can re-cast mesmer skin once it runs out, they will never die. this is actually a combination of mechanical and global power because the fact that we can practically always cast our abilities is a form of global power (and so is shieldgate preventing you from dying during the recast window)

 

warframe is not a purely numerical game, that'd be really boring. so we will have to deal with the mechanical and global factors in balancing the game, as a result. "buff dont nerf" will simply result in the players getting mechanically and globally more powerful over time in ways that cannot be resolved by making stronger enemies.

this problem is part of why in current time warframe, the most endgame mode (EDA) makes use of modifiers that require randomizing your loadout among other things, to push down those global and mechanical factors. 

 

 

so how *do* you balance? well, there's one theory i like to call the "pivot" theory. Its a universal game balancing theory specifically for groups of items that are supposed to be balanced against eachother, but it can also work on items that need to scale up in power as you progress by putting those items into tiers and balancing each tier separately.

 

lets pretend for a second we are rebalancing warframes, as in. all warframes. for this, i'm going to make some decisions on my own that are not necessarily what DE should do or what DE IS doing.

 

step 1: choose a pivot. the pivot is the item that you find to be the best balanced within the group. the holy grail. I will pick excalibur because i personally think excal (as well as excal umbra and prime) are in a good spot right now, not to mention they're the posterboy. DE may choose a different frame.

step 2: choose a margin of error. this margin can be quite wide for warframe because of the casual nature, the more important balance is, the tighter this margin should be. an esports title would be within 5% but since warframe is casual PVE, we're picking 25%. this CAN be even higher (for example, some of yall may argue that 50% is fine). this is just an example.

step 3: put all the items on a scale from left to right, with the pivot in the center, warframes should be placed on the scale based on how much stronger or weaker they are compared to the pivot.

step 4: for mental exercise purposes, we are gonna be giving every warframe a sticker. green for all warframes that are less than 25% weaker than excal as well as less than 25% stronger, red for frames that are more than 25% stronger than excal and blue for frames that are more than 25% weaker than excal.

step 5: we're going to take the frames that have a blue sticker and evaluate them. *why* are they more than 25% weaker? if the issue can be fixed numerically, that's the first step because numerical changes are way easier to pull off. if a frame can't get within that range (like pre-rework inaros) then they'll get mechanical changes instead. if things are REALLY bad global changes could be considered.

step 6: now, we're going to do the same but to red sticker frames. we'll evaluate, figure out why they're so much stronger, and look at whether they can be made less strong with just numerical changes. if that's not possible (like with our mesmer skin example from before), mechanical changes are made and if those dont help then global changes are made instead.

 

global changes being made in step 5 and 6 are quite intense, because they affect the whole roster, you basically shouldnt do a global change unless you run into the same issue with many different items.

and while doing steps 5 and 6, you do have to keep your other development goals at hand: the item should be balanced, yes. but it should also be fun, it should work smoothly, it should be intuitive and (in the case of warframe) it should FEEL powerful.  

in the "it should FEEL powerful", the "feel" part is actually doing A LOT of heavy lifting, and this is a design key in power fantasy.

for a power fantasy game, you DONT actually need the player to be numerically or mechanically overpowered, In fact, balance helps a power fantasy because it sells the idea that the player and their skill are part of the power equation, what IS needed for a power fantasy is for items to look cool, sound powerful and feel amazing to use. style over substance. a 1 million damage nuke that has no VFX and just goes "plop" when launched doesn't feel nearly as powerful as a 100K nuke that has crazy VFX and bassy audio that makes your chair vibrate as your character strikes an epic pose.

 

 

now, before anyone gets mad at me. the specifics picked (excal as the pivot, the 25% margin) are JUST per example, i don't know what the pivot should be, i don't work at DE. I merely spent a year studying game design, a study that (full disclosure) i didn't finish because i started a job in a different sector. 

 

Balance is still important, even in a game like warframe. but it's important in a way that the devs understand and act upon much more than the players. This is why the devs don't always listen to what the community says. it's not like they didn't hear you. it's that they heard what you said and took it to heart, but decided that for the good of the game, the course they took was right. whether they're right in making that decision, i can't tell you. of course, sometimes devs genuinely get it wrong. no dev team is immune to screwing up. but plenty of times, the devs are right but the players wont be able to see why because they look at the game from a fundamentally different angle.

this is also why previously mentioned backseat devs are a problem. they think like users and act like users but want to discuss about the game design like they are developers.

so the next time DE nerfs something, and you get into that backseat, think for a bit: are they genuinely in the wrong, or are their goals just beyond my understanding?

or better yet: spend some time carefully thinking about *why* DE would do the nerf you're mad about. try to put yourself in their shoes. If you're gonna armchair dev, then inform yourself and think like one. 


Anyways, now that i've thoroughly called out and likely pissed off the masses while simultaneously giving them a shiny new piece of knowledge to entirely ignore, I'm going to go hide in the bunker next to where pablo is hiding from all the post-nerf vitriol. See yall next time!  

[Aruquae]

Very constructive opinion, and I agree

Maybe his nerfs were fine, maybe some features in this game actual do constitute a nerf. That is up to the Devs eyes. In the end, “small tweaks,” and “small nerfs/buffs” are meant to be kept “small.” 

But the difference between needing a nerf, and executing the nerf is vast. Sometimes, these Devs take the word “execute,” a bit too literally.

[ShogunGunshow]

I don't even necessarily disagree that hitting and killing enemies two to three rooms away is a problem. In fact, I would say that I'm in agreement with DE on that. However, if that was the logic, it needs to be consistently applied across the game. In other words, Saryn's spreading would need to get a nerf bat and adjusted to be something more appropriate and single-tile focused, Thermal Sunder would need to be taken out back, etc.

[PublikDomain]

1 minute ago, ShogunGunshow said:

I don't even necessarily disagree that hitting and killing enemies two to three rooms away is a problem. In fact, I would say that I'm in agreement with DE on that. However, if that was the logic, it needs to be consistently applied across the game. In other words, Saryn's spreading would need to get a nerf bat and adjusted to be something more appropriate and single-tile focused, Thermal Sunder would need to be taken out back, etc.

There's only so much time in the day, and there are a lot of things to look at. I'm hoping (but know it isn't realistic) that we could get a wide balance pass like what happened after DE nerfed Venari's objective healing during Scarlet Spear. It sparked a wider conversation about objective healing as a whole, and by golly DE went through with it and balanced out the whole bunch. Now there are standards for objective healing that things can be held to. The same should be done with stuff like AoE and the associated LoS checks, but does DE have the time/care to do it? Or would they prefer to tackle these issues piecemeal?

[Letter13]

I mean, yeah. I more or less agree with the majority of what you're saying, shame I can only press the like button once. Balance is a tricky beast, especially when there are so many frames in the game... Having powerful things is good and fun but making sure that everything is viable or has a role is also very important. DE has been tweaking and balancing frames and abilities for pretty much a decade, and it's unlikely they're going to stop. Do they sometimes overbalance things one way or the other? Sure. Will the community always explode over one balance or another? Like clockwork. 

Game is big. Like really big. Not everyone is going to be happy with changes. Some people will be upset. It's impossible to please everyone, and sometimes for the sake of balance things need to be done that people won't like.

 

... and gods forbid we moderators try to tell people 'Hey, try to be more constructive and less abusive towards the developers'...

I mean, yeah, it is a form of censorship when we remove posts that are overly emotion-driven (read: rage, rant, insult/profanity laden, etc), but that sort of behavior does nothing to rectify the issue... the developers don't want to read feedback that's verbally attacking and abusing them so their likelihood of actually paying it any mind is pretty much nonexistent. Like, really, when's the last time you paid any mind to someone screaming insults and complaints at you?

The best way people can affect change is to voice their thoughts and concerns in a civil and respectful manner... and if they can't do that I think they should take a step back from the forums, cool their jets, and return when they can properly articulate their frustrations without resorting to developer bashing.

 

tl;dr people need to seriously chill the heck out, organize their thoughts, and articulate them in a constructive manner

[Corvid]

Well said, good points all around.

20 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

Saryn's spreading would need to get a nerf bat and adjusted to be something more appropriate and single-tile focused

Perhaps make it so that spores that are beyond a certain distance from Saryn decay and stop effecting enemies after a few seconds? Or make it so that each spore has a timed life rather than sticking to the enemy indefinitely, so players need to make sure to re-infect enemies regularly to keep the ability going.

I dunno, I kinda like Saryn's ability to spread her plague long distances, so I'd rather make her upkeep more difficult to manage than reduce her effective range outright.

20 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

Thermal Sunder would need to be taken out back

As a Gauss main (albeit one who doesn't abuse TS), I agree, though I do wonder how drastic the change would need to be. As far as I'm aware the imbalance in this case is caused by an interaction between Archon Vitality and a hidden mechanic in TS' heat blast (a double cast effectively works like an amped up Expedite Suffering for Heat procs specifically, which is further amped by Archon Vitality's double proc), so just removing that interaction might be enough to fix that particular issue.

Edited April 5 by Corvid

[Greysmog]

12 minutes ago, Corvid said:

Well said, good points all around.

Perhaps make it so that spores that are beyond a certain distance from Saryn decay and stop effecting enemies after a few seconds? Or make it so that each spore has a timed life rather than sticking to the enemy indefinitely, so players need to make sure to re-infect enemies regularly to keep the ability going.

I dunno, I kinda like Saryn's ability to spread her plague long distances, so I'd rather make her upkeep more difficult to manage than reduce her effective range outright.

As a Gauss main (albeit one who doesn't abuse TS), I agree, though I do wonder how drastic the change would need to be. As far as I'm aware the imbalance in this case is caused by an interaction between Archon Vitality and a hidden mechanic in TS' heat blast (a double cast effectively works like an amped up Expedite Suffering for Heat procs specifically, which is further amped by Archon Vitality's double proc), so just removing that interaction might be enough to fix that particular issue.

My only real problem with nerfing Spores is that they really aren't that strong of an ability by themselves, their core issue mainly stems from how far they can spread overall.

If like your suggesting Spores deal basically no damage or shut off sooner the further away they are from Saryn, then I would hope DE looks at other aspects of her kit and balances everything a little better.

Toxic Lash probably shouldn't be exponentially scaling the way it does with mods like Acid Shells, Spore damage can be reduced but should have a much easier time softening up targets, Miasma could use an increase to the amount of Viral Procs it causes (maybe scaling with Strength so range Saryn isn't as important), stuff like that.

[ShogunGunshow]

24 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

There's only so much time in the day, and there are a lot of things to look at. I'm hoping (but know it isn't realistic) that we could get a wide balance pass like what happened after DE nerfed Venari's objective healing during Scarlet Spear. It sparked a wider conversation about objective healing as a whole, and by golly DE went through with it and balanced out the whole bunch. Now there are standards for objective healing that things can be held to. The same should be done with stuff like AoE and the associated LoS checks, but does DE have the time/care to do it? Or would they prefer to tackle these issues piecemeal?

I had big hopes that we were getting a serious reexamination of core systems and scaling with the ammo economy nerfs on stuff like the Kuva Zarr when that patch happened.

Then DE, like, three months later introduced some incarnons that absolutely blew the previous meta into orbit, and didn't even need to care about the ammo economy at all.

So my optimism for DE addressing the inconsistencies in design philosophies across frames and abilities is ... poor. Especially because I don't think such a shift could be done piecemeal - DE is too often distracted by whatever the next thing they're developing is to commit to long-term projects. (Still waiting on that part 2 of companion rework, Pablo.)

Like you said, it would need to be done in one giant sweep to have a hope of sticking. And then DE would need to create some kind of design bible for the game that has best practices - things like "Area of effects must have soft LOS that hard tile geometry should break", or "maybe test this for longer than a few minutes before releasing." 

[CrownOfShadows]

I don't especially get the impression that DE has the mindset that they are trying to balance warframes against each other - which is what this pivot theory shines in.

Rather I think they are just trying to balance warframes against content. I understand why this might be the rationale: it falls into the "It's a PvE game" argument that many on these forums make - where only how the frame interacts with enemies needs to be considered.

However, it's not just a PvE game it's a co-op game, and I think this is what causes a lot of problems because players have to compare what their frames/weapons are doing to what other's are doing - this just happens naturally by playing together. Comparing Nyx to Saryn just feels bad - because Nyx isn't balanced against Saryn.

I'm not saying DE never considers how frames relate to each other, but I do think this is an extremely low priority for them, otherwise they'd be constantly keeping the warframe roster up to date, making sure all warframes can compete around the same level. Now there are other factors in play too: dev time, other focus, new content, etc, which also makes keeping everything balanced difficult, but I still think that they tend to view frames in a vacuum rather than how they work together.

 

[EmptyLoadedMagazine]

I was sitting up last night brainstorming at some of the things DE could do to possibly satisfy everyone regarding CC and the DPS in general. However, I am afraid of it being a waste of time and also I am not a game designer and do not know the struggles of implementing ideas and following compliance as a business. The problems I usually notice with changes from the years I have been playing Warframe is the willingness to change and not change things with consistency. Everyone is human and not perfect. Unfortunately, leaving things untouched even if it is a possible issue just because and changing it years later stating it doesn't follow the vision of Warframe is going to cause backlash. You have years of people having something and taking it away its going to do that. Changing things quickly will also do that because they have also shown that they are willing to bend the knee to negative response as well. Everything happening now is just the result of past and present actions continuing to set the example of what to expect. They need to if its possible be clear on certain things but Warframe seems to be a game that just goes wherever it pleases and it kind of shows. There is no real set standards and the only fall back is that its a beta so its all trial and error. Being clear on what they want and what they don't want and actively showing action would help. Slow to change quick to change, leaving certain things unchanged and changing others the game is really too far I guess to easily remedy over night.

[PR1D3]

34 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

Like you said, it would need to be done in one giant sweep to have a hope of sticking. And then DE would need to create some kind of design bible for the game that has best practices - things like "Area of effects must have soft LOS that hard tile geometry should break", or "maybe test this for longer than a few minutes before releasing." 

I've been saying this for so long, especially in regards to WF kits. The consistent thing about DE is how inconsistent they are. I've been looking at things deeply and there appears to be some kind of underlying design but there's so much randomness that things come off as everything is being hotpotato'd by like 5-7 people, and each are kind of doing what they want. It really does comes off as if they have no design bible at worse or they have one but people are taking too many "creative liberties" and it's noticeable.

33 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I don't especially get the impression that DE has the mindset that they are trying to balance warframes against each other - which is what this pivot theory shines in.

Rather I think they are just trying to balance warframes against content. I understand why this might be the rationale: it falls into the "It's a PvE game" argument that many on these forums make - where only how the frame interacts with enemies needs to be considered.

However, it's not just a PvE game it's a co-op game, and I think this is what causes a lot of problems because players have to compare what their frames/weapons are doing to what other's are doing - this just happens naturally by playing together. Comparing Nyx to Saryn just feels bad - because Nyx isn't balanced against Saryn.

I'm not saying DE never considers how frames relate to each other, but I do think this is an extremely low priority for them, otherwise they'd be constantly keeping the warframe roster up to date, making sure all warframes can compete around the same level. Now there are other factors in play too: dev time, other focus, new content, etc, which also makes keeping everything balanced difficult, but I still think that they tend to view frames in a vacuum rather than how they work together.

 

This further elucidates my point. The feeling and effect of all this can be felt. Some of us are noticing it. Some of these things definitely do come across as being designed in a vacuum. 

[Kaiga]

I think people are going to accuse you of calling out armchair devs and then proceeding to write a treatise on balance theory from your own armchair in a gaming forum, however good it might be.

The main problem here is that it doesn't take someone with a degree in game design to realize that the changes made to Dante didn't solve the problems, were executed poorly, etc.

To the average player, they had something fun, and now it was worse in a dumber way for seemingly little reason, and to expect people not to emotionally react to that and also to articulate this so clearly vs just saying "nerf bad roll back" in this case (which was the solution and also what happened) is asking a bit much. 

4 hours ago, Letter13 said:

tl;dr people need to seriously chill the heck out, organize their thoughts, and articulate them in a constructive manner

This is all is nice in theory, but isnt useful if DE doesn't listen to the feedback regardless of how it's presented, or, listens to the wrong feedback, which, there are countless examples of in warframe's history.

There's also something I think the OP is missing- the economics of being a developer.

Of course the state of overperformers, the biggest offenders like revenant need to be brought back in line, and the game overhauled but you have to remember that DE is a business- and that means catering (at least somewhat) to whatever sells the most, because the goal of warframe at the end of the day is to make money for the parent company, if we can get real here for a bit.

Do you remember the wukong nerf? Another one of those "for the sake of the game" changes? The thing they also nerfed in the process was their review score on Steam, with customers demanding refunds, the feedback bombing out into the red, and nerf fear gripping  the playerbase and very likely their wallets.

Yeah I don't think warframe sold that well around then. And recently they've been mentioning how well it's been doing, gauss prime was in the top sellers recently on steam and they mentioned it again in the recent dev shorts.

This would explain the hesitation to make big changes and the desire roll back unpopular ones, but also them seemingly bowing to backseat pressure and listening to the the "wrong" crowd, because they're customers too, and also vote with their wallets. You could have the best, most balanced to dev-vision game in the world, but if you don't make the quarterly earnings, the parent company will find someone who will.

 

Edited April 5 by Kaiga

[Letter13]

1 hour ago, Kaiga said:

This is all is nice in theory, but isnt useful if DE doesn't listen to the feedback, or, listens to the wrong feedback, which, there are countless examples of in warframe's history.

Being civil and providing constructive feedback will maximize your chances of being heard, though whether or not you are able to convince the developers to change something is a different story.

Meanwhile if you fill your posts with profane rants and verbal abuse, you're more or less guaranteeing that you won't be heard.

 

DE listens when a lot of constructive feedback paints a picture that something needs to change. And there is a lot of constructive feedback being given, for sure. But there's also a lot of profanity-laden rants and verbal abuse being hurled their way... and chances are that if they revert (or partially undo) some of the balancing, the people who are making the posts filled with profanity and verbal abuse are going to go 'Huh, I must have done it! I need to do this more because it's clearly the only thing they listen to!' and that is a really bad fallacy for the community to succumb to.

 

If you want DE to listen, be civil and offer constructive feedback. Even if your feedback doesn't drive a change to occur, you're still going to be given a lot more consideration than if you hurl insults and verbal abuse at the developers. And, being civil and offering constructive feedback has the added benefit of not violating any forum rules... It makes the moderators jobs easier, gives DE something to actually mull over, and gives you the best chance of effecting change in the game. It's a win-win-win.

[Kaiga]

14 minutes ago, Letter13 said:

Being civil and providing constructive feedback will maximize your chances of being heard, though whether or not you are able to convince the developers to change something is a different story.

Meanwhile if you fill your posts with profane rants and verbal abuse, you're more or less guaranteeing that you won't be heard.

 

DE listens when a lot of constructive feedback paints a picture that something needs to change. And there is a lot of constructive feedback being given, for sure. But there's also a lot of profanity-laden rants and verbal abuse being hurled their way... and chances are that if they revert (or partially undo) some of the balancing, the people who are making the posts filled with profanity and verbal abuse are going to go 'Huh, I must have done it! I need to do this more because it's clearly the only thing they listen to!' and that is a really bad fallacy for the community to succumb to.

 

If you want DE to listen, be civil and offer constructive feedback. Even if your feedback doesn't drive a change to occur, you're still going to be given a lot more consideration than if you hurl insults and verbal abuse at the developers. And, being civil and offering constructive feedback has the added benefit of not violating any forum rules... It makes the moderators jobs easier, gives DE something to actually mull over, and gives you the best chance of effecting change in the game. It's a win-win-win.

Woah, hold on there, this isn't advocating for people to bash the developers here in feedback, what? Why the big lecture about it, like it was?

I'm just pointing out that there's been a lot of feedback over the years, that hasn't seemed to have been taken into consideration regardless of how it's delivered. 

This isn't a controversial point or an attempt to bash DE, it's something readily observable, most recently with the heirloom collection drama and now the Dante changes that were eventually rolled back. There are two sides to this coin, is my point.

[Letter13]

11 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

Woah, hold on there, this isn't advocating for people to bash the developers here in feedback, what? Why the big lecture about it, like it was?

Your words "[Being civil & constructive] is nice in theory, but isn't useful if DE doesn't listen to the feedback, or, listens to the wrong feedback" is, if I may paraphrase it, more or less saying that there's no point in being civil or constructive, 'It doesn't work so we shouldn't do it' and therefore one should be uncivil and unconstructive (i.e. abusive) instead... ergo my post about it.

Moreover, there is no such thing as wrong feedback. Feedback by its nature is subjective, there is no right or wrong, correct or incorrect. The goal of any and all feedback is to convince someone (in this case, DE) to do something differently (if the feedback is negative) or do something more (if the feedback is positive). Disagreeing with someone else's opinions or feedback doesn't make said opinions or feedback any less valid. 

[OniDax]

On 2024-04-05 at 6:16 PM, SDGDen said:

Oh boy, SDGDen coming in with another controversial long-read! Lets tango yall.

 

So, this isn't a new problem by ANY stretch of the imagination. but the recent "dante" issue really shows the problem quite well. Before anyone makes this entire post about dante, im just using the recent situation as an example, this post is NOT specifically about him or his nerf. I will not be going into whether the nerf was deserved or not and I will not be picking a side on what DE should do/should have done or shouldnt do/shouldnt have done.

 

the posts on both the forums and reddit discussing the dante nerf generally fall into one of two categories:

>the emotional reaction
>the backseat dev

quick word on the emotional reaction: these are posts that mostly just lament the nerf, which is normal and expected. People do not like it when something they enjoy gets nerfed. That's a simple fact and that dislike is entirely fine. Having an emotional reaction to the nerf, being upset, grieving even, that's simply par for the course and not what i'm here to discuss today.

 

the second group, the backseat developers, are who i'd like to talk about. the players that like to claim that DE did something wrong and that actually, they should have done X or Y because of Z reason. This is the group that is trying to argue DE is a bad development company because of a "logical" reason. 

One thing that frequently bothers me is that these people.... don't have a clue about game design. It's a great example of "a user isn't a developer and doesn't think the same way or have the same goals".

 

you can explain that in a pretty simple way: in ANY gaming community. not just warframe, ANY gaming community. the PLAYERS like strong things and want more and stronger things. however almost every single game, the DEVELOPERS do NOT want to constantly pump out stronger things because they're concerned about balance. something the players are not concerned about at all (as long as it's unbalanced in their favour)

 

this difference in mentality is also where a very common idea that the community has comes in: "buff, don't nerf.", the idea that balance SHOULD be achieved but ONLY through buffing what is underpowered. From a player perspective this makes sense, because players like strong things. However, actually implementing balance in this way has some issues.

before I explain *What* the problem is, lets set up a little concept: different types of power (or rather, different types of OverPowered)

in warframe (and most other games) the player can be overpowered in 3 broad categories:

>mechanically

>numerically

>globally

 

mechanically overpowered means the mechanic itself is doing the heavy lifting, and would need to be changed to change the power of the item.

numerically overpowered means that some of the numbers are too high or too low, and if you were to tweak those (without changing the item mechanically) it'd be balanced

globally overpowered means that the item itself is fine, but due to its interaction with a global system, it ends up being much stronger than desired. 

 

at face value, "buff dont nerf" works fine, as long as you're purely talking *numerical*. after all, if you have a gun that deals 100 damage and you buff it to deal 200 damage instead, you can always just buff enemy health to compensate resulting in balance being kept. the problem is that this doesn't work with mechanical power. 

a good warframe example of this is revenant. revenant's mesmer skin is mechanically overpowered. it doesn't matter how much you tweak the numbers or how much damage the enemies deal, as long as the revenant player can re-cast mesmer skin once it runs out, they will never die. this is actually a combination of mechanical and global power because the fact that we can practically always cast our abilities is a form of global power (and so is shieldgate preventing you from dying during the recast window)

 

warframe is not a purely numerical game, that'd be really boring. so we will have to deal with the mechanical and global factors in balancing the game, as a result. "buff dont nerf" will simply result in the players getting mechanically and globally more powerful over time in ways that cannot be resolved by making stronger enemies.

this problem is part of why in current time warframe, the most endgame mode (EDA) makes use of modifiers that require randomizing your loadout among other things, to push down those global and mechanical factors. 

 

 

so how *do* you balance? well, there's one theory i like to call the "pivot" theory. Its a universal game balancing theory specifically for groups of items that are supposed to be balanced against eachother, but it can also work on items that need to scale up in power as you progress by putting those items into tiers and balancing each tier separately.

 

lets pretend for a second we are rebalancing warframes, as in. all warframes. for this, i'm going to make some decisions on my own that are not necessarily what DE should do or what DE IS doing.

 

step 1: choose a pivot. the pivot is the item that you find to be the best balanced within the group. the holy grail. I will pick excalibur because i personally think excal (as well as excal umbra and prime) are in a good spot right now, not to mention they're the posterboy. DE may choose a different frame.

step 2: choose a margin of error. this margin can be quite wide for warframe because of the casual nature, the more important balance is, the tighter this margin should be. an esports title would be within 5% but since warframe is casual PVE, we're picking 25%. this CAN be even higher (for example, some of yall may argue that 50% is fine). this is just an example.

step 3: put all the items on a scale from left to right, with the pivot in the center, warframes should be placed on the scale based on how much stronger or weaker they are compared to the pivot.

step 4: for mental exercise purposes, we are gonna be giving every warframe a sticker. green for all warframes that are less than 25% weaker than excal as well as less than 25% stronger, red for frames that are more than 25% stronger than excal and blue for frames that are more than 25% weaker than excal.

step 5: we're going to take the frames that have a blue sticker and evaluate them. *why* are they more than 25% weaker? if the issue can be fixed numerically, that's the first step because numerical changes are way easier to pull off. if a frame can't get within that range (like pre-rework inaros) then they'll get mechanical changes instead. if things are REALLY bad global changes could be considered.

step 6: now, we're going to do the same but to red sticker frames. we'll evaluate, figure out why they're so much stronger, and look at whether they can be made less strong with just numerical changes. if that's not possible (like with our mesmer skin example from before), mechanical changes are made and if those dont help then global changes are made instead.

 

global changes being made in step 5 and 6 are quite intense, because they affect the whole roster, you basically shouldnt do a global change unless you run into the same issue with many different items.

and while doing steps 5 and 6, you do have to keep your other development goals at hand: the item should be balanced, yes. but it should also be fun, it should work smoothly, it should be intuitive and (in the case of warframe) it should FEEL powerful.  

in the "it should FEEL powerful", the "feel" part is actually doing A LOT of heavy lifting, and this is a design key in power fantasy.

for a power fantasy game, you DONT actually need the player to be numerically or mechanically overpowered, In fact, balance helps a power fantasy because it sells the idea that the player and their skill are part of the power equation, what IS needed for a power fantasy is for items to look cool, sound powerful and feel amazing to use. style over substance. a 1 million damage nuke that has no VFX and just goes "plop" when launched doesn't feel nearly as powerful as a 100K nuke that has crazy VFX and bassy audio that makes your chair vibrate as your character strikes an epic pose.

 

 

now, before anyone gets mad at me. the specifics picked (excal as the pivot, the 25% margin) are JUST per example, i don't know what the pivot should be, i don't work at DE. I merely spent a year studying game design, a study that (full disclosure) i didn't finish because i started a job in a different sector. 

 

Balance is still important, even in a game like warframe. but it's important in a way that the devs understand and act upon much more than the players. This is why the devs don't always listen to what the community says. it's not like they didn't hear you. it's that they heard what you said and took it to heart, but decided that for the good of the game, the course they took was right. whether they're right in making that decision, i can't tell you. of course, sometimes devs genuinely get it wrong. no dev team is immune to screwing up. but plenty of times, the devs are right but the players wont be able to see why because they look at the game from a fundamentally different angle.

this is also why previously mentioned backseat devs are a problem. they think like users and act like users but want to discuss about the game design like they are developers.

so the next time DE nerfs something, and you get into that backseat, think for a bit: are they genuinely in the wrong, or are their goals just beyond my understanding?

or better yet: spend some time carefully thinking about *why* DE would do the nerf you're mad about. try to put yourself in their shoes. If you're gonna armchair dev, then inform yourself and think like one. 


Anyways, now that i've thoroughly called out and likely pissed off the masses while simultaneously giving them a shiny new piece of knowledge to entirely ignore, I'm going to go hide in the bunker next to where pablo is hiding from all the post-nerf vitriol. See yall next time!  

"the second group, the backseat developers, are who i'd like to talk about. the players that like to claim that DE did something wrong and that actually, they should have done X or Y because of Z reason."

That's called constructive feedback. You can debate the quality of that feedback, whether it's informed or not, but that's constructive feedback. Seems like a lot of the people who decry "armchair developers" or "backseat developers" don't like seeing an individual offer feedback that suggests the devs are wrong and that the ideas the individual is presenting are better than the dev decision, especially when the people agree with the dev decision and disagree with the individual. That's what this boils down to. You disagree with the individuals who are offering constructive feedback about how X or Y would be better than what the dev did, for Z reason.

Seems like you don't actually like feedback when it goes against what DE has done. It's the "patron can't criticize the food" argument. The patron isn't a chef, therefore they should not be permitted to criticize the food. Thing is, in this community, you are told that feedback should be constructive, and that feedback without constructiveness is just complaining. You're encouraged to say not only that you don't like something, but that X or Y is how you think it would be better. That's "constructive." You, however, are belittling the whole notion of constructive feedback by labeling it "backseat dev".

Perhaps that's how DE sees constructive feedback as well. It would explain why they've had to experience several crises that stemmed from community backlash to their decisions over the past 11 years. I want you to watch this video. It's a five minute video, so might be a bit long for you or others here, but I want you to listen to Mark Grigsby's perspective on feedback:

Spoiler

 

 

There's one statement I want you to listen for and pay attention to. It's the last minute and 10 seconds of the interview: "Even though everyone in the world is not an animator, everyone is when it comes to human movement. Everyone sees humans moving around every day and then their opinions are like 'fill in the blank.' Everyone knows when something's off because we see it every day. So, when someone comes with a- feedback, like 'Hey, that looks a little off', you can't be like, 'Oh, you know, screw you! I do it my way! You have to go, 'Oh, okay, what are you really seeing?' You figure it out and you need to take everybody's opinion, you know, one to heart and, you know, just actually listen to the people that are talking to you because they're not wrong. Everyone has that years of experience of watching human motion. So, everyone knows. Just, thick-skinned, you know? And, then, take the feedback and make the animation better, you know. That's all."

It's true that players here aren't devs. They don't know how to code or implement the ideas and concepts they promote. However, they're players. They know how the gameplay "feels" and yes, that feeling does the heavy lifting here. However, they're the users. They're the ones who are playing with the content every day. They can tell you the gameplay feels in more scenarios than the developer can test, and they can tell you what experience they are looking for in the game. It's certainly the developer's right to design the gameplay however they want to, but the player - the user - is the one who plays the game, the one who will play it more hours than the devs (playing and developing are not the same). That doesn't mean the developer has to implement everything or anything various players are proposing. However, it does mean the devs shouldn't be discouraging constructive feedback. And if it means the devs shouldn't be discouraging constructive feedback, then neither should you.

And, before anyone labels me a complainer, I don't care either way about the Dante nerf. I maxed him out and now he's just sitting in my inventory. I don't use him. I don't care. I don't know whether DE made the right or wrong decision. I just think there isn't such a thing as wrong feedback and that you shouldn't have to be a developer to offer constructive feedback. It's up to DE to determine if the feedback is worth listening to.

[Yousho]

I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, but I don't think "Overpowered" can really exist in Warframe, as a concept.

Everyone can oneshot anything and live indefinitely as pretty much any frame.

I can only assume the balancing done is in regard to playrate statistics, which is why we see so many QoL nerfs.

[PublikDomain]

1 hour ago, Letter13 said:

Your words "[Being civil & constructive] is nice in theory, but isn't useful if DE doesn't listen to the feedback, or, listens to the wrong feedback" is, if I may paraphrase it, more or less saying that there's no point in being civil or constructive, 'It doesn't work so we shouldn't do it' and therefore one should be uncivil and unconstructive (i.e. abusive) instead... ergo my post about it.

Moreover, there is no such thing as wrong feedback. Feedback by its nature is subjective, there is no right or wrong, correct or incorrect. The goal of any and all feedback is to convince someone (in this case, DE) to do something differently (if the feedback is negative) or do something more (if the feedback is positive). Disagreeing with someone else's opinions or feedback doesn't make said opinions or feedback any less valid. 

There is some truth to it, though. Not the bashing part. But being a little bit uncivil is what's gotten some of my major topics pushed through. When Khora got the same kind of broken LoS treatment as Dante I had to pester DE for months spamming my (edit: civil and constructive) thread wherever I could. In doing so I got more people's eyes and more people's concurrence and finally got DE to acknowledge it publicly (hah). Same with my Show Peculiar Content/permanent bunny ears thread that you specifically locked and still will not reopen. It's a very constructive and civil suggestion, I just had to shop it around to get traction. I pestered on that issue for years, and have even taken (temporary) warning points over it. It remains a Popular Post with its little green border and as far as I have found is the single highest-liked suggestion in the entire Art & Animation feedback subforum. Building that up by being annoying about it is what it took to finally get a private message from DE - even if it was just to say they had no plans. And now we have permanent ears but we still don't have a way to toggle these kinds of cosmetics, a feature people still continue to request, and my solution is still the most widely-supported one there is even though you locked it. Being civil and constructive is nice in theory - but that theory really doesn't matter when even the most constructive thread either gets buried or gets locked for not quietly dying.

Edited April 5 by PublikDomain

[Kaiga]

50 minutes ago, Letter13 said:

more or less saying that there's no point in being civil or constructive, 'It doesn't work so we shouldn't do it' and therefore one should be uncivil and unconstructive (i.e. abusive) instead.

I'm sorry, what? How did you get "therefore one should be uncivil and unconstructive instead" out of "isn't useful"? I was talking about the effect of feedback in general on developer decisions, not saying "yeah being nice doesn't work". Paraphrasing isn't too useful when one assumes or injects intent that wasn't clearly stated- i'm sorry if you interpreted it as me advocating for people to be uncivil, however that was worded, but that wasn't my point at all. 

Also, there certainly is such a thing as "wrong" or in this case "not useful" feedback, but i'm going to drop this because i'm genuinely afraid of the chilling effect a debate with you will have on a discussion of the topic, and no longer feel comfortable disagreeing here.

Edited April 5 by Kaiga

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Great write up. I don't really disagree with any of the points you went through, and it wasn't really articulated in that sort of way anyway, as you were explaining general principals, ideas and so on. I also know you made a relatively longer post as well, and thus intentionally do not want to expand on certain ideas or concepts, for various reasons, but I did want to add some other ideas to the mix, and expand on a few.

For example, the emotional reaction, is par for course, but also complicated in that emotional and ego reactions, can often led to escalating conflict and tension. This is just generally a large part of humanity, that to a certain extent is ingrained in most of us, and can be challenged and competed with on an individual level and larger level. Its to do with intuition, pattern seeking, overcompensation etc, on biological levels that also influence and play out in interesting ways sociologically. In recent times, its been talked about in social media and technology as far as how certain social media platforms, often lean into the idea of engagement, and thus how they manage recommended content, as well as what content often gets more attention. Like a social media platform doesn't necessarily want a user who is chill, calm, patient and necessarily happy and healthy, if they can instead have a user who is emotional, invested, engaging in the platform much more, spending time and money much more. 

I personally think this is important to note and draw attention to, because... a lot of emotional reactions, often don't realise that their emotional reactions often contribute to the problems and issues they are having an emotional reaction to. Its a relative, nuanced issue. As many often underestimate and downplay their own emotional reactions, but like to emphasis and over exaggerate others emotional reactions, especially those that have different views, takes, opinions, preferences and so on. This is often why we get backlash to backlash to backlash. Its also relative and nuanced in the sense, emotional reactions aren't inherently bad or anything, its about context. Emotions often by definition, are usually more about short term candid expressions/feelings, as opposed to accurate long term appraisals of a situation. In many instances the ability to have strong emotions is great, like eliciting it from art, intimacy with loved ones, blunt conversations with friends, where you can rant and vent about stuff that might not really matter. In many situations it can be a hindrance though. Like if you need to be calm and collected when performing surgery, or analysing scientific data, and other situations where you want more neutral, observant, considered skills to be applied. 

How is this relevant to situations like this? Well... we can have situations where many of the initial reactions to Dante or anything really, will be of a certain nature, and people in positions where strong engagement is tied to their livelihood, may see incentive in hyperbole and exaggeration, whether authentic or otherwise... You get an initial wave of emotion and "emotion" (as in people who may not actually be emotional, but communicate as such), or reactions that are some mix of emotion, ego, and mixed communication that seems more subjective based. Which again, isn't always inherently a bad thing outright, it just depends. Like another complicating factor in such situations, are individuals, or groups, or parties that involved in such situations, but prioritise or are incentivised in some way, by and in more objective, considered and accurate conclusions, or framing. For example, as already mentioned, anybody who sees more financial success from creating content around engagement. DE as a business as well, they already know and understand that many of their consumers and fans, will be generally more emotional, and perhaps not as skilled in communicating that frustration well, as well as understanding the nature of short term emotional engagement and longer term health and long term engagement (which OP's post goes into). Its a different kind of interaction from an emotional person disagreeing or being in conflict with another emotional person. Which is something you often see in Forums. Additionally, feedback and reactions, often come in waves, but often with strong emotional reactions, you often get escalation... and this is often when takes, opinions, perceptions start to get more warped, more hyperbolic and more extreme... 

To my subjective perception, the initial early wave of reactions and buzz around Dante was that he was "OP" and "so powerful he has to be nerfed" or "so powerful he will be nerfed, obviously" and some of that can be more nuanced, like the latter doesn't necessarily want a nerf, but may believe it will happen. If I had to randomly guess, I think DE started to get that feedback and look to make changes based on that, Forums, and even some content creators etc, but then the "second wave" of reactions, including many counter reactions, was much much larger than what they anticipated, which also unfortunately happened to coincide with their changes/nerfs... Which seemed to have an amplifying effect. Even without the long term game development philosophy/game design aspects, its a tricky issue to try to solve, because ideally, when it comes to the listening and appeasing aspect of creating a product... you have a situation where people aren't really accurately, carefully, clarifying what they want, you just have a lot of emotional, angry shouting heads, talking in hyperbole, and exaggeration. Which isn't the first time, and won't be the last. 

It actually makes it kind of hard to implement that sort of feedback. Then like a lot of emotionally driven people, feel extremely validated when they feel surrounded by similar sentiment, views and people. Then there are ways for them to reconcile that sense, even when they are in a minority. Essentially for many, there aren't any obvious incentives for them to think more critically or neutrally or with an awareness they are not game developers. Alternatively, games developers often also understand and recognise this and have to try and work around this, and that can be tricky. Since not only do you have to balance the actual game (in ways OP went into), but balance player expectations and feedback as well... 

Then one last idea I would like to touch on as well, is because DE listens to feedback, and implements it, it creates additional context, because its not like Dante has been out for a few weeks, these changes have come a few days after. So why was Dante released as they were? So now you have the idea or perception of DE taking a bit of early feedback from the fanbase, and that early feedback was "way too strong, needs to be nerfed", but how accurate is that to more peoples experience and opinions? So its not just a matter of "Are DE wrong for nerfing this?" but also "Are DE wrong for listening to some of that fanbase, and implementing a sudden change just 5 days after they thought he was in an acceptable place" which is also effectively "Are DE wrong? Well DE thinks they are wrong, because they have already changed the Warframe just 5 days later" and or "How accurate is some of the feedback given", and then you know additional issues, like more waves. Hypotheticals around what the actual majority view is, whether that would change in a few months with or without changes. Forum user dynamics versus a larger player base that is much larger and often with different perspectives... 

My totally random speculation, is that DE knew that Dante would be a decent bit more powerful than most Warframes, but not necessarily in an extreme way. Then they justified it, because... Dante's gameplay loop is more intensive than quite a few Warframes as well. Which would probably mean, a lot of players might not vibe with them, because consider Warframes like Lavos, and having to imbue elements, versus Warframes like Revenant where you can just press one button. Dante having to write pages, and having that whole gimmick, whilst still very simple to some, may not be worth it to many, so... but then I think a lot of early feedback, were that his mechanics weren't actually that much of an issue to many, and so that power was immediately noticeable and "easy" to achieve, and so they may have been a little too lenient with their relative power... but then the second bigger wave of feedback threw them off. 

Which kind of makes me feel bad for them, because on release this seemed to be one of the most well received updates with little to no drama or controversies except maybe some lingering Eclipse issues...  I do think they made changes to Dante way too early regardless. Many people didn't even get to try him out yet, and early feedback can often lack nuance until its sifted and filtered and more voices and opinions are shared, long enough for counter ideas and arguments to also be introduced. For example the idea of some Warframes on release being more powerful in perception than others (as opposed to being a bit underwhelming or whelming). 

Either way great post, I appreciate you wrote it. 

 

On 2024-04-05 at 11:30 PM, Kaiga said:

Also, there certainly is such a thing as "wrong" or in this case "not useful" feedback,

 

If you want to continue the discussion with someone else, you can feel free to have it with me. If you'd like to explain your ideas more. 

I like to think I understand both your perspectives, and where you are coming from in theory, and I lean a little bit more to the other users explanation, in the sense that I also think, in general that there is no such thing as "wrong feedback", but thats just in general and at the moment. I don't necessarily know or thus disagree with what you might mean by "wrong feedback". 

To go back to your other points about DE listening to "the wrong feedback", in context and in good faith, that sounds to me, like you are touching on the idea that DE is reacting to a flawed interpretation of feedback. So less singular or the idea that "feedback" from a person or group is "wrong" but more so the idea that the overall picture they have developed of the situation, is inaccurate and wrong. Which it can be, and I would be inclined to agree with you, depending on the context. 

Does that make sense and is that accurate to say? Since in that context, I think thats possible, because trying to take in a lot of feedback and drawing and reaching conclusions from that is complicated and tricky and thus in a simplified way could be described as being "wrong" (for example, when AOE and Wukong was nerfed, and their was a review bomb, thats not necessary accurate feedback to take into account, because review bombs by definition, are often misleading and attempts to mislead and rally behind certain perspectives/views). I just wouldn't necessarily frame it as "wrong context" and more like misleading context.

So depending on the context and framing... Additionally, people often seem biased, and their words can have this ambiguity because of it, and when someone says something like "they listen to bad feedback" you can get the impression that what they mean is, feedback thats not mine, and since in context having biases/preferences can be fine/neutral and just a right of a player, its not necessarily an outright negative implication, accurate or inaccurate. It does paint a picture of people who believe their feedback is more important and better than others though, as if DE should magically know who to listen to and when. Which is of course why some would object. 

Basically just context/framing issues. 

I do think many people underestimate how beneficial it is for them, to just be say when they dislike a change, in non personal direct terms. If 90% of the feedback was "Dante was fun, and I don't like these changes, he feels much less fun now, please revert" and that was consistent. That would send a clear concise message. Instead you get people talking about how DE ruined and destroyed and is slapping people and scamming them, and then what will usually happen is that a lot of more neutral people start to get frustrated, and they'll go over to the other peoples "side", then most people stop caring, and move on.. Oh and one of the more interesting things, is when I see someone make new suggestions, that seems like it would actually be less popular, somehow. Like they can identify DE erred, but not recognise that or have self awareness to realise their ideas aren't good or popular solutions either. Oh and this last paragraph isn't challenging or disagreeing with anything you said, to be clear, I am just adding it, as my own take. 

Like a friendly neutral conversation, if you wanted to expand on your thoughts, I'm pretty chill, and not looking for arguments or anything (just wan;t to state my intentions clearly) all the best to you. 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

5 hours ago, Letter13 said:

people need to seriously chill the heck out, organize their thoughts, and articulate them in a constructive manner

as an experienced moderator, I'm sure you already know the likelihood of that happening is quite slim... I don't envy your job during times like this, not gonna lie..

 

 

 

[Aerikx]

5 hours ago, Corvid said:

Perhaps make it so that spores that are beyond a certain distance from Saryn decay and stop effecting enemies after a few seconds? Or make it so that each spore has a timed life rather than sticking to the enemy indefinitely, so players need to make sure to re-infect enemies regularly to keep the ability going.

Saryn does have something to this regard. A mechanic most folks forget due to her typical rotation.

Spores that spread to enemies at limited unless they are hit by Miasma.

Miasma turns the spores that were spread to enemies into "New" Spores.

ie:

- The spore spread to an enemy via killing another will NOT spread to another enemy, thus ending the spread.

If miasma hits the enemy that received a spore spread to that very same enemy via a killed enemy, then miasma will turn that spore into a let's call it natural spore. Which refreshes its ability to spread.

Try NOT using Miasma as Saryn then watch how hard it is to keep spores going. 

Miasma effectively cancels decay and continues the spread.

[Corvid]

16 hours ago, Greysmog said:

My only real problem with nerfing Spores is that they really aren't that strong of an ability by themselves, their core issue mainly stems from how far they can spread overall.

If like your suggesting Spores deal basically no damage or shut off sooner the further away they are from Saryn, then I would hope DE looks at other aspects of her kit and balances everything a little better.

Toxic Lash probably shouldn't be exponentially scaling the way it does with mods like Acid Shells, Spore damage can be reduced but should have a much easier time softening up targets, Miasma could use an increase to the amount of Viral Procs it causes (maybe scaling with Strength so range Saryn isn't as important), stuff like that.

I should note that I was mostly just throwing ideas out with regards to Saryn.

10 hours ago, Aerikx said:

Saryn does have something to this regard. A mechanic most folks forget due to her typical rotation.

Spores that spread to enemies at limited unless they are hit by Miasma.

Miasma turns the spores that were spread to enemies into "New" Spores.

ie:

- The spore spread to an enemy via killing another will NOT spread to another enemy, thus ending the spread.

If miasma hits the enemy that received a spore spread to that very same enemy via a killed enemy, then miasma will turn that spore into a let's call it natural spore. Which refreshes its ability to spread.

Try NOT using Miasma as Saryn then watch how hard it is to keep spores going. 

Miasma effectively cancels decay and continues the spread.

I was actually aware of that mechanic, my thinking was that there could be another limiting factor on top of that one.

Another idea that just came to mind is to turn Miasma into a channelled ability with a reduced range. Any spore-afflicted enemies that expire within the radius while it's active will spread sores to others, any who are outside that radius when they die won't spread the effect.

[0_The_F00l]

While I do not argue with an expert in his field on why they do certain things , I do argue with them when they do not maintain consistency in their work and words.

DE tends to keep to a design direction like a broken clock keeps time. 

I am all in for balance , and i too do not particularly care about the current dante changes so much that I would lash about it like some others.

However I would like them to not be myopic and stick to a direction to maintain proper balance.

Feels like they are slowly moving towards a common goal now , so that's nice , but let's not just trust them blindly , we as players must question and provide feedback (in a civil and logical manner) to what DE does so both of us can prosper.

On the other hand ,I do agree that a player arguing purely from the perspective of his "fun" is not justification enough by itself for the Devs to take it seriously or to enact any change. One must realise that Dev's make a game not just so you have fun but also to put food on their table , and they won't be able to do that if you are not incentivised to spend money on the game (cosmetics  or actual gear) and you won't be incentivised to do that if one loadout is all you need for everything past , present and future. Which is why variety is needed ,not just from a gameplay perspective but also from a practical real world development perspective.

Edited April 6 by 0_The_F00l

[SneakyErvin]

22 hours ago, ShogunGunshow said:

I don't even necessarily disagree that hitting and killing enemies two to three rooms away is a problem. In fact, I would say that I'm in agreement with DE on that. However, if that was the logic, it needs to be consistently applied across the game. In other words, Saryn's spreading would need to get a nerf bat and adjusted to be something more appropriate and single-tile focused, Thermal Sunder would need to be taken out back, etc.

Well since they did manage to make LoS work now and plan on using that system on other LoS frames I dont see a problem with them adding it to all other AoE. It only took them a few days to implement this and make it work.

The most important thing is that they should likely consider it on a skill to skill basis, since adding LoS to some AoE skills make no actual sense. Quake, Sonar, Molecular Prime for instance or even Miasma could be questionable. Piercing Roar aswell due it it more or less being a massive shockwave which in reality isnt just bound to stopping at a wall if there is an accessway for it to spread. Quake, Sonar and MP are quite self explainatory, and Miasma is an airborne virus that can likely find its way through nooks and crannies. However, I wouldnt be opposed to Miasma having it's damage removed, since the main use it in order to spread viral status and the debuff so spores can spread.

Spores can have LoS based on the viewpoint of the enemy they infect, but 360 degrees around it since it isnt the enemy spreading the spores, it's the spores spreading themselves. It would block them from passing through walls though.

Then for thermal sunder it really depends on if the idea behind it is that it superheats or supercools the air, in which case a wall wouldnt really matter. But it seems more like something that originates from Gauss so could be stopped by a wall.