The enemy armour rework may have gone a little overboard and made them too weak

[SabreWalrus]

So this is probably not the sort of feedback people expect, because buffs to the player are supposed to be a good thing, but uhhhh... Grineer and other armoured enemies are genuinely just a bit too squishy and easy now.

We have access to such high damage outputs that a cap of 90% damage reduction really means nothing. We can very easily brute force through that without needing any armour strip at all, especially with some of the buffs we've just received with the status rework. Just changing the scaling of armour strips so that partial strips performed better was probably all that was needed to improve QOL, but simultaneously capping armoured enemies to 2700 armour is overkill. With any decently modded weaponry you don't need full strips, you don't even need partial strips, and it's a bad thing because it's just removing the relevance of a gameplay mechanic. Armour stripping can pretty much be ignored entirely now, even at level cap. Status-focused DoT builds feel pointless because enemies die too quickly to upfront damage. The additional health scaling that was supposed to be added alongside this is not high enough to compensate for the piddly 90% DR.

Can armoured enemies be slightly buffed again in some form, or can the health scaling be made a little more noticeable? Or maybe the devs can genuinely look at nerfing us and our damage outputs.

It matters, because a game that is too easy is really just not satisfying to play.

[CorpseFaction]

10000% agree

[Rexis12]

So now that Status is now no longer the meta, you want Status to go back to the meta because up front damage is now reasonable? 

[SabreWalrus]

11 minutes ago, Rexis12 said:

So now that Status is now no longer the meta, you want Status to go back to the meta because up front damage is now reasonable? 

We're currently, unironically, in an "auto-mod" meta. Having lots of options is good but the game needs content/enemies that are reasonably challenging enough to make collecting gear and thoughtfully modding things and trying different things out worth the effort.

The problem, that we have always teetered on the precipice of, and that we've now tipped over into with this update, is that this is a game that promotes theorycrafting, but when everything dies without any thought into how you mod and what you mod for, theorycrafting is pointless. Engagement and longevity with the game goes down the drain. There's no reason to engage with game mechanics and systems, just slap whatever on your equipment and play 10-20 mins of repetitive walking simulator.

The power fantasy only works if you, as the player, feel powerful. At the moment we do not feel powerful, enemies just feel weak.

[Rexis12]

3 hours ago, SabreWalrus said:

There's no reason to engage with game mechanics and systems

Bruh. 

The whole reason this update was because armor made it  that you couldn't engage with the mechanics. 

The DR made it so that you could just build for Grineer, and everything else was settled. 

3 hours ago, SabreWalrus said:

thoughtfully

Ah yes. 

Thoughtful choices. 

Like do you want Viral + Slash or Slash + Viral. 

[(PSN)Sentiel]

As a PS5 player, I agree the enemies feel squishy, especially Grineer. Corpus feels like they can withstand a little bit more but they're still not a threat.

That said, since we got the PC spawn rates, the enemies can now easily overwhelm me if I don't use any sort of multi target weapons. Basically going in a mission with Karak and Magnus já asking for a bad time. That doesn't mean I dislike it! On the contrary!

On the other hand, it feels like Slash is significantly weaker now. Either it's status damage is being reduced by Armor or the enemy health increase was so massive the Slash procs can't keep up with it (I highly doubt this is the case).

[SabreWalrus]

6 minutes ago, Rexis12 said:

Bruh. 

The whole reason this update was because armor made it  that you couldn't engage with the mechanics. 

The DR made it so that you could just build for Grineer, and everything else was settled. 

Ah yes. 

Thoughtful choices. 

Like do you want Viral + Slash or Slash + Viral. 

The status rework is very good - the changes to Cold, Magnetic, and Blast are all amazing. But they don't matter if enemies are tissue paper and we don't see the effect of these new things in action. It doesn't matter if someone mods Magnetic or Cold when everything dies to a stiff breeze. We needed better armour strip scaling so partial armour strips would be more effective, but we didn't need enemies to be this pathetic

It's not hyperbole because I can genuinely spell out how bad it is - people are doing level cap Cascade runs right now, as I type this, where they are killing level cap Thrax with guns with only 1 or 2 mods equipped, or no mods and just Encumber equipped. No buffs and no armour strip. Just point and click with empty weapons. I'm not joking. Is it healthy for the game to be this trivial?

[Rexis12]

2 minutes ago, SabreWalrus said:

Is it healthy for the game to be this trivial?

Was it healthy for the game to just rely on Viral and Slash? 

[SabreWalrus]

8 minutes ago, (PSN)Sentiel said:

As a PS5 player, I agree the enemies feel squishy, especially Grineer. Corpus feels like they can withstand a little bit more but they're still not a threat.

That said, since we got the PC spawn rates, the enemies can now easily overwhelm me if I don't use any sort of multi target weapons. Basically going in a mission with Karak and Magnus já asking for a bad time. That doesn't mean I dislike it! On the contrary!

On the other hand, it feels like Slash is significantly weaker now. Either it's status damage is being reduced by Armor or the enemy health increase was so massive the Slash procs can't keep up with it (I highly doubt this is the case).

Slash seems to be bugged atm where the Bleed DoT is not bypassing armour so its damage is greatly reduced, and afaik there is a similar bug with Toxin where it's not currently bypassing shields. DE stated no intent to nerf anything with this the status update so I believe these are bugs and not at all intended

I hope you will enjoy the PC-level spawn rates though! That's one of the best things about this update for sure. Console players will no longer be discriminated against and not allowed to host :^)

[quxier]

13 hours ago, SabreWalrus said:

We have access to such high damage outputs that a cap of 90% damage reduction really means nothing.

We =/= all people.

There are some ridiculous damage we can make. Let's just buff all enemies.

3 hours ago, SabreWalrus said:

3 hours ago, Rexis12 said:

So now that Status is now no longer the meta, you want Status to go back to the meta because up front damage is now reasonable? 

We're currently, unironically, in an "auto-mod" meta. Having lots of options is good but the game needs content/enemies that are reasonably challenging enough to make collecting gear and thoughtfully modding things and trying different things out worth the effort.

Bullet sponges are not challenging. Normal enemies are more bullet spongy (grinner have more hp, but less armor that you could strip). SP version are less spongy than before. Some stuff are easier while other are harder.

3 hours ago, SabreWalrus said:

The problem, that we have always teetered on the precipice of, and that we've now tipped over into with this update, is that this is a game that promotes theorycrafting, but when everything dies without any thought into how you mod and what you mod for, theorycrafting is pointless. Engagement and longevity with the game goes down the drain. There's no reason to engage with game mechanics and systems, just slap whatever on your equipment and play 10-20 mins of repetitive walking simulator.

The power fantasy only works if you, as the player, feel powerful. At the moment we do not feel powerful, enemies just feel weak.

Theory crafting were not great. Like you put viral, heat, corrosive+shards, some damage and stuff like this.

For nice theory crafting we not only need enemies that don't dies too fast. We need good & versatile options.

8 minutes ago, (PSN)Sentiel said:

On the other hand, it feels like Slash is significantly weaker now. Either it's status damage is being reduced by Armor or the enemy health increase was so massive the Slash procs can't keep up with it (I highly doubt this is the case).

I think they indeed put a lot of hp "from armor". Before armor stripped enemies were weak. Now, somehow harder.

 

1 minute ago, SabreWalrus said:

It's not hyperbole because I can genuinely spell out how bad it is - people are doing level cap Cascade runs right now, as I type this, where they are killing level cap Thrax with guns with only 1 or 2 mods equipped, or no mods and just Encumber equipped. No buffs and no armour strip. Just point and click with empty weapons. I'm not joking. Is it healthy for the game to be this trivial?

But haven't people been doing this "on easy mode" before? Like you said 1-2 mods and/or Encumber deals with enemies. But before (now too I guess) you could put so much damage that you can kill everything... few times. That's just exploits that we should change not whole enemies, imho.

2 minutes ago, SabreWalrus said:

I hope you will enjoy the PC-level spawn rates though! That's one of the best things about this update for sure. Console players will no longer be discriminated against and not allowed to host :^)

On sp in certain room doing ascession there are too much imho. Like with 3% mod drop chance I can get even 3 mods per session!

[SabreWalrus]

1 minute ago, Rexis12 said:

Was it healthy for the game to just rely on Viral and Slash? 

The crazy thing is that it didn't. Sure, at base SP level and below everyone was just running around with their Hunter Munitions Viral/Slash primaries, but in higher level play there was lots and lots of variety in loadouts depending on what mission you were doing and what faction you were up against. The recent addition of corrosive green shards was amazing for loadout variation and QOL as everyone could access armour strip without needing to use a subsume slot or be locked into Unairu. This update has just made those green shards pointless.

It is a careful and subjective balance to make a broad selection of options viable, while still letting there be clear correct and incorrect answers for different scenarios to reward successful theorycrafting and min-maxing. Atm the update has missed the mark

[SabreWalrus]

3 minutes ago, quxier said:

Theory crafting were not great. Like you put viral, heat, corrosive+shards, some damage and stuff like this.

For nice theory crafting we not only need enemies that don't dies too fast. We need good & versatile options.

I agree with this. But if the enemies had the same toughness as before, with the new options to play around with now, it would be an amazing update. Right now it's very anticlimactic.

 

4 minutes ago, quxier said:

But haven't people been doing this "on easy mode" before? Like you said 1-2 mods and/or Encumber deals with enemies. But before (now too I guess) you could put so much damage that you can kill everything... few times. That's just exploits that we should change not whole enemies, imho.

The difference is the level of investment and sacrifice. To achieve big silly numbers, you would have to sacrifice in another area. Lots of recent power creep has been slowly eroding all sacrifices and letting people have their cake and eat it. It's been getting quite bad ever since Veilbreaker but this update is a bit of a final nail in the coffin. People who do very high level content want to be challenged, they want to have to plan their loadout and want to make use of all mechanics available, meaning priming and armour strip and maintaining stacks and using the right elements against the right factions. It's spinning all those plates to achieve something that makes it satisfying. Running through the game holding left click with Torid is fun for about two missions, but it gets old fast.

[Gaxxian]

Against high level Grineer yes, they feel a LOT more squishy. I've always played in SP just because the enemies could take a few shots before going down, but now they feel just slightly more tanky than the regular star chart and i feel them more boring to kill.

About high level Corpus, tbh I didnt notice any change, they just die as always... shield changes aren't noticeable at all D:

And, idk if its me, but I feel that high level Infested are even squishier than before. Could it be?

[Palmy_]

A big fun factor for this game is learning how to manage different types of enemies through buildcrafting. You learn what you’ll need to counter the enemies in a given mission and fine tune your build to best handle the challenges presented. It’s rewarding to see your careful planning and build considerations pay off. At the current state of the game, with armor being so pitifully weak, the entire mechanic of armor stripping is no longer needed which trivializes any grineer content. It feels like I can slap on just about anything to deal with grineer all the way to level cap, and if I need to encounter corpus/ corrupted or thrax in the same mission then I can just mod for them and ignore any sort of optimization against grineer entirely.  The faction damage changes are great but the armor cap is far too low. 

[Mr.Holyroller]

Would love some actual data/testing to support this drama post.

The change doesnt change anything for veterans, but its a major improvement for new players in understanding the game and actually feeling like corrosive or armor reduction in general is actually doing something at higher levels

[quxier]

6 hours ago, SabreWalrus said:

The recent addition of corrosive green shards was amazing for loadout variation and QOL as everyone could access armour strip without needing to use a subsume slot or be locked into Unairu. This update has just made those green shards pointless.

I loved my corrosive shards (2 normal). I've put it on few that I'm using the most but I was considering putting on other frames. Simulacrum (corrosive/heat + shards VS viral/heat) and viral wins.

However I wouldn't considered them "big variety". Like you use armor strip like helminth (Styanax, Hildryn), some innate abilities/augments (Protea's augment, Xaku/3) or that school. That's not lot of variety.

6 hours ago, SabreWalrus said:

6 hours ago, quxier said:

Theory crafting were not great. Like you put viral, heat, corrosive+shards, some damage and stuff like this.

For nice theory crafting we not only need enemies that don't dies too fast. We need good & versatile options.

I agree with this. But if the enemies had the same toughness as before, with the new options to play around with now, it would be an amazing update. Right now it's very anticlimactic.

My old builds that I've tried so far (k.nukor + corrosive/heat; magnetic tenet glaxion + cold + corrosive; plus other stuff like arcanes or galv mods (not all)) were better against enemy but I haven't felt I was doing much better in mission. It's because they slapped much more enemies in some areas. Jade eximus seems to be tougher but it's probably wrong element or something silly.

6 hours ago, SabreWalrus said:

6 hours ago, quxier said:

But haven't people been doing this "on easy mode" before? Like you said 1-2 mods and/or Encumber deals with enemies. But before (now too I guess) you could put so much damage that you can kill everything... few times. That's just exploits that we should change not whole enemies, imho.

The difference is the level of investment and sacrifice. To achieve big silly numbers, you would have to sacrifice in another area. Lots of recent power creep has been slowly eroding all sacrifices and letting people have their cake and eat it.

I'm really curious if those silly big number cases were for lot of weapons or just few specific. I've tried my k.nukor (heat) vs 180 sp corrutped heavy gunners (eximus probably) in Simulacrum (here might be a bug). Sure, it was kill... but slow. I've tried adding more and more mods but I ended up with more than 1/2 used.

[the_powerx9000]

5 hours ago, Mr.Holyroller said:

Would love some actual data/testing to support this drama post.

The change doesnt change anything for veterans, but its a major improvement for new players in understanding the game and actually feeling like corrosive or armor reduction in general is actually doing something at higher levels

Here just a small glance into how demolished endgame currently is. There is no need for correct modding, playing around elements, or even priming on any weapon worth its weight in salt now. Beyond boring.

[Mr.Holyroller]

1 minute ago, the_powerx9000 said:

Here just a small glance into how demolished endgame currently is. There is no need for correct modding, playing around elements, or even priming on any weapon worth its weight in salt now. Beyond boring.

"how demolished endgame currently is".

there is no end game.

What's demolished is your strange illusion that there was any semblance of difficulty.

You could already take any and every weapon and roid it up to level cap

[the_powerx9000]

Just so untrue xD. Overguard and armor used to be a big killer when it came to what could and could not be used in endgame, which was what helped to gate absolutely horrendous setups like this. Now, it does not matter if you mod correctly or use proper weaponry. Everything works, which should never be the case. I like that partial stripping is more valuable, but the armor changes, better elements, and no hp adjustment was too much in our favor, too fast.

[g20g10]

8 minutes ago, Mr.Holyroller said:

"how demolished endgame currently is".

there is no end game.

What's demolished is your strange illusion that there was any semblance of difficulty.

You could already take any and every weapon and roid it up to level cap

You just saw a video about how you could NOT take any and every weapon to end game pre patch, there should never be a case in which players do not have to mod properly or even mod at all. 

Some weapons should also never be able to touch level cap, if every single weapon is able to level cap so easily that causes so many issues for the games future. How could you tell a beginner player to switch from his newly made burston if he doesn't even have to since it will be able to clear the entire games content so easily? Enemies in a power fantasy like warframe should be able to put up a fight at least, not get shredded by any combination of weapons and mods.

[Mr.Holyroller]

7 minutes ago, g20g10 said:

You just saw a video about how you could NOT take any and every weapon to end game pre patch, there should never be a case in which players do not have to mod properly or even mod at all. 

Some weapons should also never be able to touch level cap, if every single weapon is able to level cap so easily that causes so many issues for the games future. How could you tell a beginner player to switch from his newly made burston if he doesn't even have to since it will be able to clear the entire games content so easily? Enemies in a power fantasy like warframe should be able to put up a fight at least, not get shredded by any combination of weapons and mods.

just take mods off if you want weapons to be worse again?

i dont really know what to tell you dude.

chasing meta constantly and then being mad about more weapons being viable doesnt make any sense to me. this game gets constant power creep that takes away from whatever previous system/meta existed.

people werent crying about endgame being ruined when acolyte mods were added, or primed mods, or hunter muntions, or galvanized mods, or primary/secondary arcanes

Edited June 19 by Mr.Holyroller

[SabreWalrus]

7 minutes ago, Mr.Holyroller said:

What's demolished is your strange illusion that there was any semblance of difficulty.

You could already take any and every weapon and roid it up to level cap

This thread is literally about asking for more difficulty. The game was relatively easy and any semblance of difficulty HAS now been nuked from orbit. You seem to be under the incorrect assumption that I/we don't like the status change - we absolutely love it. But we want tough enemies and tough missions to play to make collecting and forma'ing all these weapons feel worth it. We literally don't want the game to be easy

Coming from a community of people who spend the majority of their time trying to take weird and off meta weapons up to level cap, no, you actually couldn't take "any" weapon up to level cap previously. You could just about do it in Disruption since you could completely immobilise the target and get easy headshots, and you just made the mission slow for yourself. But in Cascade, with an Overguarded moving target that fights back, absolutely not. Anything that was too slow would lead to mission failure. But there was so much fun in trying, in min-maxing, and in squeezing every little bit out of a weapon to try and make it work. Right now I can put nothing but Scorch and Frostbite on Laetum and take it up to level cap without a terrible TTK. I can put nothing but Primed Heated Charge and Flare on Furis and take it up to level cap without a terrible TTK. I can put nothing but Encumber on Dual Toxocyst and take it up to level cap without a terrible TTK. No worrying about supporting it by sacrificing my primary for utility, sacrificing my melee for utility, supporting it with my companion and their various utility and bond buffs, supporting it with priming, supporting it with carefully maintained Galv stacks, supporting it with armour strip, or supporting it with my chosen frame and various buffs. One or two mods and brain off. Are you going to seriously defend that and say yeah, that sounds great for game balance?

[Mr.Holyroller]

Just now, SabreWalrus said:

This thread is literally about asking for more difficulty. The game was relatively easy and any semblance of difficulty HAS now been nuked from orbit. You seem to be under the incorrect assumption that I/we don't like the status change - we absolutely love it. But we want tough enemies and tough missions to play to make collecting and forma'ing all these weapons feel worth it. We literally don't want the game to be easy

Coming from a community of people who spend the majority of their time trying to take weird and off meta weapons up to level cap, no, you actually couldn't take "any" weapon up to level cap previously. You could just about do it in Disruption since you could completely immobilise the target and get easy headshots, and you just made the mission slow for yourself. But in Cascade, with an Overguarded moving target that fights back, absolutely not. Anything that was too slow would lead to mission failure. But there was so much fun in trying, in min-maxing, and in squeezing every little bit out of a weapon to try and make it work. Right now I can put nothing but Scorch and Frostbite on Laetum and take it up to level cap without a terrible TTK. I can put nothing but Primed Heated Charge and Flare on Furis and take it up to level cap without a terrible TTK. I can put nothing but Encumber on Dual Toxocyst and take it up to level cap without a terrible TTK. No worrying about supporting it by sacrificing my primary for utility, sacrificing my melee for utility, supporting it with my companion and their various utility and bond buffs, supporting it with priming, supporting it with carefully maintained Galv stacks, supporting it with armour strip, or supporting it with my chosen frame and various buffs. One or two mods and brain off. Are you going to seriously defend that and say yeah, that sounds great for game balance?

If the game is too easy for you just take some mods/arcanes off.

This game isnt difficult. I rarely ever feel challenged at all. 

[SabreWalrus]

1 minute ago, Mr.Holyroller said:

If the game is too easy for you just take some mods/arcanes off.

This game isnt difficult. I rarely ever feel challenged at all. 

Please actually read.

[Mr.Holyroller]

1 minute ago, SabreWalrus said:

Please actually read.

please dont exaggerrate and contradict yourself.

you literally called the game too easy