Warframe is a game held back by how easy it is

[PublikDomain]

16 minutes ago, kuciol said:

Thats like my point? How the hell can you balance game mode to be of any challange when loadouts are so vastly different?

Gosh you're so close. Ok so like... Right now we're here:

Right? The stuff is random. A couple of things are super powerful at the top, some of it (most of it) is bad garbage no one plays. You can see this plainly by looking at the official usage stats DE publishes every year.

So where do you put the hard content? For stuff at the top? Because then...

16 minutes ago, kuciol said:

If you make it challenging for top 5 frames than bottom 10 will get borderline unplayable.

Right! How about the middle? Then...

16 minutes ago, kuciol said:

If you balance it around middle than meta gear will breeze through.

Wow, right?

So what if we just... push it up?

Buff the stuff on the bottom. Now more of it's more better. Instead of only 6 items in the top quarter of power, there's now 13! That's 116% more power fantasy to play with!

Now push some more!

Now it's all in the top quarter!

For this random set of points, before pushing it all up the weakest thing on the chart was 116 times weaker than the strongest. Who's gonna play with a gun only 1/116th as powerful as the Torid or whatever? Lame!

At the end after buffing everything the weakest item on the chart is now only 1.3 times weaker than the strongest. Would you give up a few percent of your damage to play with a gun you like more? I would!

Now where do you put the hard content?

Ta-da! You just put it right there. Right in the big obvious place where it fits everyone about the same amount. And everyone is going to get roughly about the same gameplay. Some people might find it a little harder, some a little easier, but that's fine. And you can put the easy content down below where it's easy for all the "ultimate badasses" that want to... whatever it is they do down there.

This is what is meant when people talk about a "stat squish". A narrowing of the min and max amount of power so that more things are more powerful in comparison to the most powerful things. How this is actually accomplished is another subject.

[PublikDomain]

46 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

And most people do it once only, for the reward of having done it.

That's the extrinsic reward, not the intrinsic reward.

46 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

Yes, you do it once, every week.

Yes, and that is because I mostly play on Sundays. I hop on around 5 and do EDA, then I do my other weekly stuff.

And then I do other stuff other days. Tonight is DnD night.

46 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

Yes, EDA was nerfed to be easier.

How so?

• Bugs were fixed.
• Unowned items got an icon to show that they're unowned.
• Objectives can't be nuked in ways players can't mitigate.
• Abbreviated Abilities was adjusted to only be -50%.
• A bunch of new modifiers were added.

That's it? No removal of RNG? No giving all the rewards without doing the challenges? Were the rewards that were screeched at touched? Nope.

46 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

So how do we make a really difficult endgame with important rewards, without frustrating a lot of people ?

Well step 1 is to create an environment where an endgame can be accurately placed.

This can be done with balance changes to ensure that there are no garbage, S#&$ty weapons, frames, mechanics, etc. so that everything we have is always kickass and awesome and strong. Just, equally strong. In the same ballpark strong. Mount a turret, shoot a gun, blow up a barrel, sick your dog on someone, it should all be viable and good and powerful and fun. That's the power fantasy right?

And then when the gear is more equal you rebalance enemy scaling so the TTK of enemies line up with whatever this standard of power is. Maybe a "hard" Lancer should die in 1s. So if the players all deal 1-2M DPS, give the Lancer 1.5M EHP. Job done. If all players deal 3-4 DPS, give the Lancer idk 3 EHP. Maybe the Lancer should die in 0.5s. So cut its EHP by half. It's all the same end result. The component numbers don't matter and anyone at the top of the curve won't be able to tell the difference anyways. For example, you couldn't tell the difference in my earlier examples where you thought an unmodded Aklato was "a great power improvement from mods and hard work". Nor could you tell the difference between an Aklato that dealt 5x more damage than another, you said "they are both the same".

And then, now that players and enemies are consistently scaled and every. single. mechanic. is strong enough to be a fun kickass awesome part of the game, put the challenging content here:

And if that's too easy to push it up a little bit higher. Easy.

Know how two months ago in U36.0 DE changed every single enemy's scaling curves? How they did the whole system all in one go? It's just that, more of the thing DE has already done a couple of times. And they can do the same for other systems, too.

Edited August 20 by PublikDomain

[MrInubis]

27 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

Right? The stuff is random. A couple of things are super powerful at the top, some of it (most of it) is bad garbage no one plays. You can see this plainly by looking at the official usage stats DE publishes every year.

Wrong, they are just different.

 

27 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

Now it's all in the top quarter!

For this random set of points, before pushing it all up the weakest thing on the chart was 116 times weaker than the strongest. Who's gonna play with a gun only 1/116th as powerful as the Torid or whatever? Lame!

At the end after buffing everything the weakest item on the chart is now only 1.3 times weaker than the strongest. Would you give up a few percent of your damage to play with a gun you like more? I would!

Now where do you put the hard content?

Yes, because its that easy. We had one rebalance already, a few year back and it changed nothing. Also how do you balance Chroma vs Trinity? Vauban vs Nyx? Than throw archgun, operator and mech into the mix. Also dont forget crew members, specters and gear items. You know you want to remake half of the game right? I hope so.

Edited August 20 by kuciol

[dwqrf]

il y a 8 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

 A couple of things are super powerful at the top, some of it (most of it) is bad garbage no one plays.

Who or what decide what's powerful ? Popularity : usage stats ? Is Caliban garbage because no one plays it ? Or is it because no one plays it that he is garbage ? How do you classify what's strong and what isn't ? In what mission type ? With what build ? With what teammates ?
 

il y a 10 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

And everyone is going to get roughly about the same gameplay.

Sounds boring. All weapons doing the same dps, all spells doing the same damage per energy point. No reasons whatsoever to pick X over Y. That's so bland.

Not only it will take years of analytics to balance everything out. But it will also kill the game, the variety, and the power fantasy. There is other games exactly like that out there, based on mathematics, where everything is perfecly balanced. They are truly boring ; people do like Warframe for it discrepancies. People like to abuse, to cheese. To be able to make the choice that break the game. They do it every day.

Not only that, but you are also going to kill progression. Why finish new war and sanctum to farm Dante if Mag, Excalibur, and Volt are on the same power level as any other frames ? They might feel different, but if the result and the impact on the enemies is exactly the same, why bother ?

A lot of stuff is stronger in X situations, but weaker in Y. Hence the variety and the importance of choosing wisely. If every tools were the same, you'd kill every aspect of the game from Endurance to Speedruns.

[4thBro]

45 minutes ago, HoustonDragon said:

When you're fully modded and rocking upgraded weapons, sure. For new players, absolutely not

At what point does your brain decide that a conversation about endgame is the time & place to bring up new players?

 

 

 

 

Don't mind me, I'm just yelling at the TV! This show is very immersive.

[dwqrf]

il y a 6 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

Yes, and that is because I mostly play on Sundays. I hop on around 5 and do EDA, then I do my other weekly stuff.

So you don't play challenging content unless there is a rewards ? You say you are doing the weekly stuff, once, per week. For the reward. You don't do 5x EDA in a row every sunday for the fun or the challenge of it. You don't. Why would anyone do that ? Yet, you argue that people would. For some reasons.

 

il y a 8 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

• Objectives can't be nuked in ways players can't mitigate.
• Abbreviated Abilities was adjusted to only be -50%.
• A bunch of new modifiers were changed

So yeah, EDA was too difficult. Glad we agree.

 

il y a 9 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

For example, you couldn't tell the difference in my earlier examples where you thought an unmodded Aklato was "a great power improvement from mods and hard work". Nor could you tell the difference between an Aklato that dealt 5x more damage than another, you said "they are both the same".

You mean the flawed example that you bashed even tough I asked you multiple time to provide me with context which you didn't ; and when I asked you to provide me with the following examples to illustrate your idea as in : actual gameplay : A weapon unmodded vs level 1, and A weapon modded vs level endgame ; versus proposed changed ; B weapon unmodded vs level 1, and B weapon modded vs level endgame ; you ran away and changed the topic ?

il y a 1 minute, 4thBro a dit :

At what point does your brain decide that a conversation about endgame is the time & place to bring up new players?

Hey, we are just trying to include you in the conversation.

[PublikDomain]

1 hour ago, kuciol said:

Wrong, they are just different.

😂

Sure, "just different" in that they sit at the bottom of the chart. Where do you think weapons like the Sirocco sit on this chart? Pet weapons? Turrets? Are they dealing millions of DPS like moddable guns? When's the last time you mounted a turret and actually used it to do something useful? When's the last time you stole a Dargyn or a Crewship?

Like you keep going on about "don't forget specters" and whatever but dude - they're right there on the chart. At the bottom. Because they suck. So you know what people use things like specters for? To carry buffs. Because they do #*!%-all for combat. On-call crew actually get mods on their guns, so they can actually do something in combat. And golly gee, wouldn't you know, that's why people use them. For combat! Because they don't suck at that role.

1 hour ago, kuciol said:

Yes, because its that easy. We had one rebalance already, a few year back and it changed nothing. Also how do you balance Chroma vs Trinity? Vauban vs Nyx? Than throw archgun, operator and mech into the mix. Also dont forget crew members, specters and gear items. You know you want to remake half of the game right? I hope so.

You do realize that at one point in time Trinity was a valuable, sought-after addition to a squad, right? So were Vauban and even Nyx. We literally had what you're talking about. We lost that. And it can come back. Of course it we can have the thing we literally already had. And a good way to get there is to not throw up your hands and say "we can't do it" without even trying. Without even being willing to entertain the idea of trying.

1 hour ago, dwqrf said:

Who or what decide what's powerful ?

Everything should be powerful. All of it. What is there to decide? Who needs to decide something when the answer should always be yes?

1 hour ago, dwqrf said:

Sounds boring.

Right, everyone having an awesome kickass time would boring. Please explain. Why do you need a giant pile of garbage weapons and mechanics you and the rest of the playerbase are never even going to consider? What do they do down there being ignored with no purpose? Like...

1 hour ago, dwqrf said:

No reasons whatsoever to pick X over Y. That's so bland.

You're not picking X over Y as it is! People already pick whatever meta X thing and abandon or ignore non-meta Y as fodder all day long. That's why we call it Mastery Fodder! It's so common we've named it. And their existence is an irrefutable fact with years of data backing it up.

https://www.warframe.com/2023stats

That's bland. "You can't give me options that's bland!" Because having only one option isn't??????

And here, here's DE's take on this:

Quote

We want there to be lots of options instead of one ‘perfect’ option.

Quote

Not all weapons are built equal, but ideally there are several answers to each query, so that Tenno can make their own choices from a variety of options and keep things fresh.

Quote

the degree of dominance (about 3 times more popular than anything else) is not something we feel is good for the primary weapon Arsenal options.

Wow.

1 hour ago, dwqrf said:

Why finish new war and sanctum to farm Dante if Mag, Excalibur, and Volt are on the same power level as any other frames ?

Because you think Dante is cool.

It really is that simple.

1 hour ago, dwqrf said:

A lot of stuff is stronger in X situations, but weaker in Y.

And a lot of stuff is stronger in every situation. And that's why our usage charts look like this:

Over a third of all secondary weapon usage (36.64%) in just 5 weapons.

And you want to complain about bland?

Edited August 20 by PublikDomain

[PublikDomain]

58 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

So you don't play challenging content unless there is a rewards ?

No, I don't play challenging content - when I'm playing DnD or going out with friends. Nor do I play challenging content while I'm asleep or working or cooking. But when I play Warframe? Right now it's a lot of EDA! And it's a lot of fun even though I don't need the rewards.

58 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

you ran away and changed the topic ?

We got sidetracked a little, would you like to come back to it? Here's where we left off:

8 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

So it sounds like it has nothing to do with the damage numbers or stats or the TTK, and your concept of a "power fantasy" is more about the overall change from start to finish? How much of a difference between the long grind and smart modding makes you feel powerful? Is it something you can measure?

And the ideas aren't fake. There is no trick. I'm being serious. I genuinely believe in what I'm trying to tell you. Earlier you said this:

On 2024-08-19 at 9:49 AM, dwqrf said:

or else, reconsider my own point of view because I'm maybe in the wrong and biased by my own experience. Yes, it's possible, even for internet people.

So is this possible? Are you able to follow your own advice and reconsider your own point of view for wrongness or bias? Or was this just a lie?

To which you never replied. Ball's in your court.

What is your concept of "power fantasy" based on? You say it's "after a long grind and smart modding, I can finally kill enemies faster". So how much of a difference makes you feel powerful? Can you measure it? Is it 10x more powerful? 100x?

Let me know your answers. In the meantime I've got some puzzle cubes to collect with the boys.

Edited August 20 by PublikDomain

[dwqrf]

il y a 9 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

Everything should be powerful. All of it. What is there to decide? Who needs to decide something when the answer should always be yes?

I asked context. You ignore it. So everybody should run as fast a Volt and do as much damage as a Saryn and buff everyone as a Rhino. Right ? Because if they don't, they aren't as powerful as the other in any situations.

 

il y a 12 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

 

 

Right, everyone having an awesome kickass time would boring. Because what, if someone isn't left to walk through the halls with nothing to do you can't have fun? It's boring for people to have something to do? Please explain.

Riiight... So nobody should be able to kill any enemies fast, to make sure the other players can participate in the slaughter. So if you don't have teammates, you cannot possibly clean the map at a decent speed.
 

il y a 14 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

You're not picking X over Y as it is! People already pick whatever meta X thing and abandon non-meta Y all day long.

Wait what ? They are picking X over Y or they aren't ?
 

il y a 15 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

Over a third of all secondary weapon usage (36.64%) in just 5 weapons.

And you want to complain about bland?

Is that weapon power or weapon usage ????
 

il y a 10 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

To which you never replied. Ball's in your court.

Reply to what ? Admit that I wrong when presented with evidence ? Yes, I can admit it, as I said before. But that's not the case here, so I don't understand why you need to ask the question again. I the same order of idea, you cannot seem to reply to me when asking for clips. I'll ask again :
 

il y a une heure, dwqrf a dit :

I asked you multiple time to provide me with context which you didn't ; and when I asked you to provide me with the following examples to illustrate your idea as in : actual gameplay : A weapon unmodded vs level 1, and A weapon modded vs level endgame ; versus proposed changed ; B weapon unmodded vs level 1, and B weapon modded vs level endgame

That will allow all of us to define the following :

il y a 14 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

What is your concept of "power fantasy" based on? You say it's "after a long grind and smart modding, I can finally kill enemies faster". So how much of a difference makes you feel powerful? Can you measure it? Is it 10x more powerful? 100x?

I have answered all your questions. Now the ball is in your court.

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

2 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Gosh you're so close. Ok so like... Right now we're here:

Right? The stuff is random. A couple of things are super powerful at the top, some of it (most of it) is bad garbage no one plays. You can see this plainly by looking at the official usage stats DE publishes every year.

So where do you put the hard content? For stuff at the top? Because then...

Right! How about the middle? Then...

Wow, right?

So what if we just... push it up?

Buff the stuff on the bottom. Now more of it's more better. Instead of only 6 items in the top quarter of power, there's now 13! That's 116% more power fantasy to play with!

Now push some more!

Now it's all in the top quarter!

For this random set of points, before pushing it all up the weakest thing on the chart was 116 times weaker than the strongest. Who's gonna play with a gun only 1/116th as powerful as the Torid or whatever? Lame!

At the end after buffing everything the weakest item on the chart is now only 1.3 times weaker than the strongest. Would you give up a few percent of your damage to play with a gun you like more? I would!

Now where do you put the hard content?

Ta-da! You just put it right there. Right in the big obvious place where it fits everyone about the same amount. And everyone is going to get roughly about the same gameplay. Some people might find it a little harder, some a little easier, but that's fine. And you can put the easy content down below where it's easy for all the "ultimate badasses" that want to... whatever it is they do down there.

This is what is meant when people talk about a "stat squish". A narrowing of the min and max amount of power so that more things are more powerful in comparison to the most powerful things. How this is actually accomplished is another subject.

Queue screeching about "number bloat" and how "number bloat" isn't "real challenge". 

Queue nerf-herder screeching about how more buffs = more power creep.

Queue nerf-herder screeching about how that's not enough to make "real challenge". Now we "need" to "fix" mods, modding, base stats, damage buffs, damage reduction, CC, survivability, etc because "the only way to have "real challenge" is to overhaul the whole game in a way alot of people wouldn't like. 

[RichardKam]

4小时前 , PublikDomain 说:

This is what is meant when people talk about a "stat squish". A narrowing of the min and max amount of power so that more things are more powerful in comparison to the most powerful things. How this is actually accomplished is another subject.

You can just say stat squish without all the clip A clip B non-sense. That will save us a lot of time.

Stat squish is nothing new. It has been proposed countless time already. It has pros and cons. It is not a solution to everything.

For one, while it reduces the power gap between gears, it also greatly reduces the sense of progression. Why should I grind or buy the new shiny primaries when it is simply 2% stronger than most of my gears? Remember there are at least >100 weapons, so your stat squish is going to greatly reduce the margin to probably less than a few % between similar gears like cernos prime and rakta cernos. While that is the point of squishing, it also defeats one of the main purpose of this game. Is that what people wanted in a game that is based entirely around arsenal and mods and power-up? I am a bit skeptical.

Beside people are still going to go for the straight upgrade aka meta anyway (kuva/tenet variants vs regular, non-prime vs prime, incarnon vs regular). Players will always optimize the hell out of the game.

And it does not solve the power disparity between warframe. We have damage output frames Mesa Saryn Kullervo, and we have CC frame Nyx Limbo Vauban, and we have support frame Trinity Harrow, and we also have something like Loki Ivara Ash. You cannot just "stat squish" them because there is no single benchmark parameter among them, unless you believe in overframe tier list.

And it does not solve the power progression problem. Your challenge "up there" will not be a challenge after maybe a year. It is OK if you are not looking for perpetual endgame. Void tower, sortie, SP, archon hunt, EDA, all of them were sort of "challenge" and we overcome them one by one, because of our individual progress, and because of the power scaling over 10 years.

Look. I understand your sentiment. I get it. But this is a live service game. You are not looking at a constant state universe. It keeps changing and going up at the vertical power axis. Both the game and players will inevitably get stronger one way or the other, unless the game stop progressing in the power axis and go another dimension (I don't know. Parkour? Horse racing?), or the game goes the Destiny route and sunset your arsenal, otherwise I don't see any possibility of perpetual endgame.

Stat squish may delay the inevitable, but people are still going to get pass your hard contents and demand another.

2小时前 , (XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA 说:

Queue nerf-herder screeching about how that's not enough to make "real challenge". Now we "need" to "fix" mods, modding, base stats, damage buffs, damage reduction, CC, survivability, etc because "the only way to have "real challenge" is to overhaul the whole game in a way alot of people wouldn't like. 

Well, in reality, yeah, that is not enough, because it is much more than just about the damage power of weapons, and it will most likely do more harm than good.

[PublikDomain]

5 hours ago, dwqrf said:

So everybody should run as fast a Volt and do as much damage as a Saryn and buff everyone as a Rhino. Right ? Because if they don't, they aren't as powerful as the other in any situations.

Notice how the chart I shared didn't put every dot at the exact same position?

Notice that there's still variance between dots? It's still there. It just doesn't have a sucky garbage dot no one will ever use. The dots don't don't need to all be perfectly identical and perfectly capable of every identical task. They should just not suck.

Frames, fwiw, are already pretty OK in that regard. There are still some frames that could use some help, but guess what? DE reworks those and gives them buffs. Caliban's next up. So why not do the same for other things?

5 hours ago, dwqrf said:

Riiight... So nobody should be able to kill any enemies fast, to make sure the other players can participate in the slaughter. So if you don't have teammates, you cannot possibly clean the map at a decent speed.

In high level, challenging, team-oriented content? In this?

Quote

The thing we miss most about them is having to coordinate with the team. That's our white whale right now. It's a coordination-based mission.

Correct. Nobody should be able to kill enemies so fast no one else gets to play, or so fast that there's no challenge. It's supposed to be challenging, after all.

5 hours ago, dwqrf said:

Wait what ? They are picking X over Y or they aren't ?

Sorry, typo. You said that people wouldn't pick X over Y. I said that they're already not picking X over Y anyways. Then I meant to say that "people already pick whatever meta Y thing and abandon or ignore non-meta X as fodder all day long." For a quick example, X could be something like the the Harpak at a whopping 0.08% usage while Y would be something like the Felarx at 5.09% usage: people already pick this particular Y 63x more than this particular X anyways. How is so many people just using the same one weapon not bland? How will making X less garbage make it more unused? It makes no sense.

6 hours ago, dwqrf said:

I asked you multiple time to provide me with context which you didn't ; and when I asked you to provide me with the following examples to illustrate your idea as in : actual gameplay : A weapon unmodded vs level 1, and A weapon modded vs level endgame ; versus proposed changed ; B weapon unmodded vs level 1, and B weapon modded vs level endgame

Ok well you asked for "A unmodded + A modded ; B unmodded + B modded." and I gave you what you asked for right here:

Now to be clear there is no "proposed change" with those clips. There is no "level endgame". I'm not proposing a single change of any sort. Maybe you misunderstood me. I simply asked you which clip you liked more. That's it.

Which of these four clips do you like more?

Spoiler

M:

N:

O:

or P:

Which looks closer to the gameplay you expect from your personal idea of a "power fantasy"? Fast TTK or slow TTK? Somewhere in the middle? That is the sole question I would like you to answer.

[PublikDomain]

2 hours ago, RichardKam said:

You can just say stat squish without all the clip A clip B non-sense.

Nah, I'd rather get you to accept the fundamental ideas. Otherwise you get stuck on your preconceptions and emotional baggage over the term "stat-squish". You're not asking anything new. You guys have asked these questions over an over again and despite answering them you never stop asking. Here are the same answers to these questions y'all have asked a million times:

2 hours ago, RichardKam said:

Why should I grind or buy the new shiny primaries when it is simply 2% stronger than most of my gears?

Because you think they're cool and want to play with them.

Now why should you grind or buy the new shiny primaries when it is simply 50% weaker than most of your gear? Why should you """progress""" backwards to the Paracyst or the Kulstar when you already have an Incarnon Torid and a Kuva Nukor? Are you excited by the thought of """progressing""" to fodder you're only going to throw away?

I don't think I've ever gotten an answer to this question from one of you.

2 hours ago, RichardKam said:

Beside people are still going to go for the straight upgrade aka meta anyway (kuva/tenet variants vs regular, non-prime vs prime, incarnon vs regular). Players will always optimize the hell out of the game.

And that's not a problem. And if you'll do this anyways, what do you care if there are other options? It's not like you were ever going to use something even slightly inferior anyways. You'll just ignore your other options like you already do.

2 hours ago, RichardKam said:

And it does not solve the power disparity between warframe. We have damage output frames Mesa Saryn Kullervo, and we have CC frame Nyx Limbo Vauban, and we have support frame Trinity Harrow, and we also have something like Loki Ivara Ash. You cannot just "stat squish" them because there is no single benchmark parameter among them, unless you believe in overframe tier list.

Of course it does. By picking a standard, any standard at all, and then squishing to that standard, you are literally creating the "benchmark parameter" you're saying doesn't exist. A stat-squish creates that parameter.

2 hours ago, RichardKam said:

Your challenge "up there" will not be a challenge after maybe a year.

Why wouldn't it? You seem to have already concluded that a "benchmark parameter" is picked and then immediately abandoned. Just stick to the benchmark. And if a piece of content gets really old and people learn all the tricks, is that really a problem? It's not like the game will stop getting new missions and modes.

And on that subject, which do you think would be easier to make? A new game mode for a game where you have lots of "benchmark parameters" or a new game mode for a game where you have no idea what your players are capable of? Having these "benchmark parameters" to reference can only make development easier.

2 hours ago, RichardKam said:

It keeps changing and going up at the vertical power axis.

Which is what we call powercreep. And it's why we're stuck with mechanics like gear RNG and Damage Attenuation: unchecked powercreep has made the power progression meaningless and has made the game design's unmanageable and difficult to maintain. It's why DE has recently been throwing away all of your stuff for content like TNW and Duviri and soon parts of '99 to make you play some other "not Warframe" character, so they can have every player play the same character with the same stats and the same challenge and the same experience.

And vertical progression via gear is just unnecessary. We already have mods for vertical progression. Selection of gear can and should be a horizontal progression instead: variety and mechanics and gameplay complexity over boring "number is bigger" improvements that just leave behind a giant pile of waste you'll just turn your nose up at and ignore while complaining that I want to make the game bland or whatever.

2 hours ago, RichardKam said:

But this is a live service game.

And which do you think would be more desirable for a live service game?

A game where there are 1,000 items but only 50 are desirable and worth spending money on?

 

Or a game where there are 1,000 items and all 1,000 of them are desirable and worth spending money on?

 

[RichardKam]

30分钟前 , PublikDomain 说:

Nah, I'd rather get you to accept the fundamental ideas. Otherwise you get stuck on your preconceptions and emotional baggage over the term "stat-squish". You're not asking anything new. You guys have asked these questions over an over again and despite answering them you never stop asking. Here are the same answers to these questions y'all have asked a million times:

Because you think they're cool and want to play with them.

Now why should you grind or buy the new shiny primaries when it is simply 50% weaker than most of your gear? Why should you """progress""" backwards to the Paracyst or the Kulstar when you already have an Incarnon Torid and a Kuva Nukor? Are you excited by the thought of """progressing""" to fodder you're only going to throw away?

I don't think I've ever gotten an answer to this question from one of you.

And that's not a problem. And if you'll do this anyways, what do you care if there are other options? It's not like you were ever going to use something even slightly inferior anyways. You'll just ignore your other options like you already do.

Of course it does. By picking a standard, any standard at all, and then squishing to that standard, you are literally creating the "benchmark parameter" you're saying doesn't exist. A stat-squish creates that parameter.

Why wouldn't it? You seem to have already concluded that a "benchmark parameter" is picked and then immediately abandoned. Just stick to the benchmark. And if a piece of content gets really old and people learn all the tricks, is that really a problem? It's not like the game will stop getting new missions and modes.

And on that subject, which do you think would be easier to make? A new game mode for a game where you have lots of "benchmark parameters" or a new game mode for a game where you have no idea what your players are capable of? Having these "benchmark parameters" to reference can only make development easier.

Which is what we call powercreep. And it's why we're stuck with mechanics like gear RNG and Damage Attenuation: unchecked powercreep has made the power progression meaningless and has made the game design's unmanageable and difficult to maintain. It's why DE has recently been throwing away all of your stuff for content like TNW and Duviri and soon parts of '99 to make you play some other "not Warframe" character, so they can have every player play the same character with the same stats and the same challenge and the same experience.

And vertical progression via gear is just unnecessary. We already have mods for vertical progression. Selection of gear can and should be a horizontal progression instead: variety and mechanics and gameplay complexity over boring "number is bigger" improvements that just leave behind a giant pile of waste you'll just turn your nose up at and ignore while complaining that I want to make the game bland or whatever.

And which do you think would be more desirable for a live service game?

A game where there are 1,000 items but only 50 are desirable and worth spending money on?

 

Or a game where there are 1,000 items and all 1,000 of them are desirable and worth spending money on?

 

All those questions should be answered by the community, not by me. It does not matter what I think because I am just one player.

Again, I know what a stat squish is and what it will do. Making all weapons great is a tempting idea. But one of the beauty of this game is the diverse arsenal and the countless ways you can build over 100+ weapons to be viable, instead of having a bunch of similar guns with over 100+ different skins.

Also I don't quite understand how a stat squish on warframe is possible. So if I pick "armor", are you going to buff Loki and Nyx to be as tanky as Lavos or Valkyr, when Loki already have invis and Nyx assimilate? That's why Pablo stated explicitly that he is not going to rework Loki. A drastic rework to meet the current damage and power level will turn Loki into something else. I think it also captures some of the reasons why DE, in general, won't do that "stat squish".

You like this idea. Great. Go for it. If other people like it as well, great. I don't like this idea. Here is why. That's all I want to say.

[MrInubis]

9 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Sure, "just different" in that they sit at the bottom of the chart. Where do you think weapons like the Sirocco sit on this chart? Pet weapons? Turrets? Are they dealing millions of DPS like moddable guns? When's the last time you mounted a turret and actually used it to do something useful? When's the last time you stole a Dargyn or a Crewship?

They dont exist in the vacuum. There are warframe buffs, there are arcanes, they are used as primers etc. Im also not talking about the usable objects, they are just flavour. Sentinel weapons can kill stuff and they do, its just they are mostly used for secondary purposes. 

 

9 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Like you keep going on about "don't forget specters" and whatever but dude - they're right there on the chart. At the bottom. Because they suck. So you know what people use things like specters for? To carry buffs. Because they do #*!%-all for combat. On-call crew actually get mods on their guns, so they can actually do something in combat. And golly gee, wouldn't you know, that's why people use them. For combat! Because they don't suck at that role.

Dante specter is op for example, i use it a lot, yes for the buffs. Crew members can carry really hard even on SP. Those are supporting items that you cant dismiss, they exist and are used. They are part of loadout so they will still have to be balanced. 

 

9 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

You do realize that at one point in time Trinity was a valuable, sought-after addition to a squad, right? So were Vauban and even Nyx. We literally had what you're talking about. We lost that. And it can come back. Of course it we can have the thing we literally already had. And a good way to get there is to not throw up your hands and say "we can't do it" without even trying. Without even being willing to entertain the idea of trying.

Game grew past the need of her. We have better options now. For them to be relevant again we would have to lose the new options we got. The game is also a lot more diverse. What we "had" was limited options. CC immunity on eximus units killed pretty much every frame that relied on it. Thats how it ends up having a "counter" like you want invisibility. Now pure dmg is the only option because abilities do not work when you need them the most. That one single change made half of the abilities in game worthless. 

 

You just cant balance this game, its too big for that. You can make perfectly balanced weapons and it all goes to sh.it the momment you add warframe buff to the mix or companion buff, or even sentinel priming. On top of it you have huge differences in weapons themselves. Lenz has ammo count of 5, Trumna has 200 in magazine. How to balance that? How TTK is relevant in this case? You cant see the bigger picture. Its not about every single item being balanced, its all the possible combinations and that is just not realistic.

Edited August 21 by kuciol

[MrInubis]

9 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Over a third of all secondary weapon usage (36.64%) in just 5 weapons.

Those weapons are mainly used for priming. They are just the most convinient, of course they will be on top of the chart. Doesnt mean they are op and need nerf.

[ShortCat]

Warframe will never have challenging content because the playerbase shiftet so much into casual direction that any conctent not cleared the firtst try creates a forum meltdown and steam downvotes. (The gaming community in general became ultra brain dead)
Warframe will never have challenging content because it would require massive nerfs to the player. Playerbase constatntly whines about "game breaking nerfs" even though if we look at the update history it is 95% buffs to the players.
Warframe will never have challenging content because DE doesn't have the balls to make it happen.
Warframe will never have challenging content because it targets ultra casual audience and will not risk financial downfall.

That's the reality. Get over it.

[Loza03]

4 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Because you think they're cool and want to play with them.

Now why should you grind or buy the new shiny primaries when it is simply 50% weaker than most of your gear? Why should you """progress""" backwards to the Paracyst or the Kulstar when you already have an Incarnon Torid and a Kuva Nukor? Are you excited by the thought of """progressing""" to fodder you're only going to throw away?

I don't think I've ever gotten an answer to this question from one of you.

I want to highlight something here because it's important to highlight.

 

My most recent 'Looking forwards to and excited to get' was when I knuckled down and grinded up Scourge Prime (though I wound up needing to buy the last part).

The weapon I was grinding it out with was a Kuva Ogris, mostly in Steel Path Survival Omnia fissures.

Scourge Prime is a flat downgrade in pretty much every way except ammo efficiency (which is a barely meaningful stat in the first place since 90% of weapons don't run out of ammo). 

 

So why was I excited?

Hee hoo Wizard Staff and Spellbook go Alakazam!

I am currently looking forwards to the Destreza Prime sitting in my foundry which fits the aesthetic much better than my current Argo and Vel. 

 

I think a lot of people who play Warframe, and especially the defenders of the 'power fantasy' have been staring into the metaphorical sun so long they forget that 'Power Fantasy' isn't some universal thing. There's different fantasies, and subcategories of power fantasies. The power fantasy of being a 2-ton motherhubbard with a seven-foot long greatsword who stomps so hard he breaks time is fundamentally different to the power fantasy of being the mad trickster god wizard who kidnaps people into his personal playground dimension where he deals 2000% more damage with his magic spells. And even if the ideal of every weapon being good is unattainable, at the very least enough weapons should be good that people can put together these individual playstyles and power fantasies and not interrupt or interfere with each other's.

[dwqrf]

Il y a 6 heures, PublikDomain a dit :

There are still some frames that could use some help, but guess what? DE reworks those and gives them buffs. Caliban's next up. So why not do the same for other things?

DE does that all the time. Every new item created into the game is balanced on some sort of metric that DE has. It's not random number of dps, duration, range etc. They thought about it. It's really difficult to factor everything, but they still try do do. Your way of balancing is factoring way less informations and perks of every single item, because you refuse to input contexts.

 

Il y a 6 heures, PublikDomain a dit :

For a quick example, X could be something like the the Harpak at a whopping 0.08% usage while Y would be something like the Felarx at 5.09% usage: people already pick this particular Y 63x more than this particular X anyways. How is so many people just using the same one weapon not bland? How will making X less garbage make

it more unused? It makes no sense.

For the same reasons people play Incarnons, Prime, and Kuva/Tenet weapons over regular or Mk1. Weapon tier exist, and low tier are unused. That's normal. And then, there is different weapon categories, some which are stronger in the meta, and some which are more popular in the meta. People generally tend to prefer AoE over single shot weapon, which make sense in a horde shooter. So to balance that, DE created bigger and bigger rooms so that enemies are more spread, reducing AoE efficiency and allowing single shot to find their place. It's not always about buffing/nerfing weapons, but giving them the right context to strive.
 

Il y a 6 heures, PublikDomain a dit :

Ok well you asked for "A unmodded + A modded ; B unmodded + B modded." and I gave you what you asked for right here:

Now to be clear there is no "proposed change" with those clips. There is no "level endgame". I'm not proposing a single change of any sort. Maybe you misunderstood me. I simply asked you which clip you liked more. That's it.

Which of these four clips do you like more?

Which looks closer to the gameplay you expect from your personal idea of a "power fantasy"? Fast TTK or slow TTK? Somewhere in the middle? That is the sole question I would like you to answer.

Again, the clips you showed where biased, not scientific in any matter. You manipulated the enemy levels and refuse to give us the clear example asked ; trying to trick people into "what's your favorite" which is nowhere near relevant to the debate about endgame. It isn't about one's person preference ; but about a general consensus of what's okay. And right now, the game is in a okay phase. Some individuals might think the ttk is too long or too fast ; because there is a variable in preference (and gear) ; but players have to accept the game is this ttk. If you showed me what I asked for, between A1 and A2 I'll say yeah, A2 is just fine. Because that's the current state of the game. Then you'd proceed to show me your opinion of a better endgame, which is B1 and B2, either way faster, or way slower, which isn't Warframe anymore, and would only highlight one single item vs one single enemy in one single context in a game featured thousands of combinaisons.

And let's be serious for one second :

Il y a 6 heures, PublikDomain a dit :

Now to be clear there is no "proposed change" with those clips. There is no "level endgame". I'm not proposing a single change of any sort. Maybe you misunderstood me. I simply asked you which clip you liked more. That's it.

You cannot say you don't propose any change then proceed to show us 20 graphs about proposed changes, including a bar about where endgame should be. You propose to both reduce the power of many weapons, and improve the power of many weapons, meaning ttk will be exactly the same/irrelevant whatever weapon we use. So to illustrate your opinion, you'd have to provide us not only with B1 and B2, but also B3, B4, B5, B6 ... of all weapons in the game, in every relevant and irrelevant contexts.

How do shotgun work in your perfect worlds ? They lose damage over the distance or not ? If they do, why would anyone play a shotgun instead of a sniper rifle as the sniper will do the same damage over any distance while the shotgun will only have disavantages ?
How do aoe weapon work in your perfect world ? They have a certain number of enemies hit cap, or they are unlimited ? If they have a enemy cap, to ensure a perfect dps compared to other weapons, what happen if you don't hit that cap ? Why would anyone play a weapon with only potential disavantages over any other ?
And so on...

Lacking context and any subtilities of any piece of gear but changing it nonetheless will completely wreck the game. You cannot make a great flattening on damage numbers only without understanding how powerful/weak they can be in the perfect/worst context.

 

Il y a 6 heures, PublikDomain a dit :

Because you think they're cool and want to play with them.

[...]
 

Now why should you grind or buy the new shiny primaries when it is simply 50% weaker than most of your gear? Why should you """progress""" backwards to the Paracyst or the Kulstar when you already have an Incarnon Torid and a Kuva Nukor? Are you excited by the thought of """progressing""" to fodder you're only going to throw away

Now let's talk about this paradox.

First, you claim people don't play with X item because it's utter garbage. Then, you claim people would still play X because they want to, even if it's garbage. So I lost you there.

Then, you claimed people would play a endgame even if it offer no rewards, just for the challenge of it. Then, you claim people won't grind a weapon for collection/rewards/fun/challenge of it because they already have a better gear (?????). I lost you there, again.


-


And on a side note : let me just tell you that I understand where you are coming from. I do. Your point of view is great. It's nice to see someone dedicated to improving the game with stats and maths. I like it. But sadly, I strongly disagree. Saying DE isn't already doing a great flattening is wrong, and they are actively doing it since years. And they do make better content (contexts) which allows for more item usage overall, and new items aren't always that busted dps/wise. But they are stuck in a loop of "if we need to make endgame content, we need to make endgame rewards. Endgame rewards will push up even further the power creep. So we need to make harder endgame content to factor the last power upgrade. But doing so, we also need to make relevant rewards. Which only bring the power up again.... And so on." That's where they are stuck. And no amount of "we need more endgame" or "we need to buff all the weapons to reach endgame" will solve the issue. Actually, to have weapons that struggle with the current endgame is a bliss for balance.
 

[dwqrf]

Il y a 17 heures, PublikDomain a dit :

but content can also be rewarding in and of itself. The very act of doing the content can be the reward for doing the content, because doing the content is so rewarding and fulfilling all on its own. It's intrinsically rewarding. [...] Some things are rewarding simply because they're fun.

Il y a 1 heure, dwqrf a dit :

Then, you claimed people would play a endgame even if it offer no rewards, just for the challenge of it.

il y a une heure, 4thBro a dit :

Oh man.

What is it you don't understand, fallacy boy ?



4thbro trying to get attention in a topic he can't contribute to.

[4thBro]

Calling me "fallacy boy" is like calling a homicide detective "murder man."

[dwqrf]

il y a 18 minutes, 4thBro a dit :

Calling me "fallacy boy" is like calling a homicide detective "murder man."

[4thBro]

ugga ugga funy pictur

[dwqrf]

il y a 26 minutes, 4thBro a dit :

ugga ugga funy pictur

[PublikDomain]

9 hours ago, RichardKam said:

But one of the beauty of this game is the diverse arsenal and the countless ways you can build over 100+ weapons to be viable, instead of having a bunch of similar guns with over 100+ different skins.

There are more than just weapons that deal damage! Where do turrets and environmental hazards fit into your "diverse arsenal"? Warframe it's a game with 1,000+ things in your arsenal, but all of that diversity gets flushed straight down the toilet and ignored for your "100+ weapons". If you truly value the game's diverse arsenal, why should the entirety of the game's diverse arsenal not be viable? You talk about "100+ weapons" being viable. What about the rest?

You guys also like to parrot this "guns would just be skins" thing, but what do you even mean by that? Just look at the top most popular primaries and tell me:

Is Naratuk """just a skin""" of the Ignis Wraith?

Is the Tenet Envoy """just a skin""" of the Acceltra?

Is the Shedu """just a skin""" of the Cedo?

Even though these are all powerful, accessible, popular weapons, are they just "a bunch of similar guns with different skins"? No? So what are you even saying? Do you really believe that if some balance change brought some of these up to the top 10:

That what, the Sancti Tigris would suddenly be """just a skin""" of the Felarx?

The Rakta Cernos which plays nothing like Naratuk except for being a bow would be """just a skin"""?

The Hema would be """just a skin""" of the Tenet Arca Plasmor?

How about at the very bottom of the list?

These are all equally not-good weapons.

Is the Paracyst """just a skin""" of the Mutalist Quanta?

Is the Snipetron """just a skin""" of the Supra? Are the Snipetron Vandal and Supra Vandal """just skins""" of each other?

Is the Simulor """just a skin""" of the Carmine Penta?

Is the Panthera """just a skin""" of the Karak Wraith?

The answer is no. None of these weapons are """just skins""" of each other. Not the weapons on the top, not the weapons on the bottom, none of them. They all look and sound and play and feel different. And that is a quality completely unrelated to the damage numbers typed into the Arsenal screen. And even if they all had an identical TTK, they would all continue to look and sound and play and feel different. They would have different strengths, different weaknesses, different playstyles, different appeals. None of them are skins now, and none of them would be skins just because they don't suck.

9 hours ago, RichardKam said:

Also I don't quite understand how a stat squish on warframe is possible. So if I pick "armor", are you going to buff Loki and Nyx to be as tanky as Lavos or Valkyr, when Loki already have invis and Nyx assimilate? That's why Pablo stated explicitly that he is not going to rework Loki. A drastic rework to meet the current damage and power level will turn Loki into something else.

Well for example, damage could be made more consistent. Or do you think the 600 Slash damage on Valkyr's 1 is useful? Is that as useful as the 2,000-16,000 damage on Ember's 1? Is it as useful as the millions of damage I regularly deal with Khora's 1? So that's one way to do a stat-squish: make ability damage more consistent.

Survivability is pretty good nowadays, since there are tons of ways to be tanky, so is there anything that really needs to change? Maybe invisibility could get some counterplay. I've already said that before. Then it could be effective for survivability 75-90% of the time like all the other 75-90% DR abilities.

And like, you point out that Pablo doesn't want to rework Loki. Yeah, because the game's scaling system is #*!%ed. DE's designed themselves into a corner, and you're saying "hey look DE has designed themselves into a corner", but then you won't reflect on why that has occurred or how DE could get themselves out of it? Yeah, you're proving my point!

9 hours ago, RichardKam said:

I think it also captures some of the reasons why DE, in general, won't do that "stat squish".

And guess who's up for squishing next? Caliban is about to get squished up. Nyx and Trinity are getting squished up in '99. DE just stat-squished Ember up. What do you even mean they "won't do that"? They just did it right in front of your eyes. And they're still doing it, right now!

They just squished enemy EHP scaling so Shields are closer to Armor.

And what are Incarnons if not a stat-squish for a handful of crappy weapons? What about the Torid? 4 years ago it looked like this:

And now it's one of the most popular weapons in the game.

That is the effect of a stat-squish: content not sucking anymore. And they're adding 5 more! They're going to take those 5 weapons we can all read about in leaks and they're about to be squished right up to the top of the board.

Edited August 21 by PublikDomain