How To Start Fixing Weapons

[Xrylene]

1. Weapons need a reasonable cap: Set an absolute limit on how powerful any weapon should be, and prevent any weapon from ever being made that crosses this line. Balance all weapons around this limit so that even the "weakest' weapon is only slightly weaker than the weapon closest to the limit, and then use special properties to distinguish them. Special properties could be things like allowing the Grakata to regenerate 1 ammo per second, or giving the Supra/Gorgon innate punch through.

 

2. Raw damage mods take up mod variety: Remove Serration, Point Blank, Hornet Strike, Pressure Point, and Killing Blow. Replace them with a 5% bonus to base damage per rank of the weapon, maxing at 150% bonus damage at rank 30.

 

3. Crit is not a tool to distinguish weapons, and can be something more: Remove base crit chance from all weapons and convert it into base damage. Soma for example would add 60% to it's base damage from it's crit(30% of 200% bonus damage), so it would have a 16 for base damage. Then change crit chance mods to be additive, and have them all max at 100%. Headshots(and limb shots versus ancients) should count as critical hits, meaning they scale with crit damage, but cannot be randomly critted. Balance crit damage base and mods so that a 100% crit chance mod and maxed crit damage should be no stronger than a raw damage mod like Serration is now, but still requires two slots. Crit becomes the only way to boost base damage, but it's downside is needing two slots to work, while crit damage still becomes a useful mod for headshot based players as a standalone mod.

 

4. Multishot and crit are essentially the same thing, so either one has to go, or they have to be different: Change Multishot to be similar to a corrupt mod, always firing an extra shot, but decreasing your ammo max, magazine size, and ammo pickup amount by a percentage. So a 50% multishot would fire a second shot for 50% damage, but would reduce all ammo by 33%. Effectively, a maxed multishot mod acts like a maxed fire rate mod, but in burst fire instead, and with the same downside, it does not change your ammo efficiency.

 

5. Statuses shouldn't be random, and should be based off of the fire rates of weapons: Change statuses to no longer be random. Instead of the current system, a weapon applies a status to an enemy whenever it builds up enough stacks against the target, with the amount of hits required being based off of their firing rate times 2. So a Braton needs to hit a minimum of 18 shots against an enemy, while a Lex would take 3 shots. Headshots should reduce the required number of shots by half, while status mods would instead reduce the required number of shots by a percentage. Shotgun based weapons should have the number of hits required additionally multiplied by the number of pellets.

 

6. Weapons that are too similar might as well be the same, and exclusiveness shouldn't contribute to mastery: Change similar weapons, such as the Lato/Aklato, or the Gorgon/Supra, to be skins of eachother, using the same mastery. Weapon skins, like Warframe skins, should be permanently tied to your account regardless of whether or not you still own the base. Exclusive weapons should all be treated as skins of a similar base weapon, being permanently tied to that account(and thus can't be lost), but give no mastery as they share a mastery rank. For all intents and purposes, discontinued weapons are also exclusive weapons.

 

7. Platinum prices, especially for weapons, are absurd: Not just a weapon problem, but fix your platinum prices if you ever expect anyone to buy anything that is not a reactor, catalyst or the like. I'm a founder, so I already spent plenty supporting your game, but it makes me sick to see the Skana being sold for 150 platinum.

 

8. Get rid of the Braton Mk1: Seriously, just start people off with the regular Braton, get rid of the Braton Mk1 and it's Mastery, it doesn't need to exist.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Xrylene

[xethier]

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/141084-the-modification-system-an-analytical-approach/

 

long thread (in a line of long threads) relating to exactly these types of ideas.

[GhostUnitVII]

or this... Kindof similar to what i was saying just without caping out weapons.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/144734-tier-division-among-weapons-and-warframes/#entry1715424

[Kasseth]

Wow. I came in expecting a big ragepost or a vague cry for change, but I think a lot of these ideas have some really interesting merit. I feel like running down the list and adding some comments, elaborations, approvals, and disapprovals. I do notice the other threads linked above, though this particular suite of suggestions feels uniquely compelling! I hope it gets brought up around some developers, as one thing I recall being said during their streams regarding the Aura system is something along the lines of 'If you're gonna change it, change it heavily'. It's never too late in this game's beta state to make some big shifts, as Damage 2.0 has shown!

 

I absolutely support the idea that weapons should be distinguished by creative niches moreso than a shuffling of stats. Why not go crazy with weapon effects, like regenerating ammo or other unique features? Weapons could become part of the development process of exploring new features in the game, and by raising or lowering the weapons to a very small range of base effectiveness (like DPS) that would both keep all or most weapons viable and present in players' arsenals, yet diversify them individually through secondary effects. Things like bows, Miter and Ballistica with their different firing modes, and some of the clantech weapons like the Ignis, Ogris, and Torid are good starting points for this line of thought. This is the most important suggestion, in my opinion.

 

Item number two is also very curious. Think about it: If given the choice, players will practically always want to slap on more damage to their weapons. It's the primary function /of/ the weapon, so the generic damage mod just gets added without saying, as soon as the player acquires it. I've heard it mentioned during developer livestreams that they want to trend away from flat, simple 'more numbers' mods, and simply incorporating a slow creep in damage over weapon levels adds a little more progression to said levels, while freeing up a bit more room and slots for more secondary mod uses. Even without that per-level damage increase, we've already got enough options when it comes to specializing a weapon's damage, through impact/puncture/slashing and elements.

 

As for the proposed changes to criticals, this gets a bit more complicated, at least from how I'm reading it. I'm not sure if the point about adding existing crit chance differentiators to base damage makes much sense if item number one is taken wholeheartedly, though it works as an idea on its own. Similarly, having a maxed additive crit chance mod be 100% kind of defeats the purpose of a crit, though a radical percentage such as 50% or even 75% could still work. Making it so that headshots/limbshots stand in as an alternative choice to crit chance mods is an interesting skill-based risk.

 

Multishot, as it is, does pretty well act as a disguised base damage increaser. It could benefit from a logical downside to make things interesting, and adding an 'instant burst-fire' property makes sense, would put it more in-line with other mods, without completely wrecking its appeal. The additional proposed downsides of ammo capacity and ammo pickups could wind up devaluing multishot too much, in my opinion.

 

The point about status effects being applied after a meter is filled? That's a very interesting way of going about it. It makes me think of how Dark Souls handles status effects, at least during the initial infliction of the effect. On one extreme, sniper rifles could even bring it down to one shot - perhaps after adding a full status chance mod - due to their drawback in fire rate. It would turn status effects from happy accidents for most weapons into something you could actually plan around during combat. Different weapons would still fit in different niches when it comes to applying effects, as well, since a rapidfire gun would still need to pepper a target plenty of times before any status effects would get built up. Maybe, as a suggestion for weapon diversity, certain weapons could have more affinity for applying certain effects, and would take longer to apply others?

 

Item number six feels a bit vague and on shaky territory, though the underlying goal of reducing the amount of weapons (while still keeping the lovely art of similar types!) is an understandable one, and ties in with the first idea. Naturally, multiple kinds of weapons could still exist, but could be better represented by secondary effects. This winds up being a matter of cutting down on similar weapons once they've run out of unique personality features to apply.

Plat prices in general could, indeed, benefit from an overall consideration, though changing plat-purchase stuff around does tend to agitate people.

Lastly, as for the Braton Mk-1, I can't really say. It's been a long while since I've used one.

 

Overall, I think this thread really speaks to me, more than a lot of other suggestions floating around. In particular, encouraging creative effects with the weapons could be a great way to add tons of flavour to the game.

[Xrylene]

"Wow. I came in expecting a big ragepost or a vague cry for change, but I think a lot of these ideas have some really interesting merit. I feel like running down the list and adding some comments, elaborations, approvals, and disapprovals. I do notice the other threads linked above, though this particular suite of suggestions feels uniquely compelling! I hope it gets brought up around some developers, as one thing I recall being said during their streams regarding the Aura system is something along the lines of 'If you're gonna change it, change it heavily'. It's never too late in this game's beta state to make some big shifts, as Damage 2.0 has shown!"

 

I largely decided to use a numbered format to get straight to the point and avoid seeming like a rant. When it comes to change, I don't necessarily agree with that sentiment, rather I'd say something more along the lines of "if you're gonna change it, change it as much as it needs to be changed".

 

"I absolutely support the idea that weapons should be distinguished by creative niches moreso than a shuffling of stats. Why not go crazy with weapon effects, like regenerating ammo or other unique features? Weapons could become part of the development process of exploring new features in the game, and by raising or lowering the weapons to a very small range of base effectiveness (like DPS) that would both keep all or most weapons viable and present in players' arsenals, yet diversify them individually through secondary effects. Things like bows, Miter and Ballistica with their different firing modes, and some of the clantech weapons like the Ignis, Ogris, and Torid are good starting points for this line of thought. This is the most important suggestion, in my opinion.

 

Item number two is also very curious. Think about it: If given the choice, players will practically always want to slap on more damage to their weapons. It's the primary function /of/ the weapon, so the generic damage mod just gets added without saying, as soon as the player acquires it. I've heard it mentioned during developer livestreams that they want to trend away from flat, simple 'more numbers' mods, and simply incorporating a slow creep in damage over weapon levels adds a little more progression to said levels, while freeing up a bit more room and slots for more secondary mod uses. Even without that per-level damage increase, we've already got enough options when it comes to specializing a weapon's damage, through impact/puncture/slashing and elements."

 

This is a change that I feel I need to push for pretty heavily, not only so that we can have more mod slot variety(because raw damage will forever be taking up a slot), but think of new players. New players don't have Serration, Hornet Strike, and the like, and if I recall, aren't able to get them for a while due to the enemies they drop from, nevermind the fact that it being tied to a RNG based drop means that even then they may not get it. When they added base health and shield scaling, I feel like they made a mistake by leaving Vitality and Redirection in, since they were still must haves, and I don't want to see them make that mistake again here. The raw damage mods absolutely must go, and other disguised raw damage mods(crit, multishot) have to change to have a suitable downside.

 

Plus, once weapons aren't so far apart in base stats that no one will ever use them, DE can stop making the mistake of trying to distinguish weapons with minor stat tweaks, their latest kick seems to be introducing more weapons with high crit or status chances and calling them different. If every weapon has a compelling feature to use it, and all weapons are close in terms of damage output, weapons become a matter of preference(as they were supposed to be), not a matter of efficiency. In addition, if weapons are so similar that they'll have similar stats and even the same ability, they can be compressed into a single weapon with more than one skin, which can reduce market clutter.

 

"As for the proposed changes to criticals, this gets a bit more complicated, at least from how I'm reading it. I'm not sure if the point about adding existing crit chance differentiators to base damage makes much sense if item number one is taken wholeheartedly, though it works as an idea on its own. Similarly, having a maxed additive crit chance mod be 100% kind of defeats the purpose of a crit, though a radical percentage such as 50% or even 75% could still work. Making it so that headshots/limbshots stand in as an alternative choice to crit chance mods is an interesting skill-based risk."

 

The deal with my critical change, is it changes more than one aspect, so I'll go over each thing it does. First off, crit chance(but not crit damage) becomes the only pure damage boosting mod, with it's downside being it's random until maxed, and it's weak(seeing as without crit damage, it maxes at a 50% damage boost). Crit damage becomes the "headshot mod", being  choice in it's own right, with it's downside being you need to be accurate and do not benefit otherwise. Putting the two together essentially allows you to get random headshots, and later guaranteed headshots on a target, removing the downside of critical damage, but requiring two full slots, which is it's own cost.

 

Now, as for your individual points, the conversion of crit chance into base damage is meant more as a starting point for step 1, so in that sense they're a bit out of order. As for a maxed mod being 100%, if I had my way I'd remove all of the randomness out of crit entirely, since headshots ARE critical hits and we don't need both, but people get ragey if you suggest removing even the RNG aspect of it. So this is a compromise, you get to have your random crit, I get to have my guaranteed crit if I want to max it. If you like to have it stay random, you don't have to max it.

 

"Multishot, as it is, does pretty well act as a disguised base damage increaser. It could benefit from a logical downside to make things interesting, and adding an 'instant burst-fire' property makes sense, would put it more in-line with other mods, without completely wrecking its appeal. The additional proposed downsides of ammo capacity and ammo pickups could wind up devaluing multishot too much, in my opinion."

 

For Multishot, right now it's additive crit chance in game. Since I'm proposing additive crit chance, and I don't feel like we need more than one RNG based mechanic, I decided instead to propose it as a burst fire variant to firing rate. The idea about devaluing ammo overall, is it was that or letting your shots without a maxed(100%) multishot mod use a fraction of a bullet per shot. So a 20% multishot would mean ever shot fired a second shot for 20% damage, and used up 20% of a bullet. What I'm doing with reducing your ammo per magazine, pickup, and total, is the exact same thing, but with visible numbers. Either can work, and both would have the same result.

 

"The point about status effects being applied after a meter is filled? That's a very interesting way of going about it. It makes me think of how Dark Souls handles status effects, at least during the initial infliction of the effect. On one extreme, sniper rifles could even bring it down to one shot - perhaps after adding a full status chance mod - due to their drawback in fire rate. It would turn status effects from happy accidents for most weapons into something you could actually plan around during combat. Different weapons would still fit in different niches when it comes to applying effects, as well, since a rapidfire gun would still need to pepper a target plenty of times before any status effects would get built up. Maybe, as a suggestion for weapon diversity, certain weapons could have more affinity for applying certain effects, and would take longer to apply others?"

 

Getting straight to your suggestion, I'd agree that weapons should be predisposed towards certain ones. In fact, I forgot to mention it, but as a part of that I was going to suggest that a weapon would use the status that it has the highest damage for, however I'm not certain how to handle weapons with equivalent damage values across multiple types, as I do not want it to be randomly determined. Making enemies have resistances to certain effects would probably accomplish that though.

 

"Item number six feels a bit vague and on shaky territory, though the underlying goal of reducing the amount of weapons (while still keeping the lovely art of similar types!) is an understandable one, and ties in with the first idea. Naturally, multiple kinds of weapons could still exist, but could be better represented by secondary effects. This winds up being a matter of cutting down on similar weapons once they've run out of unique personality features to apply."

 

It's also based around the idea that if Mastery is to become more important, no one should get any advantage other than playing the game longer. Exclusives are fine so long as they act as essentially fancy skins, but once they start to become an advantage that only certain players that played during x period get, it starts to become an issue. Plus, as it is DE has been gradually removing and replacing weapons, such as the Snipetron with several new sniper rifles, the Gorgon with the Supra, and various other weapons, which have now become exclusive regardless of their reason for removal.

"Plat prices in general could, indeed, benefit from an overall consideration, though changing plat-purchase stuff around does tend to agitate people."

 

It's called refunding people where necessary. the thing is, it has to happen eventually, their platinum prices are worse than their drop rates for things, and we know how much they love drop rates. I'd rather it happen sooner rather than later. When they do change their plat prices, they had better actually establish a system for pricing, instead of the seemingly random prices for various things we have now.

 

"Lastly, as for the Braton Mk-1, I can't really say. It's been a long while since I've used one."

 

It's an example of a weapon that uses the same model and style as another, but with a slightly different stat array, and it's only purpose is to start the player off with an inferior gun that they'll want to replace right away, which in turn goes against the game's concept of mastery, meaning several players will sell it early on and may need to buy it again later and slog through leveling it just to master it, and others will be stuck using it for a long period of time when they could otherwise be progressing.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Xrylene

[Seanjuju]

I'll read all of this later

[Completionist]

Need my reading glasses and more time. I'll get back to this.

[GhostUnitVII]

30 years later...

[Cytobel]

Some of these points have been brought up and definately answered in the Livestreams (specifically, the weapon skins did).  I can't agree with all of this, but, If I were DE, I might run down this line of thought and test out each one.

 

Also, multishot and crit are rather different mechanics, ESPECIALLY now that proc chance is affecting so much of the game.  I agree with the notion of elemental stacking, but that's just fot the base elements.  A combo element having a seperate proc is important, given what they can do.

 

Scott already mentioned the Tier concept being applied to the game in the future.  Frankly, that's a place for Formas to come in.  If Formas could alter base weapon stats (the good ol' +x, -y thing), and they could "tier up" gear, then there could be a sort of soft-cap.  I think that's as close as weapon capping should come to being a thing though.

 

Intriguing points overall, but I'm not putting enough thought into each one to have a solid opinion for most of this.  Honestly, I'm still focused on the falloff issue.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Cytobel