The Band-Aid Fixes Are Getting Tiring.

[Cwierz]

I am quite liking the game concept you have put forth DE, enough to dump about 45~ dollars into it for cosmetics and the like and stick with it for 300+ hours, however something is making this experience get more and more frustrating by the minute.

 

Right now there are 3 major problems as I see it with the game-

 

1.) RNG... I understand that RNG is useful when creating a game to add randomness to it, and works out quite well in some situations. However, using it as you are... in the form of artificial game prolongment is dumb at best, and a complete turn off to a large player base at worse. You need to stop relying on RNG to prolong your game, and work on sustainable ways to make it a long enjoyable experience with replayability. 

 

2.) Game balance... This game has many more problems as subroots of this main problems. At our current moment, we will most likely never get as good of an endgame as we will if everything in this game is balanced properly, and that is the cold truth. Everything in this game must be viable, everything should have a reason/have good quality, nothing in this game gets an excuse to be stupidly OP no matter how much community backlash you get, scaling systems must be fixed, resource distribution in blueprints should be fixed, rewards should be tailored better, content customization should have more depth, there are so many things in this game that fall under this general umbrella it is ridiculous and not fixing it is about the worst thing you can do. 

 

3.) And the final topic... Avoiding or putting off fixing some very big problems. The new player experience, the two larger problems above, entire broken systems, the "psuedo-customization", the non-uniqueness presented in many gameplay factors, the AI, the lack of many things I don't have time to type... these are what need to happen for the game, not band aid fixes that will serve nothing besides making the beta last until the release. If you can fix these you will forever cement your game as the first ever triple A quality game created almost soley on crowd funding (presuming you beat Star Citizen :P). You have an amazing concept and engine to work with, use it to its full potential, you know you are better then that... let this game thrive and give it the tools it needs to be successful.

 

 

Many other people on the forums *shoutout to Volt_Cruelerz* have great ideas about how you can at least start to tackle some problems that need a good tackle, many people are crying out. Lets make this game what it has the potential to be, not a shell of what it could. Start to think creatively and address these problems, they wont get magically easier over time.

 

 

[Kaidinah]

Yeah, the new player experience is a thing that needs to be fixed before the beta is over for sure. Otherwise, what new player will stick with it?

[Sixty5]

Lots of things like RNG etc take a lot of time and effort to fix, in the meantime there are still a huge number of complaints about it, hence we get bandaid fixes to relive the players a little while the actual fix is being worked on.

 

As to game Balance, it is actually pretty good at the moment, there are a few things I'd buff/nerf, but that is just my opinion, I'll let DE choose what to balance.

[Un1337ninj4]

Certain OP weapons like the Soma, Hind, and so on are there to provide a higher tier over a counterpart. As it stands there are likely to be more possibilities as far as that goes, but it's going to be balanced based by Teir.

 

The rest was mentioned on the latest live stream. They don't prolong these things, merely take it one chunk at a time. It's a beta, some disagree but I claim bs on the sentiment. It's not to the dev/community standards, not fully released, and the Story/Lore is still a work in progress, it's a beta. With a worthy cash shop made to support further development.

[DiabolusUrsus]

Certain OP weapons like the Soma, Hind, and so on are there to provide a higher tier over a counterpart. As it stands there are likely to be more possibilities as far as that goes, but it's going to be balanced based by Teir.

 

The rest was mentioned on the latest live stream. They don't prolong these things, merely take it one chunk at a time. It's a beta, some disagree but I claim bs on the sentiment. It's not to the dev/community standards, not fully released, and the Story/Lore is still a work in progress, it's a beta. With a worthy cash shop made to support further development.

 

I'm going to continue telling people who try to say that there is some sort of solid tiering system in place that justifies balancing differences that they are wrong, because they are dead wrong.

Is the Soma a better version of the Grakata? Yeah. Is the Hind a better version of the Burston? Yeah. Are there a myriad of other weapons that are decisively more powerful than weapons that function in a similar manner? Yeah. That's true.

What isn't true is that they are the "next tier up" or anything like that. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that a player should progress from a lower-tier weapon to a higher tier one. There are a number of weapons that jump into high tiers with no comparable predecessors. I can guarantee that people will complain if "lower-tier" versions of the Orthos come out as "new weapons." Yet, for a tiering system to hold any validity, lower-tier versions of weapons need to exist. There needs to be a continuity of progression.

Mastery level providing tiering? Please. The Orthos is Mastery 2, just like the Orthos Prime, when the Prime version can be considered a "higher-tier" version. If people want to reference Mastery requirements as an indication of weapon tiering, then weapons must always outperform weapons of lowery Mastery requirement, and never outperform weapons of equal Mastery requirement. The system is either stringently consistent or useless when discussing "balance," and as things stand the system is useless. Weapon tiers in Warframe are an illusion born from a tendency to rely on standard conventions as a point of reference. Sure, some weapons can be classified as "higher-tier" on account of a noticeable difference in power, but they by no means adhere to any sort of tiering system. Their superiority is arbitrary, and from the example set by the Devs with the introduction of the Soma, arguably accidental. Warframe weapons are a completely disorganized array of varying power levels lacking any semblance of explanation or justification, not isolated parts of some sort of incomplete progression tree. Even if the Devs want them to be part of a progression tree, it's a bit too late for that. Nobody is going to pay money for a weaker version of the Galatine when the community already knows the Galatine exists.

 

As such, it makes much more sense to balance existing content around a standard level of effectiveness, and work from there. Need weapon progression? Weapon. Upgrades. Specifics aside, it just rustles my jimmies when I hear people justify ignoring overpowered and underpowered content with "weapon tiering" when such a system is nonexistent in the game. It may have been there at one point. The devs may want it to be there. That doesn't change the fact that it isn't there, and that as of now there are no practical means of putting it there. I put up a thread describing a way of organizing the current system into something that could be expanded and built off of a while back, but people were more concerned with deciding whether or not Damage 2.0 was the best or worst thing to ever happen to Warframe.

Essentially, the problem here boils down to the fact that the game needs to be balanced, and balance is not something that is achieved by ignoring existing flaws on account of what is ultimately an empty justification.

[BadAimbot]

I'm going to continue telling people who try to say that there is some sort of solid tiering system in place that justifies balancing differences that they are wrong, because they are dead wrong.

Is the Soma a better version of the Grakata? Yeah. Is the Hind a better version of the Burston? Yeah. Are there a myriad of other weapons that are decisively more powerful than weapons that function in a similar manner? Yeah. That's true.

What isn't true is that they are the "next tier up" or anything like that. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that a player should progress from a lower-tier weapon to a higher tier one. There are a number of weapons that jump into high tiers with no comparable predecessors. I can guarantee that people will complain if "lower-tier" versions of the Orthos come out as "new weapons." Yet, for a tiering system to hold any validity, lower-tier versions of weapons need to exist. There needs to be a continuity of progression.

Mastery level providing tiering? Please. The Orthos is Mastery 2, just like the Orthos Prime, when the Prime version can be considered a "higher-tier" version. If people want to reference Mastery requirements as an indication of weapon tiering, then weapons must always outperform weapons of lowery Mastery requirement, and never outperform weapons of equal Mastery requirement. The system is either stringently consistent or useless when discussing "balance," and as things stand the system is useless. Weapon tiers in Warframe are an illusion born from a tendency to rely on standard conventions as a point of reference. Sure, some weapons can be classified as "higher-tier" on account of a noticeable difference in power, but they by no means adhere to any sort of tiering system. Their superiority is arbitrary, and from the example set by the Devs with the introduction of the Soma, arguably accidental. Warframe weapons are a completely disorganized array of varying power levels lacking any semblance of explanation or justification, not isolated parts of some sort of incomplete progression tree. Even if the Devs want them to be part of a progression tree, it's a bit too late for that. Nobody is going to pay money for a weaker version of the Galatine when the community already knows the Galatine exists.

 

As such, it makes much more sense to balance existing content around a standard level of effectiveness, and work from there. Need weapon progression? Weapon. Upgrades. Specifics aside, it just rustles my jimmies when I hear people justify ignoring overpowered and underpowered content with "weapon tiering" when such a system is nonexistent in the game. It may have been there at one point. The devs may want it to be there. That doesn't change the fact that it isn't there, and that as of now there are no practical means of putting it there. I put up a thread describing a way of organizing the current system into something that could be expanded and built off of a while back, but people were more concerned with deciding whether or not Damage 2.0 was the best or worst thing to ever happen to Warframe.

Essentially, the problem here boils down to the fact that the game needs to be balanced, and balance is not something that is achieved by ignoring existing flaws on account of what is ultimately an empty justification.

 

All of this. The biggest issue I have with this game right now. Thank you. DE already said they want weapon progression (and I'm not counting on them changing their mind) but there are a significant amount of holes in that right now; the #1 issue being that tiers are not indicated anywhere.

[Tr1ples1xer]

No such thing as OP in a PVE game

[BadAimbot]

No such thing as OP in a PVE game

 

So you don't care about balance? Then don't come into a discussion about it.

[Rahlence]

So you don't care about balance? Then don't come into a discussion about it.

Balance in a co-op game where even the weakest weapons are "good enough" to clear the game with?  Yeah, that sounds SO important and the devs should definitely waste their time on it.

[DiabolusUrsus]

Balance in a co-op game where even the weakest weapons are "good enough" to clear the game with?  Yeah, that sounds SO important and the devs should definitely waste their time on it.

 

This is a weak argument, at best. While it is true that "balance" is less of a pressing concern in PVE than it is in PVP, it is still involved in players' overall enjoyment of the game. You can see it time and time again in other PVE games/game modes. Sure, Halo Firefight with infinite ammo, bottomless clip, and player invulnerability is fun... for about 10 minutes. The same goes for Skyrim combat when your character gets to the point that they start one-shotting most enemies. Weapons and abilities that make the player insurmountably powerful don't hurt anyone, but they definitely harm the gameplay experience. Zero risk on account of overpowered equipment makes the game unengaging and dull, and that is the last thing Warframe needs right now.

 

I enjoy short bouts of god-mode as much as the next person, but that kind of power needs to be there as a sort of bonus material or gag content, not as an accepted part of normal gameplay. I want to see Warframe continue to grow and prosper, and creating - and maintaining - balance is a necessity where that is concerned. Warframe gameplay needs to become more engaging, not less so, and for that purpose the player needs to be required to exert some effort taking down enemies without straying into level scaling in excess of 1,000.

 

Does that mean that peoples' Somas, Galatines, Orthoses, Brakks, Ogrises, and whatever-other-weapons-that-qualify-as-top-tier right now will become a bit weaker? Yes. However, nobody is asking for them to be made useless. Just reasonable. Weapons can still be powerful without being quite what they used to be. This is the same thing as people reflexively rejecting the idea of replacing damage mods with decent base weapon stats and repurposing weapon mods for providing functional diversity rather than producing viability. There are legitimate and compelling reasons for radical changes if you can be bothered to see past your immediate losses.

[Abelarde-EGT-]

"All weapons must be viable" is a lie. It cant exists, because there will always be a weapon which will be considered as better or the best and people will choose those weapons.

[CapnFusterCluck]

I am quite liking the game concept you have put forth DE, enough to dump about 45~ dollars into it for cosmetics and the like and stick with it for 300+ hours, however something is making this experience get more and more frustrating by the minute.

 

Right now there are 3 major problems as I see it with the game-

 

1.) RNG... I understand that RNG is useful when creating a game to add randomness to it, and works out quite well in some situations. However, using it as you are... in the form of artificial game prolongment is dumb at best, and a complete turn off to a large player base at worse. You need to stop relying on RNG to prolong your game, and work on sustainable ways to make it a long enjoyable experience with replayability. 

 

2.) Game balance... This game has many more problems as subroots of this main problems. At our current moment, we will most likely never get as good of an endgame as we will if everything in this game is balanced properly, and that is the cold truth. Everything in this game must be viable, everything should have a reason/have good quality, nothing in this game gets an excuse to be stupidly OP no matter how much community backlash you get, scaling systems must be fixed, resource distribution in blueprints should be fixed, rewards should be tailored better, content customization should have more depth, there are so many things in this game that fall under this general umbrella it is ridiculous and not fixing it is about the worst thing you can do. 

 

3.) And the final topic... Avoiding or putting off fixing some very big problems. The new player experience, the two larger problems above, entire broken systems, the "psuedo-customization", the non-uniqueness presented in many gameplay factors, the AI, the lack of many things I don't have time to type... these are what need to happen for the game, not band aid fixes that will serve nothing besides making the beta last until the release. If you can fix these you will forever cement your game as the first ever triple A quality game created almost soley on crowd funding (presuming you beat Star Citizen :P). You have an amazing concept and engine to work with, use it to its full potential, you know you are better then that... let this game thrive and give it the tools it needs to be successful.

 

 

Many other people on the forums *shoutout to Volt_Cruelerz* have great ideas about how you can at least start to tackle some problems that need a good tackle, many people are crying out. Lets make this game what it has the potential to be, not a shell of what it could. Start to think creatively and address these problems, they wont get magically easier over time.

Another one of these posts. How many will there be?

Time to stomp on you.

1) RNG is by far the best system that has been implemented into the game. Why? Because all other systems for earning rewards are incredibly idiotic. A token system has been suggested. A legit suggestion, but really? You get to choose your reward. Pretty soon, you'll build your weapon/Frame... Max it and then what? You're basically asking DE to give you your rewards faster, making the game more boring at an increasingly fast rate, more so than RNG. I agree RNG isn't the best, but no one in the community can come up with the better solution than the current system now. 

 

2) I... I don't know what to say to this. What do you mean by making weapons more viable? Certain weapons have certain characteristics that make it strong. Take for example the Gorgon. I remember that gun used to be super OP because of its ridiculous crit chance. Now that DE decided to nerf the gun to the ground, now barely anyone uses it. DE basically took away the one trait Gorgon had; and it was crit chance. 

The way I'm reading this right now, it seems that you want to remove some of those characteristics so that weapons don't seem so "OP". If you take the one thing that makes these weapons viable, then they're nothing. I kept on reading and realized that after the "making weapons more viable", it was basically #1 reworded (and believe me, I laughed on the inside). 

 

3) "Pseudo-customization". I don't know what you mean by that. If you mean "I can't customize my Warframe the way I want it", then you have to be more specific. I don't know what you're complaining about for customization. And basically the rest is re-explaining #1 and #2. Again.

This is a weak argument, at best. While it is true that "balance" is less of a pressing concern in PVE than it is in PVP, it is still involved in players' overall enjoyment of the game. You can see it time and time again in other PVE games/game modes. Sure, Halo Firefight with infinite ammo, bottomless clip, and player invulnerability is fun... for about 10 minutes. The same goes for Skyrim combat when your character gets to the point that they start one-shotting most enemies. Weapons and abilities that make the player insurmountably powerful don't hurt anyone, but they definitely harm the gameplay experience. Zero risk on account of overpowered equipment makes the game unengaging and dull, and that is the last thing Warframe needs right now.

 

I enjoy short bouts of god-mode as much as the next person, but that kind of power needs to be there as a sort of bonus material or gag content, not as an accepted part of normal gameplay. I want to see Warframe continue to grow and prosper, and creating - and maintaining - balance is a necessity where that is concerned. Warframe gameplay needs to become more engaging, not less so, and for that purpose the player needs to be required to exert some effort taking down enemies without straying into level scaling in excess of 1,000.

 

Does that mean that peoples' Somas, Galatines, Orthoses, Brakks, Ogrises, and whatever-other-weapons-that-qualify-as-top-tier right now will become a bit weaker? Yes. However, nobody is asking for them to be made useless. Just reasonable. Weapons can still be powerful without being quite what they used to be. This is the same thing as people reflexively rejecting the idea of replacing damage mods with decent base weapon stats and repurposing weapon mods for providing functional diversity rather than producing viability. There are legitimate and compelling reasons for radical changes if you can be bothered to see past your immediate losses.

They tried to create pre-requisites in order to kind of "balance" it out. 

But how can we balance Soma? The one thing that makes it viable is its crit chance. If you take that away from Soma, then it will be useless like the Gorgon (which was like Soma before it got nerfed into the ground). 

Brakk got "nerfed" (did you see how many people rage at DE for nerfing its range? it was absurd). It was balanced and now serves its purpose as a hand cannon, not the shotgun-sniper-pistol it was once. 

Ogris requires an immense amount of resources to craft, and you barely see anyone use it nowadays because people prefer to use Synapse nowadays.

Galatine and Orthos are only viable for their charge attacks. Take that away and then what? A useless longsword and a useless polearm. 

 

The point I'm underlining is that people complain about these things and they expect DE to fix it somehow. We as a community don't provide suggestions, and when we do, it's absolutely absurd and doesn't work at all. We're not god damn game designers; we need to get that through our head. Sure we can provide some feedback like "this weapon is a little bit too strong, maybe you can tone down X and Y", but we always do "omg DE y u do dis dis weapon to stronk nurf to ground DE retard staff".

Edited January 15, 2014 by ikillyou8196

[DiabolusUrsus]

"All weapons must be viable" is a lie. It cant exists, because there will always be a weapon which will be considered as better or the best and people will choose those weapons.

 

So, what you're saying is that because small variations in statistics are an inevitability, weapons that aren't up to par should be ignored, and toning down the weapons that drastically outperform their counterparts is a waste of time?

The basic idea behind "balance" is not creating a perfectly static environment where all weapons have the exact same potential. It is implementing advantages and drawbacks in such a way that while some weapons will statistically outperform others, the differences are small enough that user preference plays a larger role.

Let's look at the Soma, for instance. Why is it so powerful? Because it has minimal recoil, high accuracy, and, though it has low base damage, a high critical hit rate. This means that scoring consistent headshots that easily hit for more than 4x damage is pretty easy. That's a recipe for imbalance, plain and simple. Playing around with the base damage and critical rate would be finicky and provide minimal benefits, so the best solutions would be increasing recoil or spread, thereby making consistent headshots more difficult to land. How about the Ogris? Change its ammo type to Sniper, reduce its maximum ammo pool, increase reload and charge times, and change it from being a silent weapon.

[taiiat]

Yeah, that sounds SO important and the devs should definitely waste their time on it.

Balance is important in any MultiPlayer game. 

 

thinking it is not is a novel thought, but ultimately false. there is no discussion or opinion with this, if you want to maximize customers, Balance must exist. 

 

in SinglePlayer games it's fine, because you can be as 'OP' as you want, without intruding on anyone else. 

 

but when you can possibly ruin an experience for another player, then you start to cause trouble in the pocket of whoever owns such a title. 

 

 

why do you think MOBA's have exploded in popularity in recent years? because the games are so flat and single leveled without any real choices - that balance is really easy to do, so players can enjoy playing them nonstop. 

 

and some well tuned similar examples to Warframe - such as Mass Effect 3 MP - at no point did i ever feel useless, or super OP compared to my teammates. everyone worked together to complete the objectives. it worked well. so well, that i'd go into a trance while playing, because it was so engaging. every action felt like it was meaningful, nothing felt worthless or a waste of my time.

and all of this was achieved with lots of upgrades and customization. even if you had a Lv10 weapon with Lv5 Attachments, teamwork was still an important core of the game. 

-snip-

very well put.

 

i'll never agree with a 'tiering' system however. it can work if effort is put in, but i don't like it. 

[DiabolusUrsus]

Another one of these posts.

How many more of these will there be?

 

They tried to create pre-requisites in order to kind of "balance" it out. 

But how can we balance Soma? Increase its damage?

Then it's an ordinary rifle. Nothing special about it. 

 

I don't see how you can balance weapons in a PvE game. At all. What I don't understand is why people complain about these weapons... Is it because the guy using the OP weapon is racking up too many kills? If that's the case, that's about the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my entire life. Racking up kills doesn't complete the objective; doing the objective means doing the objective. 

Players on Warframe are so greedy for kills. I don't understand the mentality.

 

Except that prerequisites are absolutely meaningless when it comes to balance, unless a completed tiering system is put into place. That hasn't happened, and it isn't likely to. Enemies also need to scale in accordance to tiering, which isn't happening at the moment because, as I said, there is no real tiering system in place.

See my previous post for suggestions on balancing the Soma, but the fact that you even considered giving it a damage increase tells me about your concepts of balance.

Lastly, don't put words in peoples' mouths. I could not care less about kill counts. If you had actually bothered to read what I wrote, you should have understood that I was talking solely about preserving interesting gameplay, which does not come from obliterating everything in your path.

Edited January 15, 2014 by DiabolusUrsus

[Rabidbluedeath]

"All weapons must be viable" is a lie. It cant exists, because there will always be a weapon which will be considered as better or the best and people will choose those weapons.

I agree it can't all be lateral progression. But there can't be the king of the mountain style power creep we have now either. Can we have more than just a few be viable though? And the power curve be less ridiculous between them? Take melee, if its not for movement its Galatine or Orthos. those are the options. (yea yea wait for melee 2.0 w/e it fits right now) Those 2 are the best by a WIDE margin. Cant we narrow that margin just a little bit and let other things be somewhat useful? Most people are just asking there to be room for more than one at the top.

 

Either way RNG is a little crazy, reward pool dilution is getting to be a problem as well.

 

And making sure the content that is out works well should be just as important as new content. (Imagine a warframe where instead of tenno reinforcements they took 2 weeks to really make 1 thing work perfectly)

[Cwierz]

Another one of these posts. How many will there be?

Time to stomp on you.

1) RNG is by far the best system that has been implemented into the game. Why? Because all other systems for earning rewards are incredibly idiotic. A token system has been suggested. A legit suggestion, but really? You get to choose your reward. Pretty soon, you'll build your weapon/Frame... Max it and then what? You're basically asking DE to give you your rewards faster, making the game more boring at an increasingly fast rate, more so than RNG. I agree RNG isn't the best, but no one in the community can come up with the better solution than the current system now. 

 

2) I... I don't know what to say to this. What do you mean by making weapons more viable? Certain weapons have certain characteristics that make it strong. Take for example the Gorgon. I remember that gun used to be super OP because of its ridiculous crit chance. Now that DE decided to nerf the gun to the ground, now barely anyone uses it. DE basically took away the one trait Gorgon had; and it was crit chance. 

The way I'm reading this right now, it seems that you want to remove some of those characteristics so that weapons don't seem so "OP". If you take the one thing that makes these weapons viable, then they're nothing. I kept on reading and realized that after the "making weapons more viable", it was basically #1 reworded (and believe me, I laughed on the inside). 

 

3) "Pseudo-customization". I don't know what you mean by that. If you mean "I can't customize my Warframe the way I want it", then you have to be more specific. I don't know what you're complaining about for customization. And basically the rest is re-explaining #1 and #2. Again.

I want you to think about what RNG adds to the game. All it adds is a monotonous feel to the game that while addicting at first, quickly washes away. There are many good systems, or things you can do to eliminate rng, but having an entire game based around RNG is dumb, and thats the bottom line. Token systems, and a whole lot of bullS#&$ on the forums are dumb, but you know what isn't? Self sufficient content. Reworks of systems that require rng, and many other things will serve to make this a game based on skill, not whether you have the numbers for it or not.

 

You obviously lack an understanding of what balance is as well, and think of it as a simple system. It is very complex, and trying to dumb it down just doesn't work. Critical hits are a failed system in the first place, that require nothing except rng to add great benefits, and its pretty dumb just like many other things in this game, just have a failed system in the first place. There is way more under the umbrella of balance then weapons and tiering, it is about reward distribution, mechanic balance, risk vs reward, trade offs, scaling for enemies/tenno, player interaction, and skill. Having this game properly balanced will lead us to actually have a good all around game, that can be self-sustained.

 

Not gonna get into customization because you are one of the many people who think the mod system is actual customization.

[PhoenixShi]

Balance is important in any MultiPlayer game.

Balance must exist in any game, of any type, as without balance, you don't get a lasting and enjoyable experience. The most enjoyable games I've played kept encouraging me to move forward, to challenge harder content, while giving me the capacity to deal with said content. If it is too easy, for too long, it's boring, if it's just out to kill you in an instant, with no real means to deal with it, it's not fun. Warframe does both, it's usually so easy it feels more like a slot machine, than a video game, then if the Stalker shows up when you don't have your uber OP gear, you're just dead with no real way to avoid it. There is no real balance, and instead of trying to take steps to deal with that, they just add more weapons, and stuff like that idiotic bleed proc.

Edited January 15, 2014 by PhoenixShi

[Un1337ninj4]

I think you forgot something in the Livestreams, they intended to release tier weapons and they DID.

[BETAOPTICS]

Lots of things like RNG etc take a lot of time and effort to fix, in the meantime there are still a huge number of complaints about it, hence we get bandaid fixes to relive the players a little while the actual fix is being worked on.

 

As to game Balance, it is actually pretty good at the moment, there are a few things I'd buff/nerf, but that is just my opinion, I'll let DE choose what to balance.

I agree. They are actually good as long as the real fix is coming soon enough and pretend that the issues is erased meanwhile. Yes it has been a frustrating process to see so many band-aids being added to the game lately and there has been a lot of talk about actually fixing the issues. The problem in band-aids and their usage hasn't been they themselves but DE actually addressing the issues and starting to work on them supposedly, granted we can take their words seriously which can be questionable at best.

[Serialkillerwhale]

@People who say all weapons must be viable.

 

You only say this when your favorite weapon isn't the best.

[Ziegrif]

One way to balance it is to make weaker weapons even easier to make and get their hands on.

 

They'd work great for newbies as they'd get them faster (Build time let's say 30 minutes?) and cheaper in material costs.

 

It'd give a newbie an introduction to the crafting system as well and give them a fast first few crafts and then comes the uphill battle of finding those damn Orokin cells and the like.

 

Or they can keep pumping out new weapons but give each and every one of them something unique. A Guitar that shoots projectile bats for example. Or a Hypno gun that turns enemies into zombies working for you, counting them as a kill but having a chance to keep 3 dead NPCs as bodyguards until they die.

 

Or a gun that does relatively low dmg but marks the enemy for extra loot drops.

 

Or A Soul edge type of weapon that gets more range/ dmg/ Ammo/ Fire rate anything really the more it kills in a mission.

 

Or just let us whack Grineer to death with an armored shark already. Or the Sharkzooka!

Edited January 16, 2014 by Ziegrif

[DiabolusUrsus]

@People who say all weapons must be viable.

 

You only say this when your favorite weapon isn't the best.

[sarcasm]@People who say not all weapons must be viable:

You only say this when your favorite weapon is the best. [/sarcasm]

It's pretty easy to invert petty arguments like that while completely ignoring the actual reasoning that goes into forming different opinions. It's even easier to shove words into other peoples' mouths when you can't be bothered to actually think about what they have to say. I've already explained where I'm coming from, so let's take a look at the reasoning behind your implied argument, which is that not all weapons need to be viable.

Why is that? It is fairly obvious from the mentality you have projected onto your opposition that you are content with the existing weapon status quo, where a few weapons have been left by the wayside, many of the weapons are decent, and a few weapons outperform others by leaps and bounds. I'm going to hazard a few guesses here, as to why you might be interested in preventing balance changes from occurring:

 

1. You are one of those people who have an immediate allergic reaction to the concept of nerfing, and can't seem to comprehend the fact that sometimes nerfs are necessary. You may also have a lot of invested interest in existing "top-tier" weapons. Perhaps you even have a fully forma-customized *insert-top-tier-weapon-here*.

 

2. You think that a weapon-tiering system is an absolute must-have for the game, and that such a system will somehow benefit the player experience. You either didn't understand or outright ignored the fact that a tiering system doesn't truly exist in Warframe, and that the complications involved in implementing a tiering system would actually be more disruptive than a simple balancing effort when taking the steady stream of newly released weapons into consideration.

 

3. You're one of those #masterrace players who seem to derive their self-esteem from arbitrary superiority, and you're afraid of the same people you ridicule beginning to stand on equal footing.

 

4. You sincerely believe that decent game balance isn't a necessity for Warframe's long-term survival, and/or that erasing entire mobs of enemies with zero effort and no drawbacks every time you click the mouse constitutes engaging gameplay.

 

I'm not quite sure which train of thought is most frightening, but the skeptic in me is inclined to believe that people like you don't only fall into one category. That aside, I'm going to start outlining some of your apparent misconceptions.

First, weapon balance is not about playing favorites. I, for one, really like some of the "top-tier" weapons like the Ogris and Synapse, and I absolutely loathe many of the "worthless-tier" weapons like the Heat Dagger and Plasma Sword. In spite of my preferences, I believe that the most powerful weapons in Warframe need to be toned down a little, and the weakest weapons need to be brought up to par. Why? Well, overpowered weapons make the game monotonous, and *useless* weapons are wasted content. I don't know about you, but I don't think content should be wasted.

 

Second, "all weapons need to be viable" does not mean that "all weapons need to be equal." It's fine for some weapons to be statistically superior. In fact, weapons with exceptional strengths are a large part of interesting gameplay. However, those exceptional strengths need to be counterbalanced by considerable weaknesses. An 8,000+ damage rocket launcher is fine. An 8,000+ damage rocket launcher with a virtually inexhaustible ammunition pool is not.

 

Finally, not everyone providing feedback on the forums is obssessed with catering to their individual interests. Many of us are obssessed with protecting the collective interest of improving and prolonging the livelihood of Warframe, and provide (sometimes) controversial feedback with that in mind.

 

One trend in particular that I'm noticing is that DE's policy on releasing new weapons does not seem to be paying any heed to any sort of tiering system. Instead, the modus operandi is "this weapon concept is really cool, so let's do it, and of course it has to be powerful." Take the Tysis, for example. It is arguably a clone of the Acrid, which can be considered a top-tier sidearm. If DE is trying to build some sort of tiering system, they should be filling in the low and mid-tier gaps where elemental dart-guns come into play. That is obviously not happening, and is not likely to happen with what the community has come to expect from Tenno Reinforcements.

[taiiat]

@People who say all weapons must be viable.

 

You only say this when your favorite weapon isn't the best.

but, Synapse is one of my favorite weapons. and i still think reasonable balance is important.

 

sorry for popping your bubble with an asteroid there. well, i'm not sorry actually.

[BadAimbot]

snip

 

Seeing as we're doing this, I might as well chime in.

 

Back in the day I always argued for sidegrade weapons, and there are 3 big reasons why:

 

1: It allows everyone to use the weapons they like, without being too concerned about having to chase the OP unless you're doing infinite game modes and other bleeding edge content

2: Progression through the game is gated by Mods, which apply equally to every weapon in its class (with the exception of Crit Mods)

3: It prevents the need to create a bigger version of every gun, which chews up development time with weapon clones

 

First of all, number 3 no longer applies today because of Damage 2.0; because there are now 3 basic damage types asking for one of each for each weapon type as well as making bigger versions of them is simply out of the question. For example, for revolvers we have the Magnus and Vasto, which covers 2 damage types. Are we going to request a Puncture revolver? Then in the future ask for upgraded versions of all 3? Also, let's look at a recent weapon: the Drakgoon. It deals Slash damage. Are we going to get more flak cannons for other damage types? And, in the future, are we going to ask for Drakgoon 2s? It's simply ridiculous. More on topic, this problem can be solved with balance because you only need one Slash flak cannon.

 

But why even bother? Why can't people just suck it up? Well, gunplay is a core part of the gameplay, and having a variety of guns to choose from means you have more control over how you play. If there's going to be a tier system, then we need to have weapons of every type in each tier. If we don't, you're basically saying that if you want to have fun with this weapon, you have to gimp yourself. One day, the Penta will no longer be a top tier weapon. If DE doesn't make a better Penta, then you'll have to use an inferior weapon if you want the Penta experience. That's not fair.

 

Onto my final point, the Mod system is a perfect way of gating our progression, in theory. In practice, there are many problems preventing it from doing this well, the main one being that the difference between having a mod and not having a mod is too great, putting a lot of emphasis on the obtaining of the mod, which is subject to often-cruel RNG, instead of the leveling of the mod. But, this is not a mod discussion. Instead, gating progression through weapons has that exact problem. Imagine if the Detron was the highest tiered secondary. Getting it is total hell. In order to be competitive, you'd need to slog through RNG, and when you do finally get it, you'd be a god. Rapid jumps in power do not make good gameplay in a never-ending game such as this. A smooth curve of power is better in the long term.

 

And one more point: exclusive weapons. What tiers are those? We don't actually have tier indicators, but if we did I guarantee people would be unhappy if their reward for being around for so long got outclassed over time.