@de: Why I Give Up On Balancing Warframe's Components

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Thanks for the explanation and response, Volt. The Proficiency system is very complex in words, but when integrated visually (into the codex, maybe?) should be very intuitive for players. I do wonder if it would be viable to have various tiers sum when counting towards unlocks, rather than just taking the highest value. I feel the spirit of inspiration driving me to make a spreadsheet... be right back.

 

Sorry, must have overlooked the line on Potatoes. I do attempt to read your posts very thoroughly before commenting, but that one slipped past me.

 

I like notionphil's ideas and I think that if the damage types and their intentions are not changing drastically, then it's a definite improvement. I'll definitely start digging around for more of the forum feedback champions. You guys should form a committee or something.

Looking forward to what you come up with.  Regarding summing instead of just going with the highest value, hmm...  I'm not sure if I'm a fan or not...  See..  it would encourage things to be placed artificially higher than necessary, so I don't think it would actually benefit anything unless you're jumping between shotties and rifles at which point from the moment of the jump you're already getting some benefit.  I don't think it'd be necessary then, but if we wanted to do something like make Point Blank a 10-rank mod, I guess we could do it.  Once again, I don't see a reason to go with addition instead of max, but if you've got a good reason for addition or a reason against max, I'll support you.

 

A committee you say?

 

 

 

Yeah, they'll eventually have to run out of weapons to chuck into the game, huh? :P

 

That is an interesting thought, though. Will they still keep updating with weapons and stuff? Because if the goal posts move, then it's going to be like a rising and ebbing tide, with people standing on this beach in all places sometimes getting wet at one point, and at other times, staying dry.

 

Perhaps there may be a more stable solution for this? Perhaps a minimum/maximum cap, or what have you, that after a certain point just won't matter anymore. If the least numerous category already has a good selection of weapons, then perhaps that will be a good cap. Or we could kind of just do it like our Achievements.

I have no issue with them continuously updating it as the pool grows.  I imagine it'll be somewhat logarithmic.  That said, it could lead to some weird grandfathering as you suggest.  Pounding Serration into a passive would fix this, but for that, we'd need to find an appropriate gift to players and I have no idea how to do that.  The only players that would feel hurt would be those that had forma'd and those that had multiple Serration mods.  Some "Legendary Forma" could be given to anyone with a rank 8+ to appease those that had forma'd.  As for those with multiple maxed Serrations...  I'm not sure.  It's not like we can give them Legendary Fusion Cores since we're kind of killing all the mods that you'd want to use a Legendary Core on.  Come to think of it, Mastery ought to have a Sentinel branch as well, so maybe having two instantly gives you the maximum bonus for your Sentinel as well?  If you have more than two...  Well...

[Amistyrja]

Modules 2.0 then?

[KvotheTheArcane1]

Modules 2.0 then?

3.0

[LazyKnight]

  Pounding Serration into a passive would fix this, but for that, we'd need to find an appropriate gift to players and I have no idea how to do that.

If Serration was removed, a few catalyst would likely be enough to make most people forget their outrage, or at least stifle the rage long enough to have people test whatever new system was implemented. 

 

There is real a problem with the people that do nothing else other than buying and selling mod cards, and they makes me wonder if the item given as compensation has to be tradable. The traders are the ones that could have a dozen maxed serration cards, that they paid for, and they would need to get something they could sell or the back-lash might make any new system benefit moot.

 

Have the compensation based on what rank their mods were at and if the player had high ranking duplicates (over rank 8 counts as high). They shouldn't discus compensation at all before they remove Serration, and come up with whatever compensation values in secret to avoid people trying to take advantage of the situation. They would probably have to cap the number of eligible serration cards a single person can be refunded for, or only count high level serration cards(over 8) to prevent issues.

 

I am sure that DE would figure out something that can be unlocked by forma, and they would be able to find incentives to have people wanting to have more mods points. If they use a new system without mods there are always ways to include forma somehow to unlock something.

 

Disclaimer:

 

Catalyst would almost certainly have to be included in whatever new system was implemented. I can not foresee DE giving up any lucrative revenue streams, and finding a way to include forma and catalyst would drastically increase the chance of DE doing something suggested.

Edited February 22, 2014 by LazyKnight

[Volt_Cruelerz]

-snip-

Yeah, the traders were the ones I was concerned about too.  If you've got one, you're using it on your primary.  Two would mean one for your sentinel too.  Three or more?  You're a trader.  As someone once said, "there's an entire economy based around this one mod!"  I honestly don't know what to do.

 

Also, as I think more about it, a single "Legendary Forma" isn't likely to be sufficient...  More than likely, they'd need to give one away for every rifle (or pistol) that's had at least one additional V slot added.  For some players, that's going to be a ton.  I also think that Legendary Forma should be tradable, as it looks like everything is on its way to being.  It would also add some value to them.  If normal Forma are 20p, LF are probably going to be 25-30 because they don't require re-leveling?

Edited February 22, 2014 by Volt_Cruelerz

[Calayne]

I think the idea of compensating the customers is a valid one, but shouldn't be a factor that holds us back from implementing a change that could change the way the whole game is played, for the better. 

 

I respect that you value the efforts of others so much, and it is true, the amount of effort there is pretty substantial. But just because of the "Legendary Core" event, we shouldn't let it seem like every little rollback or change requires a "Legendary" compensation. After all, it's a pretty big change, and the amount of people affected by this are going to far outnumber those who abused the Steel Charge change.

 

In fact, I cite the Damage 2.0 change: While it didn't take away any mod or have any backlash from trading due to the fact that it had not yet existed, it generated a lot of negativity. However, DE didn't at once respond with "Let's give them some stuff", and worked to improve it, because this is the direction the game needs to go. I believe it's the same case here.

 

To compensate those who were affected is a good endeavour: But that shouldn't delay or override the need for gameplay changes that will make life better for all players, now and in the future. Besides, rewards are always subjective, and people will love or hate it all the same, as we have seen through our internet lives.

 

T'would be better to push for the change, work with the devs to make it feasible, then worry about how best to compensate them. I honestly don't think they'd start handing out platinum to those affected, but this is a beta, after all, and while most people loathe that argument, it is still true. It is unfair for gamers and developers to have to accept a game that could have been improved at the cost of not hurting some players' feelings, though I sympathize with them.

 

I just sympathize with the potential of the game more.

[(PSN)ballin12345]

You guys are too hasty your suggestions are all major overhauls that would be very difficult to implement given DE's current position. Only 5 steps are necessary to "fix" the game in the short term and alleviate some of the problems new players face.

 

Step 1: Create a proper tutorial that actually explains all of the important mechanics. The game shouldn't require you to visit the wiki or have another player guide you. The current tutorial is a major turnoff that has likely impacted and reduced the amount of players substantially. 

 

Step 2: Further Increase stats upon rank up, weapons included. A good balance would allow modless equipment, when ranked up appropriately, to be barely viable for any basic map. It should be extremely difficult to win without mods but not impossible.

 

Step 3: Force a few of the slots to require utility mods only, this should make builds slightly more variable. This can be achieved through a simple tweak of the polarity system. Another option is buffing the utility mods so significantly, that running pure dps becomes inferior.

 

Step 4: Make a portion of damaging warframe abilities % based. So a set percentage of a mobs hp plus a static damage number. Example would be oberon's ultimate doing 10% of any enemies hp and then additional 700 at max rank or w/e numbers that would make abilities balanced and useful at higher levels. 

 

Step 5: Add more cc to warframe abilities. Every ability should be worth running no matter what level the enemies are. Adding cc  is a simple way to do this as a simple stun or slow is generally enough to warrant an ability useful. Alternatives include self and team buffs and enemy debuffs.

 

The steps are easy to implement and effective in my opinion.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

You guys are too hasty your suggestions are all major overhauls that would be very difficult to implement given DE's current position. Only 5 steps are necessary to "fix" the game in the short term and alleviate some of the problems new players face.

 

Step 1: Create a proper tutorial that actually explains all of the important mechanics. The game shouldn't require you to visit the wiki or have another player guide you. The current tutorial is a major turnoff that has likely impacted and reduced the amount of players substantially. 

 

Step 2: Further Increase stats upon rank up, weapons included. A good balance would allow modless equipment, when ranked up appropriately, to be barely viable for any basic map. It should be extremely difficult to win without mods but not impossible.

 

Step 3: Force a few of the slots to require utility mods only, this should make builds slightly more variable. This can be achieved through a simple tweak of the polarity system. Another option is buffing the utility mods so significantly, that running pure dps becomes inferior.

 

Step 4: Make a portion of damaging warframe abilities % based. So a set percentage of a mobs hp plus a static damage number. Example would be oberon's ultimate doing 10% of any enemies hp and then additional 700 at max rank or w/e numbers that would make abilities balanced and useful at higher levels. 

 

Step 5: Add more cc to warframe abilities. Every ability should be worth running no matter what level the enemies are. Adding cc  is a simple way to do this as a simple stun or slow is generally enough to warrant an ability useful. Alternatives include self and team buffs and enemy debuffs.

 

The steps are easy to implement and effective in my opinion.

Would they benefit the game?  Yes.  But your list fails to account for player growth.  Accounting for that is what has led to the overhaul of Mastery.

 

Also, your last two are going to be a lot harder than you think.

Edited February 22, 2014 by Volt_Cruelerz

[LazyKnight]

T'would be better to push for the change, work with the devs to make it feasible, then worry about how best to compensate them. I

The problem with theGreatZamboni's topic, it's just not feasible, and the Achilles's heel is how long it would take to have multiple DE_Staff member read the entire thing. I just read the topic and It's something that would take DE a year or two to implement. If they implemented all Zamboni's ideas, it would likely kill Warframe by using up all their time and resource they could have spent making fresh content.

 

I would rather push for something that is not going to take a lot of time for DE to implement. DE could be open to a suggestion of changing how base damage mods works with elemental mod, and that would allow them to lower how aggressively NPC scale. 

 

If damage mods only function was to increase the core damage of the weapon, its I/s/p or elemental base and had no interaction with elemental mods, it would dramatically lower how much DPS a weapons can put-out. The damage mods would just be converted into standard elemental mods and would no longer be the best mods for every situation.

 

This would flatten the DPS player can do and it would allow DE to take a look at NPC scaling, and make a gentler growth in NPC strength. This would not get rid of the need to adjust various weapons, but the numbers would all be dramatically smaller. This would be a Band-Aid, I know, but it could help mitigate a lot of the current issues, and DE could do something like this in a week or two.

 

A change to how damage mods work could be done exclusively by one or two DE_Staff members, and it would not require redoing the Ui or any of the other systems, that would eat up a bunch of people's time. Making adjusting to the NPC might take more than a few people contribution, but it wouldn't take creating new content to support this type of suggestion.

Edited February 22, 2014 by LazyKnight

[Vaskadar]

DE needs to focus on balancing the game in small, frequent increments. Granted, there's been a lot of content additions, but it's taken them quite some time to address even small ones like the Burston's damage, or the Latron's damage. Then we get to the problem of numbers inflation due to an ever-amorphic, illusory idea of high-end content, close to where the frames and weapons are pushed to their limits, and it becomes impossible to kill or survive. It shouldn't take that long, and you shouldn't have to go nearly as far to reach 'difficult' content.

 

There are so many missing implementations that I thought they'd have done by now.

[(PSN)Lord_Gremlin]

It's pretty much been mentioned already. The core issue is that normally you design the game either around endless scaling, or limited scaling. Like there are RPGs that are based around set maximum player level of say 99 and enemy level 99 and tailor everything in the game to properly scale within that frame. Or there are games with endless scaling, where there are just basic rules for how stat growth goes.

Warframe is a broken mix of both. Mods are hard capped at fixed persentages, warframe powers have hard capped limits, yet enemies scale way past those limits. You have to either make everything scale endlessly, or remove endless scaling.

[NikolaiLev]

It's pretty much been mentioned already. The core issue is that normally you design the game either around endless scaling, or limited scaling. Like there are RPGs that are based around set maximum player level of say 99 and enemy level 99 and tailor everything in the game to properly scale within that frame. Or there are games with endless scaling, where there are just basic rules for how stat growth goes.

Warframe is a broken mix of both. Mods are hard capped at fixed persentages, warframe powers have hard capped limits, yet enemies scale way past those limits. You have to either make everything scale endlessly, or remove endless scaling.

 

Pretty much.  Warframe needs a set "endgame" level of power, and all weapons need to be balanced so they can all hit that level.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Pretty much.  Warframe needs a set "endgame" level of power, and all weapons need to be balanced so they can all hit that level.

Not just that.  We need to define a start for all weapons and an end for all weapons which would be X% more, across the board.  Controlled growth in between.

[NikolaiLev]

Not just that.  We need to define a start for all weapons and an end for all weapons which would be X% more, across the board.  Controlled growth in between.

 

I agree.  Just so long as weapons are balanced against each other.  There's just no good reason for most weapons not to be sidegrades.

[Calayne]

Not just that.  We need to define a start for all weapons and an end for all weapons which would be X% more, across the board.  Controlled growth in between.

 

 

Well said. At least, with Volt's method, a controlled growth is achievable and measurable to a certain level of gameplay. I still think that the pure damage mods themselves should be passive. Split Chamber maybe not, but my feeling for the mod is mixed at best. Because if Serration is not passive, people will still have the problem of choosing between survivability and damage. While admittedly that's not an entirely bad thing, damage is easily the better choice in a sense, because it is better to be in a group and do a tonne of damage, going down once in a while, rather than to be alive most of the time and be able to do nothing unless you invest in the damage mods. 

 

This is in addition to the many other mods we have to juggle with, such as Redirection, Vitality, Flow, Streamline, Focus, elemental damage mods and melee mods as well. I suppose it does give a sense of achievement levelling Serration up, but even at 300 hours, I haven't maxed my Serration (three from the top), because I feel the investment of time and effort for the gains is simply not worth it. 

 

On the other hand, making damage mods passive and growing with Proficiency allows damage prediction to be far simpler. It also allows players to choose between other crucial mods for levelling up, rather than the black-hole of Fusion energy we call Serration. 

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Well said. At least, with Volt's method, a controlled growth is achievable and measurable to a certain level of gameplay. I still think that the pure damage mods themselves should be passive. Split Chamber maybe not, but my feeling for the mod is mixed at best. Because if Serration is not passive, people will still have the problem of choosing between survivability and damage. While admittedly that's not an entirely bad thing, damage is easily the better choice in a sense, because it is better to be in a group and do a tonne of damage, going down once in a while, rather than to be alive most of the time and be able to do nothing unless you invest in the damage mods. 

 

This is in addition to the many other mods we have to juggle with, such as Redirection, Vitality, Flow, Streamline, Focus, elemental damage mods and melee mods as well. I suppose it does give a sense of achievement levelling Serration up, but even at 300 hours, I haven't maxed my Serration (three from the top), because I feel the investment of time and effort for the gains is simply not worth it. 

 

On the other hand, making damage mods passive and growing with Proficiency allows damage prediction to be far simpler. It also allows players to choose between other crucial mods for levelling up, rather than the black-hole of Fusion energy we call Serration. 

Redirection/Vitality/Flow/Streamline/Focus: I figure they'll be to frames what Serration/Split Chamber are to rifles.  If we broke up the Warframe tree into Caster/Support/Tank as per the graphic, we could just give one to each, unlocked at Proficiency 1 so you could gain access to them pretty easily.  I assume Caster=Focus, Support=Flow, and Tank=Vitality.  Maybe just give Redirection to all of them and make Streamline something that's unlocked at Warframe Proficiency 2 or something.

[Calayne]

That would actually be pretty interesting! Of course, this makes having extra Warframes compulsory, too, and in quite a large amount, before we can even begin to use what we consider basic mods. It does make it interesting to have this sort of distinction based on playstyle, though.

 

I for one would certainly like to see this implemented, though the numbers, as usual, could come later. The concept itself is very refreshing and very rewarding. Grinding and levelling up would make it seem like there'll always be a reward at the other side of the equation. 

 

What's the max rank, by the way? 30? That's gonna be 30 bonus mod points. Just staggering. xD

[Volt_Cruelerz]

That would actually be pretty interesting! Of course, this makes having extra Warframes compulsory, too, and in quite a large amount, before we can even begin to use what we consider basic mods. It does make it interesting to have this sort of distinction based on playstyle, though.

 

I for one would certainly like to see this implemented, though the numbers, as usual, could come later. The concept itself is very refreshing and very rewarding. Grinding and levelling up would make it seem like there'll always be a reward at the other side of the equation. 

 

What's the max rank, by the way? 30? That's gonna be 30 bonus mod points. Just staggering. xD

Yeah, but to hit Mastery 30, you'd need to max 240 pieces of equipment based on the numbes I came up with earlier.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Volt_Cruelerz

[Calayne]

Do the individual categories have 30 as a max? In that case, you may be able to hit a high amount pretty fast, and then stagnate for a while as your Mastery overtakes your individual categories.

 

I figure for Autos and so on, we'd be able to hit 15-20 pretty quick, since it's 1/rank, and basically means 1 weapon to 30 per extra mod energy. Then again, this still seems pretty exciting. It's still progress, no matter how you look at it.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Do the individual categories have 30 as a max? In that case, you may be able to hit a high amount pretty fast, and then stagnate for a while as your Mastery overtakes your individual categories.

 

I figure for Autos and so on, we'd be able to hit 15-20 pretty quick, since it's 1/rank, and basically means 1 weapon to 30 per extra mod energy. Then again, this still seems pretty exciting. It's still progress, no matter how you look at it.

If it stagnates, I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing.  From a lore perspective "you've gotten as good as you're going to get in general with that weapon category."  Or I guess you could have the entire thing as a curve that behaves much like a straight line until rank 20 at which point it goes up quite rapidly, requiring more and more weapons/rank.

[Naqel]

I was going to make a new thread, but this one covers roughly the same subject, so I'll post here.

 

With every update Warframe gets dumber and dumber, and from what we know about Melee 2.0, it ain't gonna stop soon.

 

 

 

Sure, so far Warframe is a spectacular success, but through mishandling of their various ideas, DE has been making the game worse and worse.

Be it imbalance that prevents people from staying 'competitive' with the weapons they like, the excessive amounts of grinding, or lack of any sense of accomplishment.

Most of the attempts to fix those things actually made the situation worse, with the game being a complete mess.

[Feallike]

I was going to make a new thread, but this one covers roughly the same subject, so I'll post here.

 

With every update Warframe gets dumber and dumber, and from what we know about Melee 2.0, it ain't gonna stop soon.

 

 

 

Sure, so far Warframe is a spectacular success, but through mishandling of their various ideas, DE has been making the game worse and worse.

Be it imbalance that prevents people from staying 'competitive' with the weapons they like, the excessive amounts of grinding, or lack of any sense of accomplishment.

Most of the attempts to fix those things actually made the situation worse, with the game being a complete mess.

 

1: this game is in Beta so everything can change.

 

2: How is Warframe getting dumber every update? (your logic) If a update doesn't decrease Farming its worthless and just made the game worse? 

 

3: What updates have made the game worse, please post them and tell me how!

 

4: This is not a competitive game.. its a PVE game if you want competitive go to a PVP game.

 

I'm sorry but if you can't give me any facts other then your opinions i can't take you seriously.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

1: this game is in Beta so everything can change.

 

2: How is Warframe getting dumber every update? (your logic) If a update doesn't decrease Farming its worthless and just made the game worse? 

 

3: What updates have made the game worse, please post them and tell me how!

 

4: This is not a competitive game.. its a PVE game if you want competitive go to a PVP game.

 

I'm sorry but if you can't give me any facts other then your opinions i can't take you seriously.

1. "beta"

 

2. no response to this because I don't think it's getting dumber every time

 

3. personally, I think the update that defined that DE was going for upgrades rather than sidegrades (around 8.5, I think) was a major misstep, but I've long since lost that battle.  I also felt like U7 and the introduction of Mods 2.0 hurt a lot of things.  I know why they did it, but they could have done a lot better.

 

4.  So?  Doesn't make balance any less important: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NrbeZdVEfHF5b3sE9DNMaPWcgSWncAk1eYe87QSIiOk/

Edited March 2, 2014 by Volt_Cruelerz

[AscendantWyvern]

I've stated my share of how important balance is to this game. 

 

But I gotta say, Volt, you do it so much better than I do. 

 

This is one of those threads, like Nugget's 1000 words of feedback, that NEEDS to be read and heeded by DE. The state of the game as it stands is in shambles, and I'd hate to see the game collapse in on itself because of poor balancing.

[Dalu__Ka]

Volt_Cruelerz, you are making so much sense, it almost feels out of place on these forums.