Let's Talk About The Game's Combat A Bit.

[Sebastianx]

WARNING : WALL OF TEXT INCOMMING.

 

Now, as a player who has been around since closed beta, saw the highs and lows, the mistakes and the good things the devs have done till the present day, I would like to open the subject of the game's combat yet again.

 

 

I'm focusing especially on the numerical value vs skill value. The game needs a radical change that most certainly WILL cost the devs a lot of time and resources to implement. I'm talking about better AI, more enemy variety and the way they act early game,mid game and end game. And by that I mean enemy levels need to GO. Every enemy should have a  flat armor/shield/health value no matter if you just started the game, or have been playing for months. Read more and you will understand why.

 

 

First, they need to flatten out the difference between a newbie's equipment and a veteran's equipment, I'm talking about removing flat damage increases from serration. Multishot should actually take 2 bullets from your cartridge when it fires 2, remove elemental damage from elemental mods and just allow the procs, fire rate mods should still be here since they also increase ammo consumption thus not being a flat damage increase without a drawback, crit rate should be converted to crit radius (increases the size of the vulnerable spots on the enemies) and crit damage should be left as it is (I will explain more about the crit mods soon).

Let us mod our weapons with the utility we desire instead of equipping mandatory mods for every weapon.

 

Secondly : Those "press 4 to win" buttons need to GO or at least be radically changed to the point where they don't wipe the entire map. Some are interactive and good as they currently are (for example Rhino's stomp can still keep enemies in stasis but will have its damage greatly reduced). Because without those changes, it doesn't matter HOW SMART the enemy is when you can simply wipe them all out no matter where they are or what they do with a press of a button.

 

Now the biggest concern with the mod and skill changes changes are not them being ineffective, but the fact that players will begin the biggest ragestorm the forums has ever seen. It is more than obvious that if DE recently compensated the Steel Charge nerf, then they most surely will need to do it upon the removal off those mods.

 

 

Now,let's go back to the enemies.

First of all, what we have now are a bunch of repainted, resized and renamed copies that use a different weapon.

That will require a LOT of work from DE, we need enemies to have different movements,animations,models,weapons,AI and much more. Yes there is some AI in warframe, but the fact that a Shield Lancer/Scorpion acts the same as an infested charger doesn't make sense. They need to act according to their surroundings and allies, we actually need to SEE that famous Combat Formation Bravo in action.

 

NO MORE one stray bullet and you die from a level 100 grineer, levels need to be removed. And instead we get a whole lot of enemy types, some easier than others, obviously easy ones appearing for newbies and the further they advance into the game, the more enemy types they encounter and in greater numbers.

 

We need diversity, we need to see big mechs with 4 guns that will indeed be a threat but also make for big targets with big critical points and many of them.

The critical radius mod that I was talking earlier comes into play when they finally remake the enemy models, and every enemy has a clear critical point(s). The hitbox of the critical spot will be rather small(smaller than the actual head's model, for example, by a bit, for the sake of the mechanics) but the mod will make it slightly bigger so it can be hit with more ease.

 

Infested need a lot of work especially, they lack units and all units have the same mentality, run towards you no matter what. Which mind you, is what you'd expect from an infested faction. But from a gameplay point of view it gets boring,fast.

First of all, they'd need a bunch of new enemy types,ranging from wall running monstrosities,ventilation crawling stalkers to venom spitting snipers and walking brutes that require heavy focusing to take down but could be easily outrunned if the other infested pose a threat.

Second, as stupid as it sounds, they need to have their own "tactic". They should wait behind doors to ambush you, flank you from above with wall running enemies, or just outright swarm you from every door,vent and spot they could come out from.

 

Another concern is that people keep comparing Warframe with a rather similar game that had multiplayer, Mass Effect 3.

I also tried the game, and it's safe to say they did a good job at it. But the reason that game is more skill involved than stats is because of its cover system, you sit behind a wall, pop out and take a few shots while you also take some,and pop back in to regenerate your shields just to repeat the process. Rarely you had to run from cover when you were getting swarmed, thus giving you tactical advantage and some options where you wanted to go and take cover,what targets are of higher priority and such.

Now the thing is, Warframe wants to be a fast-paced, action packed space ninja game, thus cover is definitely NOT an option.

That means DE needs to work on how the warframes move. The Parkour that we have is somewhat lackluster because of how most tiles are designed it rarely provides a tactical advantage, meaning they need to add some high ground to a lot of tile sets, sneaking spots that also will lead to that elusive stealth mechanic being more viable and implemented properly.

 

All in all, it would be a massive task for DE that requires a hefty amount of resources and time. But would lead to numerous open gates like End game bosses (that require teamwork instead of 1 shooting them with a Ogris because of my L33T 25k damage that I am proud and not proud of at the same time) , arena challenges where players can compete against or with each other versus an increasingly harder number of enemies (that for ONCE will not mean their level scale with every passing minute but instead they have better synergy with each other once new enemy types will be introduced) and a whole lot of fun yet challenging things they can come up with.

 

Some may argue "BUT HEY, how will I advance my character if I can't grow that much in strength anymore" and to that I reply : Let's wait and see what the Focus system has to offer, that can prove to be an interesting character development by DE's claims.

 

 

Thanks for reading the incredibly big wall of text and please share opinions, and if you like my ideas upvote so that DE may see it.

 

TL;DR : The game is heavily based on stats to the point where people don't even bother to use their brain at all in a fight and simply rush in because the enemy can't possibly harm you.There is no need for skill, only stats, that needs to change brutally and may cost DE a lot of resources and time but will inevitably lead to a much solid and fun gameplay experience.

 

 

[Valfunde]

"a bit" ;)

[Sebastianx]

"a bit" ;)

Well I had to make people click it somehow :P If they want to read it or not it's their problem.

[snark]

the easiest way to nerf the ridiculousness of warframe AoE abilities is have them require Line of Sight.

[Sebastianx]

the easiest way to nerf the ridiculousness of warframe AoE abilities is have them require Line of Sight.

That wouldn't make much sense for some of them,like Rhino's stomp, it's a shockwave that travels through the ground in a radius so it just pushes everything above into a stasis state,same goes for Ember's WoF,Volt's Overload,etc. But can work well with some like Banshee,Saryn and pretty much everyone that has a radial skill that in theory can be affected by terrain or objects.

[(PSN)ToastyFairy01]

I'll pull out one part in particular: levels. Levels are everything that is needed. It is a form of measurement. The increase in stats comes with higher levels. What you are trying to push is that a MK1 can kill everything on Pluto just as well as a Dark Dagger. That's messed up. Why would a recruit's weapon be able to go to the last planet of the game? Why use anything but the MK1? Do you realize that, in theory, Rhino would literally never die because of Iron Skin? You know that it's worthless in the extreme levels, right? Iron Skin, I mean. Why? Because it's a "balance". Without levels, why use anything but starter gear? Why use Soma? Why use Penta? Why? Just different ways to kill things that the MK1 could do? That literally slaughters the individuality of not only weapons, but frames themselves. For example: I don't use my primary until things are at least level 20. My abilities start to be used (outside of Nekros, since you know, Desecrate) at level 30.

 

Might as well make every enemy have ten health and every weapon and ability do 1 damage. Is that making it as easy as you want?

[snark]

That wouldn't make much sense for some of them,like Rhino's stomp, it's a shockwave that travels through the ground in a radius so it just pushes everything above into a stasis state

Rhino's stomp is a gravitational dilation in space-time, something that makes absolutely no sense. Is there really logic to be applied there?

I was talking about gameplay, however. Enemies require line of sight to fight back.

Edited February 21, 2014 by BioSnark

[Sebastianx]

Rhino's stomp is a gravitational dilation in space-time, something that makes absolutely no sense. Is there really logic to be applied there?

I was talking about gameplay, however. Enemies require line of sight to fight back.

Good point...in the end they're all things that don't exist in real life, and we have no idea how exactly they work.

[cloudyDev]

I agree with getting rid of "press 4 to win" but an entire overhaul of the system is not a good idea. You are most likely a minority and this is how Warframe was made. There is no point in changing everything.

[Sebastianx]

I'll pull out one part in particular: levels. Levels are everything that is needed. It is a form of measurement. The increase in stats comes with higher levels. What you are trying to push is that a MK1 can kill everything on Pluto just as well as a Dark Dagger. That's messed up. Why would a recruit's weapon be able to go to the last planet of the game? Why use anything but the MK1? Do you realize that, in theory, Rhino would literally never die because of Iron Skin? You know that it's worthless in the extreme levels, right? Iron Skin, I mean. Why? Because it's a "balance". Without levels, why use anything but starter gear? Why use Soma? Why use Penta? Why? Just different ways to kill things that the MK1 could do? That literally slaughters the individuality of not only weapons, but frames themselves. For example: I don't use my primary until things are at least level 20. My abilities start to be used (outside of Nekros, since you know, Desecrate) at level 30.

 

Might as well make every enemy have ten health and every weapon and ability do 1 damage. Is that making it as easy as you want?

Making it Easy? Nonono, you don't get it, IT IS EASY NOW.

Also Braton doesn't really do much damage now does it? compare an unranked Braton to an unranked Soma, then to an unranked Flux rifle or Synapse and you'll see what I mean. That AND the fact that with the damage mods being gone you can actually CUSTOMIZE the weapon to your needs. Maybe someone wants to make it heavy on status effects, and just freeze or burn people around him for CC, someone instead feels as if he's skilled at aiming and would opt for a critical build and always goes for the headshots and other weak points. Or someone just doesn't care about ammo and goes full guns blazing with Multishot (that now actually eat 2 bullets if they fire 2 shots per click) Fire rate and Puncture mods.

The customization will be INCREDIBLY vast compared to what we have now. Making every weapon viable in its own way, while still the higher level weapons are more wanted maybe because of how they perform, or how the fire or simply just aesthetic preference.

 

When I said the removal of levels I ment enemy levels only. You will still need to level your frame/weapon in order to have more mod slots.

 

Also it was implied that Iron Skin will require a nerf and many other skills balanced also because the enemies will now have fixed damage values, making it much MUCH easier for DE to balance stuff around that.

[Khranitel]

They certainly need to do something with mods system. Its hard to design your game when your players can have x5.6 shields and x(Godonlyknowshowmuch) weapon damage.

And AI. Oh, that AI... Did they ever made a single improvement to it? Frankly, I don't remember.

 

Let us mod our weapons with the utility we desire instead of equipping mandatory mods for every weapon.

Also this.

 

TL;DR : The game is heavily based on stats to the point where people don't even bother to use their brain at all in a fight and simply rush in because the enemy can't possibly harm you.There is no need for skill, only stats, that needs to change brutally and may cost DE a lot of resources and time but will inevitably lead to a much solid and fun gameplay experience.

And this.

The latter one is a simple dilemma between MMO and TPS mechanics. Where will DE take this game is up to them. 

Edited February 21, 2014 by Khranitel

[Sebastianx]

I agree with getting rid of "press 4 to win" but an entire overhaul of the system is not a good idea. You are most likely a minority and this is how Warframe was made. There is no point in changing everything.

I don't know since when you've been around with us, but when you get to the point where any mission that you play means holding down W+left click and randomly tapping 4 is not fun.

[Tsukinoki]

I disagree that levels could just be removed and that flattening the level progression would make things better.

The reason?

If you properly mod an MK1-Braton with damage it can actually work until Earth or Mars, I've even seen people in both still getting a decent amount of kills with it because of the mods. If you remove the ability for mods to make weapons stronger it wouldn't get you through Venus.

One of two things will happen:

Weapons will become even more tiered than they are. Want to deal with enemy types X Y and Z on pluto? Well you have to bring one of these 4 or 5 weapons or you're completely useless because you cant make your favorite weapon strong enough to deal with the enemies there.

Or the opposite will happen: Want to deal with enemy types X, Y and Z on pluto? Well just bring along your MK1-Braton and you'll be doing just as well as someone using a much later weapon in the game that takes a lot more resources and time to get!

A game like Warframe is NOT suited for having such flat progression, it just wont work.

Even Monster Hunter has more of a progression curve than what you are suggesting, and it is still a rather flat one. R1 and R2 monsters that behave and look exactly the same yet R2 is tougher and deals more damage.

What would be the point of getting the hard to get and resource intensive weapons when they wont perform dramatically better than the weaponry that you started with? And if they do perform dramatically better then the different enemy types would have to scale massively, leading to it being "IF you dont bring a weapon from this tier or higher you just wont be able to damage anything, and no mods will help you out".

At least in the current system if I have a gun I enjoy I can mod it out and bring it to a T3 mission and still contibute meaningfully. Under your system if the gun I like isn't in the right tier I need not even try....

Edited February 21, 2014 by Tsukinoki

[Sebastianx]

They certainly need to do something with mods system. Its hard to design your game when your players can have x5.6 shields and x(Godonlyknowshowmuch) weapon damage.

And AI. Oh, that AI... Did they ever made a single improvement to it? Frankly, I don't remember.

Exactly. The fact that a standard Braton vs an end game Braton has x100 times the DPS means you cannot design anything properly. And the fact that we are pretty much forced to go back to low level missions to farm for certain resources or level gear/frames doesn't make it any better, and it most CERTAINLY doesn't make it better for those poor low ranked players that can't even get 1 single kill in a mission.

[Ritchel]

heres my thought, good feedback btw

 

"ash's 1st skill doesnt do well with mobs at level 30, might aswell make the shuriken ability to scale damage depending on an enemies level."

that sounds good right?

 

but with your thought on adding more types of enemies and enhanced AI over a mission, it might cause performance issues, as you know im having alot of performance issue with warframe and im above required specs. its going to be a problem.

Edited February 21, 2014 by Ritchel

[Sebastianx]

I disagree that levels could just be removed and that flattening the level progression would make things better.

-snip-

In Monster Hunter you don't fight 50 monsters at once, that can hardly be a fair comparison since that game requires soft balancing of each weapon and enemy type, in Warframe that would take way to much and would be impossible.

 

Take Mass Effect 3 of example in your Braton argument. If you have ever played it, you would know that the first weapon you play with can be used to a certain degree vs most enemy types.

Other weapons perform better or worse vs the same enemy types. Take for example a sniper and an assault rifle and put them vs many but weak enemies. By the time you can kill them with the sniper, they'll be near you. But the assault rifle can quickly remove them. Now same weapons but vs one of those big mechs, forgot the name of them. You can easily run away from the deadliness of the mech with the sniper and deal with it from a safe distance with relative easy OR depending on what class you have, you can charge in with the assault rifle and evade the mechs attacks while shooting bursts at its weak spots.

 

Yes, you were right to a certain degree to what you said, but that's because of the sheer number of weapons in Warframe. And let's be honest, hasn't DE already gone down the path of "you need certain weapon to be more effective vs certain enemy type" when they added Damage 2.0 ?

[Sebastianx]

heres my thought, good feedback btw

 

"ash's 1st skill doesnt do well with mobs at level 30, might aswell make the shuriken ability to scale damage depending on an enemies level."

that sounds good right?

 

but with your thought on adding more types of enemies and enhanced AI over a mission, it might cause performance issues, as you know im having alot of performance issue with warframe and im above required specs. its going to be a problem.

Actually now you can get up to 70 enemies or more at a time on screen. If what I said would ever happen it means there will probably be LESS enemies on screen that are competent enough to actually kill you better than 90 infested marching into a nova's 4.

Also ash's 1st skill or ANY skill in the game for that matter will always be effective if what I said happens, because enemies will not have levels, it will mean that on the same enemy type it will do the same amount of damage, be it on Mercury or on Pluto.

 

EDIT: Just realised that also means all the skill will be finally viable that people just hate now and don't even bother using.

Edited February 21, 2014 by Sebastianx

[Tsukinoki]

@Sebastianx

At least with the current way weapons, mods, and levels are implemented I can make most guns viable for any map by adding the right elements and modding for pure damage, or doing a crit build. And its only possible to go as far with many weapons because you can increase the numbers on them quite a bit.

Under your system that just wouldn't be an option.

Sure I could mod my elements to be slightly more effective against a given enemy type, but overall the options for the number of different weapons that I could bring into a T3 mission would drop like a rock because there wouldn't be a way to increase the dps of many weapons high enough to be useful.

And once you get the enemy types that a sniper can't one shot, and will never be able to one shot because you cant increase damage, the sniper becomes completely useless because of the average engagement ranges and number of enemies that will attack you at once.

Sure, under your system they might still be useful against bosses but against the vast majority of units? Not so much.

The only reasons snipers are viable at all in most maps as it is, is because you can increase their damage high enough to 2, or at most 3, shot any enemy in T3 void missions (outside of TD and TS for obvious reasons) meaning that they can 1 shot nearly any mob in the normal star chart (even missing a weakspot).

Further this has an issue with multi-formaed weapons, and the rage that this would elicit from the people who have dont it.

When they forma a weapon 6 to 8 times they expect their weapon to perform much better than their base counterpart, and they really should. They can increase the damage and elements and other stats well beyond a base model of the weapon. If you cut out the scaling of damage and such what would be the point in formaing a weapon? You wouldn't see all that much of an increase in performance like you can now.

[Ritchel]

its better to have on missions for EXAMPLE: A hyena-type-with-same-AI as the real hyena boss but not having much high HP but still needs you to do an effort to kill it - showing up over a normal mission also reducing the spawn of real easy to kill mobs -  this will make you spam your skills over a difficult to take down mob and adding more excitement on the mission you play

 

i think they should add on normal mission a boss-like enemies & leutenants with the corresponding percentage of spawns over a mission

like this.

 

 

Edited February 21, 2014 by Ritchel

[AuroraSonicBoom]

I agree heartily with most of what you wrote, especially regarding progression and ability spam. Vertical progression is the cheapest and at the same time most unsatisfying form of progression that can be added to a game, not to mention that it facilitates power creep that has to be compensated with an increase in enemy difficulty, which again will be done through damage or health numbers.

The AI part of your post I only agree with overall, but there's still some thoughts I'd like to add pertaining to AI as I think that the issue of ability spam can be mastered by improving enemy difficulty without making them bullet sponges.

Basically, combat as it stands now doesn't feel satisfying or in depth because every enemy apart from bosses and mini bosses are most effectively combated with the same simple tactic: Apply as much direct damage as fast as possible. That's the main cause of why spammy AoE weapons and skill are so much more effective and used than anything else. I would argue that making enemies behind walls not affected by the AoE of warframe skills would go a long way of reducing this spam. I'm not talking about enemies peaking out of cover in the same room, just enemies that are completely shut off from a player by a closed door or wall.
In my opinion, modifying enemy behaviour and stats is the most straight forward way of improving combat and player skill requirements while indirectly nerfing the reliance of AoE damage.
For instance, most special enemy types outside the normal grunt type could have special abilities that temporarily or permanently protect them from direct damage, either completely or partially. A sniper AI would go invisible as long as they don't move, only becoming slightly visible whenever they are firing and disappearing into nothingness after they took their shot. During their invisibility, they'd also be impervious to AoE damage. Shield Lancers would be invincible to any non-punch through projectile hitting their front, including abilities(Fireball, Null Star, Psychic Bolts, etc.). It not all only about resistances, though. Corpus Shield drones could give their allies not only a shield boost but a super fast shield regen(old Hyena style), including themselves, and won't have a shield regen cooldown except when it's completely gone or hit with magnetic status. On the other hand, if players that manage to proc electricity status on the shield drone will cause any unit the drone protects to suffer the same stun, regardless of distance and level. Heavy units could only be damaged by direct hits that deal a minimum amount of damage in one shot. Other enemies could cap all incoming damage to a minimum but will take increasing damage from rapid successive hits to the same area of their body, encouraging super fast firing ammo hoses and effectively allowing players to get a "hit combo multiplier" going on, similar to fighting games. Players that concentrate their fire on the same body part of that enemy will be able to kill it far more effectively.

These mechanics are the kind of depth enemies need to make the game challenging without flat health and damage increases.

The kings of dps need to be dethroned, not by nerfing their numbers, but by making them less effective against anything outside an area of expertise.


There's also something to be said about the lack of choice in gear modding, which brings me to another point. Even if enemy behavior is diversified to the point where spammy damage won't be the be all, end all of efficiency, it won't change much about the way players mod their weapons. You rightfully pointed out that players will throw a fit if their damage mods are being removed, so I doubt that will happen. It isn't to say, however, that the functionality of mods like Serration cannot be changed to make them only effective in certain situations and less effective overall. Instead of a flat damage boost, Serration's functionality could be changed to, I don't know, a damage amplification on successive hit per enemy that goes up to 165%. So the first shot would do 1% more damage, the second shot 2% more, the third shot 4%, and so on up to 165%. Blind Rage could be changed to allow abilities to affect enemies that are behind walls and closed doors within the normal radius of the AoE ability used, scaling in how much of the damage of the ability those enemies will suffer. Maxed out, enemies behind complete cover would receive 100% of the damage.

Granted, that wouldn't make mods like Acrobat compete, but they can be made by improving on the underlying mechanic. If wallrunning made most normal enemies(excluding snipers) miss you with their shots completely, Acrobat suddenly becomes a whole lot more useful.

There's a lot of interesting choices to be made if you take away a player's ability to invalidate huge batches of content with the press of a button.

Edited February 21, 2014 by AuroraSonicBoom

[TwiceDead]

I agree that the press 4 to win abilities need to be nerfed down to only being applicable if an enemy is in Line of Sight. Either that or severely nerf their range even further. It's rather annoying when you're trying to level your weapons faster by actually using them, and along comes a Nova and decimates everything in a 3 kilometer radius. 

[Haldos]

A very interesting discussion and lots of good points being brought up.

 

Unfortunately I'm not knowledgeable enough in this area to speak intelligently, so carry on.

[Sebastianx]

I agree heartily with most of what you wrote, especially regarding progression and ability spam. Vertical progression is the cheapest and at the same time most unsatisfying form of progression that can be added to a game, not to mention that it facilitates power creep that has to be compensated with an increase in enemy difficulty, which again will be done through damage or health numbers.

 -snip-

Agreed with everything you added there,especially the part where serration is a ramping up damage from the base one, instead of a permanent boost as it is now. So nice seeing people that actually see some sense behind my logic.

[Sebastianx]

A very interesting discussion and lots of good points being brought up.

 

Unfortunately I'm not knowledgeable enough in this area to speak intelligently, so carry on.

You just need to compare the game as it is now to what I wrote :P And do a small simulation in your head to see what would be better, holding W+left click and pressing 4 every now and then, or thinking tactically and be rewarded accordingly for your actions on the battlefield.

[TwiceDead]

I'm starting to think it's put up this way due to it's free-to-play model. 

Most F2P games are based on heavy vertical progression in order to give incentives to buy in-game valuable currency so that they can skip the grind. If a new player don't see a point in the heavy-grind (in order to get 'better') they might simply quit early. 

 

Your suggestions are wonderful though, but with the amount of incentives that DE shoves in your face at every corner at an early stage in the game in order to push you into buying platinum (and people do), I don't really think they are going to overhaul their combat system. 

 

I wish they did though. The current combat is brain-dead and monotonous. Go in, press 4, go out. That's it. Higher level content is simply press 4 more than once, kill everything a bit slower, but go out nonetheless. No brains, no reflexes or skill involved. I can literally play this game in half-asleep-mode, which means i am playing it when my brain has the least amount of activity going on.