A Thought On Elemental Damage Mods

[Bibliothekar]

Maybe the wrong forum, but it only affects weapons, so whatever.

 

At the moment, elemental damage mods add to a weapons damage. So if you have all four elements maxed, you have an additional 360% damage. The currently available event mods add another 60% for two elements, adding all up to +480%. For Pistol and Melee its "just" +330%/+450%, because their cold mods max at 60%. So, if you slap all elemental damage you have onto your weapon, you deal almost 6 times the base damage. Base damage mods (Serration and the like) not included. And people wonder why enemy scaling is completely out of control ...

Now, my suggestion is, to calculate elemental damage differently. Instead of adding to the base damage, it converts a percentage of your weapons physical damage. Say, you slap a 90% Hellfire on your Braton (I/P/S is 6/6/6). Physical damage is reduced to 0.6/0.6/0.6 and you gain 16.2 fire damage.

But if we add a 90% Stormbringer to the mix, we have a problem now. Because both mods would add up to 180%, and that doesn't work. So instead of adding up, we'd calculate the average. 90% and 90%, that's easy, 90%. 90% and 60% sum up* to 75% combined damage. All four elements at 90%? Each of the two combined elements gets 45%.

 

Now, what are the advantages of this model compared to the current one?

• Even with Damage 2.0, rainbow builds are still the way to go. If you pass on elemental damage mods in exchange for utility ones, you lose damage output. With the new model, adding elemental damage to your weapon would be a side-grade, no upgrade.
• Because our damage output only increases with base and physical damage (I/P/S) mods, enemies don't need to scale as fast. This also keeps our warframe powers viable much longer.
• It's no longer the best idea to max all your elemental damage mods. You might even want to keep two or three of each with different percentages. (DE might need to change the numbers, so that those mods max at maybe just 50%.)
• Because you don't have to go full rainbow for maximum damage any more, utility mods (apart from reload speed and the like) become more interesting and worth considering.

Side-effects:

• Enemy scaling has to be reworked at the same time, so you don't suddenly meet massive bullet sponges in T3.
• Players will have to re-think their builds. (OMGWTFBBQ, why you do dis to us?)
• As changing weapons in fight becomes more important (say, you mod your rifle to destroy an enemies shields and your pistol for his health), Speed Holster should be removed as an aura and instead weapons switching generally become faster.

What do you guys think?

 

-- 

*Yes, I know that this is mathematically wrong.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Bibliothekar

[niconosave]

where did you get that data from? was it by just testing? or maybe the wiki.

[Paradoxbomb]

Mathematical accuracy aside, I wouldn't mind if elements became a damage modifier rather than another straight +damage mod with a gimmicky side effect. It would make which element you take all the more important and put a stronger emphasis on the status effects rather than a damage boost. And hopefully enemy scaling would follow and we can start making this game more than a battle of bigger and bigger numbers.

 

The next step would be allowing us to prioritize status effects, and balancing them so that weaker ones are more useful (Corrosive) and others (Blast) aren't OP, all regardless of whether the elemental damage itself is that enemy's weakness or not.

[Bibliothekar]

where did you get that data from?

What data do you mean? How elemental damage mods currently work? It's what the weapons stats in the Arsenal tell you, it's the basis loadout suggestions in the wiki and tools like DPSframe and the Warframe Builder work on ...

 

It would make which element you take all the more important and put a stronger emphasis on the status effects rather than a damage boost. And hopefully enemy scaling would follow and we can start making this game more than a battle of bigger and bigger numbers.

 

The next step would be allowing us to prioritize status effects, and balancing them so that weaker ones are more useful (Corrosive) and others (Blast) aren't OP, all regardless of whether the elemental damage itself is that enemy's weakness or not.

My thoughts exactly. :)

[Bibliothekar]

I just made a calculation for another thread and the current system is worse than I thought. This is not only the fault of the way elemental damage is calculated, but also of multishot and critical.

 

And elemental damage is calculated after physical damage. This spreads out the player field really far between lvl0 Braton (126.52 sustained DPS) and lvl30**** Soma (1261.03 sustained DPS - or incredible 12458.59, if you include multishot and crit). Of course enemies look like a joke, if you can dish out 100 times the damage a new player can ...

 

So, in addition to changing the way elemental damage is calculated, multishot should actually use additional bullets instead of generating them out of thin air. These changes would bring the players much closer together again damage-wise, giving DE the opportunity to focus on "smarter" enemies to make the game harder as you advance.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Bibliothekar

[nekrojiji]

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/201259-no-more-mandatory-mods-for-primary-weapons/#entry2340175

[(NSW)Omgwtfl9lbbl]

• (OMGWTFBBQ, why you do dis to us?)

Hey, I haven't done anything... yet.

[Bibliothekar]

Bwahahaha, thanks for the laugh. :D