Monolake Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 (edited) Weapons: -very large variety and choice, can equip 3 (thats good right) -huge, insane modding potential, 30 up to over 100 times! -universal use, moddable vs all the factions and enemies -excessively high damage (you need 6-7k dps for doing very high level content like 50 min T3 survival, tOP weapons do 20k dps maxed) -able to do even more damage with headshots and procs -% based scaling with enemies: viral halves the health, corrosive does -25% armor -very large, up to virtually unlimited(penta, ogris) ammo reserve, very low cost of damage/reserve ratio Damage Abilities: -poor choice, if any at all, depending on a frame, ~30 damage abilities combined for 19 frames? -very low modding potential: 3-5 times from unranked to rank3, +only up to 2,44 times while hugely sacrificing efficiency with Blind rage = no progress -mostly shoehorned vs specific enemy, most are useless vs armor (only Tornado can change damage type and only Blade storm has armor ignore iirc) -mostly very low damage, balanced for midlevel no-armor enemies, becoming largely useless even on lvl20 heavies -only several abilities have any scaling with enemies level or combo potential for higher damage (Ember, Saryn, Mag, Rhino, Nova, Nyx... ?) -very limited energy (=ammo) and high cost, potentially with slow regeneration, making efficiency mods a must and Blind rage not worth using, further hurting the damage output. -prohibitively high cost when unmoded, gimping new players -energy drain/disruption (just imagine you'd be stripped of all your ammo by some happy-slappy ancient) -targeted abilities are even magnitude worse, doing less damage and to smaller number of foes in smaller area, not justifying even 4 times lower cost Just breaking down why they suck. Am I missing something? Need to underline that excessive weapon damage makes the mediocre damage abilities completely redundant, CC more important and damage multipliers OP. Why should many damage abilities be only a minor help for lower levels players and unequipped and forgotten once you get some decent guns and weapon mods? Why cant they be upgraded and modded vs higher level enemies of different kinds? The recipe for solving this is obvious (just go over every issue and fix it) and Im sure DE knows it, just too busy making Melee 2.0, and after its done they will improve the useless abilities and mods and balance the weapons, right? Right DE? I believe it was said on the dev stream there wont be 'Abilities 2.0' meaning DE doesn't want to remake the system entirely, which is understandable. But the current system absolutely needs improvement and many tweaks and fixes. Players are still waiting for Balance 1.0. EDIT: Need to mention the problem of OP room-cleaners (the 'Nova syndrome' heh) which makes the game into a trivial press-4-to-win one-man-show with very little player involvement. The solution is again right there in the problem description: don't make room cleaners. Make strong damage abilities targeted/skillshots so they could act like true 'potent alternative to gunplay' requiring player skill (or call it involvement) not just pressing a single button: picking targets, aiming, timing, positioning, minding line-of sight and obstacles. Leave radial AOE to debufs/CC. Example when it already works reasonably well in a combo: Embers' Accelerant +Fireball. If anyone has to ask why is this an issue at all, I suggest him to leave the forums, just delete the rest of his Warframe inventory and happily play with Rhino+Soma forever. Edited April 29, 2014 by Monolake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSeannachaidh Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 I agree that abilities have no real use unless they provide CC once you get into the higher level enemies. I doubt that this will get changed any time soon though. Abilities don't get nearly enough focus from DE. They are released and then don't get balanced for months after their release. I know that other projects like Melee 2.0 come up and eclipse the ability balance on the priority list, but they really need to make ability damage scale somehow, or give every Warframe a good CC ability so that they are viable into the late game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeAura Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 I absolutely agree, especially with. -targeted abilities are even magnitude worse, doing less damage and to smaller number of foes in smaller area, not justifying even 4 times lower cost Ultimates should not be orders stronger because they cost more energy. Their strength should be found in targets per energy point. But they also all too often win in damage per energy point and utility for cost. One of the few frames that actually gets the balancing of lower versus higher skills right is Rhino. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
immolator1001 Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 (edited) I think they need to some how be percentage based (like shield polarize), the problem is doing this without being OP (like shield polarize is against high level corpus). I've also found that Utility skills are always better than damage skill late game provided you know how to use them and are always more interesting than room nukes. If you're just annoyed that you nova no longer nukes a room at 40 minutes into t3 survival, then too bad, thats the point of fighting high level enemies, they are hard. Though I do agree with 1st abilities, I generally play without them they are so bad. Edited March 31, 2014 by immolator1001 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neKroMancer Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Damage abilities are not powerful tool in this game for a long time. And probably never will be as along as there are endless modes. I discussed the nature of the damage abilities at the beginning of U7 with some forum members and ideas were sprouted but didn't receive much attention since Volt was wholesale murderer back then and anything we came up with was viewed as a nerf. TBH, I doubt that changing the actual damage scaling is going to happen since doing so will make guns (which sell) less appealing. Giving them secondary effect (CC, buff, debuff, movement) is a route which DE should take since they work well regardless of enemies' level. Remember the original Rhino when no one ever use Stomp that didn't have damage and only CC? DE added both aspects into the power and players found him palatable. Nova, on the other hand, is another spectrum of the problem when one power does too much. CC, debuff, chain damage all in one power. No doubt that she is a tool to victory in higher level but DE did pump too many aspects into it. With the change in damage 2.0, guarantee proc from damage power should be added into the equation. Icewave change was pretty good imo. Slowed enemies shoot slower, move slower and essentially reduce their damage output by half while make the targets a group of sitting ducks. In short - add CC/buff/debuff/elemental proc into the powers to make them worth casting regardless of level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monolake Posted April 1, 2014 Author Share Posted April 1, 2014 I absolutely agree, especially with. Ultimates should not be orders stronger because they cost more energy. Their strength should be found in targets per energy point. But they also all too often win in damage per energy point and utility for cost. One of the few frames that actually gets the balancing of lower versus higher skills right is Rhino. If you're just annoyed that you nova no longer nukes a room at 40 minutes into t3 survival, then too bad, thats the point of fighting high level enemies, they are hard. Though I do agree with 1st abilities, I generally play without them they are so bad. Yes, I forgot to mention this problem of balancing large AOE ultimates, OP room-cleaners (the 'Nova syndrome' heh) which make the game into a trivial press-4-to-win one-man-show with very little player involvement. The solution is again right there in the problem description: don't make room cleaners. Make strong damage abilities targeted/skillshots so they could act like true 'potent alternative to gunplay' requiring player skill (or call it involvement) not just pressing a single button: picking targets, aiming, timing, positioning, minding line-of sight and obstacles. Leave radial AOE to debufs/CC. Example when it already works reasonably well in a combo: Embers' Accelerant +Fireball. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axterix13 Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 I wouldn't say powers across the board suck. Even the likes of Mag, with her rather crappy ultimate can do a ton of damage with that. 1k base damage, 18m range, means she can do 1.57k to everything within a radius of 30.6m, for a cost of 25 energy. And while that damage doesn't do much to the heavies, it clears out the trash (will take 2 uses against resist neutral mobs above a certain level, admittedly) and temporarily CC's the bosses. So its use allows the rest of the team to focus on those bosses. Some of the non-ultimates aren't too bad either. Shock is probably the best damage dealing #1, while Fireball isn't too bad. Which isn't to say there aren't issues: - Weapon mods being overpowered definitely doesn't help for the non-ultimates. - The cost structure is silly (25/50/75/100... nuts). - Efficiency is overpowered. - Resists/vulnerabilities have too much impact. This serves to both crank up weapon damage (swap some mods) and potentially hurt power ones (bring a different frame). Yes, I forgot to mention this problem of balancing large AOE ultimates, OP room-cleaners (the 'Nova syndrome' heh) which make the game into a trivial press-4-to-win one-man-show with very little player involvement. The solution is again right there in the problem description: don't make room cleaners. Make strong damage abilities targeted/skillshots so they could act like true 'potent alternative to gunplay' requiring player skill (or call it involvement) not just pressing a single button: picking targets, aiming, timing, positioning, minding line-of sight and obstacles. Leave radial AOE to debufs/CC. Example when it already works reasonably well in a combo: Embers' Accelerant +Fireball. Alternately, if they are "ultimates", don't make them super easy to spam. After all, there's nothing innately wrong with an "oh crap!" button. There is something wrong with being able to use that button a ton, because then it ceases to be an "oh crap" thing. 100 base cost combined with 75% efficiency... not a good combo. My view on things is that, for the frames with damaging dealing powers, the "alternative to gunplay" types, #1 should be the most used button. But that mostly won't be the case with the current pricing structure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OblivionNecroninja Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Alternately, if they are "ultimates", don't make them super easy to spam. After all, there's nothing innately wrong with an "oh crap!" button. There is something wrong with being able to use that button a ton, because then it ceases to be an "oh crap" thing. 100 base cost combined with 75% efficiency... not a good combo. My view on things is that, for the frames with damaging dealing powers, the "alternative to gunplay" types, #1 should be the most used button. But that mostly won't be the case with the current pricing structure. Fleeting Expertise: Quite possibly DE's worst idea ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HansJurgen Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Moar damage based abilities, moar damage and devastashiun, because we are lazy and we need a "win" buttan!!!!!!!!11111 NAO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volt_Cruelerz Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Multishot for abilities? In all reality, that's the only way abilities will ever catch up. Same goes for melee... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atpbx1 Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 The way to fix the problem, is to remove the needs of the more powerful players to be playing though content they are too powerful for, and give them more level appropriate content. You dont need ever more powerful enemies, or guns, or abilities, or mods, just give players more to play through with their maxed gear. Problem solved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terrornaut Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 I wonder if DE will reexamine abilities - direct damage included. Why don't they use small % HP values for ability damage? Example: Fireball. 500 base damage +half base damage are (250) 5 sec dot for 250 each sec. Just going with easy numbers for now. This is great vs low and midrange enemies, but starts becoming trivial after a while, to the point it's only worth it's secondary effect as a single target quick stun. Armor will reduce this to nothing. Why not augment part of the damage by doing a % of total enemy hp? This would mean little at lower levels, but keep the ability relevent at higher levels and require more of an energy cost via ability spam. Fireball = 12.5 % total hp damage + 350 base damage, 6% total hp + 175 dmg aoe, and 2% total hp every sec for 5 sec. To an enemy rank 50, that'll at least guarantee 22.5% total damage over 5 sec...requiring multiple casts to finish it...while retaining it's power over lower rank enemies. Is DE against this sort of scaling? Have they just not got the time to get to it yet? Will they ever communicate with us about the issue and scaling? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axterix13 Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 I wonder if DE will reexamine abilities - direct damage included. Why don't they use small % HP values for ability damage? Example: Fireball. 500 base damage +half base damage are (250) 5 sec dot for 250 each sec. Just going with easy numbers for now. This is great vs low and midrange enemies, but starts becoming trivial after a while, to the point it's only worth it's secondary effect as a single target quick stun. Armor will reduce this to nothing. Why not augment part of the damage by doing a % of total enemy hp? This would mean little at lower levels, but keep the ability relevent at higher levels and require more of an energy cost via ability spam. Fireball = 12.5 % total hp damage + 350 base damage, 6% total hp + 175 dmg aoe, and 2% total hp every sec for 5 sec. To an enemy rank 50, that'll at least guarantee 22.5% total damage over 5 sec...requiring multiple casts to finish it...while retaining it's power over lower rank enemies. Is DE against this sort of scaling? Have they just not got the time to get to it yet? Will they ever communicate with us about the issue and scaling? That sort of thing needs to be handled with care though, as it then bypasses certain other balance aspects. 12.5% + 6% (the AoE hits the original target) + 10% more over 5s... that's a total of 28.5%. 4 fireballs kill a boss. Likewise, you're not supposed to be able to kill a level 50 that easy. Or a level 50 boss. Which means you'd need to put some sort of cap on the percentage damage, but with how their system works, that would most likely be messy. I'd also have to ask what it means for +power strength mods. Does power increase all the damage or only the static part? If the latter, you've just nerfed power strength mods. If the former, the percentages get scarier. You could wind up creating a situation where powers become the be all and end all. Will we wind up with a team that consists of one trinity and three people with damage dealing ultimates? Other things that could be done: 1. Different levels of the power, like most games have, with bigger numbers. Either as different versions of the mods (So Fireball II, Fireball III, etc) or as the rank goes up. So a R1/T1 fireball might cost 5 energy and do damage appropriate to T1 content, the R2/T2 brings it up to 10 energy with more damage, and so on. Coupled with this, energy orbs would give varying amounts of energy based on the tier of the content. - The upside is damage would scale with content in a controlled manner. - The downside is that it would create a situation where we would potentially want yet more mod layouts. 2. Scale with Conclave rating or the rank of the frame. Many games has some sort of level based scaling. Either of those two things would be the closest Warframe can get to it, since Mastery Rank wouldn't be appropriate. Rank of the frame would be the best choice, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azamagon Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 In short - add CC/buff/debuff/elemental proc into the powers to make them worth casting regardless of level. Agreed completely. And that's exactly what I've been doing with my latest rebalancing threads too btw :P At least, doing so would give them a temporary fix of being useable on all levels of gameplay before any (if at all) damagebalancing might take place. Fleeting Expertise: Quite possibly DE's worst idea ever. Actually, Fleeting Expertise could've been fine, if they kept the old power efficiency formula (although, then the duration penalty of Fleeting Expertise would have to be reduced to just -30% or so). If you don't know how it used to work, it pretty much used to work like all other formulas: Rather than being a multiplication of the direct efficiency, it was a more balanceable division instead. Let me illustrate: New, current formula on efficiency: X * Z = Y X = Energy cost before efficiency Z = Percentage of efficiency Y = Energy cost after efficiency Which means, if you have an ability with 100 energy cost and a power efficiency of 75% you'd get this: 100 * 0,75 = 25 Clearly overpowered, and also with the downside of requiring a hardcap of how much efficiency is allowed (otherwise you could potentially be able to make your abilities cost 0 energy!). Old formula for efficiency X / (1 + Z) = Y Same meanings for the values. Which means, if you have an ability with 100 energy cost and a power efficiency of 75% you'd get this: 100 / 1,75 = 57 This would definitely not be overpowered, nor would it require any hardcap at all either! So yeah, my suggestions for rebalancing abilities: 1) Give EVERY ability some form of utility. EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM! 2) Change back the efficiencyformula to the old one (Plus reduce the penalty of Fleeting Expertise to about half of the current one) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monolake Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 (edited) I wouldn't say powers across the board suck. Even the likes of Mag, with her rather crappy ultimate can do a ton of damage with that. 1k base damage, 18m range, means she can do 1.57k to everything within a radius of 30.6m, for a cost of 25 energy. And while that damage doesn't do much to the heavies, it clears out the trash (will take 2 uses against resist neutral mobs above a certain level, admittedly) and temporarily CC's the bosses. So its use allows the rest of the team to focus on those bosses. Some of the non-ultimates aren't too bad either. Shock is probably the best damage dealing #1, while Fireball isn't too bad. - Resists/vulnerabilities have too much impact. This serves to both crank up weapon damage (swap some mods) and potentially hurt power ones (bring a different frame). My view on things is that, for the frames with damaging dealing powers, the "alternative to gunplay" types, #1 should be the most used button. But that mostly won't be the case with the current pricing structure. Resits make it useless, Mag is so shoehorned into anti-corpus role that even her ult is a joke on mid-level armor units. This is with +66% from Intense+Blind rage: 1660 becomes ... 266 damage. Thats about 2 bullets damage from half-moded Braton. (And btw this is a starting frame that is supposed to be used for long time fighting all types of units) I doubt the monetisation model is the issue here, after all the frames are being sold too, and while the focus of the game is clearly on 'shooter' part, there is no excuse for abilities to be this bad (and some abilities are not bad at all, as we all know, so its a matter of poor balancing and lack of testing if anything) Fleeting Expertise: Quite possibly DE's worst idea ever. I cant agree, because only with max efficiency build you can freely use some of the abilities which otherwise cost too much, and actually start to use a frame to its full potential. But it makes some skills exploitable, especially with with duration mods and lack of cooldowns. But most pure damage skills? spam them all you want, you still do much lower damage than the weapons. Multishot for abilities? In all reality, that's the only way abilities will ever catch up. Same goes for melee... Multishot is nothing but a flat damage multiplier with some RNG involved. I have proposed to buff Blind Rage at least 2 times to actually be universally useful unlike it is now - for all the spammable abilities Blind Rage is bad past rank 2 or 3, you are better of with max efficiency, thus you have no way to significantly increase the power strength and remain efficient. The only hope I have is that the 'Focus' system will add new ways to improve and strengthen abilities. Edited April 2, 2014 by Monolake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealPandemonium Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Good points made by the OP. Some things I would like to add: 1. Infinite content is not the focus of balance, should not be, and never will be. 2. Damage abilities are pretty good, if overshadowed by guns. Excessive gun damage is a problem, but Grineer armor scaling is also a problem since it makes them so durable that most abilities are below par for killing them. 3. It is imperative that abilities involve gameplay and interaction. Pressing 4 to kill everything in the room doesn't offer much gameplay. Trinity's Blessing also trivializes the whole "staying alive" part of gameplay. Abilities like Ember's Accelerant and Zephyr's Tornado are good examples of abilities that create gameplay while still being powerful. Hopefully we will see the room-clearers remade over time into abilities that are strong but have to be aimed or otherwise taken advantage of to give their power to the player. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axterix13 Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 (edited) Resits make it useless, Mag is so shoehorned into anti-corpus role that even her ult is a joke on mid-level armor units. This is with +66% from Intense+Blind rage: 1660 becomes ... 266 damage. Thats about 2 bullets damage from half-moded Braton. (And btw this is a starting frame that is supposed to be used for long time fighting all types of units) I doubt the monetisation model is the issue here, after all the frames are being sold too, and while the focus of the game is clearly on 'shooter' part, there is no excuse for abilities to be this bad (and some abilities are not bad at all, as we all know, so its a matter of poor balancing and lack of testing if anything) The thing is, the ability itself isn't that bad. The problem is the systems it interacts with. DE isn't very good when it comes to numbers for buffs/debuffs. You see it all over the place. Damage mods, for example, provide bonuses that are way too big. And another place you see it is with resists. Those lancers have 50% resists on their alloy armor. That freaking huge. That amount of resists should not exist other than on the occasional rare mob. Alloy Armor also has +++ to Radiation, which is a 75% increase in damage. Again, freaking huge. Those numbers are just insane. But what is even more insane is armor. If it is multiplicative, well, that means 1660 became 830 thanks to resists... and armor then chopped that down to 266, or reduced it by 68%. If it is additive, then you're looking at an 84% reducing, which would mean 50% from the resists, and 34% from armor, which is a more reasonable amount (assuming they have lower hp to compensate for this DR)... but not when added to 50%. One way, the amount armor reduces damage is whack, the other, how they stack is. When you use something like those lancers, you're no longer talking about the power. You're talking about the mess that is armor and resists. It is an important distinction, because if you tried to beef up Crush to handle being resisted 50% + armor, it'd be overpowered everywhere else. Not to mention, your partially modded Braton, if it were shooting magnetic, would be equally screwed. But if you go up against Infested, which are neutral to magnetic, you'll get a different story. The power is useful and stays that way for longer. And that's the type of target you do need for testing. You need that neutral target. Because then you're talking about the power itself and not the mess that is the resist numbers for D2.0 and the armor system. If you took your mag into an ODD, you'd be hitting the basic infested types (level 25) for the full 1660. Short version: the power is fine. Resists and armor are out of whack. And yeah, not sure why they would pick Mag as a starter frame. She's so anti-Corpus. Edited April 2, 2014 by Axterix13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoomFruit Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Fleeting Expertise: Quite possibly DE's worst idea ever. No, that would be removing every single armour-ignoring damage type, while still keeping infinite armour scaling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(PSN)billy-d-squid Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 (edited) Resits make it useless, Mag is so shoehorned into anti-corpus role that even her ult is a joke on mid-level armor units. This is with +66% from Intense+Blind rage: 1660 becomes ... 266 damage. Thats about 2 bullets damage from half-moded Braton. (And btw this is a starting frame that is supposed to be used for long time fighting all types of units) *snip* The only hope I have is that the 'Focus' system will add new ways to improve and strengthen abilities. It's not the power that is so much the issue, although some need far more utility not just a straight DPS boost, it's the elemental damage system which is completely broken. 50% damage resistance vs Magnetic (Crush)! F*** me, no wonder it's pointless to take mag vs the Grineer, and yet 75% damage bonus vs shields? Wut? No wonder everyone uses Mag vs Corpus. It strikes me sometimes that DE doesn't play test this before it releases a patch, frankly sometimes I worry they don't think things through when it comes to balancing the abilities, especially when I see these % flying about. IMO no 1 damage type should give more than 25% damage buff or resistance to a power or weapon. Anything more than that you relegate it to useless lvls or daft OP lvls. Look at Ember, the neutral damage for Heat type attacks vs Grineer and Corpus combined with Accelerant makes her actually useable vs any faction. True, I do have to pay a chunk of energy for the DPS reaching into 20,000+ for using Accelerant and World on Fire, but that two stage priming process is something that Frames like Nova could benefit from, not just spamming 4. If I had a 50% resistance vs Heat from the Grineer, I wouldn't bother using my Ember Prime against them, as it is, with the Corrosive projection it's actually workable. Edited April 2, 2014 by (PS4)billy-d-squid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monolake Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 (edited) The thing is, the ability itself isn't that bad. The problem is the systems it interacts with. DE isn't very good when it comes to numbers for buffs/debuffs. You see it all over the place. Damage mods, for example, provide bonuses that are way too big. And another place you see it is with resists. Those lancers have 50% resists on their alloy armor. That freaking huge. That amount of resists should not exist other than on the occasional rare mob. Alloy Armor also has +++ to Radiation, which is a 75% increase in damage. Again, freaking huge. Those numbers are just insane. But what is even more insane is armor. If it is multiplicative, well, that means 1660 became 830 thanks to resists... and armor then chopped that down to 266, or reduced it by 68%. If it is additive, then you're looking at an 84% reducing, which would mean 50% from the resists, and 34% from armor, which is a more reasonable amount (assuming they have lower hp to compensate for this DR)... but not when added to 50%. One way, the amount armor reduces damage is whack, the other, how they stack is. When you use something like those lancers, you're no longer talking about the power. You're talking about the mess that is armor and resists. It is an important distinction, because if you tried to beef up Crush to handle being resisted 50% + armor, it'd be overpowered everywhere else. Not to mention, your partially modded Braton, if it were shooting magnetic, would be equally screwed. But if you go up against Infested, which are neutral to magnetic, you'll get a different story. The power is useful and stays that way for longer. And that's the type of target you do need for testing. You need that neutral target. Because then you're talking about the power itself and not the mess that is the resist numbers for D2.0 and the armor system. If you took your mag into an ODD, you'd be hitting the basic infested types (level 25) for the full 1660. Short version: the power is fine. Resists and armor are out of whack. And yeah, not sure why they would pick Mag as a starter frame. She's so anti-Corpus. I prefer testing on the void because it has mobs of all types and you need to fight armored enemies more then any other type in the game overall. And that's the system problem indeed, like outlined in the original post, you can mod every weapon for every faction, doesn't matter much if its impact, puncture or slash. But there is no way to mod a frame, you simply cant make Mag good vs armor. Its especially bad with how limited the number of frames available, since they are harder to get and by default you get only 2 slots. I highly doubt armor is going away, thus abilities have to be improved to work vs armored enemies too. Edited April 2, 2014 by Monolake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeAura Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 I prefer testing on the void because it has mobs of all types and you need to fight armored enemies more then any other type in the game overall. And that's the system problem indeed, like outlined in the original post, you can mod every weapon for every faction, doesn't matter much if its impact, puncture or slash. But there is no way to mod a frame, you simply cant make Mag good vs armor. Its especially bad with how limited the number of frames available, since they are harder to get and by default you get only 2 slots. inb4 Corrosive Projection, because having only 1 option to counter a faction isn't good enough. Every frame needs multiple choices to deal with each faction, in different ways. That's why Speed got a melee attack rate boost way back when. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealPandemonium Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 inb4 Corrosive Projection, because having only 1 option to counter a faction isn't good enough. Every frame needs multiple choices to deal with each faction, in different ways. That's why Speed got a melee attack rate boost way back when. Corrosive Projection isn't even an option because Energy Siphon exists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(PSN)billy-d-squid Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 (edited) I think it's important to keep in mind that every frame should not be equally good against all factions, or we'll move to a rather boring perfectly balanced system where one frame is the same as another with just a different coat of paint.Mag having difficulty with Grineer armour, okay, but -50% damage and -30% with the armour, ouch. That's far too harsh, and pushes mag into the territory of "don't touch with a barge pole vs Grineer"What we need is perfect imbalance.Frames should perform better in certain areas than others, but they should be able to handle their weak points given enough skill, without being mindlessly punished by the damage system for arbitrary reasons, forcing players to rely on guns to get them through the lvl as their frame powers are useless. Edited April 2, 2014 by (PS4)billy-d-squid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Methanoid Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 what are you suggesting as a cure here OP? replacing all aoe abilitys with single target stuff? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axterix13 Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 (edited) I prefer testing on the void because it has mobs of all types and you need to fight armored enemies more then any other type in the game overall. And that's the system problem indeed, like outlined in the original post, you can mod every weapon for every faction, doesn't matter much if its impact, puncture or slash. But there is no way to mod a frame, you simply cant make Mag good vs armor. Its especially bad with how limited the number of frames available, since they are harder to get and by default you get only 2 slots. I highly doubt armor is going away, thus abilities have to be improved to work vs armored enemies too. You can't fix the abilities though, not against that amount of armor. 16% vs 100%. That's just way, way too much of a drop. Sure, you could give the power the ability to bypass armor/resists to a certain degree, but that's just extra levels of complications to fix the symptom that is better dealt with by directly tackling the root cause. Alternately, you could give the power two damage types, which would help mitigate the impact of resists, but it is only a matter of time until a mob exists that resists both damage types, and then you're right back where we started, especially if that mob is a common type. The armor system needs to be looked at. It doesn't have to go away, but either the amount is too much or how it stacks with resists is borked. Resist amounts should be reduced, cut in half at the least. Because the proper way to fix things is to fix the actual problem, not the symptoms. The latter only leads to more complications and hassles down the road. That said, we do agree that something needs to be changed, as the current implementation is flawed. I would just prefer to see the actual design issue fixed, rather than trying to design further around it. Edited April 2, 2014 by Axterix13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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