Gimped By Design And System: The Miserable State Of Damage Abilities.

[Monolake]

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 is actually a very strong and underrated armor counter, especially if 2 or more players use it, but like it was said, it arguably hurts abilities usage because you sacrifice energy regen, and it benefits weapon damage more. If Corrosive  and Energy regen  also existed as a normal frame mods versions...

 

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.

 

But every weapon is good vs every faction - just swap the elemental mods to counter resistances. Despite having very large choice of weapons and

more free slots, each weapon is perfectly moddable vs every faction/enemy.  

I don't see a reason to make some frames very bad vs particular faction, especially with limited platinum-only warframe slots. Frames are diverse enough by their abilities, roles and playstyles to be interesting, why cant they be moddable just like weapons, to fight any faction.

 

 

what are you suggesting as a cure here OP?

 

replacing all aoe abilitys with single target stuff?

Considering room-cleaners? Like I said, large AOEs could be CC/debuffs, or at least they need some limitations on use to prevent easy press-4-to-win spam, while target abilities should be buffed and be modable to deal more damage to remain useful for high-level players. Not single targets, but acting in smaller targeted area or a 'corridor' similar to Frost Icewave.

[(PSN)billy-d-squid]

But every weapon is good vs every faction - just swap the elemental mods to counter resistances. Despite having very large choice of weapons and

more free slots, each weapon is perfectly moddable vs every faction/enemy.  

I don't see a reason to make some frames very bad vs particular faction, especially with limited platinum-only warframe slots. Frames are diverse enough by their abilities, roles and playstyles to be interesting, why cant they be moddable just like weapons, to fight any faction.

 

 

Which is why they are too powerful in some cases. *cough* Soma/ Penta *cough* and the dual stat mods need toning down, as do the elemental mods. What we are seeing is HP and armour inflation to combat that, yet the mods push weapon viability well above that of powers so powers drag behind. 

 

For instance, I have the Larton Prime, dealing primarily puncture damage it tends to suck vs infested and corpus, but I can put heat and magnetic damage on it and boom, it's absolutely punches through them, until you hit maybe lvl 60. That IMO is dumb.

 

The problem isn't that I can mod the weapon to take on the Corpus and infested. The problem is that the mods and damage table make the weapon damage types too good for a specialised weapon at general purpose combat against factions it was supposed to not be that good against. I could use a specialised Corpus weapon or infested weapon, but it's easier to mod the existing one as I can get 339 magnetic damage with a Latron Prime, and I get the 75% damage boost for shields if I mod it with magnetic. My Latron Prime is now a corpus killer. 

 

I certainly don't want weapons to be restricted in use to specific factions, but they should have a preference for their use. The Latron Prime with 339 Magnetic damage, with the 75% damage boost vs the Corpus is a better Corpus killer than any unmodded weapon which uses plain impact damage. That's a problem. if the calculation for damage is multiplicative that can give me potentially over 593 magnetic damage per shot....on a supposed anti armour weapon...wut?

 

^That's the problem, right there.

 

Weapons become far too powerful against factions that they were not designed to be good against. They should be useable though, just not that powerful. If I am a good shot with a Latron, I should be rewarded for my skill regardless of what faction I use it against, but I can mod it and put down shots willy nilly and it won't matter as I can abuse the hell out of the damage tables to push my damage lvls up.

 

You want that for Frames? I don't. What would be the difference between choosing one vs another?

 

Frames can be specialised. But currently certain frames, are only usable vs one faction, using them vs any other results in the game beating you over the head with a proverbial stick until you chose the the "right" frame That's how it is currently.

 

Eg:

Look at Volt before the earlier update, he was absolute garbage vs the Infested and Grineer, he was only vaguely useful vs the Corpus. The changes that they implemented helped no end. He's actually half way decent now as electric damage is neutral vs infested, you want his powers to be moddable? So you want him to achieve the same damage as Ember vs infested? That IMO is wrong, fundamentally so and game breaking. That is if I've interpreted what you meant correctly?

 

At no point should Frames like Mag, Volt etc. edge on to Ember's territory and vice versa. But they must, absolutely must be able to hold their own vs other factions. Buffing damage doesn't address that as it just makes them OP vs the intended faction and vaguely useful vs the others. 

 

That's what I mean by perfect imbalance. 

 

The current massive damage buff and nerf % on the damage 2.0 tables are wildly off and throw everything out of order, making it too easy for frames to exist at extreme ends of the damage table. Think of it like a bell curve for statistical distribution techniques. IMO no frame should ever have more than a 25% elemental damage boost from the damage table and no more than 25% damage nerf vs a type of armour/ shield/ flesh due to it. Look at Mag's 50% damage reduction for a perfect example of why it relegates her into unusable territory vs Grineer. The lvl of damage reduced by armour should also be reduced.

Edited April 3, 2014 by (PS4)billy-d-squid

[Axterix13]

The current massive damage buff and nerf % on the damage 2.0 tables are wildly off and throw everything out of order, making it too easy for frames to exist at extreme ends of the damage table. Think of it like a bell curve for statistical distribution techniques. IMO no frame should ever have more than a 25% elemental damage boost from the damage table and no more than 25% damage nerf vs a type of armour/ shield/ flesh due to it. Look at Mag's 50% damage reduction for a perfect example of why it relegates her into unusable territory vs Grineer. The lvl of damage reduced by armour should also be reduced.

The resist amounts definitely should be changed.  Chopped in half at the least, which would serve both to make the likes of Mag more effective against Grineer and other armored types, as well as reduce player damage a bit when resists are in their favor.

 

The armor, well, did a little testing with my Saryn, using Miasma.  100% corrosive, which is neutral to Corrupted Lancers.  Hit them in the mid-400s.  Then I went and did an ODD, against Chargers and Volatile Runners, both of which are also neutral to Corrosive.  Hits them for 1471.  Which means that the armor on the lancers is reducing damage by around 70%.  That would seem to indicate that the damage reduction is multiplicative, which is good.  Still, that is a lot of reduction by armor for a level 23ish mob.  Makes you wonder... how does that Corrupted Lancer HP compare to an Infested of about similar level?

 

Guess more testing could figure that out, but that's more effort than I want to put in ;)  Will say this though... if that Lancer has more than half the hp of the Infested unit, armor definitely needs to be adjusted.  And given that the Infested unit is melee, the Lancer shouldn't really even have more than 30%.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Axterix13

[BizarreFetalChimpanzee]

A friend and I have been discussing this issue for quite some time and came up with this as a plausible solution: change all damage abilities from being static numbers into percentage based powers.

 

More specifically, rather than a damage ability doing X damage, it does Y% damage. Granted, these percentages would have to be adjusted properly to maintain balance, but if done right, this helps solve two problems: nuking everything in low levels, but can still actually do damage in high-level content.

 

Again, it would be tough to balance out, but it done properly would solve a lot of the issues of certain frames being gods in low levels, and total garbage in high levels. 

[OblivionNecroninja]

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)

1) Alternatively, you could do away with Serration and Hornet Strike, and reduce the HP/Armor/Shields of high level enemies significantly.

2) Why'd they change it in the first place!?

[Azamagon]

1) Alternatively, you could do away with Serration and Hornet Strike, and reduce the HP/Armor/Shields of high level enemies significantly.

2) Why'd they change it in the first place!?

1) Or at least, nerf them and the elemental mods. Like, really, really much. While of course also reducing the hp/armor/shields of enemies.

2) Because people were whiny little b!tches that failed at math, that's why! -.- Although, it was fine back then, due to only Streamline existing.

They all went:

Whiny idiots: "Waaaah, I haz 30% efizinci, wai not mai ultimate be kosting 70 enrgi instedd of 100????"

People like me: "Because math *explains thoroughly* "

Whiny idiots: "Waaah, I cant haz undherstend mafemafiks, my brain be hurtzes, mejk it ze wey me wantses iiit!!!!"

DE: "Fine you little idiots, power efficiency now works the easy way"

 

In afterthought, I actually don't really blame DE for changing it back then... >_>

But yeah, they really ought to revert it now when Fleeting Expertise exists.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Azamagon

[Ohmlink]

Biggest issue for powers is armor resistances like most have already said. This is why lots of people wanted it to be a separate health bar. Then at least once you got through the armor the resistances wouldn't stack, but alas DE has decided they want armor to behave differently than shields.

 

Another issue, not all powers are created equal, some aspects of some powers are not affected by the negative of Fleeting Expertise, so we end up with 25 energy ultimates without the intended drawback. If DE actually wanted to balance the game they would have fixed that already.

 

Mutishot and Straight Damage Mods need to die or at the very least reduced to the same level power damage is.

 

Someone once again wanted to add a Percentage portion to powers, that's fine but I'd rather have the DPS of all 3 methods equalized before we break the game more. Removing the Mods above would do a lot for that.

 

DE needs to decide where they want the game to end and have everything die off at that point. Guns carrying to 80 and beyond while everything except utility dies at 20-30 is no way to make a game. Something this extreme should have never happened.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Ohmlink

[Quovander]

Gonna have to bump this since the issue is starting to get on my nerves. It's almost impossible to get creative with Warframe builds because everyone just goes for the generic utility-based builds which limits what Warframes/Weapons are used. I'm getting sick and tired of seeing the same compositions over and over.

I swear the Warframes I mostly see are:

Rhino (Prime)

Nova
Loki

Vauban

Nekros

 

(With the exception of the newbie corner; Mercury-Earth, where everyone's Excalibur).

 

Damage abilities need to scale with the higher lvl mobs. Otherwise, you might as well remove them from the game.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Bro_Z

[Outblade]

Reworking the system would be the best option at this point. Removing mod slot requirements for abilities and make it rank based would be a start. Second would be inducing cooldowns on abilities (Mostly ultimates to prevent obnoxius spamming) And changing how energy works and just giving it a flat regen rate similar to mana.

Now for scaling. That is just a can of worms because the most I can come up with is mods that will replace the 4 current ability mod slots that will give scaling for power, range, duration, and casting speed based on the level of the enemy being fought. Now the problem comes up when weapons become useless and powers become really powerful.

A second solution would be to create mods similar to the current weapon mods. Where it will give abilities different properties aside from power, range, duration, and cast time. Giving elemental dmg to frame abilties may be a bit much, but giving them a flat %dmg increase mod, one that isnt based on power strength would be a better idea. Giving %Chance to proc mods would also be an idea. This would allow for much higher customization for frames themselves as well as fixing (for the most part) the scaling issue with some frames.

My idea is just bring abilties up to par with weapons in terms of dps and usablitiy. As well as adding the variety that can be applied in terms of mods.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Outblade

[Tarille]

Ability scaling is an issue...

 

When you start getting to level 30+ mobs (Not even the "High" level mobs from endless modes, just the later planets will have them as base) abilities just do lackluster damage with just maxxed Intensify. Blind Rage will help, but only for a few more levels (Also has the downside of making them less usable due to the efficiency reduction)

 

It's tedious to see and use builds for frames that flat out remove certain abilities and forma the slots to provide room for other mods instead - To the point where I've seen tons of builds that run with only 1 frame ability and the rest of the mods are just supplements to maximize that 1 skill and/or mods that help with survivability.

 

At the moment, the mainly used abilities are the ones that scale (Such as CC, since it scales with weapons - The more damage your weapons deal, the better the time it gives you is) or ones that provide utility (Such as Desecrate) - Non-scaling abilities are often just left out in favour of better mods.

 

It also doesn't help that abilities rely so heavily on Energy - Which is very limited (Even with 75% efficiency) and either relies on getting Orbs to drop or having people with Energy Siphon equipped (Another feature stifling builds - So many frames have forma'd their Aura to fit in Energy Siphon because of how necessary the energy regen is compared to other auras benefits)

 

I'd suggest a complete overhaul of the entire system:

 

- Remove ability polarity slots and mods, instead tying them to unlock at frame levels - Possibly also make forma'd frames keep all 4 abilities.

 

- Massively reduce the effectiveness of the frame based power mods - Make them useful, but not as strong as they currently are (Corrupted mods should also have their downside reduced to compensate)

 

- Allow customization and modding of individual abilities (Could be accessed through the symbols for the abilities on the right side of the character loadout screen) - Providing mods similar to that of weapons to allow for scaling (Through damage, duration, efficiency, range etc as well as things like elemental damage, armour pierce, status effects and damage, multi-hit etc) - It would also mean that all 4 abilities could be made usable, unlike currently where you often just pick one skill to max out and the negatives of the corrupted mods you use completely destroy any viability of other abilities (For example, a fully done Antimatter Bomb + Molecular Prime build for Nova makes Null Star completely useless)

 

- Allow for at least some passive regen of energy - Either to replace Energy Siphon or to go along with it.

 

- Re-tune some already good abilities so they don't become ridiculously powerful (For example Molecular Prime - It's already a good ability because it has scaling through the 200% damage taken debuff, the slow it makes up for the fact the damage becomes outleveled quickly (Though, due to the nature of it increasing exponentially the more targets that can explode simultaneously, the larger numbers of enemies encountered later also give the damage pseudo scaling))

 

In my opinion, this would be the only way to "Provide an alternative to gunplay" without completely destroying weapon scaling and modding. It would also make building a frame more interesting, as you'd be able to try and include multiple abilities or set them up for dealing with specific factions.

[Ttariel]

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.

 

I agree, but sady we are far from it.

For example Loki is better in almost all moments then Ash.

[Atholl]

Or DE can just make Skills customizable (like weapons).

for example:

I have a slash dash, at max level deals 500 slash damage, it has 15 mod capacity (the single skill) and i can boost the damage to 1000 with a mod or i can give it more travel distance or even choose to get a 100% proc on the slash status.

Yeah how to mod mods baby.

[Monolake]

Now for scaling. That is just a can of worms because the most I can come up with is mods that will replace the 4 current ability mod slots that will give scaling for power, range, duration, and casting speed based on the level of the enemy being fought. Now the problem comes up when weapons become useless and powers become really powerful.

 

 

Enemies-dependant % based scaling already exist for weapons: viral proc halves the health (http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_2.0/Viral_Damage) and corrosive does -25% armor. 

[BlueSilkMetallic]

the solution is realy easy :

just give us skill mod slots like weapon mod slots.

 

more mods, more money for de.

more power for us :D