De. You Can't Ignore This Any More. (Penta, Ogris And Angstrum Feedback)

[Seele]

Penta and Angstrum have less firepower so reducing their Ammo to less than 50 would be a crime. 72 seems appropriate for Ogris.

Alright boldy-italics.

 

There's a game called Team Fortress 2 with a 4-round rocket launcher with 20 rockets in reserve and it almost never runs out of ammo unless the user camps in one spot and doesn't venture out to collect drops.

That's a pretty stellar model if you ask me, and it's been working for some time there. Could work here. You want to just rain grenades on the cryopod? Don't get too comfy wherever you're hiding out at.

 

Yes there's the option to just use team ammo restores over and over. I fully acknowledge that reducing max carrying capacity for these weapons won't completely balance them, nor will it neuter them like most nay-sayers seem to imply. But as it stands there's not even an allusion towards any form of limitation on these weapons and it makes it hard to take them seriously, like very little thought was put into their design...

 

To reduce their effects in combat, I would advocate magazine size and reload speed debuffs. But that would hurt a lot of butts, and I get in trouble for suggesting things which may hurt people's butts. This is a relatively reasonable suggestion that may not solve the real problem but at least once or twice, some guy is gonna run out of ammo for his Penta and freak out about it for like, twelve seconds.

[Pendragon1951]

To the OP one mistake you have made in your posts that I myself have done many times and have given up on is the idea of applying logic to this game. There are many things in this game which defy logic one of which as you pointed out is ammo but to be honest I like it this way it's just more fun.

[SirAuron]

Alright boldy-italics.

 

There's a game called Team Fortress 2 with a 4-round rocket launcher with 20 rockets in reserve and it almost never runs out of ammo unless the user camps in one spot and doesn't venture out to collect drops.

That's a pretty stellar model if you ask me, and it's been working for some time there. Could work here. You want to just rain grenades on the cryopod? Don't get too comfy wherever you're hiding out at.

 

Yes there's the option to just use team ammo restores over and over. I fully acknowledge that reducing max carrying capacity for these weapons won't completely balance them, nor will it neuter them like most nay-sayers seem to imply. But as it stands there's not even an allusion towards any form of limitation on these weapons and it makes it hard to take them seriously, like very little thought was put into their design...

 

To reduce their effects in combat, I would advocate magazine size and reload speed debuffs. But that would hurt a lot of butts, and I get in trouble for suggesting things which may hurt people's butts. This is a relatively reasonable suggestion that may not solve the real problem but at least once or twice, some guy is gonna run out of ammo for his Penta and freak out about it for like, twelve seconds.

So you idea is to rain rocket and grenade ammo while having a very limited ammo pool?

[Seele]

So you idea is to rain rocket and grenade ammo while having a very limited ammo pool?

That's the premise of the entire thread, if you're just joining us now.

[Arunafeltz]

I still find the idea of shoving 510 spare explosive rounds up your &#! pretty amusing. But hey, it's super-advanced Warframe technology right?

 

 

I'm not all too concerned about the ridiculous amount of ammunition these weapons have, and yes I own them all. But if they stay this way, I want a change to the Miter to use Rifle ammunition instead of Sniper.

[(PSN)ShadowDancing-]

Perhaps DE should make another server with another build of the game.

 

We "nerf-nazis" can continue playing the game we all play now.

The other server can host a build in which players may choose a number key (1-4) or the left mouse button to win the game with each option offering a differing variety of explosions and number pop-ups.

 

Know what else was a PvE co-op game? Borderlands. And in Borderlands, rocket launchers, and the rockets which were fired out of them, were both rare and expensive. So you couldn't just blow up everything in the game with your overpowered rocket launcher. There were reasons to use other weapons and strategies.

And yet they were still wildly popular! Imagine that. But here we are trying to suck all the fun out of the game, shame on us.

If you played any amount of borderlands, then you really missed the point. These limitations nerfed explosives to useless completely unfun ness. My SMG always out dps'd the rocket launcher. Or shotgun in Borderlands 2. But so glad you brought realism and balance to the conversation. Ha ha ha ha

[Seele]

I still find the idea of shoving 510 spare explosive rounds up your &#! pretty amusing. But hey, it's super-advanced Warframe technology right?

 

 

I'm not all too concerned about the ridiculous amount of ammunition these weapons have, and yes I own them all. But if they stay this way, I want a change to the Miter to use Rifle ammunition instead of Sniper.

I mean that's what I'm getting at. Fairly lackluster weapons like Miter, Braton, Karak, and machine pistols in general all struggle to remain usable whatsoever without a mutation mod, which sacrifices precious mod space, or ammo restores, which slows down gameplay even if only slightly.

Meanwhile Ogris and Penta can use a single round to clear a room.

 

It should go one of two ways - either the weapons most often having ammo problems are the ones which can do the most with a single round, or nothing has ammo problems. Nobody should be scrambling to shove 20 more rounds into their Grakata so they can chip away half of an ancient's health when the Penta can outright kill it and everything it's ever held dear, 20 times, with the same ammo pickup.

[Seele]

If you played any amount of borderlands, then you really missed the point. These limitations nerfed explosives to useless completely unfun ness. My SMG always out dps'd the rocket launcher. Or shotgun in Borderlands 2. But so glad you brought realism and balance to the conversation. Ha ha ha ha

Wooaah ho ho. When did I ever say "realism"?

 

I've played more borderlands than I care to admit and rocket launchers were very far from "nerfed" or "un-fun". It also has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand here. How effective your weapons were compared to each other has no relevance. The fundamental core concepts of rocket launchers in general in the game, however, is a far better model than the one in Warframe, and what I was referencing.

[SirAuron]

 

That's the premise of the entire thread, if you're just joining us now.

That seems backwards...

 

Edited May 27, 2014 by SirAuron

[low1991]

i know.

reduce explosive weapon' ammo pool or damage, while at that REMOVE self-damage.

[Eyeless]

I think this is a thread for people who actually use the weapons, not a rally for nerf-herders (5 brownie points) who dislike other people using explosive weaponry. Now, why am I 95% sure the "PvE" argument doesn't work here? The OP isn't ranting, and he's actually conciliatory at the end. Therefore, this isn't a reactionary forumer responding to a situation in which an Ogris-wielding-Rhino ruined his game.

 

Also, I personally have the Angstrum, and as much as I love it, I think it would feel more like a heavy-hitting secondary if it didn't have 210 rounds. All that ammo makes each shot feel meaningless, like just petty explosion after petty explosion. No one even needs that much ammo. I want it to feel like every shot counts for something.

 

Reducing it would also, for me, justify that insane base damage.

This is what happens: Ammo mods becomes useful.

 

Like how Duration became useful on Nova.

 

Is that bad?

 

What's bad about this is coming to a complete halt mid-game to plop down an Ammo Restore completely kills the pace of the game as you sit around and wait for the limited ammo to get dispensed. 

 

They're tedious to build and not everyone likes dealing with them.

 

Being forced into using an Ammo oriented mod is as bad as already being forced to use Serration and Hornet Strike lest your build suffer completely at higher levels because despite trying to have fun you're going to suffer from deviating from the optimal damage build.

 

The issue with forcing Ammo increasing mods and Ammo mutations is it further limits the player's already scant modding options to achieve something that doesn't even fix the damn issue. 

 

What this entire thread boils down to here:

 

"Oh no! The three explosive weapons in this game have a lot of spare ammo! Lets try to decrease their ammo count and force players to use ammo mutations so the ammo gets restored anyway!"

 

"...but...aren't we back to Square 1 on something wasn't even an issue in comparison to all the other more important things that STILL need looked at? (Rainbow builds, Power Creep, RNG, Poor Build Options, etc etc)" 

 

"Well...no...maybe...yeah but...but..." 

[kaboomonme]

FWIW, I agree with you...

My issue at this point is that this is a non-issue.

Changing ammo count or type does nothing.

If we want to have real discussions about player limits, this isn't the place to start.

Let's start with:

Attribute Stacking

Being able to put 4 different elements in the same weapon and allow them to all do damage on each shot.

But these aren't conversations players want to have...

They'd rather whistle in the dark and talk about how a lower, but easily replaceable, ammo count will make the game feel more challenging.

Can't help but agree with this. I still think 500+ rockets is ridiculous, but at this point it's just a matter of opinion.

 

Ammo mutation is a more convenient form of ammo restore, with the cost being a mod slot and some mod points instead of a bunch of nanospores and ferrite.

As for why... It should be obvious. Players don't like running out of bullets in their third person shooter. This is an arcade shoot 'em up where death flows like water, not some survival-horror game where every bullet is precious. Highly limited ammo works in some games, but it patently doesn't in a game like Warframe - which is surely why DE added ammo mutation mods to begin with.

Like, the twin vipers are fun to use... But without ammo mutation, they simply fire too fast to actually play with since otherwise you run out of bullets.

- I still feel they could have done this differently. Back when I was using a Boltor, running out of ammo was a genuine fear. "I should play it safe and switch to my secondary, in case I run out of primary ammo. Then I would be in trouble if a Heavy unit shows up, and I may die."

With Ammo Mutations, it is literally possible to never run out of ammo. It does cost mod points, yes, but I honestly can't say if sacrificing a mod slot to eliminate a form of challenge is a good thing.

I don't see how unlimited use forma is a bad thing. It gives DE more money from plat sales, it gives players the ability to further customize their gun around the playstyle they like... The only downside is that it lets players make guns more powerful, but that's a pretty weaksauce downside because players like powerful guns, and giving them an opportunity to invest more in their favorite gun is a feature, not a flaw. Particularly when said feature is what allows just about all weapons, even notoriously bad ones like the Braton Mark 1 to, not compete, but at least hold their own even in reasonably high level play.

If anything, I feel this constant appealing for "balance" and "limits" is more harmful to the game, because the balance people ask for is inevitably a pipe dream (how's anyone supposed to balance two hundred distinct guns, twenty+ distinct warframes, the entire mod system? It's not possible) that lessens the opportunities for fun mayhem with friends.

- I would like to mention Team Fortress 2, but realized that it is a primarly PvP-focused game. Still, they managed to create a coherent, balanced (arguable) and really challenging PvE mode, despite nobody ever thinking a PvE mode for the game could be realized.

Every class had a role, a niche or an advantage over the rest, while having disadvantages as well. They perform their jobs well without treading on the toes of others, being a Co-op focused game. I think they did a pretty good job on balancing for that game, where everything is a viable choice over the other.

Having a set limit on stats gives the devs a goal they have to achieve for balance. But giving players the ability to boost said stats on their own accord just by paying money throws all of that out of the window. They can't add more challenge, as that would be detrimental to player's that didn't pay or invest as much, while the players that had said advantage would steamroll the content that was balanced around them.

Balance has been a touchy subject, and though always subjective, there are examples of good balance out there. Nobody "balances" a game to harm it, so I don't see "balance" being detrimental - only that balance can be subjective that it is so difficult to achieve.

Again, it depends on what type of game DE is aiming for. If they were trying to do a Sandbox-style game where "Balance doesn't matter", they might as well make one of those "Beat your boss" games. You beat your boss, to grind for weird and wacky weapons, to beat your boss more. Sometimes u get to change bosses or background decor. It's perfect. Your boss also doesn't beat you back, because that's not what the game was designed to do.

But DE trying to re-balance the game is because they care. They want the players to experience a game with a unique universe, rich lore, feel-good superpowers and a massive arsenal of weapons, while allowing players to be immersed in the Tenno race and their struggles against vast armies and large futuristic corporations against all odds. Remove the "struggles" part, and it can be viewed as a glorified sandbox for you to kill things with.

I appreciate it what they are trying to do. Again, a lot of changes have been unsatisfactory for a lot of people, but I'm glad they are trying.

*Also, who formas an MK-1 Braton anyways?

I feel that you're wrong. The less the player's limited, the better. If players want to spend the time to optimize their gun for maximum effectiveness, that's their choice. I usually don't multi-forma my guns, and that's my choice too.

The thing is, minmaxers will always minmax if there is any possibility to minmax at all. If forma were limited to one use per gun, they'd still bump up against the power ceiling. It's just that everyone else would basically have only three configurations for any given forma'd gun, since there's only three polarities: V/-/D. The other two are warframe powers and stance related.

- See post above

I wouldn't say it's ridiculously difficult to balance due to ammo or forma; it's ridiculously difficult to balance due to the sheer number of weapons available, and the interplay of frames/guns/mods and enemies. The game wasn't "balanced" prior to the introduction of forma either. It wasn't "balanced" prior to U8 when Ogris was introduced. At worst these are symptoms of the issue rather than the cause.

Mind you, I honestly don't think I operate under the same definition of balance that you guys do. Because honestly, I don't see a problem with certain weapons (ones that are generally high mastery, expensive in terms of resources, and generally have higher player skill requirements) being more powerful than other guns. It's a natural consequence of having so many guns.

Like, the Ogris, 520 ammo and all. I say that's completely balanced. Why? Because it's high risk and high reward. I have died more with the Ogris than literally any other weapon in the game. (Though Angstrom is edging up there.) This is because melee enemies, of which every faction has at least two, will very happily rush right up into mutual-kill range with your explosives. If it was weaker there'd be little reason to use it. Already I only rarely see pentas and ogrises in the games I play, and I usually don't bring them myself unless I'm planning on either lulzing around or as part of a pre-coordinated plan with my team.

There's another issue as well. Limiting ammo for the explosives basically turns one of your weapon slots almost useless since those rockets/grenades are too valuable to use. You ever play, like, any FPS with a huge powerful gun that only has a couple shots? It's the same principle. The BFG is too valuable to actually use because you might need it later. What generous* ammo supplies for explosives does for warframe is encourage players to engage in the mayhem.

The most fun I've had in warframe is a four man penta party, self-downing and all. Warframe isn't some hardcore hyper realistic simulator like ARMA for space ninjas, it's a pick up and play coop game billed as up to four one man armies tearing through space zombies, space wal-mart, and space fascists like a combine harvester tears through wheat. Lots of mayhem is part of the experience, and I don't take kindly to people trying to ruin the experience by limiting how much mayhem I can cause.

*What counts as generous is "enough to use casually" for purposes of my argument.

- I think I went too far off on bringing up the difficulty of balancing, as I wasn't pointing at the Ogris specifically. I was talking about the game in general, and I apologize for leading you to think otherwise. The Ogris used to be able to negate it's only downside with Blessing as well (That has since been sort-of fixed).

There are also certain angles (Say, from a higher ledge pointing downwards) that negates this downside, and effectively allows you to become the newest line of Tenno Turret Sentries, where all you do is play with 1 hand. Of course, arguably this is the player's choice, but if this is the most effective way to get the reward at the end of the mission, what's stopping the player from going through the most boring and tedious but effortless and risk-free way to do it?

There is then the ammo efficiency part. A lot of guys have been saying "but this is balanced out by the weapon firing slower!"

Come on, you're not fooling anyone by completely neglecting to mention the fact that it is a large AoE weapon with very high 1-shotting capabilities, as well as that range being further extended by Firestorm. There is a reason games with super-powered heavy feel-good weapons don't let you throw your weight around without sufficient downsides to it (Limited time power-up, slowed movement speed for vulnerability etc). In this case, if you put a Boltor Prime and an Ogris through the same ordeal, barring ammo mutations and ammo restores, the Boltor Prime and Ogris will probably be performing just as well as each other, except Ogris doesn't have the risk of running out of ammo.

Then there's the logic part. I know "logic is irrelevant in a videogame" is a common thing to throw around, but it's not always the case. Maybe we could have laughed it off, saying "Lol, we don't even know what we're doing, enemies get sucked into your hand, rockets have 500 ammo, space magic", but looking at the aesthetic style, the currently-in-development lore etc, the game was not designed with comedic intent in mind, and wishes to deliver a nitty-gritty, survival co-op experience. With a humanoid space ninja with 500 rockets stuck up its &#! somewhere. Go figure.

Again, this may just be my opinion, you don't have to acknowledge what I say, but this is the point I'm trying to make.

In practice it is unlimited, though. Nobody's going to have to use more than ten ammo restores in one mission unless they're going deep in survival or defense, and most people can afford the couple thousand ferrite and nanospores it takes to make one without even noticing. Even if not, just one or two missions in Neptune will give all you need to craft them.

- Remember CBT Kril? Me and my group of buddies had to bring loads of ammo restores to the fight if we ever hoped of taking him down. And that was our 12th try, after dying to him for the past 11 times, and finding out that Bolt-type weapons worked best against him.

We had to take turns rationing our ammunition supplies and announce if we ran out of ammo, while running around scavenging for more. I myself was the first one to exhaust my entire supply of Boltor and Bolto ammo, but only because I was stubborn and brought 4 ammo restores instead of 6, thinking it would be enough.

Arguably this isn't really that relevant to the topic, but that was one of the most fun fights I've had in a while. Sure, people trying to farm him would get frustrated, but for a one-shot deal, he was really fun. This situation also happens in certain defense missions as well. If something in the game would ever provide a challenge like that and back the Tenno into a corner... sometime in the future... who knows.

So... back on topic. It used to be possible to run out of ammo. It no longer is. It could be a good thing, could be a bad thing, as always, it's subjective.

I felt that having to ration your ammo count among your teammates in order to survive was an essential part of the game. Not anymore I guess.

Replies in bold. Sorry for ridiculous amount of text.

Edited May 27, 2014 by kaboomonme

[Yaerion]

I'm not ok with gathering sniper ammo with rocket ammo. The size of the bullets are not the same. Rockets are huge.

Except that, I totally agree with the main subject of the thread.

IMO, rocket-type weapons should have 10-20 ammo (more likely 10 than 20 because magazine mods expansions).

Their ammo would grant 2 ammo per loot.

[taiiat]

Explosive Weapons are not alone in this. 

 

ALL. read my lips, ALL. Weapons need to have their Ammo Pools adjusted. it's a balancing factor we're not using on all but one Weapon. the Grakata.

 

Weapons like those Explosive ones obviously should have a smaller Ammo Pool. those which deal relatively low Damage per shot and pump Ammo somewhat quickly, should have larger. 

those which deal moderate / high Damage per shot and use Ammo relatively slowly, should have small Ammo Pools.

 

we need to have more Balancing factors if we want to be able to say there is actual choice in the game. elsewise, we continue the same trends we've had where a few items at any given time are the ones to use, and all others are inferior to them in 99.100% of the possible situations.

[Bayle_Fire]

Nobody said anything about the Castanas lol... Unless I over read it.

 

I think its EXTREMELY ammo efficient... Nerf that too please!

[arisaka]

This fix will make ammo make sense. It's great if the Penta, for example, is ammo efficient but it's completely nonsensical for it to have the same ammo reserve as the Gorgon while being orders of magnitude more ammo efficient. It has to be possible to run out of ammo before the mission ends.

 

I'm not saying that every gun should require the player to spend huge amounts of effort to conserve ammo, because that's ridiculous. Ammo efficiency is an important balancing factor but as it stands some weapons simply don't have enough and others have ten times what's enough. This fix is part of the larger effort to make all ammo make sense and that is something that will benefit the game enormously.

[Lordofgore]

So, I have a Major issue with this mainly because having 500 penta rounds doesn't actually negatively effect you your original point makes you sound like a total jackass. "I'm upset De haven't done what i wanted yet but i've yet to actually say anything until now." That the geist of a good 75% of feed back posts . maybe you make a better point latter but i'm not gonna read 7 pages of whining about the ammo system.
Plenty of weapons have high or low ammo economy , that's just a reality . Stuff needs re-balanced. But i'm more worried about when the orbital stations, player ships pet kubrows and oh the proxy war system and focus systems. and out of all the things that need re worked ammo is the last thing I or a majority of the the actual player base give a S#&$ about. ash and sayrn fixes would be nice make Oberon's hallowed ground more useful perhaps? perhaps make the grinlock do more dmg than it's pistol variant? make snipers actually do dmg. there is a laundry list of things that that take priority over ammo pools.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Lordofgore

[(PSN)atpbx]

The next thing you know we will have a special weapon slot for launchers so we can carry a worthwhile primary, side arm and then our super duper kills a couple of bad guys rocket launchers.

What's next?

Ammo bunkers in every level? Weapon lockers? Picking up the bad guys weapons?

[--G-Force--]

nerfing is going backwards, many games have been abandoned because of nerfing , dont wanna see it happen to frame , buff not nerf to balance

[(PSN)atpbx]

This fix will make ammo make sense. It's great if the Penta, for example, is ammo efficient but it's completely nonsensical for it to have the same ammo reserve as the Gorgon while being orders of magnitude more ammo efficient. It has to be possible to run out of ammo before the mission ends.

 

I'm not saying that every gun should require the player to spend huge amounts of effort to conserve ammo, because that's ridiculous. Ammo efficiency is an important balancing factor but as it stands some weapons simply don't have enough and others have ten times what's enough. This fix is part of the larger effort to make all ammo make sense and that is something that will benefit the game enormously.

This isn't a game that requires that level of tactical planning.

It's a throw away FTP mob shooter.

When they change the game from killing millions of brain dead clones, to a killing 20 to 40 intelligent, reactive, proactive AIs, that flank, take cover, hide etc, then changing ammo would make sense.

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

Being a happy user of all these three weapons, I too feel that their ammo cache is impossible to deplete. An easy fix is to simply make a new category named "rockets" and keep the +10 indicator, but to make the drop more rare instead.

[izzatuw]

Can someone tell me the fukin use of nerfing Penta ammo? I mean I literally have never reached less than 530 for my Penta. 5 forma so what's the use?

[izzatuw]

But you can get formas for free T^T

No you cu'nt

[SpilockT_T]

No you cu'nt

Yes you can -,-

[izzatuw]

Yes you can -,-

#Surcusm