How To Make Weapons Both Tiered And All Viable Using The Mastery System

[Tigercloud]

Summary

 

1. Cap Rank 8 as highest requirement for weapons. Implement 4 Tiers. Tier 1 = No Rank, Tier 2 = Rank 1-2, Tier 3 = Rank 3-5, Tier 4 = Rank 6=8.

2. Ranks 9-16 unlock cosmetics and the ability to increase a weapon's Tier.

 

Rank 9: Unlocks Weapon Skins

Rank 10: Able to raise a weapon's Tier by 1.

Rank 11: Unlocks Weapon Attachments

Rank 12: Able to raise a weapon's Tier by 2.

Rank 13: Unlocks Weapon Sound Effects

Rank 14: Able to raise a weapon's Tier by 3.

Rank 15: Unlocks Weapon Model Effects

Rank 16: Unlocks Weapon Customization (stat redistribution) and allows the player to rename their weapon.

 

3. Make cosmetics blueprints which are all unlocked in a player's foundry once they reach the appropriate Rank. Players can STILL buy cosmetics regardless of rank.

4. Profit.

 

Intro

 

There's basically two camps of people in Warframe regarding weapons. One camp wants clear and definite tiers of weapons, while the other wants all weapons to be viable. The philosophy of the latter camp is basically you should be able to use the weapons you enjoy the most (full disclosure, I more or less sit in this camp). The perspective of the tier camp is that without clear tiers, it is impossible to balance weaponry, with a minority opinion saying that without tiers all weapons become an unidentifiable mush. The counterargument to this opinion by the all weapons viable camp is that if you only have a few weapons that are top tier, and only those weapons can be used to effectively play the game, you have about 3-5 weapons to choose from total and there is no choice in gameplay.

 

In my opinion both camps are correct in their perspectives; the problem is how to come up with a solution that resolves all issues. Here is an attempt to provide one.

 

This system seeks to resolve the paradox between the tier camp and the viable camp by encouraging DE to make a rough tier system, supplemented by a weapon leveling system which allows any player to increase their weapon's power to equal top tier weaponry. This means those seeking the bleeding edge weapons can go straight for the top tier, and have the most effective means to combat difficult enemies immediately, while players who are attached to their weapons can eventually make them equal in power to the top tier, so they can play effectively with their favorite weapons. Lastly, the goal of this system is to provide not only the ability to make your weapon effective at the highest tier, but also to give the perk of personalizing your weapon, all based on your mastery rank. This is based around the idea that being able to make your Gorgon into “Shining Betty”, your sexy superweapon with a hot chick decal on the side, is something many players would appreciate. Players enjoy it when something goes from being “a thing” to “MY thing”.

 

Tier Section

 

I will not go into the tiering system in-depth, as I think there are other players who could develop a better system. I will simply make these arguments:

 

1. A tiering system that excessively separates tiers will make too many weapons obsolete. Tiers should be only moderate improvements from each other, not giant steps.

2. Tiers should only be definite upgrades from each other when the weapons in question are essentially of the same functionality. Don't put Drakgoon at the bottom tier, because it has a unique functionality and is the only one of its kind. If you are going to put something at the bottom tier, make it the Braton, which is of the same functionality as the Braton Prime, or the Burston, which is of the same functionality as the Burston Prime, the Hind, and technically the Sybaris.

 

The tiering system should have bland weapons which have the same functionality as other weapons at the bottom most tier, and every other tier should have interesting weapons that have new functionality. Examples of different functioning include:

 

Charge mechanics: Drakgoon, Dread, Paris, Paris Prime, Cernos, Ballistica, Angstrum

Projectile type: Bows, grenades, missiles, flamethrowers, hitscan, non-hitscan, lasers

Firing type: Fully automatic, burst-fire, semi-automatic, single fire, charge

Damage application: Hitscan, explosive, delay (Stug), flamethrower, punch-through (bows, various sniper rifles)

 

Any time there's a different way of functioning, there's the chance a player may grow to love that weapon because it feels different, and he or she enjoys that feel. These different functions should never be made obsolete, it should always be possible for them to be effective at top tier.

 

My basic proposal for the tier system is that there should be four tiers. I'm giving a bare minimum example of what should be in each tier, citing one single functioning category, automatic rifles:

 

I. Braton

II. Karak

III. Braton Prime (I know Braton Prime is not powerful enough to fit this category, but it should be an example of a tier 3 weapon)

IV. Soma

 

Spoiler for further tier examples:

I. Burston, Cernos, Bo, Lato

II. Hind, Paris, Amphis, Vasto

III. Burston Prime/Sybaris, Dread, Magnus

IV. Sybaris Prime, Paris Prime, Bo Prime, Vasto Prime, Magnus Prime

 

The reason for four tiers lies below.

 

How to do so: Mastery Leveling System.

 

It has been pointed out that there are no weapons that require any Mastery Rank beyond 8. Let's make that the cap for any weapon. Tier 1 requires no rank. Tier 2 requires ranks 1-2. Tier 3 requires ranks 3-5, and Tier 4 requires ranks 6-8. So what do you do with the mastery ranks beyond 8?

 

Use them to increase your weapon's tier and personalize your weapon.

 

For ranks 9 through 16, every rank will unlock one of two options: weapon customization (which increases the tier of a weapon) or weapon personalization (which allows for additional cosmetic options). Weapon customization can never bring a weapon's power beyond a top tier weapon, and cannot be applied to top tier weapons, with the exception of Customization IV as explained below. Weapon personalization can be applied to any weapon, and includes possibilities like these:

 

1. Weapon Skin

2. Weapon Attachments

3. Weapon Sound Effects

4. Weapon Model Effects

5. Renaming Your Weapon

 

To give a rough idea, let's make the rank 9 – 16 system now.

 

Rank 9: Unlocks Weapon Skins

Rank 10: Unlocks Weapon Customization I

Rank 11: Unlocks Weapon Attachments

Rank 12: Unlocks Weapon Customization II

Rank 13: Unlocks Weapon Sound Effects

Rank 14: Unlocks Weapon Customization III

Rank 15: Unlocks Weapon Model Effects

Rank 16: Allows You to Rename Your Weapon and Unlocks Weapon Customization IV

 

Weapon Customization I would allow you to bring your weapon up 1 tier in power. So, a Braton could become as powerful as a Karak, and a Karak could become as powerful as a Braton Prime. The rest should be pretty obvious: Customization II brings your weapon up 2 tiers, Customization III brings your weapon up 3 tiers. Customization IV unlocks tier 4.5, where weapon tweaking can be done. All weapons, including Tier 4 weapons, could be brought up to this level once Customization IV is unlocked. Tier 4.5 would only give slight improvements, and mainly allows for stat shifting. This is to give the power gamers who don't care about weapon personalization something to shoot for.

 

I'm not sure if these numbers are correct, but here's a rough idea of how weapon leveling would work for the tier examples I gave, Braton, Karak, Braton Prime, Soma.

 

I. Braton:

Tier 1: Firing Rate-8.8 rounds/sec

Accuracy-28.6

Magazine Size-45 rounds/mag

Reload Time-2.0s

Damage: Impact-6 Puncture-6 Slash-6

Crit Chance-10.0%

Crit Damage-150%

Status Chance-5.0%

Tier 2: Damage: Impact-8 Puncture-8 Slash-8

Crit Chance-15.0%

Tier 3: Firing Rate-9.8 rounds/sec

Damage: Impact-10 Puncture-10 Slash-10

Crit Chance-20%

Tier 4: Firing Rate-10.8 rounds/sec

Magazine Size-50 rounds/mag

Damage: Impact-11 Puncture-11 Slash-11

Crit Chance-25%

 

II. Karak:

Tier 2: Firing Rate-11.7 rounds/sec

Accuracy-28.6

Magazine Size-30 rounds/mag

Reload Time-2.0s

Damage: Impact-12 Puncture-8 Slash-6

Crit Chance-2.5%

Crit Damage-150%

Status Chance-7.5%

Tier 3: Damage: Impact-16 Puncture-9 Slash-8

Crit Chance-5%

Status Chance-15%

Tier 4: Magazine Size-35 rounds/mag

Damage: Impact-19 Puncture-11 Slash-10

Crit Chance-7.5%

Status Chance-22.5%

 

III. Braton Prime (Bad example, currently not balanced for Tier 3. I will be tweaking its stats to give an idea of what a Tier 3 weapon should be.)

Tier 3: Firing Rate-9.8 rounds/sec

Accuracy-28.6

Magazine Size-50 rounds/mag

Reload Time-2.2s

Damage: Impact-5 Puncture-11 Slash-18.0

Crit Chance-15.0%

Crit Damage-150%

Status Chance-15.0%

Tier 4: Reload Time-1.8s

Damage: Impact-8 Puncture-13 Slash-20.0

Crit Damage-200%

Status Chance-20.0%

 

IV. Soma

Tier 4: Firing Rate-15.0 rounds/sec

Accuracy-28.6

Magazine Size-100 rounds/mag

Reload Time-3.0s

Damage: Impact-1 Puncture-4 Slash-5

Crit Chance-30.0%

Crit Damage-300%

Status Chance-7.0%

 

Even if these numbers aren't accurate, they should give you the basic idea of how the system works. Weapon Customization III would allow any weapon, including Tier 1 weapons, to reach Tier 4. Weapon Customization IV would allow any weapon, including Tier 1 weapons, to redistribute stats. An example would be making it so Soma had Puncture 5, Slash 4, Impact 1 damage. Stats redistribution would be limited and linked, I.E., you couldn't make Soma's Firing Rate 28.6 rounds/sec and Accuracy 15, nor could you make it so it had Puncture 10, but you might be able to make its Magazine Size 120 rounds/mag, Reload Time 3.5s, or Magazine Size 80, Reload Time 2.7s. Weapon Customization IV would require thorough balance oversight.

 

Implementation

 

My current thoughts on how Weapon Customization would be implemented is similar to how Formaing a weapon works now. Indeed, to avoid drop table bloat, I think Forma should be used for Weapon Customization, instead of creating a new item. This also assists DE in maintaining market demand for Forma. To increase your weapon 1 tier in power, you apply a Forma, and instead of modding a slot, you use it to increase it 1 tier. NOTE: YOU CAN STILL USE FORMA TO MOD A SLOT, this is simply another option that is unlocked once you reach Weapon Customization I. This, like modding a slot, resets the weapon's level to 0. While this is a bit tedious, this is an RPG after all, and leveling is part of the process. At the very max, you would need to relevel your weapon 3 times, which is a reasonable time investment if you are making your Braton as powerful as a Soma.

 

Weapon Personalization works with the current system if:

 

1. You can still buy whatever cosmetics you want with platinum, the only change being when you unlock them, you can gather blueprints to build them instead of having to buy them.

 

There are two ways to work this that I approve of: one is in the current system, and working in its limitations. To reduce grief, I'd have it so once you hit Mastery Rank 9 for example, unlocking Weapon Skins, you'd instantly have all the Weapon Skin recipes in your foundry, instead of having to find them as drops. We don't need more dilution of drop tables in the current system. To make them you'd just need normal ingredients, at most rare Oxium or Argon, no Forma or any “parts” like for primes. This would give players a little thing to do without being too punitive.

 

The other would require a new difficulty system, so I won't go into that much. The basics though would be that there's a new level of difficulty where there are no rewards except “red XP”, or bonus XP, that would be devoted to a Focus-like system, and cosmetic blueprint tokens. That's it. Blueprint tokens work this way; every time you beat a high level difficulty level, you get a BP token. Every time you beat a high level difficulty level accomplishing certain challenges, like 35 minutes in a Survival, you would get three BP tokens. Each cosmetic BP is available in the shop for 3 BP tokens. Thus, the only way you could level your Focus system or equivalent is going to these high difficulty zones, and the only way to get access to cosmetic blueprints (without buying it for plat) is completing missions in these high difficulty zones. This way, there's no Pay2Win going on, just a tier which would separate the skilled players from the unskilled players. No weapon rewards or mod rewards are received, so if you can't beat this tier, you aren't weaker in that sense. The Focus system would be designed as the “reward” for people who could complete this higher level of difficulty, as well as cosmetic Bps. That way, no grinding for items exists per say, at least not gameplay effecting items. You're only grinding for cosmetic Bps, and you're getting tokens so you can choose which BP you want to get no matter what map you play. People who don't have the skill can play below this tier forever, just getting more and more weapons and warframes and buffing them up. People above this skill level can farm their own cosmetics, and diversify their gameplay with the Focus system. I like this latter system, as it attempts to provide a sandbox for all us players who want a really different type of gameplay, and preserves the “horde” gameplay of the current Warframe, in one game.

 

Red XP gives both normal Mastery XP and Focus system XP. Perhaps as another incentive, Red XP provides 2xMastery XP. This way high difficulty can be played by skilled players to quickly level new weapons or after using Forma.

 

Regardless of how the Cosmetic BPs and Weapon Personalization are worked out, you can see the gist of it. The end result of this system is at Mastery Rank 16, you have not only a personalized weapon that looks awesome and has its own name, but that weapon is viable at the highest difficulty level Warframe can offer. And that weapon can be any weapon in Warframe, if you, the player, put in the effort. It provides tiers so that weapons can finally be balanced, and have a coherent structure to fit into. It provides a cap so power creep is ended, and makes a foundation the rest of the game's difficulty can be based around. I see only one potential problem with this system, and that is it is possible that the Tier 4 versions of some Tier 1-3 weapons might be better than original Tier 4 weapons.

 

I don't see this as a problem personally, but you could balance the weapons so that any Tier 1-3 weapon, at Tier 4, is always 1-3% less effective than native Tier 4 weapons. My opinion is instead, efforts should just be made to try and keep all Tier 4 weapons roughly equal in a continuous testing process.

 

So, this is my proposed solution to the conflict between those who want tiers and those who want to be able to use their favorite weapons. Please note that this system still encourages, and in fact requires, players to continue to buy/build new weapons, in order to get the Mastery Rank to either make their favorite weapons viable or to get DAT BLING. And yes, this is only one part of the Warframe problem, but that problem has to be tackled one piece at a time, and I think this will solve one of the fundamental issues in a way the majority of the player base will appreciate.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Jiufengbao

[koolen]

I like that, but a weapon should not be able to gain too much tiers

[Namacyst]

I strongly believe DE will never change it to a Tier system with requirements ranging from MR 1-16 because it would mean less money for them.

 

Making all Weapons viable fails because DE is unable to balance their S#&$.. they rather place arbitrary stats on their weapons without thought or reason and call it "balance".

 

Most weapons don't reflect their power (damage) in price, the effort it takes to farm it or MR requirement.. as i said.. it is totally arbitrary... there is no consistency or straight path to go when releasing new weapons.

 

So i guess we have to accept the fact that DE will stick to the "FotM* Weapons" system where only a handfull of weapons is worth to be kept and used and the rest can be scrapped after you got your 3k Mastery.

 

 

 

 

 

*FotM = Favorite of the Month

Edited June 17, 2014 by Namacyst

[SignumCruxis]

What I don't get about the entire spectrum of these debates is that people calling weapons OP and everything that comes around and after that, pertaining to enemy difficulty generally say the game shouldn't be balanced to high level enemies, in which case, all weapons are completely capable of killing all enemies up to level 40. You can use a statistically weaker weapon with some forma on it and kill it just as fast as the next guy with a modded top tier weapon.

 

For high level enemies, I've taken some "trash" to T3 survivals and they've performed far better than I'd ever expected. Naturally you wouldn't use an impact heavy weapon against enemies resistant to impact. The new damage system was a far better balance than anything I've seen suggested before and after it.

 

I'm all for adjusting mastery rank requirements to reflect the effectiveness of a weapon. But all this balance nerf buff talk lately is getting old boring and annoying and people need to play Warframe more instead of bawframe on the forums. I'm not getting at you specifically OP, just this vocal portion of the community as a whole that seems to have missed the download game button and thinks the forums is the game. The "balance issue" is far too elevated and blown far out of proportion. There are better weapons, there are worse weapons, there absolutely must be better and worse clearly defined or people would not bother investing time, effort and money into the game.

 

This is the most whiny community I've ever had the displeasure of being a part of - you don't see this level of QQ on any other game with weapons and abilities of varying strengths. I can't make a clear cut comparison because Warframe is unique, but take a look at any game you've ever played with a level system. You don't see people wanting a level 5 sword to be as viable as a level 50 sword is my point. Mastery rank requirements is the way to go imo, you play longer - you get better gear. You need better gear to fight stronger enemies.

 

tl;dr: This community talks more than it plays, and reads less than it plays, This is why we have so many of these topics on a daily basis. Stop it.

[Necromonger2100]

I finally finished reading, and I think that this system would be really cool/interesting!

[Tigercloud]

I agree with you about the extent of QQ in the community. However, I personally want DE to push the game to make new challenges beyond level 40; I think a number of us do. I want the challenge to be the reward, rather than being rewarded for the challenge (I.E. if you play T6 you get extremely good weapons/warframes. I *don't* want that.) In that case, you would need the best equipment in the game to meet that challenge. However, that would invalidate a lot of weapons that people find fun. This system would allow all weapons to be viable at that "next level" difficulty while maintaining a sense of progression. Mastery ranks 1-8, you progress to stronger and stronger weapons. Mastery ranks 9-16, you can make any weapon you like be a strong weapon. Forma alone can't do that right now; a Gorgon Wraith, fully modded out, cannot beat a modded Boltor Prime or Soma. So, that's my perspective and where I'm coming from with this post.

[Celle-Reveris]

What I don't get about the entire spectrum of these debates is that people calling weapons OP and everything that comes around and after that, pertaining to enemy difficulty generally say the game shouldn't be balanced to high level enemies, in which case, all weapons are completely capable of killing all enemies up to level 40. You can use a statistically weaker weapon with some forma on it and kill it just as fast as the next guy with a modded top tier weapon.

 

For high level enemies, I've taken some "trash" to T3 survivals and they've performed far better than I'd ever expected. Naturally you wouldn't use an impact heavy weapon against enemies resistant to impact. The new damage system was a far better balance than anything I've seen suggested before and after it.

 

I'm all for adjusting mastery rank requirements to reflect the effectiveness of a weapon. But all this balance nerf buff talk lately is getting old boring and annoying and people need to play Warframe more instead of bawframe on the forums. I'm not getting at you specifically OP, just this vocal portion of the community as a whole that seems to have missed the download game button and thinks the forums is the game. The "balance issue" is far too elevated and blown far out of proportion. There are better weapons, there are worse weapons, there absolutely must be better and worse clearly defined or people would not bother investing time, effort and money into the game.

 

This is the most whiny community I've ever had the displeasure of being a part of - you don't see this level of QQ on any other game with weapons and abilities of varying strengths. I can't make a clear cut comparison because Warframe is unique, but take a look at any game you've ever played with a level system. You don't see people wanting a level 5 sword to be as viable as a level 50 sword is my point. Mastery rank requirements is the way to go imo, you play longer - you get better gear. You need better gear to fight stronger enemies.

 

tl;dr: This community talks more than it plays, and reads less than it plays, This is why we have so many of these topics on a daily basis. Stop it.

Likely couldn't have said it better, I never understood what made people think Warframe of all games needed every weapon to be as good as the next when progression to get better stuff to kill bigger bads is kind of how you make a PvE game worth playing, anyways. Give the players a goal to work towards so they can set another goal to work for: "I want this gun- I have it now.Oh look, this next gun hits harder and looks cooler- I want it" etc.

[Tigercloud]

Boosting this because I think this is a debate worth having.

 

 

Likely couldn't have said it better, I never understood what made people think Warframe of all games needed every weapon to be as good as the next when progression to get better stuff to kill bigger bads is kind of how you make a PvE game worth playing, anyways. Give the players a goal to work towards so they can set another goal to work for: "I want this gun- I have it now.Oh look, this next gun hits harder and looks cooler- I want it" etc.

 

This opinion is like the one I stated in the intro, except instead of tiers being necessary for balance, its tiers are a necessary way of making people want to play the game. Would you not agree that this makes every weapon except the newest weapons obsolete?

 

Warframe weapons are a combination of upgrade/sidegrade. The Angstrum, which we got recently, is not necessarily the most powerful pistol in the game, or even the most powerful weapon. We have Ogris, Penta and Castanas if you want other explosive weaponry. We have Brakk and Marelok, which are insanely strong sidearms. What Angstrum did, was introduce a new mechanic; single/burst shot explosive in a pistol. This is a good thing for the game, because it means interesting weapons continue being made, rather than just more and more powerful weapons.

 

DE hasn't made the game to fit the "you need better gear to fight stronger enemies". If they had, the only challenge in the game would be endless defense/survival, and we would be getting new weapons which would allow us to go against wave 70, wave 100, wave 150 enemies. We'd be getting Super Soma, Mega Brakk, Ultra Penta, etc. This is vertical scaling. Warframe has some of that, but it's more diagonal scaling; vertical + horizontal, where horizontal is increasing the number of choices and the types of toys you can play with, rather than just making better and better versions of the same thing.

 

Technically, the system I made would allow for what you're saying, AND what a lot of players really do want: being able to continue using their favorite weapons. We could make it so there are new uber weapons unlocked at Tier 5 (ranks 9-10), Tier 6 (ranks 11-12), Tier 7 (ranks 13-15) and Tier 8 (rank 16). And if DE continued to raise the mastery rank cap, it could go on infinitely. BUT, and this is what's great about the system I propose, there would be a built in ability to make lower tier weapons as powerful as higher tier weapons. It gives both groups what they want. It takes longer for people who enjoy lower tier weapons to make them as powerful as higher tier weapons, but that's the tradeoff which I think players who like vertical scaling would accept.

 

And Warframe is NOT the same as other games. People don't want a level 5 sword to be as viable as a level 50 sword in an MMORPG because ALL THEY ARE IS THE SAME STICK WITH A DIFFERENT SKIN ON IT. In Warframe, most weapons function differently, feel differently, have different ways of applying damage, and that's AWESOME. Not all of us work like this: "I want this gun- I have it now.Oh look, this next gun hits harder and looks cooler- I want it" etc. Some of us work like this: "I want this gun- I have it now. Oh look, this new weapon is a bow. I can be an archer! SWEET! And I can impale mofos to walls! EVEN BETTER! I WANT IT! Oh look, this new pistol looks BADASS. A @(*()$ revolver, are you kidding me? And it shoots fast and accurately. I WANT IT!"

 

Horizontal scaling. That's how we roll. Vertical and horizontal scaling combined: diagonal scaling. This system allows that to happen.