The Zamboni Dilemma

[Sitchrea]

Concerning the rage occuring over [DE]Steve's reaction to [DE]Rebecca's reading of a post by The Great Zamboni...

 

I think the biggest problem wass that Rebecca kinda miscommunicated or misinterpreted what The Great Zamboni was attempting to establish. The Great Zamobni's point was that there are a slew of mods to use, and all of them useful, yet not enough slots to use them. I remember reading that thread, and it was nothing like what Steve took it to be.

 

I do think he could have said it better, but I agree with Steve's point of Loot and Skill working together; however someone misinterpreted The Great Zamboni and made it sound like Zamboni was saying that loot didn't matter - but that wasn't his point. Zamboni's point was that loot -does- matter, however we are not given enough space to use all of it.

[Zubaz]

This has been going on ever since the mod system changed. Steve just won't accept the new system is utterly and completely flawed.

 

Pity the time and effort people in community wasted.

[Sitchrea]

I wouldn't say "utterly and completely flawed," more like it could use a few tweaks to be made more useful

[Zubaz]

I wouldn't say "utterly and completely flawed," more like it could use a few tweaks to be made more useful

 

6 slots, at least 4 to 5 mods a frame has to have in order to barely survive and boost skills and 4 skill slots.

It is fundamentally, as steve would say;

bullS#&$

[thegamer118]

the system isn t utterly completely flawed, that s just going way too far and biitch a lot about it way too much 

Edited July 4, 2014 by thegamer118

[Sitchrea]

6 slots, at least 4 to 5 mods a frame has to have in order to barely survive and boost skills and 4 skill slots.

 

This is where most of the community is right and wrong at the same time. Some people truly do not have the skill or temwork great enough to survive without Redirection, Vigor, QT+R, etc. However when one has team composition and individual skill great enough to overcome these, which many do, many more oppurtunies arise.

 

However, the current system could benefit with a different or at least tweaked slotting system for mods, imo.

[thegamer118]

you have total control over how you mod your frames, whether you want to follow people to higher levels or be exotic and do what you want, you can forma your skills slots too if you want 

[Cpl_Facehugger]

6 slots, at least 4 to 5 mods a frame has to have in order to barely survive and boost skills and 4 skill slots.

It is fundamentally, as steve would say;

 

That's a problem with the number of slots, not a problem with the concept of a mod system in general. This is fundamentally the brick wall that Zamboni constantly runs into in every thread he does: We have a system that would work fine with tweaks, but instead he wants to throw it all out and start over from scratch instead of that being a last resort type thing.

[[DE]Momaw]

Some people truly do not have the skill or temwork great enough to survive without Redirection, Vigor, QT+R, etc.

 

Eh. To this point, the problem is that some frames are very very good at doing what I call "breaking combat".  Changing the rules of the game so radically that combat essentially ends.  Loki's invisibility and disarm, Excal's blind, Nyx's chaos and absorb.  Frames that can break combat are playing in a whole different way than those that can't. Redirection is a moot point if you are literally impossible to engage.

[Onisa]

I loved how they agreed with the first question about mods trivializing content and then blow up when it's phrased differently.

[Zubaz]

Loki's invisibility and disarm, Excal's blind, Nyx's chaos and absorb.

All these three will get you killed unless you stick two energy eff., two power range and one energy pool/duration mod.

 

You have one slot left to "specialize" your frame.

 

We have a system that would work fine with tweaks, but instead he wants to throw it all out and start over from scratch instead of that being a last resort type thing.

 

"Tweaks" What is this "tweaks"? The "core" of the mod system is "very limited number of slots" and "limited point pool". If you increase the number of slots you are making a "fundamental" change in the "core" of mod system.

[Sitchrea]

I loved how they agreed with the first question about mods trivializing content and then blow up when it's phrased differently.

Not quite. Zamboni says that mods should be outright done away with just because a few things aren't tight enough. What they said about mods trivialising content was concerning how it is said that mods "bandaid" parts of the game... which is also not true.

[nefrai]

I just put on all the resistance mods, like against lasers and fire, and the mod where you fall from far above, and knock down enemies. Nothing else. On Mag. Come at me, bro.

 

;)

 

 

-ok, on a serious note, I agree it would be great to have more slots for more custom builds. I would love to put on one of those mostly-useless but fun mods, but I never do because only certain builds are really useful in the hard modes. More combo-mods help at least, that has made my life a bit easier.

Edited July 4, 2014 by nefrai

[Sitchrea]

Loki's invisibility and disarm, Excal's blind, Nyx's chaos and absorb.

All these three will get you killed unless you stick two energy eff., two power range and one energy pool/duration mod.

 

You have one slot left to "specialize" your frame.

But that is if you choose to specialize your build around using those abilities. One can do something completely different by focusing on damage output, or perhaps berserking, or maybe even evasion entirely.

 

The point of the mod system is to give players the ability to play the game the way they want to play, and it does it well; however it could be done better with a few tweaks, not throwing it out the window.

[Zeitzbach]

There's really no problem with efficiency and stuffs. If you have millions of credits around, feel free to spam gears.

 

Meanwhile, weapons. If you aren't stacking damage, you're immediately in the wrong. Utiltiy card like piercing? Nope. All damage, All damage with - acc, all damage with ?? and a bunch of elements to abuse the all damage.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Zeitzbach

[Cpl_Facehugger]

 

 

"Tweaks" What is this "tweaks"? The "core" of the mod system is "very limited number of slots" and "limited point pool". If you increase the number of slots you are making a "fundamental" change in the "core" of mod system.

 

I don't consider "very limited number of slots" to be the core of the mod system. I consider the customizability of builds via slotting in mods at will to be the "core" of the mod system, and I suspect DE does too.

 

Thusly, the answer to me is simple: Tweak less useful mods (ie resistance mods, etc etc) to be better, then add a couple of utility slots that can only take utility mods so those utility mods aren't trying to compete with mods that are always useful. Problem's solved while retaining the strengths of the mod system.

 

Meanwhile, weapons. If you are stacking damage, you're immediately in the wrong. Utiltiy card like piercing? Nope. All damage, All damage with - acc, all damage with ?? and a bunch of elements to abuse the all damage.

 

My guns never go anywhere without punch through.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Cpl_Facehugger

[Sitchrea]

There's really no problem with efficiency and stuffs. If you have millions of credits around, feel free to spam gears.

Great example of how one does not absolutely require Flow and Streamline.

 

Let's one's build uses a ton of power at the cost of efficiency. Instead of "Changing the foundation of Warframe" in order to change the mod system to allow one to put on said mods, why not just grab a few energy restorative gears from the dojo, or, heck, bring a Trinity along with you!

 

Warfame can always be played the way you want to play.

[nefrai]

I don't consider "very limited number of slots" to be the core of the mod system. I consider the customizability of builds via slotting in mods at will to be the "core" of the mod system, and I suspect DE does too.

 

Thusly, the answer to me is simple: Tweak less useful mods (ie resistance mods, etc etc) to be better, then add a couple of utility slots that can only take utility mods so those utility mods aren't trying to compete with mods that are always useful. Problem's solved while retaining the strengths of the mod system.

I was going to say something similar, give us a couple 'special' slots, that only take certain types of cards, like the fire resist mod style cards. that way people aren't just stacking the new slots with yet more "power extend" mods. There are simple ways to let us do more, without breaking the system.

[Sitchrea]

Thusly, the answer to me is simple: Tweak less useful mods (ie resistance mods, etc etc) to be better, then add a couple of utility slots that can only take utility mods so those utility mods aren't trying to compete with mods that are always useful. Problem's solved while retaining the strengths of the mod system.

I believe there are no such things as "Neccessary" mods. While QT/R is widely considered absolute in the general consensus, that is not the case.

 

Need some extra health? Bring a Valkyr and use her armor buffs.

Need some extra energy? Grab some energy restores or bring a Trinity

Need some additional power? Rhyno has some great damage buffs.

 

Teamwork and skill matter just as much as loot.

[LukeAura]

I believe there are no such things as "Neccessary" mods. While QT/R is widely considered absolute in the general consensus, that is not the case.

 

Need some extra health? Bring a Valkyr and use her armor buffs.

Need some extra energy? Grab some energy restores or bring a Trinity

Need some additional power? Rhyno has some great damage buffs.

That only means frames are balanced, not mods.

Yes, some frames can make do without the 'required' mods. But, for a large number of frames they are a necessity.

 

[Cpl_Facehugger]

I believe there are no such things as "Neccessary" mods. While QT/R is widely considered absolute in the general consensus, that is not the case.

 

Need some extra health? Bring a Valkyr and use her armor buffs.

Need some extra energy? Grab some energy restores or bring a Trinity

Need some additional power? Rhyno has some great damage buffs.

 

Teamwork and skill matter just as much as loot.

 

I wouldn't say "necessary", but certain mods provide a lot more broad utility than certain other mods and are thus extremely popular while the other mods are almost never used because they take up a valuable slot and mod points but don't give enough back.

 

For instance, Redirection vs Warm Coat. Both common mods with a D polarity, but nobody's going to pick the latter over the former because the former is always useful while the latter is situationally useful. Even if it was buffed to 100% ice level resistance, it still would lose out to redirection because more shields all the time beats more shields sometimes if certain conditions are met.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Cpl_Facehugger

[Onisa]

Not quite. Zamboni says that mods should be outright done away with just because a few things aren't tight enough. What they said about mods trivialising content was concerning how it is said that mods "bandaid" parts of the game... which is also not true.

That's odd, from Steve's rant he seemed to take offense at the 'no skill' and 'scraping the bottom of the barrel' parts. That 'no skill' part was just a non-sugarcoated version of the first question. Though I do agree with there being no band aid mods in the game, since something has to be effective at least in the short term to be a band aid.

[Lost_Cartographer]

I think a lot of the issues with the modding system actually stem from enemy scaling and to a lesser, often unrecognized extent, ammo pick ups.  If an output of 500 damage is enough to drop most things except heavies in one shot, packing 3000 damage in a single attack is beyond overkill.  Most people don't recognize this, because the mantra they keep hearing from the moment they're a newbie on Terminus is "build for damage."

 

My Karak can kick @$$ in T3 void.  The problem is that I need speed trigger and shred to up its damage per second high enough to kill heavies in less than 2 seconds.  This is a problem because speed trigger doesn't improve my ammo pick up quantity, and it sure as hell isn't saving me a few rounds, where as another elemental damage mod would, though the TKK of those heavies would grow lengthier.  If speed trigger came with at least a 50% ammo pick up increase, it might be a viable option, but because it doesn't, and we have these "band-aid" mods called rifle mutation and rifle scavenger - the latter of which is entirely dependent on being online when the alert pops for all of an hour every once in a decade - both are mandatory options (which also consume mod slots that could be meant for damage, thus further reducing bullet efficiency...) for spongier enemies to keep the bullet hoses in play for more than five guys.

 

Meanwhile, my marelok will down them in just one, two if the range is extreme enough that the bonus rounds from barrel diffusion and lethal torrent don't additionally strike the target.  It will maintain this for a quite a while, while the Karak/Garaka fall behind way faster as the enemy continues to scale up.

 

Long story short, ammo efficiency and time-to-kill (effectively, damage per second) are the primary factors when players optimize their weapon's build, because ammo boxes don't care what gun you're holding, rifle ammo always replenishes 20 rounds regardless if you're wielding a Garaka or a Latron Prime.  Additionally, the Garaka can be made to kill something just as fast as the Latron Prime, but the Latron Prime will do it in fewer rounds and can afford the player the luxury of allowing them to put a more globally beneficial aura in their aura slot, like energy siphon, or steel charge, or whatever suits their fancy.  Rifle mutation is so specific to rifles, the player still couldn't really get away with AKStiletto's as well.

 

If I were recommend anything, it'd be that ammo mutation mods be a warframe mod, and it would JUST be ammo mutation, and the scavengers mods would be rendered a universal ammo pick up boost as well.  That should help open up more weapon options that aren't hand cannons at least.  I can actually forgive DE expecting players to have ammo pick up mods for bullet hoses, just as crit heavy guns require crit mods to get the most out of them, but the ammo mods are far too specific to be justifiable.  As for everything else, like fast hands?  I'm afraid the only real fix is to pack all of these utilities in with some damage, like wildfire does with fire damage + magazine size.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Littleman88

[Zeitzbach]

So basically, you're saying "Stack damage will always the best choice even if they find a way to add infinite ammo to fire rate build because if they're downed much faster anyway with less ammo and stuffs so they don't have to worry about getting shot, not having enough ammo or using Energy to keep up the utility spell"

 

Try this. Throw Ammo gear around with that buratata build and see if it's really okay. It's the same thing now. "Super high fire rate with enough ammo to sustain"

Edited July 4, 2014 by Zeitzbach

[Lost_Cartographer]

So basically, you're saying "Stack damage will always the best choice even if they find a way to add infinite ammo to fire rate build because if they're downed much faster anyway with less ammo and stuffs so they don't have to worry about getting shot, not having enough ammo or using Energy to keep up the utility spell"

 

Try this. Throw Ammo gear around with that buratata build and see if it's really okay. It's the same thing now. "Super high fire rate with enough ammo to sustain"

 

Not exactly.  IF there were an infinite ammo build, for sure super high fire rate would be A-okay, and probably a hell of a lot more fun (to me anyway.)  However, there isn't really a truly viable super high fire rate build unless you want to bring along 50+ ammo restores (or Nekros,) which is bull-$#!%, thus, people would opt for the one hit wonder builds, which don't require someone to spend credits and a little time pre-prepping for a mission.  Maybe a player can skimp by with both a maxed ammo mutation AND ammo scavenger, but they're also counting on the right ammo boxes dropping regularly.  Mutation helps, but most of the recovery is in scavenger.  Scavenger is unfortunately acquired only through alerts, however.  It's not a realistic expectation for most people to have one laying around.

 

As I said, it's actually okay for bullet hoses to require ammo pick up mods to keep them sustainable long term, but they're currently very specific to the weapon type.  If they were to combine every scavenger into a blanket "ammo scavenger" and every mutation into a blanket "ammo mutation" mod, it would go a very long way.  

 

It doesn't exactly open up mod customization, but it does make way more guns viable, where before they weren't because they just couldn't last for very long against bad guys that on average took maybe at least 10 rounds.   Basically, these guns can be made to compete with current "must haves," but the "must haves" don't require nearly as much maintenance.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Littleman88