Power Efficiency; Why It Is Broken And How It Can Be Fixed.

[Moderius]

-snip-.  Please keep the thread on that topic.

 

"Please keep the thread on the topic of agreeing with me"

 

You want to keep the thread focused on one specific context of efficiency. You want to ignore all drawbacks and balancing factors and just talk about how you understand it. You want everyone to narrow the scope of understanding onto the little sliver you're clinging to.

 

And, no. You're using "exponentially" incorrectly. 

[Stravix]

Building any pure stat has innate drawbacks overextend kills power strength and so on, but power efficiency does, in fact scale exponentially, as the number of cast per set amount of energy (the definition of energy efficiency) does increase at an increasing rate.  Everything has drawbacks but atm duration is the easiest mod to recover both have the highest achievable amount and the most mods available to do so.  If i am using exponentially incorrectly, please detail how.  But unless you have more comments about my argumentative skills i would still ask you to remain on the topic of the scaling of PE and how to fix it.  Thank you

[RealPandemonium]

The problem of note is that power efficiency does not scale properly.  I am not directly asking for a nerf to PE or saying that Fleeting is OP in and of itself, what I am saying is that PE scales much more steeply, by the numbers, than any other stat in the game and I feel that it is an issue which must be addressed, that is all. 

Stats are just arbitrary numbers; what is important is not the values themselves but the impact that the values have on gameplay.  Whether one stat scales more steeply than another isn't really relevant since the actual gameplay benefit varies depending on the stat and the power.  

 

The current efficiency stat makes a playstyle revolving around, say, using your 1 for damage possible.  Being able to use our abilities more than a couple of times per mission is a good thing, especially when guns eclipse abilities in power so absolutely.  The main negative side effect to spammable powers is when players lazily rely on their powers to play the game for them.  The solution to that is not to nerf efficiency, but to change the problematic powers.  

[Moderius]

Building any pure stat has innate drawbacks overextend kills power strength and so on, but power efficiency does, in fact scale exponentially, as the number of cast per set amount of energy (the definition of energy efficiency) does increase at an increasing rate.  Everything has drawbacks but atm duration is the easiest mod to recover both have the highest achievable amount and the most mods available to do so.  If i am using exponentially incorrectly, please detail how.  But unless you have more comments about my argumentative skills i would still ask you to remain on the topic of the scaling of PE and how to fix it.  Thank you

 

You do not know what "exponentially" means. And considering there is a hard cap on it, doubly so are you wrong. And considering that, unlike any other stat, Efficiency starts off at 0%, even more so.

 

I guess you don't understand that range grows at an incredibly high rate, based on the range increase-to-surface-area ratio?

[Stravix]

You do not know what "exponentially" means. And considering there is a hard cap on it, doubly so are you wrong. And considering that, unlike any other stat, Efficiency starts off at 0%, even more so.

 

I guess you don't understand that range grows at an incredibly high rate, based on the range increase-to-surface-area ratio?

First, the hard cap is a band aid to fix the possibilities of things like lokis with 105% PE possibly GAINING energy on cast.  The hard cap should be self evident that there is something wrong with the way in which PE is calculated.  Yes, range also can be considered exponential growth for some abilities and I feel that should eventually be addressed as well, but since not all abilities that use range are AOE, range would need to be evaluated on a power by power basis and as such a quick fix, like the one I am suggesting, would not be possible.  And last I say that your reasoning that PE is the only stat that starts off at 0% is a tad bit misleading, as bonus damage or duration starts off at 0% if you consider it as BONUS damage/duration.

[Moderius]

First, the hard cap is a band aid to fix the possibilities of things like lokis with 105% PE possibly GAINING energy on cast. 

 

"Band aid"? I don't think you know what that means, either. It's a mechanical limitation. 

 

This whole thing comes from you not understanding that things are going to scale differently, because they have different purposes.

 

Why don't you think for juuuuust a second about Fleeting Expertise. Efficiency and Duration. Do you know why that is? Do you understand the significance of tying Duration to Efficiency?

[Stravix]

If you feel i do not understand something why not try to explain, instead of insulting me continuously.  At the moment, you are simply looking as if you are trolling because you are not actually contributing and actually providing basis for your claims.  I have given my evidence that supports my claim that PE is currently scaling disproportionately compared to the other stats. If you would beg to differ, then by all means do so, but with proof, be it numbers or some other concrete method of conveyance. 

Edited July 27, 2014 by Stravix

[Moderius]

If you feel i do not understand something why not try to explain, instead of insulting me continuously.  At the moment, you are simply looking as if you are trolling because you are not actually contributing and actually providing basis for your claims.  I have given my evidence that supports my claim that PE is currently scaling disproportionately compared to the other stats. If you would beg to differ, then by all means do so, but with proof, be it numbers or some other concrete method of conveyance. 

 

Why explain it, so that you can ignore it, or pretend that you took it into consideration? I can illustrate my point better as a question, where you need to actually address it because it's not close-ended. Or, you can show you understand the correlation.

[Jokubas]

If you gonna create some variety, start from Energy Siphon.

I haven't number-crunched any of this stuff, but yeah, I'd have to say that pretty much every issue connected to energy in some way stems from the fact that it is finite by default.

 

I remember when I first saw Volt, the game told me that he offered a powerful alternative to gunplay. How can a Warframe offer an alternate to gunplay, when the only offensive difference between Warframes are their abilities, all abilities take energy, and energy is finite (technically ammo is as well, but most guns have a higher efficiency than most Warframe abilities)? I can accept that some Warframes might be best with some rarer mods and builds, but Volt was built to be a starter.

 

Getting Energy Siphon completely changed the game for me. Before, I never really felt like one Warframe was significantly different from another. Relying on Orbs, in my opinion at least, is way too much of a gamble. In some missions, you seem to drown in them, and in others it's like there's a drought. To be properly strategic, you have to consider future options as well. You can't just go blowing all your energy when it'll be useful now, when it might be necessary later, but you don't know if you'll get enough Orbs in the meantime.

 

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I didn't feel like I was playing the game the way it was meant to be played, with Warframe abilities at the ready, until I got Energy Siphon, and I feel sorry for new players considering how few times I've seen the Alerts for it across the whole time I've been playing.

 

I think to fix Power Efficiency, you have to start with energy itself. And to fix energy, my first step would be to just give it a passive regen by default. Maybe Energy Siphon could just be removed altogether, but the default regen doesn't have to be major, it just has to exist.

 

If energy was given a passive regen, it would change a lot, and I think for the better. Some of the more situational Aura mods would start looking more attractive, abilities would become more reliable, and efficiency would become more of a strategic trade-off rather than a necessity. What's the worst it could cause? Someone completing a really difficult mission after several hours by using an expensive ability, then hiding and waiting for enough energy to use it again?

Edited August 3, 2014 by Jokubas