The Real Problem With Direct Health Damage

[Phatose]

It's unreasonable, bcs it's cheap and stupid.

 

DE deploy a "shield domination" system, when HP and armor just don't worth leveling at all, same with ME series. You can create efficient shield build-up with just one mod (Redirection) and put mods in utility/power build. HP build need more attention, more mods and still worse in the end.

 

So, they try "destroy cookie-cutter builds", but they don't buffing HP tanking. They just create much more cheap, unavoidable damage to HP.

 

It's unreasonble, not design-wise and solve nothing.

 

 

Shield tanking is still better. HP tanking is still worse.

 

Well, thanks for the opinion, but I'm not swayed.  Shield builds now have better mitigation in most circumstances, but it means you're going to have to deal with direct damage to health and possible sudden death.  Fair trade - managing health packs can be a bear, especially in a chaotic environment, and is a more then fair trade off for regeneration.  I don't care for it, so I build for both. 

[Otomaru]

Recover:

3 frames from 26.

1 aura from 16

2 mods from...

Healt orbs - completly unreliable.

 

Miltigate:

Armor - worthless.

Antitoxin - weak and worthless.

Quck Thinking - very rare.

 

 

So much ways!

 

What if i told you... Tenno were never meant to be immortal...

 

Oberon, Nekros, Trinity contribute to rejunevation;

Rejunevation aura;

Health orbs - nothing unreliable, 25 HP per orb. If that is not helping you then learn to play, you're not supposed to ram everything with your forehead;

Equilibrium, Life Strike;

Normal and medium health restore thingies.

 

That's 9 things for HP recovery, plenty to have a choice. Don't complain that something is too rare, Warframe is not and i hope that it will never become a game that pampers you.

 

Steel fiber vaiable for Frost and Valkyr so it's situational, but still helps;

Quick Thinking - It may be rare, but i got 2 of them and i never looked for them, so it's not "myth" rare.;

Antitoxin - 45% resistance. weak and worthless? You got to be kidding, it's the only thing that kept me alive when Mutalist Osprey was introduced.;

Iron Skin - A true noobframe ability, just what you need. Not only Rhino takes no health damage while Iron Skin is active, he also can't be staggered, knocked down, he's also immune to energy syphons to some degree.

Diamond Skin - generally worthless, just like Steel Fiber - very situational, but still a option.

 

That's 5 options to mitigate damage to HP or redirect it. 

 

14 Options in total, and that's just what i could remember.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Otomaru

[LukeAura]

Well, thanks for the opinion, but I'm not swayed.  Shield builds now have better mitigation in most circumstances, but it means you're going to have to deal with direct damage to health and possible sudden death.  Fair trade.

Except to most of the community, it isn't. 

That's kind of what I'm trying to deal with here. If it doesn't bother you, congratulations. No, seriously. That's a good thing you haven't had your perspective seriously altered by the game to the point you find a mechanic that isn't inherently unfair, unfair.  

Unfortunately, a large number of people aren't in that frame of mind. They feel forced in to a build that is weaker/less enjoyable/more restrictive/more costly to them because enemy damage is pushing it on them, but not they want to use it outside of heavy bleed and toxin damage enemy factions. And thus they feel that anything that encourages building in this path isn't putting the game in the right direction. Which is a problem not with the enemies using the mechanics, but with the mods, mod costs, mod locations, relative safety, other ways to heal health, that are meant to defend against the mechanic.  

If health appealed to players as a defence in the same way shields do, they wouldn't feel cheated by shield bypassing damage. 

Players mostly say now, "Infested, uggh, now I have to readjust my build and use health based mods." 

When the ideal would be for them to say, "Infested? Great! My health based build is the perfect way to counter them." 

 

 

Rejunevation aura;

Health orbs - nothing unreliable, 25 HP per orb. If that is not helping you then learn to play, you're not supposed to ram everything with your forehead;

Equilibrium, Life Strike;

Normal and medium health restore thingies.

 

That's 9 things for HP recovery, plenty to have a choice. Don't complain that something is too rare, Warframe is not and i hope that it will never become a game that pampers you.

 

Steel fiber vaiable for Frost and Valkyr so it's situational, but still helps;

Quick Thinking - If its so rare that it makes you complain, how come i have 2 and i never looked for it?;

 

That's 5 options to mitigate damage to HP or redirect it. 

 

14 Options in total, and that's just what i could remember.

heavy rng and luck based aura, most players won't have it for a while.

25 hp and only drop from the limited amount of lockers and crates in a level, not infinite like shields that can regenerate way more in the time it takes to just run and break a crate. 

Equilibrium/Life Strike, rare and/or costly, gated behind rng and enemies that highly value already having them

Normal and Medium health restores cost credits, resources, time and effort and being able to use the inventory system which isnt' as effective as just regenerating shields. 

Steel Fibre is effective on 2-4 frames, 

Quick thinking is rare from the void, which is probably where you play as a more senior player. But most new players will be focused on planet progression, and thus never see it.

This thread is not about the lack of health favouring mods. But that they aren't as enticing to players as shield modding. 

Yes we have plenty of mods that make it effective, but they don't make it fun in the eyes of players nor are they encouraged in to using them from the early game.

[(PSN)DesecratedFlame]

That's one possible design, but it's far from the only possibility.  Given the considerable number of ways you can take direct health damage in this game, and the developers pointing to things like 70s pen and paper RPGs where heath damage was a given, it's rather obviously not the one in play here. 

 

Please don't mistake your favored design for the only possible one - it's not.  Games from PnP D&D to Doom to WoW have damage against non-regenerating health as a core element.

It is the one in play, whether they say it or not. Those games also don't have a regenerating shield system placed over the health.WF has a system similar to the original Halo.

[Phatose]

Except to most of the community, it isn't. 

That's kind of what I'm trying to deal with here. If it doesn't bother you, congratulations. No, seriously. That's a good thing you haven't had your perspective seriously altered by the game to the point you find a mechanic that isn't inherently unfair, unfair.  

Unfortunately, a large number of people aren't in that frame of mind. They feel forced in to a build that is weaker/less enjoyable/more restrictive/more costly to them because enemy damage is pushing it on them, but not they want to use it outside of heavy bleed and toxin damage enemy factions. And thus they feel that anything that encourages building in this path isn't putting the game in the right direction. Which is a problem not with the enemies using the mechanics, but with the mods, mod costs, mod locations, relative safety, other ways to heal health, that are meant to defend against the mechanic.  

If health appealed to players as a defence in the same way shields do, they wouldn't feel cheated by shield bypassing damage. 

Players mostly say now, "Infested, uggh, now I have to readjust my build and use health based mods." 

When the ideal would be for them to say, "Infested? Great! My health based build is the perfect way to counter them."

 

I'm seeing "Glass half empty vs glass half full".  This is a simple psychology issue, entirely due to the previous damage system where build for shields 100% of the time was the correct solution. 

 

 

It is the one in play, whether they say it or not. Those games also don't have a regenerating shield system placed over the health.WF has a system similar to the original Halo.

 

No, it's not.  If it was the one in play, shield ignoring damage wouldn't exist.  It does.  And similar is not "the same as".  It's similar to Halo, yes.  It's also similar to the damage system used in Master of Orion, which had regenerating shields over non-regenerating hull, but which happily included shield piercing weapons which ignored shields.

 

The Halo approach is not a universal truth.  This isn't Halo.  Adjust.

[(PSN)DesecratedFlame]

I'm seeing "Glass half empty vs glass half full".  This is a simple psychology issue, entirely due to the previous damage system where build for shields 100% of the time was the correct solution. 

 

No, it's not.  If it was the one in play, shield ignoring damage wouldn't exist.  It does.  And similar is not "the same as".  It's similar to Halo, yes.  It's also similar to the damage system used in Master of Orion, which had regenerating shields over non-regenerating hull, but which happily included shield piercing weapons which ignored shields.

 

The Halo approach is not a universal truth.  This isn't Halo.  Adjust.

Yes, it is.  Also I have a thread about fixing the D2HP damage: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/262318-slash-and-toxic-are-bad-mechanics/

[Mak_Gohae]

All you need is Rejuvination.

All those other fancy mods are not needed. The only reason for them is if you want to be at max all the time asap.

Rejuv is now fast enough that if you can evade damage for a while you will get it pretty swiftly.

 

Plus you should ALWAYS have health items because ... why not? The space is there so use it.

[Otomaru]

This thread is not about the lack of health favouring mods. But that they aren't as enticing to players as shield modding. 

Yes we have plenty of mods that make it effective, but they don't make it fun in the eyes of players nor are they encouraged in to using them from the early game.

 

How is it not enticing to get something that helps you with your survival? How is it not encouraging? Early game is about basic stuff, and that's what they get. As they progress it's only natural that challenge rises. If you want something simple, play table games.

 

If you want a story then read a book, watch a movie. Game is supposed to reward you when you learn how to play it and then invest your time improving in various ways. If the rewards are not satisfying, go look for another entertainment.

[Phatose]

They should really do two things.  1) add a section on procs to the tutorial, preferably including a guaranteed damaged life strike mod, to explain to new Tenno that shields are the first line of defense, but they are not perfect, and you really do need to plan for what you're going to do when you take health damage, because you will take health damage.  2) run a community event, preferably involving the grineer and a new form of ammunition that nearly always causes slash procs, which introduces new health restoration mods similar to life strike but for ranged weapons and powers, particularly to make it obvious to the old breed that the game has changed and you have to consider these things now.

 

It's a mindset problem, and the best way to deal with those is to spell it out for the players.

[LukeAura]

It's a mindset problem, and the best way to deal with those is to spell it out for the players.

You can't tell players to deal with it, that's how the game works. That is the basic the definition of a 'need' as opposed to a 'want' I'm working with. 

Health builds need intrinsic value. As if the only thing that mattered was comparing them to a shield build regardless of outside factors. Once we achieve that we can create enemy factions models of neutral and biased defence without people feeling cheated about it. 

It's an advantage vs. disadvantage problem. Health builds are more restrictive and more costly. While adding tutorials and earlier forms of life restore help, so long as health builds are strictly worse than shield builds, people will have issues with them. They need intrinsic advantages, not external ones. 

Cause clearly, spelling it out for them has never worked in any debate in this forum when someone brings it up as a problem. 

Edited August 2, 2014 by LukeAura

[Psiloc1n]

there is no problem with HP in the game. learn to build around the 'problem', learn to play the game better or stop complaining.

if you want HP Regen go back to CoD

Edited August 2, 2014 by st1llborn

[Monolake]

there is no problem with HP in the game. learn to build around the 'problem', learn to play the game better or stop complaining.

if you want HP Regen go back to CoD

The whole point of the original post is that its hard to obtain mods for 'health build' and any health regen for most of the players especially new players. So they cant possibly counter direct health damage on most frames. 

Once again they are forced to play Rhino.

[Renegade343]

I do have an idea with tweaking direct health damage itself to be more fairer to almost all players, if you like to see it. 

[LukeAura]

I do have an idea with tweaking direct health damage itself to be more fairer to almost all players, if you like to see it. 

Let's hear it then! 

 

[Renegade343]

Let's hear it then! 

 

Here it is: 

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/249280-toxic-damage-rework/

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/236973-some-suggestions-to-improve-gameplay-edit-37-health-regaining-improvements/ (see EDIT 18)

[letir]

The main problem of the game is the balance between health and utility. When you engage worthy enemies, your shield and HP can give you only few seconds.

 

Let's talk about Rhino:

Energy Syphon+Iron Skin+Redirection - free energy regeneration, big shields with fast regen, big HP buff, CC immunity, proc immunity.

vs

Rejuvenation+Vitality+Rage - bothersome energy regeneration, big HP with slow regen.

 

Slow, difficult, unreliable HP build NEVER will be popular, bcs it's WEAK. Nobody wants to waste space and points on useless thing.

Maxed armor is expensive and can give you 3-5 seconds on 30-40 lvl.

Maxed mods for your Chaos/Iron Skin/Stomp/Radial Blind/"Nule 'em all" can give you much more on any level, in any environment.

 

 

So, we have 2 main problems:

1) Tanking is not worth it, utility is better.

2) HP tanking is not worth it X2. Slow, difficult, unreliable, problematic.

Edited August 2, 2014 by letir

[PaxEthenica]

Hmmmn. You know, I don't really find a use for the rare stuff. Vitality is all I need for a tanky anything, and it's served me well since Update 7 to do that. If ever I need health, I pop a health plate, which is cheap to make and convenient to use. Rejuvination aura might as well not exist in my collection, for all the use I show it, (ENERGY SIPHON 4 LYF!!!1) and the rare health mods only ever get the dust knocked off when I want to do specialized melee builds against the Infested... y'know, if I want to fight the Infested on the Infested's terms, like an idiot. As for armor, well, armor (and Valkyr) are kind of an unfunny joke right now.

If it's not clear by now I, for one, don't like the idea of regening health, or making health-related mods more available (to a certain degree) for a number of reasons. Some of them are subjective (it'll make the game too samey/CoD/softcore), but others are objective. First and foremost, it'll make the game way too easy. You're already a walking avatar of death, (get gud, scroob) why do you need the game holding your hand even more? This sort of ties into a concept of not giving everything that the player wants, too. Which is a meta-game concept, and thus slightly subjective, but in an objectively clever way. Right now, there are specialist builds, pseudo-specialist builds, gimmick builds, generalist builds and builds that don't work. That there are builds that don't work, and that these builds don't work for multiple reasons is a good thing. Health builds aren't great, but they'll get you through to the 40 minute mark and beyond on a t3 survival for the simple reason that some, if not most, specialist builds don't work.* There comes a tipping point during such high level play that any mistake, no matter how small, can get you killed within seconds regardless of the 'frame you're wearing.

 

Onto subjective experiences, I rarely, if ever, am downed. Those times I am are usually because of a major mistake that I make, or enemy ability spam, some bullhockey perpetrated by a boss that I'm not ready for, or (most commonly) because I'm doing the right thing and trying to rush to revive some moran who chose to carry 1100 shield points and only 150 health. Usually while they complain that bleed effects shouldn't touch their derp builds that don't work. I'm getting better, though, I usually stop rushing to help people with such health. ... Not really, I'm not such a donkey dork, but I take the time to kill things in the area, now, because Sanctuary is for chumps who ned to get gud.

*Exceptions exist, of course. NYX F'TAGN IA! IA!

[MeduSalem]

Well there are many opinions on that topic...

 

So, this:

1) Small health regen by default. Restore 0.25-0.50 HP in sec.

2) Cheap personal medkits. Restore 20/30/40% of total HP in 30 sec, cannot stack.

3) Enemies drop much more HP orbs. HP orbs restores 5-10% of your HP.

 

letir said the points I was going to say pretty much summed up right there. The values are up to debate though and is definitely something that can be balanced out over time.

 

1) The HP regeneration makes some sense early on when people don't have much health yet, no money for medkits and when they've bad luck with HP orbs.

 

2) Medkits would be the emergency failsafe method when there are no orbs nearby and no chance to get some.

 

3) Enemies that drop more health orbs would be the most common free method of getting health back and it scales much better than early on HP regeneration.

 

That way the health-related mods like Lifestrike/Rage/Quick Thinking/Equillibrium can stay where they are. It's either that or make the mods more common so people can develop builds for such situations early on.

 

They are the only things I think that are feasable building on the current balance of mods/weapons and factions, as well the overall damage system build upon it.

 

 

 

But nonetheless a major problem is also the Armor system itself... that thing literally provides no purpose for most frames other than Valkyr or Frost with Snow Globe f.e; In the long run that thing would have to be looked at as well somehow. For example I've no maxed out Steel Fiber because it's simply not worth going for when only equipped on 2 frames or so. The flat out damage reduction is simply not needed in most cases.

 

 

 

Over the past months I've been thinking about proposing a very very (and probably 10 times more very) brutal change to the way Health/Armor/Shield system works together, much like a (Warframe-)Defense 2.0 that would work with the idea of DE forcing people to adapt their defense mods to the factions... but I gurantee most people wouldn't like that, but my idea was as following:

 

Shield only works for incoming ranged damge. Regenerates the fastest.

 

Armor kicks in when shield runs out and to tank melee damage. The more hits you take the more broken the Armor becomes and then it loses it's effectiveness and damage passes through to HP. The Armor gets automatically reparied overtime by Nanobots but takes extremely longer than Shields obviously.

 

Health is the non-regenerative fallure state once Armor/Shields are gone.

 

No damage (Toxin/Slash/...) would directly bypass the shields/armor. Not even the elementals. They would either be tanked by the shields or by the armor (each being better against a different set of Physical/Elemental damage but they should be tuned to match with each other) because I think of our Warframes as something like a protective suit that's able to filter crap like Gas, Toxin and Viral as long as it is in good shape. That said once the armor is in a broken state you're not protected by stuff like fart clouds anymore.

 

This could (but since it's only hypothetical there's no gurantee) work very well in tandem with existing factions... so you have to build up armor extremely for the melee faction like Infested because they don't give a sh*t about your shield and get directly into Melee range bypassing your shields, also they spray around a lot of toxins and gas, and that's also tanked by Armor. And yes the default Warframe armor ratings would have to be upped for many frames to make it work.

 

Shields would obviously work best for the ranged factions like Corpus and Grineer, while especially against Corpus because their piercing weapons cut through your Armor like through butter, but now wonder they have to deal with armor-wearing Grineer. The Grineer would be somewhere in the middle because they often have slash/impact weapons ever since they have to deal with the Corpus.

 

That said none of both armor/shields are 100% immune against any incoming physical/elemental damage type. Every damage type at least does a percentage. So you may have much armor but the fart Ospreys would still deal an amount of damage to your armor, but it would be much more lethal when your armor is broken.

 

Also the amount of melee enemies found in ranged factions shouldn't exceed a certain amount otherwise it would become ugly. The same applies for Infested... the amount of ranged-damage dealing enemies would also have to be controlled because you obviously can't build up for ALL health, armor and shields at the same time.

 

On a side note I'd also make the armor the enemies (Grineer, Bosses) work the same way. Takes a specific amount of damage until it's broken and then damage applies fully to HP. With the difference that Shield/Armor bypass would work there because they have no advanced Warframes like we have.

 

 

That's obviously a major change and would require a lot of rebalancing of the factions and their weapons and that's what's been holding me back from even proposing it, because I know how playerbase is like "HELL NO" and DE is not that good at overall balancing.

 

It would literally mean that shields would become useless against Melee enemies and that you'd have to build up Steel Fiber to make up for that so you eventually have to adapt your Warframes' defense to the faction you play against, something that I think most people wouldn't like to see because many are already "Meh" about Damage 2.0... So why would they want (Warframe-)Defense 2.0 where they also have to switch between a set of mods to make their defense work.

 

Also there might be flaws to it but since I've been holding it on the backburner I never really looked too deep into it. ^^

 

Another thing that might render that idea completely insane and useless is the release of the Dark Sector PvP crap... That thing is just throwing most constructive RPG-balancing and feedback ideas overboard because how they can't be used when trying to make a fair PvP mode.

Edited August 3, 2014 by MeduSalem

[Derpo]

If health damage wasn't supposed to happen, we wouldn't have healer frames.  In many ways, Warframe is closer to typical MMO then an action game and this is one of them.  In an action game you can reasonably avoid damage.  In an MMO, you simply can't. 

 

I'm curious as what exactly the difference is between an attractive option and an important one.  This sounds like a mindset issue, not a gameplay one.

 

Stock health regeneration may work, but runs into the issue of being overly similar to how shields already function.

 

Enemies dropping health orbs would probably be the best approach, provided those orbs were uncommon and faded quickly.  Long lasting common orbs would push the balance too far in the favor of health, especially when armor is taken into account.

If brain cancer wasn't supposed to happen, we wouldn't have iridium transfusions. If intelligent communication wasn't impossible, then people wouldn't spout perfect nonsense using obfuscated double negative hidden lies in subsidiary clauses. I hope the OP didn't read what is apparently "an argument that direct health damage is good" and decide never to post online again =P