Push 4 To Win A (Insert Number Here) Look At Nuke Skills

[dragonkingdx]

Its been no surprise that over the time warframe has been up many times skills have been looked at and changed. With the viver incident being one of the more recent outrages regarding skill changes it was addressed that push 1 button and kill everything is not exactly a way to go when playing.

 

Lets face it skills are always subject to change, and DE has said they are looking closer at skills and how they function. With viver they added a line of sight function that ofc angered players. It was a change however in the players eyes it was not a good change. Many believe using 1 skill to nuke the map is just boring and shouldn't be a way to play. DE saw this and I dont believe that they want it to be that easy. They well gimped warframes during viver to try to remedy 1 hit nuking the entire map. Making farming so ridiculously easy and simple minded that it bordered on not even playing the game. They did reverse their change because it wasnt a good one and caused much displeasure among players. However just because it was changed back does not mean skills like that aren't on the chopping block to be altered in a way to make them useful yet not over the edge where its too easy. Finding a balance with that isnt easy if it was they would have been changed already.

 

During viver many things were proposed as changes beyond changing the stage (will have to hunt them down to list them). But im not here to open the old wound of viver its only being used as an example here as the most recent changes to skills that were press a button to win that involved a change in how the skills function. As I think looking at what nukes are and how they can function/should function is an important aspect of how skills are used.

 

IMO some skills need reworks on how they function however I only have a few ideas myself on how they could have changed the warframes in the viver incident to make it less push a button to nuke (these changes could apply to all frames) Though I will be only covering nuke skills (since they seem to be problematic) other skills should be addressed as well

 

Amount of effected enemies:

Everyone loves vauban aka booben. His skill bastille has its enemy limit beyond a certain amount his skill can not hold another enemy until 1 in bastille is killed. I believe this itself could be useful in limiting nuking without horribly crippling the skills. It just means recasting more.

 

Punch through/damage falloff:

Giving skills a limited amount of punch through with the environment. (note could be just enviromental objects or all objects in general) Adding such a thing would limit the skills range beyond range mods. This means skills can theoretically pierce through walls and other things but have a limit to how far it can go in more confined areas. So it would limit just nuking everything within a certain range as the environment would provide an obstacle. So once it reaches its limit with punch through the skill stops being effective.

 

This idea itself could also be incorporated with damage falloff. However I stress now I dont mean both at once. It could be but in this instance im using it as a separate function using the above's related idea as another measure instead of stopping its effectiveness after it reaches its cap. With this instance the more environment in the way the less damage the skill does. As the objects in the way weaken its effect. Thus using punch through as an example for effecting skills before the more walls/items between you and the enemy weaken its effect on them. Such as an enemy hiding behind a wall would take less damage then an enemy in plain sight. Ofc smaller items like being behind a rail or something like that would be a very small amount of punch through and would not have any real effect vs something behind 2-3 walls. It would follow the effect that the more an ability has to go through the weaker it would be on such an opponent.

 

Literal examples:

Radial Javelin for example the swords would lose velocity going through the walls

Mags crush would be weakened because the walls are providing interference with the magnetic forces that she is using

Saryn's poison would be dispersed the more obstacles it has to weave around.

 

Well you get the idea it essentially allows them to pass through walls like they currently do, but add a twist so they dont automatically kill far opponents right away like they would with closer opponents. Causing more casts to be used.

 

 

Those are just 3 examples I came up with to limit nuke skills that wouldn't exactly cripple them but limit their effectiveness at longer ranges so its not a 1 hit insta map kill. Though as I said its hard to balance things to make them less effective so they cant be used in the same way. (except be a nuke area not nuke map function) What I just suggested would only mean using the skill more and putting some more energy drain on it. (and thats just looking at the base of nuke skills without addressing the problem trinity adds that allows them to cast the skills so frequently as that goes hand in hand with nuking maps) Its not meant to be a fix just a step in a better direction (after all drastic changes itself cause major problems things need to be eased into)

Edited November 17, 2014 by dragonkingdx

[Kthal]

Punch through/damage falloff:

 

I had been giving thought as to how to limit range while not crippling it, and one idea came to mind;

 

Give abilities an absolute minimum range, less than what they are now, but a line-of-sight range larger than that.

 

As an example, Radial Javelin has a range of 25m currently. It would be reasonable to reduce that to 15m for everything, LOS or no, but to extend for a bonus 15m, to the full range if you have a clear view of the target. This would decrease the effectiveness of abusable nuking, but would increase the perceived range, making the ability feel more powerful while reducing its effectiveness to a slight degree.

 

 

Having a punch-through effect tied to AOEs would be similar, but probably much better, although I would be concerned with the processing power required for calculating punch through mechanics on large numbers of targets at once.

 

 

Amount of effected enemies:

 

I am not overly keen on your suggestion (well, some things like Radial Javelin make sense), as it would make some abilities seem underwhelming while in crowds.

 

Depending on the ability, it might make sense to start dissipating the damage for all targets when a certain number is hit. Effectively place a maximum cap on total damage dealt by the AOE, which would only kick in when the number of enemies multiplied by the damage (pre-vulnerabilities) reaches a certain value (affected by Power Strength).

Edited November 17, 2014 by Kthal

[quan256]

My take on how nuking should be

 

[HackShield]

you know abilites arent the problem in the case of nuke spam its all about the mods that was released back in the days as Fleeting and such other mods corrupted nightmare etc wasnt there you though about to use that ability or not cause you couldnt spam energy pads or spamm cause of only 25 energy or max duration.

 

you used it tactic wise and searched hard for energy balls.

 

but those times are gone same as the high lvl low dmg enemies and with all those "new" status etc you need nuke skills spam isnt the right choice for sure but player find always a way . thats the thing and abilities are meaned to be &#! saving.

 

so cripple em so those lamer then shooting with ignis makes abilities a non sense.

 

and dont forget on a high end build its a spam build but if you reduce the "high end" build how ends up a newbie or unmodded frame struggle to hit enmies 3m away from him with his ability dont attack the frame abilities attack the root of the problem and that are the mods who let us create thse build.

 

But DE learned allrdy not to do those same fault again if you look up on archwing sutff + mods higher base stats of things so they are viable and the mdos dont outrages buff the weapon buff give still a good feeling of buff

[Draciusen]

Wouldn't mind LoS as long as it makes sense and they reduce the awful amount of clutter on the maps.

Some cover here and there is nice, but having so much of it not only makes LoS a terrible nerf to AoE since everything is obstructed, but also hinders mobility. It's why directional melee and coptering are 'needed', otherwise 60% of your movement around the map is going to be extremely slow climbing animations and accidental wall-runs.

[UFOLoche]

Sigh, the skills are fine the way they are, can we stop screaming for nerfs and instead maybe buff frames that need it?

[Kaokasalis]

This belongs in the feedback section and not general discussion.

 

Also lessering a abilitys range by giving it punch-through or damage falloff is one of the worst Things DE can do right after LOS. Adding this would screw over one of Warframes core feature which is the abilities of the warframes. Dont get me wrong, i despised playing on Viver because it was just plain boring but it was the only effective way of getting syndicate points at the time. It exposed to me what i consider one of the biggest flaws of the warframe abilities and that is the spamability of some warframe abilities. I believe in skillfull play and knowing when to use a ultimate rather than just spam it should be rewarded. For that i think there should be alot more cooldowns on alot of warframe ultimates if not all of them. The way i see it this would weaken any of the abilities stats but only their usage.

Edited November 17, 2014 by Afsky

[ClockworkSpectre]

The skills are fine, the problem is the Corrupted mods.  In my view the overextended mod is one of the worst and a HUGE problem and should be nerfed. 

Edited November 17, 2014 by ClockworkSpectre

[Draciusen]

The skills are fine, the problem is the Corrupted mods.  In my view the overextended mod is one of the worst and a HUGE problem and should be nerfed. 

 

TBH they're all capable of really cheesy things except for Blind Rage.

Lowering efficiency and boosting a stat that's known to not scale well is pretty meh.

[blasron]

so op you want all frame like excal on 15.2 fine by me, but remember that the day that you will have to ressurect a allied on a t4 map and 2 heavy gunner would have been hide by  a door.

Remember that those 2 will enter the room and murder your face because the radial jav, radial disarm, crush, miasma, stomp, chaos, ect did not work making you loss the precious loot that you have grind for week, since its easy to loose the 4 revival there. Remember to not come here crying like a *@##$ because you loss that special grind you spend weeks trying to get.

[KiteoHatto]

Why do some people try and think of ways to take the fun out of games....

Skills are fine as they are, we are not playing some futuristic ninjasuit simulator where we need "realism". Accept what warframe is and just have fun and don't hate when other people have fun.

Edited November 17, 2014 by kiteohatto

[Inversus]

Nuking with abilities and 'pressing 4 to win' sounds really op and skill-less, but the truth is that these dmg 'nukes' generally drop out damage-wise at around lvl30 enemies

I really hope they don't nerf dmg abilities like radial javelin because they're not really viable in higher level stuff anyway imo

[Dseaver]

Many believe using 1 skill to nuke the map is just boring and shouldn't be a way to play. DE saw this and I dont believe that they want it to be that easy.

Maybe that's what DE believes, but it seems that they respect the majority of the player base's prefered play styles.

 

 

Warframe Changes

 

• Removed LOS checks for Radial Javelin, Energy Vampire, and Shield Polarize (reverted the 15.2.0 change).

 

 

[dragonkingdx]

My take on how nuking should be

 

 

Well I agree to some extent that it could be better in that way. The only problem I would see is implementing a way so you can distinguish the 2 functions.

Sigh, the skills are fine the way they are, can we stop screaming for nerfs and instead maybe buff frames that need it?

Why do some people try and think of ways to take the fun out of games....

Skills are fine as they are, we are not playing some futuristic ninjasuit simulator where we need "realism". Accept what warframe is and just have fun and don't hate when other people have fun.

Who said I hated it? Moreover I mentioned that skills were being looked over by DE (after all those changes werent just pulled out of thin air) I also mentioned a rework, a rework is not a nerf or a buff its neutral. Every nerf and buff is technically a rework. Players only categorize it as a nerf or buff on their feelings of whats been taken away or added. Some things after all can be too easy, just because something works as it is does not mean it couldn't be changed slightly to add some small degree of difficulty while using it.

 

This belongs in the feedback section and not general discussion.

 

Also lessering a abilitys range by giving it punch-through or damage falloff is one of the worst Things DE can do right after LOS. Adding this would screw over one of Warframes core feature which is the abilities of the warframes. Dont get me wrong, i despised playing on Viver because it was just plain boring but it was the only effective way of getting syndicate points at the time. It exposed to me what i consider one of the biggest flaws of the warframe abilities and that is the spamability of some warframe abilities. I believe in skillfull play and knowing when to use a ultimate rather than just spam it should be rewarded. For that i think there should be alot more cooldowns on alot of warframe ultimates if not all of them. The way i see it this would weaken any of the abilities stats but only their usage.

Its questionable where it belongs. As general is a section whose topics can go any which way in a different selected forum. its easy to pick out what section it goes to but I feel that this is more of a discussion over nuke skills than a suggestion for feedback. With as many different sections as there is it gets hard to distinguish where things can go because many discussions can be classified as feeback about a certain topic. (that who is your favorite warframe thread could go in the feedback about warframes due to it being totally about their favorite warframe and why it is that way. As in a sense you can get alot of feedback on who is favoring what and why they are) But meh if its moved its moved its more over the discretion of the mod that looks at it.

 

As for punch though/damage falloff it would have some limit before it actually weakens the ability. Its not like it wouldnt still be effective for things within a certain range. Its more designed for things that are like 3+ rooms away being insta killed without any care of moving from a singular spot.

 

so op you want all frame like excal on 15.2 fine by me, but remember that the day that you will have to ressurect a allied on a t4 map and 2 heavy gunner would have been hide by  a door.

Remember that those 2 will enter the room and murder your face because the radial jav, radial disarm, crush, miasma, stomp, chaos, ect did not work making you loss the precious loot that you have grind for week, since its easy to loose the 4 revival there. Remember to not come here crying like a $#*(@ because you loss that special grind you spend weeks trying to get.

 

LoS change was too big of a change and too drastic because it heavily limited what you could use the skill for. This doesnt limit anything beyond long ranges. So maps just dont die on 1 button command.

Nuking with abilities and 'pressing 4 to win' sounds really op and skill-less, but the truth is that these dmg 'nukes' generally drop out damage-wise at around lvl30 enemies

I really hope they don't nerf dmg abilities like radial javelin because they're not really viable in higher level stuff anyway imo

 

Unfortunately though lvl 30 enemies are even present in the earlier stages t3 and make up the bigger aspect of all planets in the solar system. Its not a nerf in damage per say more like weakening the damage at X point past a certain degree of interference. Skills would pretty much work the same as they do now but are less effective for things overly far off out of sight. Just makes most maps overly able to have a single skill spammed over and over to nuke everything in sight and in many maps where there are hindrances things out of sight as well.

 

 

Maybe that's what DE believes, but it seems that they respect the majority of the player base's prefered play styles.

Meh with that I think its a bit of both. Sometimes things arent always black and white as they seem. Many skills work fine and could be OP if used right. But there always needs to be a form of challenge in the game. Challenge comes in many shapes and forms if something like skill using makes the challenge of the game drop significantly in some some instances then a change to make it a little more is warranted. Like I mentioned in the first post its hard to balance a game when there is many different aspects to take into consideration. Trying to respect play styles is definitely an important part of making a change. At the same time though if something is too much and everyone is fine with it than it should be looked at how its used if that method makes things a bit too easy.

Edited November 17, 2014 by dragonkingdx

[vaugahn]

LoS = good

 

The way it was implemented = bad

 

I firmly believe that the game will benefit from LoS on direct-effect skills. The problem with the current incarnation of LoS is that it's too unpredictable in its interaction with terrain. If skills could go through props but were blocked by terrain, that would be much better. Or a small radius of hard AoE and a larger radius of LoS. Or detection based purely on awareness and not on geometry at all. There are plenty of ways to make it work. 

[UFOLoche]

 Every nerf and buff is technically a rework. Players only categorize it as a nerf or buff on their feelings of whats been taken away or added. Some things after all can be too easy, just because something works as it is does not mean it couldn't be changed slightly to add some small degree of difficulty while using it.

 

That is NOT how it works at all.  If you take something away from a frame or weaken it, THAT is a nerf.  Changing Trinity's EV to LOS is a nerf, the changes you have described are nerfs, comeon man, if you're gonna cry out for nerfs, then at least don't claim they're something else.

 

Also, guess what, video games need to have a feeling of progression.  Nerfing frames into oblivion just because a bunch of skilled players can easily wipe out an easy node does not make anyone happy, you're just going to make everyone mad.

Edited November 17, 2014 by UFOLoche

[Jeigo]

In a nutshell, LoS mechanics AND power scaling is how I want the powers to work. I believe people would go for it if:

 

1. Only thick walls, like the ones rooms are made of, blocked powers.

2. The damage of the power remains significant as enemies become stronger, albeit nonfatal after a certain level.

[JDP04]

why nerf the fun? :/

[-Ropefish-]

didn't....the whole community just freak out on how bad LoS was...?
 

[Demon-King-Lamb]

so op you want all frame like excal on 15.2 fine by me, but remember that the day that you will have to ressurect a allied on a t4 map and 2 heavy gunner would have been hide by  a door.

Remember that those 2 will enter the room and murder your face because the radial jav, radial disarm, crush, miasma, stomp, chaos, ect did not work making you loss the precious loot that you have grind for week, since its easy to loose the 4 revival there. Remember to not come here crying like a $#*(@ because you loss that special grind you spend weeks trying to get.

 

What. Only two gunner's? Dude man it's more like 10 of them at once. And that doubles the longer your in the T4 maps. And I agree with ya there. People are crying for nerfs cause they aren't playing against enemies higher than lvl 42. If they actually played the game long enough to know how difficult enemies get when they are just lvl 80 and their armor and health make it impossible for the "Press 4 to Win" to do any dmg.

 

From my exp. pressing 4 to win is not to kill everything. But more to stagger the enemy. It gives me enough time to get to cover and and kill a few enemies before they insta kill.

[dragonkingdx]

LoS = good

 

The way it was implemented = bad

 

I firmly believe that the game will benefit from LoS on direct-effect skills. The problem with the current incarnation of LoS is that it's too unpredictable in its interaction with terrain. If skills could go through props but were blocked by terrain, that would be much better. Or a small radius of hard AoE and a larger radius of LoS. Or detection based purely on awareness and not on geometry at all. There are plenty of ways to make it work.

 

Well there is also the question on which skills it would be best suited on as well. All skills in some sense you can put a point of reasoning on them others its harder to do. Since it would effect the core of the skills usefulness. Its really hard to integrate logic in fantasy without taking away the element of fantasy.

That is NOT how it works at all.  If you take something away from a frame or weaken it, THAT is a nerf.  Changing Trinity's EV to LOS is a nerf, the changes you have described are nerfs, comeon man, if you're gonna cry out for nerfs, then at least don't claim they're something else.

 

Also, guess what, video games need to have a feeling of progression.  Nerfing frames into oblivion just because a bunch of skilled players can easily wipe out an easy node does not make anyone happy, you're just going to make everyone mad.

Actually it does. When something is "nerfed" it takes away 1 aspect of something to promote another aspect. (both good and bad but apparently many just see what they lose and instantly hate it because of that)  When something is "buffed" it takes a negative aspect of uselessness on certain areas and promotes a better use for the skill giving it more functionality to a larger variety of situations. (this is removing/changing something bad and making it better)

 

A rework is a change. All buffs and nerfs are a change that are meant to improve the game, thus all nerfs and buffs are reworks. But alas im not really gonna explain it further than that

Edited November 17, 2014 by dragonkingdx

[CY13ERPUNK]

LoS = good

 

The way it was implemented = bad

 

I firmly believe that the game will benefit from LoS on direct-effect skills. The problem with the current incarnation of LoS is that it's too unpredictable in its interaction with terrain. If skills could go through props but were blocked by terrain, that would be much better. Or a small radius of hard AoE and a larger radius of LoS. Or detection based purely on awareness and not on geometry at all. There are plenty of ways to make it work. 

 

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

i just hope that DE still intends to eventually migrate the majority of frame abilities to LoS once they get it working better, i really hope they dont completely fold over on this like they did with the stamina issue last year =/

[vaugahn]

Well there is also the question on which skills it would be best suited on as well. All skills in some sense you can put a point of reasoning on them others its harder to do. Since it would effect the core of the skills usefulness. Its really hard to integrate logic in fantasy without taking away the element of fantasy.

 

LoS is not a realism issue. Let's just clear that up right now, because in any discussion about LoS people love to try and strawman you into oblivion with the whole "well this game isn't realistic" thing.

 

It's a balance thing. As I mentioned, it only belongs on direct-effect skills, ones where you press button and enemies are instantly damaged/stunlocked. Buff and debuff skills and soft CC/area denial skills don't need it. 

 

It's an easy way to balance out those direct-effect skills without putting convoluted limitation sets on them. 

[ranks21]

ahh the whole LOS thing, good for guns and bows ect bad for powers/ abilities. Too many obstacles to hinder LOS for it to be effective with abilities  range is always the better option for xray powers  in the games that use the mechanics. where LOS would be most effective<<< an open flat terrain or in the air like in  archwing intercept.

[Mesyra]

I dont agree. the basis of the game is kill everything as awesomely as possible with your spaceninjamagic. -1