Things I Learned In Warframe Builder Today: Whacky Mods

[Bobtm]

This is a thread about weapons.

 

It's a thread about irrelevant numbers and the attempt to push meaningless choices with a wide variety of them, each as meaningless as the last.

 

What you're trying to have happen is to have players be allowed with 10000000000 choices, each as perfectly the same as the last, without regard to anything interesting.  DPS cannot and does not every account for everything, it never can, and never will.  The reason players utilize this metric so often is because it's the only one reasonably easy to calculate.  Measuring an actually proper metric accurately is... well it's damn near impossible.

 

There's a reason why pretty much no game ever just goes "Give everything the same DPS ever, forever." and it's because that will never be capable of being balanced.

 

You're a smart person, and you're able to come up with very intriguing ideas for things.  But all the intellect in the world is lost when the very underlying principle upon which your building the suggestion is literally and absolutely flawed.

 

The only time ever that DPS is all that matters, is when you're at a shooting range firing at an unmoving training dummy with infinite health.  Vying against other players for a high score that is eaqual to the highest total amount of damage whilst firing at the dummy for 1 minute.

 

Punch Through, innate elements, damage spreads, various firing characteristics, projectile speeds, projectile variations, projectile numbers, AoE, accuracy, reload cancelling, ease of use, tactical applications, alternate firing methods.  DPS doens't take any of these things into account, it is and always will be a flawed and incomplete metric.

 

You will not find a formula that can account for all of these things.  This is why balance isn't easy for games to achieve, I won't ever solve such a problem on my own, nor will you.  It's something that happens slowly, overtime, with input from a massive variety of sources and inacted using a lot of data.  DPS is but one tiny fraction of a speck of the big picture.

Edited December 26, 2014 by Bobtm

[OverlordMcGeek]

Seems someone needs some aloe vera...cuz they just got BURNED!

[MageSkeleton]

The issue i see is more the case of either your using Fast Hands and the weapon has decent ammo efficiency so you can expect to reload faster to be back to shooting and still have ammo to keep shooting.

 

Now in the case of a Bow or the Opticor, mods like Speed Trigger allow you to load up your shot faster to shoot, and in such the case of such weapons, if you don't shoot you'll have too much ammo on the ground you can't shoot.

 

THEN you have your rifles and shotguns. Some of which require you to use mods like Point strike to simply increase your crit chance. Here's the problem. You have 8 slots to fit mods on. Your burdened by ammo efficiency for if you shoot too often or too fast you won't have ammo to shoot anymore. If you have a mod like Fast Hands or Speed Trigger, you could had just had a element mod or corrupted mod to increase your damage so you wouldn't need to worry about reloading fast or shooting faster because you'd hit harder.

 

Comes down to mods like Sawtooth, Piercing hit, Bane of Grineer, Bane of Infested. That 30% doesn't do anything compared to 150% increased crit chance and 120% increase crit damage. For the low crit weapons and you've got all four element mods on and still have a slot or 2 you can throw on these mods and do more than increase reload time or fire rate and output damage AND keep good ammo efficiency. THEN you have weapons that really don't do enough damage no matter what you do with them.

[ThePresident777]

When trade offs vs. DPS are claimed, are those trade offs taken into account?  I don't see any cases being made for trade offs vs. DPS.  Claims are being made that amount to stating that something unaccountable is worth trading off versus something accountable, something subjective vs. something objective.  DPS is objective.  It's just high school algebra. 

 

But, the trade offs vs. DPS are not being calculated at all and their acceptance is a matter of taste.  Opposition is proposing in this thread that rather than have the means to satisfy a variety of subjective tastes, within the theme of the game, it is better for the game to arbitrarily accommodate a narrow subjective taste, depriving players of choice and DE of customers, instead of mulitple subjective tastes, when the theme of the game could accomodate a variety of choices.

 

I do not think that is an acceptable design philosophy for a game.  I think choice serves all parties better than not choice, as long as those choices conform to the theme of the game.

 

If player A accepts choice 1 and rejects choice 2, and player B accepts choice 2 and rejects choice 1, neither player is harmed, they are both benefited, and so is the game developer, even though a player might argue that the game should not include the individual choices he has rejected.

 

It is incumbent on the game developer to see the benefit of choice and interpret the players preferences as choices, even though the players fail to do so themselves and express their preferences as absolutes.

 

Apparently, my response on page one was not noticed before some statements were made on page 2.

[Inez]

While many mods are truly and utterly useless you chose an awful example with Speed Trigger. Speed Trigger lowers ammo efficiency and increases recoil. More recoil means less actual dps.

 

Balancing all mods around theoretical dps is not a good idea.

 

And using 'raw' when you mean 'theoretical' is sloppy use of language.

[ThePresident777]

Speed Trigger does not increase recoil.  A weapon already has to have recoil for it to recoil when triggered.  Speed Trigger triggers the recoil more often because the gun fires more often.  This makes you fight the recoil ore often.

 

Recoil itself is a matter of taste.  Some people get bored by weapons with perfect ballistics and handling.  Why should everybody else have to suffer it?

 

And, again, the ammo efficiency game is a joke.  No one wants to play that game.  That's why ammo is abundant.  And after launchers were switched to sniper ammo, that ammo became more common.  Running out of ammo is the sort of thing that should be a mission parameter, like a Nightmare Mode Challenge.  DE could let people choose their favorite weapon and still play the ammo efficiency game by choosing a mission that has less ammo drops.  Then there would be variety in weapons because any weapon that you like can be ammo inefficient if you choose.  Player Choice is good.

 

If, these various trade offs are such a good idea, then DE can uncrappy the crappy mods and make Corrupted mods to let players choose all these trade offs which are supposedly so great.

 

Balancing all mods around theoretical DPS is a good idea because it's the only sensible metric.  And, this is implied by all the arguments claiming complexities requiring years of intense research to solve, only to start over again in a new game before the goal can be reached.  If people think other comparisons, trade offs, or metrics are so great, they are free to use them and DE can make them mods that facilitate those choices.

 

But, it doesn't make any sense to sacrfice clarity for the occult pursuit of "balance, the great unknown".

Edited December 30, 2014 by ThePresident777

[NocturneOfSolace]

I don't even understand what the hell the point is you're trying to make here

[Quizel]

If you want to maximize your DPS, you do have to use speed trigger.  Try it in Warframe Builder.

It's a flavor mod if you ask me.  In game performance doesn't always equate to paper dps. Example: Latron Wraith is a marksmen weapon imo and requires some time to aim shots when going for heads. Increasing the rate of fire merely causes less manageable recoil and zero benefit if lining up shots. W/O speed trigger or shred you don't have to adjust for the recoil produced when shooting at the max speed. With those mods, you have to adjust ur aim. It adds increased difficulty with zero benefit using increased fire rate mods.

 

 

Personally rarely use speed trigger unless I'm using a sniper.  Once a max'ed shred is on the weapon the sustained dps increase of speed trigger is more marginal and not worth using imo (I value punch through, sustained dps, and higher up time of constant shooting than pure burst dps most of the time).

 

Speed trigger may increase paper dps but in game dps things may not work that way as given in the example above.  

 

 

 

But, the trade offs vs. DPS are not being calculated at all and their acceptance is a matter of taste.  Opposition is proposing in this thread that rather than have the means to satisfy a variety of subjective tastes, within the theme of the game, it is better for the game to arbitrarily accommodate a narrow subjective taste, depriving players of choice and DE of customers, instead of mulitple subjective tastes, when the theme of the game could accomodate a variety of choices.

 

Taking this idea of choice to the extreme. I know this is not your intention, but it brings up a subtle point at the end.

 

Lets just make all weapons perform exactly the same (which is like impossible to objectively quantify all aspects of the weapon-sustained dps vs burst, head shot vs chest shots, Time to Kill, Length of time b4 clip is emptied, ammo efficiency, status effects, has an aoe effect, ect. - but lets just assume you could achieve this balance) with only the only difference between weapons being the skin. What kind of variety of gameplay would that lead to? Every weapon would feel the same and essentially be the same.

 

The way I see it is by giving the player full complete control of how they want to play you remove an important concept of what gives character builds depth and meaning. By giving the player full control over his/her choices and game experience they want, you complete remove the important aspect of meaningful choices and create a very bland game play experience due to the game being more of the same with each update or additional content.

 

So in other words, this narrow set of choices in WF we're giving for each weapon set up provides more meaningful choices elsewhere (in the actual choice of the weapon to suit ones playstyle). I'm sure taking the argument to the extreme is not your intention, but I thought it was worth noting.

 

I also would just like to finish by restating that a weapons effectiveness in combat is definitely not solely based on paper burst dps.

Edited December 30, 2014 by Quizel

[Ashnal]

It's a thread about irrelevant numbers and the attempt to push meaningless choices with a wide variety of them, each as meaningless as the last.

 

What you're trying to have happen is to have players be allowed with 10000000000 choices, each as perfectly the same as the last, without regard to anything interesting.  DPS cannot and does not every account for everything, it never can, and never will.  The reason players utilize this metric so often is because it's the only one reasonably easy to calculate.  Measuring an actually proper metric accurately is... well it's damn near impossible.

 

There's a reason why pretty much no game ever just goes "Give everything the same DPS ever, forever." and it's because that will never be capable of being balanced.

 

You're a smart person, and you're able to come up with very intriguing ideas for things.  But all the intellect in the world is lost when the very underlying principle upon which your building the suggestion is literally and absolutely flawed.

 

The only time ever that DPS is all that matters, is when you're at a shooting range firing at an unmoving training dummy with infinite health.  Vying against other players for a high score that is eaqual to the highest total amount of damage whilst firing at the dummy for 1 minute.

 

Punch Through, innate elements, damage spreads, various firing characteristics, projectile speeds, projectile variations, projectile numbers, AoE, accuracy, reload cancelling, ease of use, tactical applications, alternate firing methods.  DPS doens't take any of these things into account, it is and always will be a flawed and incomplete metric.

 

You will not find a formula that can account for all of these things.  This is why balance isn't easy for games to achieve, I won't ever solve such a problem on my own, nor will you.  It's something that happens slowly, overtime, with input from a massive variety of sources and inacted using a lot of data.  DPS is but one tiny fraction of a speck of the big picture.

DPS CAN take into account Punch Through, AoE, Accuracy, and reload Reload Cancelling into account. AoE and punch through can simply be shown  by giving a simple chart that spits out a number for each possible circumstance, such as DPS vs 1 target, DPS vs 2 targets etc. You can have another number that toggles reload cancelling into account, chopping off 1/4th of the reload time from the equation.

 

There are also complex equations that you can use to determine the probability of a hit if you know how the game calculates bullet spread for a given accuracy number and weapon type, accounting for headshots and body shots at varying distances assuming the player is good at keeping a steady aim.

 

About the only thing that is impossible to calculate into DPS is recoil pattern and how well the player handles it. There's also playstyle preferences as well, such as a playstyle choice between a single shot marksman type rifle, or an LMG rapid fire type weapon.The player also has to be intelligent enough to know what all the numbers mean to even use them to make a decision, which isn't the case for some players.

 

Now with all that being said, WF Builder doesn't do these things. It's definitely possible with the right information and testing, but the developer hasn't put in that much work.

[Quizel]

DPS CAN take into account Punch Through, AoE, Accuracy, and reload Reload Cancelling into account. 

True, you can model most of those things individually.

 

How does one compare subjective weapon effectiveness with objective weapon effectiveness? How can you make "dps" or a weapon's combat effectiveness objectively equal across all categories so that the only metric that changes is how the weapon "feels" (ex: weapon characteristics like reload time,clip size, RoF to name a few change how the weapon can feel )?

 

 

You will not find a formula that can account for all of these things. 

When Bobtm made this statement I believe he meant that you cannot account for all of these things at the same time.

 

To look at this problem from a different perspective: Is it possible to make a mod like Thunder Bolt provide the exact same dps boost as Fast Hands for all combat situations that can occur throughout an entire mission? The answer is no, especially considering even if Fast Hands made reload times go to 0 sec, Thunder Bolt may still out "dps" it in some cases.

 

 

In case it wasn't clear yet:

There is no God formula that can perfectly compare the combat effectiveness of all weapons, across all situations, all on the same graph without first introducing subjective opinions. 

Edited December 31, 2014 by Quizel

[ThePresident777]

Who is arguing that we can account for all of these things at the same time?  The only thing the Original Post argues for is:

 

The player has to choose between the effectiveness of the weapon and the feel of the weapon.  Their only choice is more DPS plus more reloads vs. less DPS plus default feel of the weapon vs. the lowest DPS plus fewer reloads plus(or) shorter reloads.

 

I don't see why players should be limited like this.  DPS and weapon feel are two different things that can be arranged so that the player does not have to choose between them or have the choices made for them.

....

I hope that DE will resolve this issue so that the players can have more choice, more fun, and more convenience.

Edited December 31, 2014 by ThePresident777

[-SLX-J3tAc3]

Speed Trigger does not increase recoil.  A weapon already has to have recoil for it to recoil when triggered.  Speed Trigger triggers the recoil more often because the gun fires more often.  This makes you fight the recoil ore often.

 

Recoil itself is a matter of taste.  Some people get bored by weapons with perfect ballistics and handling.  Why should everybody else have to suffer it?

 

And, again, the ammo efficiency game is a joke.  No one wants to play that game.  That's why ammo is abundant.  And after launchers were switched to sniper ammo, that ammo became more common.  Running out of ammo is the sort of thing that should be a mission parameter, like a Nightmare Mode Challenge.  DE could let people choose their favorite weapon and still play the ammo efficiency game by choosing a mission that has less ammo drops.  Then there would be variety in weapons because any weapon that you like can be ammo inefficient if you choose.  Player Choice is good.

 

If, these various trade offs are such a good idea, then DE can uncrappy the crappy mods and make Corrupted mods to let players choose all these trade offs which are supposedly so great.

 

Balancing all mods around theoretical DPS is a good idea because it's the only sensible metric.  And, this is implied by all the arguments claiming complexities requiring years of intense research to solve, only to start over again in a new game before the goal can be reached.  If people think other comparisons, trade offs, or metrics are so great, they are free to use them and DE can make them mods that facilitate those choices.

 

But, it doesn't make any sense to sacrfice clarity for the occult pursuit of "balance, the great unknown".

Right on, makes perfect sense.

[Bobtm]

True, you can model most of those things individually.

 

How does one compare subjective weapon effectiveness with objective weapon effectiveness? How can you make "dps" or a weapon's combat effectiveness objectively equal across all categories so that the only metric that changes is how the weapon "feels" (ex: weapon characteristics like reload time,clip size, RoF to name a few change how the weapon can feel )?

 

 

When Bobtm made this statement I believe he meant that you cannot account for all of these things at the same time.

 

To look at this problem from a different perspective: Is it possible to make a mod like Thunder Bolt provide the exact same dps boost as Fast Hands for all combat situations that can occur throughout an entire mission? The answer is no, especially considering even if Fast Hands made reload times go to 0 sec, Thunder Bolt may still out "dps" it in some cases.

 

 

In case it wasn't clear yet:

There is no God formula that can perfectly compare the combat effectiveness of all weapons, across all situations, all on the same graph without first introducing subjective opinions. 

 

You got exactly what I was trying to convey, without being as longwinded as I am.  So coolio for that.

 

Who is arguing that we can account for all of these things at the same time?  The only thing the Original Post argues for is:

 

The point is that, what you want is literally an impossibility.  Unless of course you want a game that's unbalanced pointless and droll.  You are under the impression that a weapon's traits aren't actively very important to their overall capabilities.  That is, to put it very bluntly, directly false.

 

Your idea simply doesn't work in real game design unless a game's weapons available are mindlessly simple in terms of variety.

[Ashnal]

True, you can model most of those things individually.

 

How does one compare subjective weapon effectiveness with objective weapon effectiveness? How can you make "dps" or a weapon's combat effectiveness objectively equal across all categories so that the only metric that changes is how the weapon "feels" (ex: weapon characteristics like reload time,clip size, RoF to name a few change how the weapon can feel )?

 

 

When Bobtm made this statement I believe he meant that you cannot account for all of these things at the same time.

 

To look at this problem from a different perspective: Is it possible to make a mod like Thunder Bolt provide the exact same dps boost as Fast Hands for all combat situations that can occur throughout an entire mission? The answer is no, especially considering even if Fast Hands made reload times go to 0 sec, Thunder Bolt may still out "dps" it in some cases.

 

 

In case it wasn't clear yet:

There is no God formula that can perfectly compare the combat effectiveness of all weapons, across all situations, all on the same graph without first introducing subjective opinions. 

You can account most factors at the same time though. The thing is that it outputs charts and charts of data that can be difficult to interpret. For instance you could model the DPS of a shotgun with low accuracy and punch through against two targets standing in a line, such that the first target is hit with a  percentage of pellets determined by initial range of the target and spread of the pellets, and the second target is hit with less depending on its distance from the muzzle as well.

 

If you put enough work into it, you could develop an equation that could take any 1-X points in space, calculate the best angle to shoot from that would result in the most DPS hitting all of those targets. Such a thing would probably require use of Calculus though. Put more work into it, and you could have a very robust DPS calulator that can give you results for many different situations.

 

 

As for the balancing bit. The best balanced games balance in two ways, by straight numbers, and incomparables. It is very possible to make a gun that has identical DPS while tweaking its damage per shot and fire rate. There's a linear relationship between the two, while resulting in a gun that feels different.

 

On the Thunderbolt thing, there's actually a good example in the game with the Synapse and Amperex. The Synapse has better ammo efficiency than the Amperex, due to it doing 12.5 damage compared the the Amperex's 7.5. However the fire rate difference between the two means the Amperex does 150 DPS, while the Synapse is at 125 DPS. Normally they would be pretty well balanced like this, trading ammo efficiency for DPS, however the Amperex's DPS shoots up to 225 once one other target gets within the AoE effect, however it still has less ammo efficiency than the Synapse, as the base damage only goes up to 11.25 with one extra target. At 3 targets, the Amperex gets up to 15 damage per ammo, putting it ahead in both ammo efficiency AND DPS from the Synapse.

 

You could easily do a comparison of sustained DPS of Fast Hands vs Thunderbolt. It would result in something where Fast Hands has a single sustained DPS number, and Thunderbolt has a number for each number of targets. You could then say Thunderbolt does more sustained DPS than Fast Hands if you're hitting X number of targets per shot. The calculations would be more complex than the one for Synapse/Amperex due to the % chance nature of thunderbolt.

 

Don't sell mathematics short my friend. Though how you interpret the results is another matter, once you have them.

[Quizel]

As for the balancing bit. The best balanced games balance in two ways, by straight numbers, and incomparables. It is very possible to make a gun that has identical DPS while tweaking its damage per shot and fire rate. There's a linear relationship between the two, while resulting in a gun that feels different.

 

Hmm I'll take a different approach. Clearly you understand stuff and have a clear thought process but we're arguing different things. I'm not saying it's impossible to model the dps of a weapon while even factoring in more complex concepts like accuracy and punch through mechanics. I'm arguing that DpS of one calculated situation alone doesn't model the combat effectiveness of a weapon for all situations and that the flavor trait changing mods like fast hands have a larger impact on performance than just the sustained DpS increase.

 

OP wants freedom of choice for flavor trait changing mods while keeping "DpS" of the weapon equal because in his view "DpS" = combat effectiveness. And... well Bobtm sees the issue like I do that this thought process just isn't right.

 

The point is that, what you want is literally an impossibility.   You are under the impression that a weapon's traits aren't actively very important to their overall capabilities.  That is, to put it very bluntly, directly false.

 

Your idea simply doesn't work in real game design unless a game's weapons available are mindlessly simple in terms of variety.

 

Best explained using a simple example.

 

 

Weapon 1            1,000                         dmg/bullet              RoF of 10

Weapon 2            1,000,000,000,000    dmg/bullet              RoF of 1

 

Weapon 1 DpS: 10,000

Weapon 2 DpS:   1,000,000,000,000

 

 

Which weapon is better??? Both weapons are modless (like no punch through or Thunder Bolt ect). 

Clearly weapon 2 is better right? I mean that thing owns right? Just look at dat DpS.

 

Now consider actual in game scenarios:

Situation A: Enemies with 1,000 hp keep spawning at a rate of 5/sec.                            What weapon is more effective in this situation?

Situation B: Only one enemy spawns and has 10,000,000,000,000 hp.                          What weapon is more effective in this situation?

 

Which weapon is better???

 

OP seems to make the argument that raw paper dps which can be seen on WF Builder is the ONLY logical "metric" to gauge the combat effectiveness of a weapon and goes on to state that various traits of a weapon (like reload speed) should be considered merely personal preference. I'm arguing traits of a weapon matter significantly and you can't write a God formula that spits out a number which rates a weapons combat effectiveness for all situations at the same time unless you use a subjective approach.

 

Hopefully that makes some sense as I'm a bit tipsy. Happy NEW YEAR!

[Ashnal]

Hmm I'll take a different approach. Clearly you understand stuff and have a clear thought process but we're arguing different things. I'm not saying it's impossible to model the dps of a weapon while even factoring in more complex concepts like accuracy and punch through mechanics. I'm arguing that DpS of one calculated situation alone doesn't model the combat effectiveness of a weapon for all situations and that the flavor trait changing mods like fast hands have a larger impact on performance than just the sustained DpS increase.

 

OP wants freedom of choice for flavor trait changing mods while keeping "DpS" of the weapon equal because in his view "DpS" = combat effectiveness. And... well Bobtm sees the issue like I do that this thought process just isn't right.

 

 

Best explained using a simple example.

 

 

Weapon 1            1,000                         dmg/bullet              RoF of 10

Weapon 2            1,000,000,000,000    dmg/bullet              RoF of 1

 

Weapon 1 DpS: 10,000

Weapon 2 DpS:   1,000,000,000,000

 

 

Which weapon is better??? Both weapons are modless (like no punch through or Thunder Bolt ect). 

Clearly weapon 2 is better right? I mean that thing owns right? Just look at dat DpS.

 

Now consider actual in game scenarios:

Situation A: Enemies with 1,000 hp keep spawning at a rate of 5/sec.                            What weapon is more effective in this situation?

Situation B: Only one enemy spawns and has 10,000,000,000,000 hp.                          What weapon is more effective in this situation?

 

Which weapon is better???

 

OP seems to make the argument that raw paper dps which can be seen on WF Builder is the ONLY logical "metric" to gauge the combat effectiveness of a weapon and goes on to state that various traits of a weapon (like reload speed) should be considered merely personal preference. I'm arguing traits of a weapon matter significantly and you can't write a God formula that spits out a number which rates a weapons combat effectiveness for all situations at the same time unless you use a subjective approach.

 

Hopefully that makes some sense as I'm a bit tipsy. Happy NEW YEAR!

Oh yeah there's always that situation where you're overkilling targets for no reason. 

In all cases fire rate, accuracy, reload, punch through, AoE etc. will all be way better than damage when your damage surpasses the one shot threshold.

 

On the other hand, no one really optimizes for lower level missions, and DPS talks usually assume that you're going to be fighting in an endless mission where the enemies are big sacks of HP. So the optimization circumstance where you're optimizing to kill a large number of low hp targets rarely happens when comparing weapons, since most warframe ability nukes do it better at the level ranges where it is applicable.

 

While on that subject I'd pretty much always pick the Ignis or amperex for that situation anyways, since it's niche is AoE vs lots of targets with low health. That or any of the reliable marksman weapons, like the Latron, Lex, Marelok, Teiberon etc. since they all allow you to pop a target and can fire again by the time you aim to the next one. The Grinlok ends up being a little slow at this with it's default mag size and fire rate, as do bows and snipers in general.

 

Honestly my biggest beef with Warframe is that due to the way damage and scaling works, some of the more unique fun to use weapons end up being unusable in the parts of the game we spend the most time. Or that many of the awesome tilesets are rarely visited due to the rewards driven gameplay.

 

All I'm trying to say is that people need to understand how to interpret the numbers for different situations, rather than rely on a  single metric. But also that the metrics ARE still useful when calculated and used correctly.

 

Happy new year as well :)

Edited January 1, 2015 by Ashnal