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Tactic Selections - Putting A Stop To Macro Farming, Rng And Grind Walls


Jax_Cavalera
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Game. Needs. Cooldowns.

Game has evolved since beta, we can't keep clinging to our ability spam under the impression that it makes gameplay more fast paced. Yeah, we grind faster, but I don't think thats what most players mean by fast paced.

There was a very well written thread some time ago about how we don't need smarter AI, we just need better stupid enemies because in our current system, enemies almost never have a chance to retaliate against us. It doesn't matter how incredibly cool a unit is in concept, if we just spam our Warframe abilities on it, it'll be a CC-locked bullet sponge just like everything else.

This could be one way that powers are nerfed when put into the context of the last few posts made to the topic. As a stand-alone solution there are a lot of problems with this approach :

- mobs would overpower us since they are in high numbers and difficulty to handle our spam and reducing spam rate without enemies would cause unbalance.

- it wouldn't remove grind walls and RNG so players will just find a new way to mass kill everything with minimal effort in the quickest time possible.

I think I will update the OP tomorrow with the fleshed out approach so we can consider ways to refine it further. Progress is coming along well though and each idea put forward has parts that prove useful or have potential to integrate as part of the entire system.

Edited by Jax_Cavalera
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HAHAHA No. We had cooldowns, they were horrible, not to mention ruined the pace of the game.

 

If you don't want to use your powers, just don't use them. Go have your fun playing it as a shooter, and let the rest of us have our fun playing how we want to play.

What is this 'pace of the game' though? As far as I can tell, infinite spam just makes grinding faster.

Running missions with no abilities is definitely more exciting, but yeah the 'pace of grind' is a lot slower.

 

But I don't even think our rate of grind needs to suffer with CDs removed. DE could rebalance enemies to match our CDs.

Edited by Vallerian
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What is this 'pace of the game' though? As far as I can tell, infinite spam just makes grinding faster.

Running missions with no abilities is definitely more exciting, but yeah the 'pace of grind' is a lot slower. But that's assuming DE wouldn't rebalance enemies to match our CDs.

The pace of the game is dependent on how you play. I like being a caster, so I like blasting things apart with my powers. If it makes things faster, cool, all that means is more for me to fight. Adding cool downs simply because others don't want to use them isn't something anyone who likes going caster would support.

 

Again, you decide how you play the game, and your excitement is your own. Enjoy as you will, but we shouldn't be hindering others that also enjoy as they would.

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This could be one way that powers are nerfed when put into the context of the last few posts made to the topic. As a stand-alone solution there are a lot of problems with this approach :

- mobs would overpower us since they are in high numbers and difficulty to handle our spam and reducing spam rate without enemies would cause unbalance.

- it wouldn't remove grind walls and RNG so players will just fine a new way to mass kill everything with minimal effort in the quickest time possible.

 

Introducing a Cooldown system of some sort is the first step in a long journey - it's probably not going to be perfect or even remotely good for a long time, but the possibilities it offers just aren't viable in our current ability system.

 

DE has already expressed disapproval for infinite defense missions, but as it stands they're the only late game content we have.

 

With CDs on our abilities, yes missions would become a whole lot harder, but I don't think it'd be that bad if it were to become incredibly difficult to make it past wave 10 in a T4D. DE would adjust the drop and exp tables accordingly, and bam we have late game content that doesn't involve us committing 30+ minutes.

Edited by Vallerian
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The pace of the game is dependent on how you play. I like being a caster, so I like blasting things apart with my powers. If it makes things faster, cool, all that means is more for me to fight. Adding cool downs simply because others don't want to use them isn't something anyone who likes going caster would support.

 

Again, you decide how you play the game, and your excitement is your own. Enjoy as you will, but we shouldn't be hindering others that also enjoy as they would.

I'm not saying every ability needs a cooldown. Caster spells like Shuriken/Fireball/Super Jump/Slash Dash/Psychic Bolts don't need any CD and probably don't even need an energy cost either.

 

Abilities like blatantly disrupt game flow do need CDs. AKA Disarm / Blind / Stomp. These abilities completely erase the enemy's capability to retaliate and basically nullify any difficulty in the mission.

 

And on the other half of this issue, we have caster spells that are so incredibly strong that they almost ruin the game experience for their squadmates. Mesa can solo Defense missions for a really damn long time with her Ult. It's great if I'm looking to get AFK carried through a farm-fest, but it gets annoying if I'm just trying to test a cool weapon.

Edited by Vallerian
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There is a problem with changing the game drastically and adding new monetization methods. It's risky.

Warframe started as a risky project and it worked out. But now it's in top 3 free to play games on steam. So whatever DE is doing - it's working. Time for risks is over.

Adding subscribtion system could be seen by many as moving to pay 2 play and abandonment of free to play model. Warframe is praised by many for it's relatively fair f2p system. Such change would bring it bad rep (and inevitable PWE conspiracy theories).

Same thing with changing game mechanics. If they step away from facerolling, godstomping horde mode, they may start to lose players. Quality of game may improve, but empty servers won't appreciate that.

And now that DE sold majority of it's stocks to that Chinese chicken factory, they may not be even allowed to perform such experiments with their leading franchise.

The game might still be in beta, but time for revolutionary ideas is over.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

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@Vallerian

If you want to test a cool weapon wouldn't you just run the mission solo?

I also dont really like cooldowns necessarily as it just forces players to use a different technique to speed farm and thst won't fix the problem but just result in similar threads to this about the new technique everyone is using to speed grind.

It was mentioned earlier, once grinding and RNG are no longer a dominent aspect (any aspect) of the game.. perhaps cooldowns for balance may be appropriate but that is not something which would directly improve gameplay on its own and would only help in some circumstances post grind rng.

Edited by Jax_Cavalera
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There is a problem with changing the game drastically and adding new monetization methods. It's risky.

Warframe started as a risky project and it worked out. But now it's in top 3 free to play games on steam. So whatever DE is doing - it's working. Time for risks is over.

Adding subscribtion system could be seen by many as moving to pay 2 play and abandonment of free to play model. Warframe is praised by many for it's relatively fair f2p system. Such change would bring it bad rep (and inevitable PWE conspiracy theories).

Same thing with changing game mechanics. If they step away from facerolling, godstomping horde mode, they may start to lose players. Quality of game may improve, but empty servers won't appreciate that.

And now that DE sold majority of it's stocks to that Chinese chicken factory, they may not be even allowed to perform such experiments with their leading franchise.

The game might still be in beta, but time for revolutionary ideas is over.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

This may all be true.. perhaps it is too late for warframe to change even if it is still in open beta.

If that is true I would like an official confirmation from DE so we can avoid wasting our time brainstorming feedback on true solutions to problems that they dont want to fix or cant fix.

If that is not true then it would be good to get some reassurance on this matter so we know the point of big improvements and feedback to resolve fundamental game flaws is worth doing.

Edited by Jax_Cavalera
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I'm not saying every ability needs a cooldown. Caster spells like Shuriken/Fireball/Super Jump/Slash Dash/Psychic Bolts don't need any CD and probably don't even need an energy cost either.

 

Abilities like blatantly disrupt game flow do need CDs. AKA Disarm / Blind / Stomp. These abilities completely erase the enemy's capability to retaliate and basically nullify any difficulty in the mission.

 

And on the other half of this issue, we have caster spells that are so incredibly strong that they almost ruin the game experience for their squadmates. Mesa can solo Defense missions for a really damn long time with her Ult. It's great if I'm looking to get AFK carried through a farm-fest, but it gets annoying if I'm just trying to test a cool weapon.

All the abilities you stated are abilities that the community across the board are asking for buffs/reworks. Except for Shuriken, haven't seen a thread for that yet.

 

"Blatantly disrupt game flow" isn't how these abilities work. They act as CC and Utility, they open up the opportunity for players to do the damage. All powers NEED some type of Utility and/or CC in order to function beyond just a damage number. They actually speed up the process because they give you the breathing room to shoot anything around you down. Disarm makes enemies rush at you, lining up the shots for you to kill them. Blind ensures you have the ability to shoot without enemies within the blind range and LoS retaliating for a duration, either short or long depending on the build. Stomp gives you the ability to shoot or slice apart enemies while they're in stasis. It can stun the enemies for a time, but it doesn't remove the difficulty. Depending on the mission type and map size, you're bound to have enemies out of range that can still fire back. One of the points of powers like these is to disrupt the enemy and open up opportunities for you.

 

Again, we don't need cool downs, they don't work.

 

An ability is only powerful damage wise if a player mods for it. Anything can be powerful damage wise if a player mods for it. Gun or power, they both can wreak havoc on the playing field. I can 40k a Heavy Gunner with my Paris Prime if I'm aiming at the head, and that's without Red Crit. I can do 3k damage with my Avalanche to each enemy around me, if I mod for maxed damage, sacrificing duration. If you wanted to test out a weapon, wouldn't it have been wiser to do it on a solo map? I mean, you wouldn't have to deal with people taking your kills, with guns or powers, if you did a mission solo. You all could also have asked the Mesa if they could not use their ult. "Almost ruin the game experience" is dependent on the point of view of the players in the match.

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Maybe abilities should have an "overheat" bar. That way if a user spams abilities for too long the bar fills and they have to wait so many seconds before they can use abilities again. The overheat would have a timer. Certain abilities would fill the bar faster. The bar would only cool down while abilities are not in use. That could work with the right tuning.

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All the abilities you stated are abilities that the community across the board are asking for buffs/reworks. Except for Shuriken, haven't seen a thread for that yet.

 

"Blatantly disrupt game flow" isn't how these abilities work. They act as CC and Utility, they open up the opportunity for players to do the damage. All powers NEED some type of Utility and/or CC in order to function beyond just a damage number. They actually speed up the process because they give you the breathing room to shoot anything around you down. Disarm makes enemies rush at you, lining up the shots for you to kill them. Blind ensures you have the ability to shoot without enemies within the blind range and LoS retaliating for a duration, either short or long depending on the build. Stomp gives you the ability to shoot or slice apart enemies while they're in stasis. It can stun the enemies for a time, but it doesn't remove the difficulty. Depending on the mission type and map size, you're bound to have enemies out of range that can still fire back. One of the points of powers like these is to disrupt the enemy and open up opportunities for you.

 

Again, we don't need cool downs, they don't work.

 

An ability is only powerful damage wise if a player mods for it. Anything can be powerful damage wise if a player mods for it. Gun or power, they both can wreak havoc on the playing field. I can 40k a Heavy Gunner with my Paris Prime if I'm aiming at the head, and that's without Red Crit. I can do 3k damage with my Avalanche to each enemy around me, if I mod for maxed damage, sacrificing duration. If you wanted to test out a weapon, wouldn't it have been wiser to do it on a solo map? I mean, you wouldn't have to deal with people taking your kills, with guns or powers, if you did a mission solo. You all could also have asked the Mesa if they could not use their ult. "Almost ruin the game experience" is dependent on the point of view of the players in the match.

So your solution is to ask the people not to play the way they want?

 

Isnt that contradictory?

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I got around to updating the OP sooner than I expected and one thing that came to mind is, sales of platinum may not need to change based on the proposed solution since grind would still exist.. it just wouldn't be rng but based on how technique/approach to completing a mission.

Perhaps because of there not being such a large grindwall due to reduction/removal of RNG plat sales would suffer so what could be done to help sustain that and how could the proposed solution be improved to further encourage variety in gameplay so we don't feel compelled to ability spam to get through every mission?

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I do not believe I was jumping from topic to topic - income source, gameplay and grinding are very much intertwined. I am a little flaky but not that flaky. There is some logical structure to my points, but I'll try again. To make it simpler to understand for people finding it a little challenging to comprehend:

 

DE need income (to develop game and to buy cerealz...) > Items can be bought or grinded > Items RNG system is hard boiled (1000+ sided dice it seems)  > Some players buy (good, needed), some purely grind > Players that grind optimize for QUICK elimination of enemies > Abilities are spammed > somewhat repetitive gameplay > item obsession, less focus on story (possibly my own bias but hey).

 

So, from the above, a change to just abilities couldn't happen I don't think.

 

Also, to whomever spoke about an overheat bar, that's a pretty swell idea actually. Not sure whether CDs is a good idea, but overheat would force a player to control his ability spammage and switch to a more balanced way of combat OR at least  just add that additional anxiety which would spawn some pretty interesting situations for which he or she may need to use their brains to work out what to do next. 

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I do not believe I was jumping from topic to topic - income source, gameplay and grinding are very much intertwined. I am a little flaky but not that flaky. There is some logical structure to my points, but I'll try again. To make it simpler to understand for people finding it a little challenging to comprehend:

-snip-

Thanks, I thought up the Idea of an overheat bar because there are times when you do need to use your ult or other abilities twice in a row, but others where it is not necessary and only used out of greed. That way you could freely use your abilities when needed, but at the same time you would not be able to spam constantly. Also due to the way it works it would not remove the viability of energy mods. This also removes the argument of certain abilities "perma-invincibility" traits, because even if you did manage to acquire enough energy to keep using these abilities you would surely overheat and cripple yourself.

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Oh, Overheat sounds kinda cool. Also, it can give some ground to improvements of power, like if u really active using power, it will give this overheat, and buff, like syndicate buff, in exchange of unable of casting, so this will give more gameplay variety and will lead to some interesting situations, where player will use different tactics, like relying on overheat or not, use their precious ult or save it to not be overheated, or on other way maybe they want to be overheated (depends on buff, what can be different for different frames). 

So, with tweaking, this idea is purely awesome, and truely shine between ideas of power ners or CDs (Warframe - arent WoW or Aione).

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Wouldn't it be better to not give players a reason to use ults as spam than to block how frequently they can use them via cooldowns? I do see that cooldowns would change how we use abilities and in the case of Stephano, if my Ult had a cooldown as Excaliber... I would run a dual or triple Excaliber squad and take it in turns spamming. Would use energy plates as the alternative to Trinity and that would defeat cooldowns because if they were harsh enough to break 3 Excalibers in tandem.. running solo Excaliber would be broken completely.

Where there is a will there is a way so we need to remove the will not known ways or at least that is my thinking.

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Wouldn't it be better to not give players a reason to use ults as spam than to block how frequently they can use them via cooldowns? I do see that cooldowns would change -snip-

It's just an Idea, and as I before mentioned, it would take alot of trial and error to get these overheats into a good position where it would be fair and not crippling. Maybe the cooldown rates could be affected by the number of people. To make it fairer for the individual while still challenging for the group. The point in this, is to make it so spamming abilities is no longer a thing, while still giving abilties an option for use. It is also to avoid cooldowns after each ability use, or general ability nerfs that make there use negligible.

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It's just an Idea, and as I before mentioned, it would take alot of trial and error to get these overheats into a good position where it would be fair and not crippling. Maybe the cooldown rates could be affected by the number of people. To make it fairer for the individual while still challenging for the group. The point in this, is to make it so spamming abilities is no longer a thing, while still giving abilties an option for use. It is also to avoid cooldowns after each ability use, or general ability nerfs that make there use negligible.

Well i did like the idea of cooldowns removing per use cool down timers and instead kicking in when the ability has been used X number of times in a row in quick succession and how when it does overheat you get a radial stat or similar lime syndicate weapons etc that makes for it not leaving you high and dry the moment a cooldown kicks in.

Edited by Jax_Cavalera
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So your solution is to ask the people not to play the way they want?

 

Isnt that contradictory?

What in the blue hell are you smoking? I never said that.

 

If you wanna test out a weapon, doing so in a squad may not be the best because the other players will go ahead and kill the enemy, be it with guns or with powers.

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Same thing with changing game mechanics. If they step away from facerolling, godstomping horde mode, they may start to lose players. Quality of game may improve, but empty servers won't appreciate that.

The thing is that whatever helps the game to a more healthy state is beneficial to the game for the purposes of RETENTION.

 

Retention=more players paying for a longer period of time. If some are lost at said balance changes it's a necessary loss for future gains.

 

The game setup is lowly making it's way towards 4Frame where people can just roflestomp the content through power use or simply remove difficulty via power use up until the point where enemies one shot you at a simple mistake. This is illustrated every time you make a long defense or survival run. Without constant spam of abilities no one could possibly even do virtually anything there.

 

No CONSTANT snowglobe? No CONSTANT radial disarm? No CONSTANT Desecrate? None of these things sound appealing, however without them WF in it's current state would be unplayable. Thus energy needs to be reworked or some other limiter placed on that #4.

 

The same goes for our reputation farm. Imagine no p42w for farming rep. Instantly virtually 99% of players would stop farming it actively. Thus Rep would need to change as well in order to continue to have it be pertinent. Otherwise it simply becomes a failed system like MR that is often times ignored with relatively little or no progress made in it. 

 

This is simply not healthy.

 

Currently the game is in a weird place where they are trying to encourage other behavior than grinding with #4 but at the same time there is no reason not to since it's sooooo effective.

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What in the blue hell are you smoking? I never said that.

 

If you wanna test out a weapon, doing so in a squad may not be the best because the other players will go ahead and kill the enemy, be it with guns or with powers.

 

If you wanted to test out a weapon, wouldn't it have been wiser to do it on a solo map? I mean, you wouldn't have to deal with people taking your kills, with guns or powers, if you did a mission solo. You all could also have asked the Mesa if they could not use their ult. "Almost ruin the game experience" is dependent on the point of view of the players in the match.

Specifically the bolded

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let me just leave this here for the people that claim spam is not a problem.

DESteve himself weighed in on this very topic and I'm tired of people claiming it is not a problem nor is it on DE's radar.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/345295-vivergate-vent-radioactive-gas-yn/

 

You want to debate fine. Take it up with STEVE himself.

Edited by geninrising
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The thing is that whatever helps the game to a more healthy state is beneficial to the game for the purposes of RETENTION.

 

Retention=more players paying for a longer period of time. If some are lost at said balance changes it's a necessary loss for future gains.

 

The game setup is lowly making it's way towards 4Frame where people can just roflestomp the content through power use or simply remove difficulty via power use up until the point where enemies one shot you at a simple mistake. This is illustrated every time you make a long defense or survival run. Without constant spam of abilities no one could possibly even do virtually anything there.

 

No CONSTANT snowglobe? No CONSTANT radial disarm? No CONSTANT Desecrate? None of these things sound appealing, however without them WF in it's current state would be unplayable. Thus energy needs to be reworked or some other limiter placed on that #4.

 

The same goes for our reputation farm. Imagine no p42w for farming rep. Instantly virtually 99% of players would stop farming it actively. Thus Rep would need to change as well in order to continue to have it be pertinent. Otherwise it simply becomes a failed system like MR that is often times ignored with relatively little or no progress made in it. 

 

This is simply not healthy.

 

Currently the game is in a weird place where they are trying to encourage other behavior than grinding with #4 but at the same time there is no reason not to since it's sooooo effective.

Yeah, look at the poll, and you'll see how much people voted that way, not a lot, not even a sliver of the community. So "virtually 99%" isn't even true. Along with the rest of your post if it hinges on that.

 

 

Specifically the bolded

I said he could have asked. I didn't say he was forced to ask. Common sense should tell you if you want to test a weapon, it isn't going to be easy to test with everyone else blowing up things with their guns and powers.

 

 

let me just leave this here for the people that claim spam is not a problem.

DESteve himself weighed in on this very topic and I'm tired of people claiming it is not a problem nor is it on DE's radar.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/345295-vivergate-vent-radioactive-gas-yn/

 

You want to debate fine. Take it up with STEVE himself.

I don't need to take it up with Steve because he's not the one I have a gripe with. They are solving whatever "problem" you think this game has. I.e. Nullifiers, Eximi, and Ancient Healers and Disrupters that can nullify our abilities or mitigate the damage output of them.

 

They aren't hitting the players, they're making enemies better, that's a better route to take because you add in challenges that make us think, grows the responses of our enemies, rather than weakening our tools to make the game boring. Remember, even after he said that for Vivergate, they've released Primed Flow, Primed Continuity, and Primed Streamline is on the way, I believe. Yeah...no, they're not trying to hurt the availability of powers, tough luck bucko.

 

Must I really use the actions speak louder than words thing again? I thought we were past this by now.

Edited by AlphaHorseman
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