Staple Mods Are Ruining The Game

[Spoof310]

I got 500 hours of playtime (according to steam) and quite a decent roster of mods.

Something that has been bugging me quite a lot since some time now and this is how the need for staple mods such as at least one mod for durability (Vitality, Redirection, Steel Fiber and/or Vigor), Flow and Streamline, and stuff such as continuity, intensify and stretch. fill out the last 2-4 slots with a few corrupted mods or utility mods such as rage or quick thinking and you got your uninspired generic warframe build.

 

Mods like Heavy Impact or Rush are really nice to have but there are barely any slots you can fit them into and since the staples are staples (duh) we cannot use them

 

The same thing with High-DPS builds for void: Serration, Split Chamber, Heavy Caliber, Malignant Force/Infected Clip, High Voltage/Stormbringer is the key-combination for every weapon you could think of except for soma and bows. soma needs an additional point strike and bows need a point strike and speed trigger.

 

This is a flaw in the game design because we have so many mods that would be really great to use, if we would not need our slots for stuff that is required to be able to play the game in higher level environments.

 

 

Possible Fixes for this would be: In Closed Beta there was no mod system, but instead some kind of skilltree where you could spend points on direct upgrades to the weapons instead of mounting mods. mods like serration or split chamber could be exported to a special environment for THOSE mods so the regular slots are free for utility mods such as status chance / duration, magazine capacity, total ammo, etc.

 

Another solution would be to split up weapon slots into "damage" and "utility". this would also somewhat limit the powercreep if players would have to decide if they want either multishot or heavy caliber (which hampers accuracy)

 

 

For Warframes, I don't have a possible solution to this issue, but i'm trying to think off one.

 

 

 

Do you guys have any ideas? do you even agree in the point i'm making?

Discuss!

[Paradoxbomb]

Yeah, this has been a point of discussion for quite a while now. I've yet to actually watch the latest devstream, but apparently they were talking about the possibility of removing the base damage mods like Serration and reimplementing damage increases in some other manner since they are basically necessities that don't really add anything to the game other than taking up space.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Paradoxbomb

[Eric1738]

even without "staple mods" u will still use a selective group of mods. the reason why many mods are underused is simply because they are not good enough to compete with the good ones. removing serration wont bring rifle status mod useful, u will probably end up using piercing hit, which is bad but still better than +15% status.

[painovoimaton]

DE has said in the latest devstream that they are looking at all the "essential" damage mods etc.

They apparently want greater customization, which is good.

[Qinus_Axia]

I hope the same for warframes. I feel they should have slots specifically for augment mod(s) only.

[Meatuchu]

I don't care how many mods you remove, you will never get me to install a maglev on a frame that I'd like to use seriously. I feel as though there should be more mod slots specifically for those crappy mods that will never be worth their space. 4 More mod slots with a separate pool of points from the goo mods that can only be filled with things like maglev, rush, intruder, etc. would make me happy.

[Erelas]

I hope the same for warframes. I feel they should have slots specifically for augment mod(s) only.

Agree with this completely, but I do believe they mentioned on a DevStream that they would be looking into this, currently it's too hard to give up any one mod for an augmentation mod, and one the has the double scratch which has been removed from all slots now.  A special Augment slot would be great for each Warframe.

[Mickey33]

How's about separating Warframe/Weapon upgrade into categories tree: Offensive, Defensive and Utility. Each one will have their own slot number opens by spending level points, but it must be capped at certain number.

[-HAKUNA-YOUR-TATAS-]

I don't care how many mods you remove, you will never get me to install a maglev on a frame that I'd like to use seriously. I feel as though there should be more mod slots specifically for those crappy mods that will never be worth their space. 4 More mod slots with a separate pool of points from the goo mods that can only be filled with things like maglev, rush, intruder, etc. would make me happy.

Maglev and Rush are awesome mods if you're a high mobility player like me. Not everyone tanks and power spams. There are many different ways to play this game.

[Husla]

Maybe change your frame, I have a loki with duration 25seconds~ but i can move bit of strength and range still have 15+ secs invisibility which makes it so I can fit in rush for farming phorid etc. Even taking off his aura to add in sprint boost leaves me with 8 or so space.

[(PSN)SancticuS]

No matter what game you play there will always be some staple builds, weapons and gear that will be more used than the rest. Removing these does nothing but aggravate the players and they will soon find new staple builds, weapons and gears so the cycle begins again.

 

So instead of removing the most used mods they should buff the current rarely used mods so people might actually use them. Also by removing the warframe ability slots they also reduced the unique builds that were around and actually made each build more generic and similar.

 

Besides in what similar games does not health, shield, armor and damage populate the most mandatory features?

[Hypernaut1]

what are you going on about? I love using rush.

 

Its not the games fault you have a playstyle that focuses on pure damage or pure survivability or power spam.

 

I find that i have at least 2 slots that i can use to experiment with on my WFs. I even have a loadout that uses reflex guard and reflection. I have a Volt that uses rush, a stamina mod and handspring. I even have a loot detection build that is very viable.

 

Your problem is that you are too focused on numbers. You dont NEED to have as much HP as possible, you dont NEED to have max shields with some builds. You aslo dont need to build your frame for wave t4 wave 60 at all times, unless thats what you plan on doing. I repeat: You dont NEED to build your frame for T4 wave 60.

 

you'll be surprised how often you can forgo vitality and redirection if you're not playing endless t4 missions. You dont always need flow and streamline+fleeting. Sometimes Streamline is good enough for some builds, sometimes just fleeting. 

 

Point is- you need to get out of your comfort zone with some mods. There are a few worthless mods (to m eat least) but i find that its possible to build with utility in mind and not worry about min/maxing everything. Dont stress if it takes a whole 2 more seconds to kill an enemy, or if you have to find cover a little sooner than usual. You just need to compensate with skill if you want to enjoy something like being immune to knockdowns. "either i have 300 extra HP or never have to worry about being grappled and dragged" Its a fair tradeoff IMO

Edited January 15, 2015 by Hypernaut1

[RoboDoge]

I wouldnt mind removing "essential" mods if i get Lcores and my credits back.

[Sloan441]

There are always going to be "essential mods" because the goals in the game are always going to dictate what you need to accomplish them.

 

You can shuffle them around all you want, but the you're always going to have something that you and everyone else will need to accomplish your mission. That will never change.

[ranks21]

there are 3 ways to mod on weapons frames and sentinels (A,B,C) and there is no one way to do it. some mod for fun. some for long runs and some just wants to cold wreck stuff and that's three ways alone while you have offensive and defensive or faction specific or just the plain old (my fav) spam 4.

 

 whilst you may or may not like the way things are, there is no reason DE should change anything to suit you or your type of beliefs the way it should or shouldn't be. you came and it was fine before and youll leave and it will be fine after... buff this<< nerf that<< just needs to stop and let others come and enjoy the product the way it should be.

 

 when DE see's it fit to change things up they will.

[direcyphre]

Unfortunately this is one of those things that doesn't lead to positive progression. Simply removing an 'essential mod' does not somehow remove essential mods. Regardless of whether or not there is Serration, Hornet Strike, or similar, there will still be other essential damage mods of some variety. There will never be too few of them in total (multishot, elemental damage, etc) to make space for the mods we never use, like reload speed or ammo capacity.

[NaoeYamato]

I'm not entirely confident in this, or if it was mentioned already,
But I think that a possible solution to the "Staple mods" problem would be to implement a system where you have different aspects of the warframe separated into categories, and in these categories you can equip mods to modify these different aspects, with each category having its own separate mod capacity and  polarities. 

What I mean is, for example, you have aspects such as "Power" (strength/duration/range), "Efficiency" (Power efficiency/Energy/Natural talent etc.), "Frame" (Redirection/Vitality/SteelFiber/Rush etc), and something like "Special/Passive" (QuickThinking/Rage/Heavy Impact etc.).

I feel like this could be a good way to allow for more mods to be equipped to the warframe, since 8 slots are usually taken up already by the "staple mods"

With regards to leveling, I suppose certain aspects of the warframe can't be modded, or can only be partially modded until the frame is at a certain level. Like for example, maybe "Special/Passive" is locked until lvl 20 or something, and maybe at lvl 1 you can only put on like 1 "Frame" mod, then for each level until lvl 5 you unlock the ability to mod the other sections. And of course, the Warframe's inherit powers (Molecular Prime/Roar etc.) will be unlocked the same way they have been. 
 

Idk if this is a good idea, but it could certainly give room to implement more mods that could possibly go into these categories that effect different aspects of the warframe. 

[Zrgd]

I agree, every weapon requires serration, hornet strike, point blank, and pressure point. The thing is to fix it they would have to add that DMG to the base weapon and then adjust mob health/armor/shield to compensate. Its not just a simple quick fix.

[(PSN)torvahn]

Hi, get off the forums and get off jupiter missions.

Let me assure you, the players at the apex of this game are greatly outnumbered by people like yourself who have very little understanding or comprehension of depth of content.

Make it to at least 2 hours in a survival/defence in the void and tell me that staple mods need to be adjusted. Sure serration is total overkill on low level missions and anyone can buy serration but the amount of players who take that step and take on the true challenges in this game understand very well that the mod system at the moment is fine.

If serration/hornet strike was built in and at level 30 on the gun you had 165% damage increase i could live with that freeing up a slot and offering more diversity in builds but knowing DE they will probably do something stupid and F*** over a lot of people and simply offer them legendary cores to keep the masses happy.

[RoboDoge]

Hi, get off the forums and get off jupiter missions.

Let me assure you, the players at the apex of this game are greatly outnumbered by people like yourself who have very little understanding or comprehension of depth of content.

Make it to at least 2 hours in a survival/defence in the void and tell me that staple mods need to be adjusted. Sure serration is total overkill on low level missions and anyone can buy serration but the amount of players who take that step and take on the true challenges in this game understand very well that the mod system at the moment is fine.

If serration/hornet strike was built in and at level 30 on the gun you had 165% damage increase i could live with that freeing up a slot and offering more diversity in builds but knowing DE they will probably do something stupid and F*** over a lot of people and simply offer them legendary cores to keep the masses happy.

You would be surprised how low is amount of people who actually play Survivals over 1 hours, or Defense over 50 waves. Not because its impossible and hard, but because of pure boredom.

 

 

Serration and Hornet Strike are not balanced for low or extra high level content. They are balanced till ~50 minutes in T3/T4 Surviavl, after that you need some serious frame and power tweaking to be able to kill something. And there lies the problem. Casual players will rarely go over 40 minutes in Survival, so Serration and Hornet Strike still feels too powerful until then.

 

 

 

 

What i really want to see is damage upgrade when you level, and complete removal of Serration and similar mods. Tho, people would probably rage if damage upgrade at level 30 is not 165%. And that is another issue with this mess. If you get 165 % at max level, that means you got free maxed Serration that is not taking any mod slots or capacity.

 

 

This will not be changed so easily and whitout inducing some serious rage.

[(XBOX)MAXsandwich]

I was thinking somthing similar the other day.. a game with a more comprehinsive design, that knew where it was going from the start probably would have had x number of defensive slots, x number of power & efficency slots and x number of utility slots, with all cards belonging to and labeled one of those catigries.

But I think what we have ended up with is way more interesting, but also because of it's nature requires a much greater ammount of play testing and balancing, which there dosent seem to be enough of.

I think theres a more fundimental flaw in alot of the mission design actually, especially when it comes to what is as of now our "endgame"

The endless wave mission types especially ( but the way in which they approach miss design in general ) encourage exploititv/bastardized build or lock the missions down to only being viable with a few frame types. I think that these aspects are counter intuitive to what make warframe interisting build varity, weapon choice and mastering the movement system. 

 

The DE's only way of adding difficulty is jacking up enemy hp & dmg instead of finding ways to chalenging the players game-play wise, maybe through bossfights or mission types that require or encourage more team coordination like the kind found in raids in destiny ( not that Destiny sets a bar for excelance mind you ) not standing in a huddle spamming your 4th power.

 

Edited January 15, 2015 by (XB1)MAXsandwich

[(PSN)Agent_CHAR]

Agree with this completely, but I do believe they mentioned on a DevStream that they would be looking into this, currently it's too hard to give up any one mod for an augmentation mod, and one the has the double scratch which has been removed from all slots now.  A special Augment slot would be great for each Warframe.

 

You don't want to use a slot on an augment now because almost across the board the augments suck.  Trinity's WoL thing... come on.  Even if I had an extra slot I wouldn't run that.  Why would I waste time adding fire or cold to *your* attacks?

 

Now I do expect this to shift over time as good stuff gets added like Irradiating Disarm.  I'll find room for that as soon as I can get my hands on it.

 

But until I have at least one viable mod for each frame, and preferably a choice of 2-4, then why bother.  How sweet would it be to have a *good* mod for all 4 powers on every frame where each took you in a slightly different build direction.  In that world having one augment slot and a hard choice of what mod to run makes a lot of sense.  It would help create build diversity which is thing I think most players want.

[Spoof310]

what are you going on about? I love using rush.

 

Its not the games fault you have a playstyle that focuses on pure damage or pure survivability or power spam.

 

I find that i have at least 2 slots that i can use to experiment with on my WFs. I even have a loadout that uses reflex guard and reflection. I have a Volt that uses rush, a stamina mod and handspring. I even have a loot detection build that is very viable.

 

Your problem is that you are too focused on numbers. You dont NEED to have as much HP as possible, you dont NEED to have max shields with some builds. You aslo dont need to build your frame for wave t4 wave 60 at all times, unless thats what you plan on doing. I repeat: You dont NEED to build your frame for T4 wave 60.

 

you'll be surprised how often you can forgo vitality and redirection if you're not playing endless t4 missions. You dont always need flow and streamline+fleeting. Sometimes Streamline is good enough for some builds, sometimes just fleeting. 

 

Point is- you need to get out of your comfort zone with some mods. There are a few worthless mods (to m eat least) but i find that its possible to build with utility in mind and not worry about min/maxing everything. Dont stress if it takes a whole 2 more seconds to kill an enemy, or if you have to find cover a little sooner than usual. You just need to compensate with skill if you want to enjoy something like being immune to knockdowns. "either i have 300 extra HP or never have to worry about being grappled and dragged" Its a fair tradeoff IMO

 

 

I love how this post pretty much sums up my initial thoughts on opening this thread because Rush is a mod that I use in every single one of my warframe builds

 

My problem is that mods that every warframe or weapon HAS to have  eat up slots and capacity that could be used for mods that would be fun to use, or maybe even handy if their space weren't required for the aforementioned staples, and this frustrates me, which is why i think that the Game needs another solution for those mods.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Spoof310

[LtZefar]

All of the utility mods are boring as hell. Why would I want to use them over Damage mods which changes my gameplay more? :/

[Jahadaya]

You would be surprised how low is amount of people who actually play Survivals over 1 hours, or Defense over 50 waves. Not because its impossible and hard, but because of pure boredom.

 

 

Serration and Hornet Strike are not balanced for low or extra high level content. They are balanced till ~50 minutes in T3/T4 Surviavl, after that you need some serious frame and power tweaking to be able to kill something. And there lies the problem. Casual players will rarely go over 40 minutes in Survival, so Serration and Hornet Strike still feels too powerful until then.

 

 

 

 

What i really want to see is damage upgrade when you level, and complete removal of Serration and similar mods. Tho, people would probably rage if damage upgrade at level 30 is not 165%. And that is another issue with this mess. If you get 165 % at max level, that means you got free maxed Serration that is not taking any mod slots or capacity.

 

 

This will not be changed so easily and whitout inducing some serious rage.

And that's the sad part. Base damage mods should be taken out and implemented into weapons as you go up - it would only improve the game and free up a slot for more customizability. But people will immediately start to whine and rage about any mention of this, as they go straight to assuming it will be a "nerf", even though it's a straight buff to all weapons. Sometimes the community disappoints me; they're so afraid of change that they're willing to hinder the games development just to not have to deal with it.

 

These are the times when I think DE shouldn't listen to the community. If a decision for the better has to be made, it must be made.