Understanding Serration's Removal

[Arcadiace]

Please further elaborate civilly

1) Serration, like Vitality and Redirection, gives players a sense of accomplishment in an RPG sense and cannot be removed without equal substitution of the same feeling.

1a) Compensation for Serration's removal as a mod is up for debate, as that discussion tends to lead into another argument regarding Legendary Cores.

1b) Elemental/Multishot and other direct-damage mods would then be up for debate as well without proper balancing, as they would still be considered staple mods.

But this bleeds into an entire different debate regarding proc usefulness and differentiating proc utility and elemental damage. (I can elaborate further if the community strongly requests me to do so.)

2) Serration's removal is widely regarded as necessary to reduce the amount of staple mods; therein reducing redundant builds across weapons. Ask yourself: what is the first mod you put on a new/Forma'd (primary) weapon?

Slightly relevant:

I might get flak for this, but I feel like weapons have grown considerably diverse. Which is great. I have no qualms with that. But oddly enough, I feel this may detract from potential mods to overhaul weapons; some of which could be focused on creating or recreating unique traits for other weapons.

Imagine weapons changing their firemodes from single/burst/auto, beam (Flux Rifle), cloud/cone (Ignis), etc from the mods equipped.

I understand this would not make sense on some existing weapons, as I'm stating this thought significantly late. I could still view this as possible. I'd also find it as a more proper way to introduce Weapon Augments.

[Husla]

1a) Compensation for Serration's removal as a mod is up for debate, as that discussion tends to lead into another argument regarding Legendary Cores.

 

main reason, I stay away from these kind of threads.

[Tigersight]

I'm.... not really sure what this topic is supposed to be about...

[Arcadiace]

I'm.... not really sure what this topic is supposed to be about...

You may want to read the Devstream #44 Summary then.

They briefly touched on the removal of Serration, and the like, and replaced with Conditional Damage mods.

[Solandis]

Wait, hold on what? I think I've missed something, they're removing serration? Is that a thing? I mean, I wouldn't mind that much. But uh...that's an odd decision. Is that something they've confirmed they're doing, or are you suggesting they do it? I'm so lost on so many levels! Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!

 

You may want to read the Devstream #44 Summary then.

They briefly touched on the removal of Serration, and the like, and replaced with Conditional Damage mods.

Oh. Okay then. So things like Dead Aim? That'd...well, I'm not sure how that would work. It'd be interesting for certain. Hmm...what a curious idea. I'll sleep on it and get back to you about it.

[Monolake]

If you want build diversity - you want MORE mods, equally or situationally good. Not less. And that is obviously achieved not by removing, 

but by balancing. 

 

If you want to free a slot - get rid of multishot. Its a mod you put on every weapon, a "mandatory" mod just like Serration, but it has no long-term progress/levelling up. Its just a matter or RNG/trading to get it.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Monolake

[Arcadiace]

If you want build diversity - you want MORE mods, equally or situationally good. Not less.

If you want to free a slot - get rid of multishot. Its a mod you put on every weapon, a "mandatory" mod just like Serration, but it has no long-term progress/levelling up. Its just a matter or RNG/trading to get it.

This is true, Serration holds a sense of achievement; however many people also seem content with all weapons inherently gaining damage as they rank up, instead of a mod slot wasted for necessity. I state wasted because Serration is staple. I really doubt anyone can argue that they put anything else on before it.

In the aftermath of removing Serration, many will eventually turn and look at removing multishot mods, as they will then take Serration's role a the first staple mod.

Essentially, flat damage and mechanic-less mods are dead weight and redundant across builds.

[Eric1738]

people need to realize that removing serration wont make more mods viable. players will still use mods that are "the best". the problem with warframe mod system is simply that many mods are BAD. removing serration wont make BAD mods good. so instead of removing serration/multishot/elemental mods, which will cause many many problems(compensation, game difficulty etc.), DE should re-balance various mods and this has been asked for many many times. and i believe this is what DE going to do in 2015

 

tl;dr: removing serration wont solve the problem. players will still use the best mods and they became staple again.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Eric1738

[ClockworkSpectre]

You may want to read the Devstream #44 Summary then.

They briefly touched on the removal of Serration, and the like, and replaced with Conditional Damage mods.

They also never said they are going to remove it, in fact If I remember correctly they said they can't just remove it.  Also, I don't think the removal of serration and like are nearly as widely regarded as you think it is.  Yes there are some vocal people on the forums that keep bringing it up, but that doesn't mean the majority wants it(and yes I know that I could be wrong too).  

 

And I still don't understand why its "bad" to have a couple mods that are pretty much necessary, like you said they provide a feeling of progression.  Its like one of the milestone moments in the game when you max mods like these out.  There is still plenty of options for customization after one or two mods that you would use on anything.  There is also the issue that no matter what you remove, something will always replace is as the predominant mod to be used, it will be a never ending cycle if we start removing mods just because they are widely used, or seen as necessary. 

[Tigersight]

You may want to read the Devstream #44 Summary then.

They briefly touched on the removal of Serration, and the like, and replaced with Conditional Damage mods.

I know about that, I watched the stream live.

 

You seem to be trying to start some sort of conversation about it, and I really don't understand why. This is weapon feedback. I don't see any feedback.

[Arxfiend]

If they remove serration, then weapons should gain damage base damage as they level up, finally equivalent to serration at rank 30. I also know plenty of people who use status and critical mods only, and they end up with a 75% critical with a 3.6 multiplier, 100% status, magnetic, gas, and electrical Soma.

[Arcadiace]

They also never said they are going to remove it, in fact If I remember correctly they said they can't just remove it.  Also, I don't think the removal of serration and like are nearly as widely regarded as you think it is.  Yes there are some vocal people on the forums that keep bringing it up, but that doesn't mean the majority wants it(and yes I know that I could be wrong too).  

 

And I still don't understand why its "bad" to have a couple mods that are pretty much necessary, like you said they provide a feeling of progression.  Its like one of the milestone moments in the game when you max mods like these out.  There is still plenty of options for customization after one or two mods that you would use on anything.  There is also the issue that no matter what you remove, something will always replace is as the predominant mod to be used, it will be a never ending cycle if we start removing mods just because they are widely used, or seen as necessary.

Elegant post. Thank you.

No, I wasn't being sarcastic. I know this isn't one-sided, or a majority-rules. I apologize if I expressed "many" in the form of "most".

It will be up to the community as a whole, whether 51% beats out 49% or if it's heavily skewed. I know full well this isn't a single problem that needs a left or right change, but a problem with a root that branches in many directions.

Everything overlaps. Sure Serration could be fixed by adding inherent damage increase to weapons; however that doesn't solve the root of the problem. You're absolutely right that the player will then choose the next mod to take its place.

I suppose, vaguely, I insisted the community to delve deeper into the roots to avoid further complications down any of the paths they could choose.

Lastly, I should mention I have no bias toward this. If Serration stays, it stays. I'm still having fun playing Warframe at the end of the day.

It's just a game.

[The_Real_007]

I also know plenty of people who use status and critical mods only, and they end up with a 75% critical with a 3.6 multiplier, 100% status, magnetic, gas, and electrical Soma.

Having magnetic, gas, and electric damage all on one weapon that only deals physical damage is impossible. The electric mod would build damage onto the magnetic damage.

[Bibliothekar]

And that is obviously achieved not by removing, but by balancing.

Removing Serration and other baseline damage mods would be a way of balancing. Admit it, which weapon in this game doesn't feel like you're throwing cotton balls at the enemy unless you put in Serration/Hornet Strike/..? That's my main problem with those mods - because of them, enemies have to be stronger, so every weapon is just dead weight until you get it to level 14 (or 7 with a V slot). You can't say "Oh, shiny new weapon" and bring only this one to a mission to try it out, but you have to bring at least one other level 30 weapon that does the killing.

[Arxfiend]

I never looked at the build or status on the wiki, I thought magnetic was its own status, since I had only seen it on the gammacor, and never experimented with status myself. I just checked, and I think he could have been using viral and radiation, I just saw that it was highly effective against sheilds, so I assumed it had electricity and magnetic. Looking over status on the wiki brings me to think it had radiation, viral, and high impact instead. All I focus on is critical, damage, zoom, and accuracy, leaving me a bit of room for the faction damage mods. Honest mistake, and I'll admit to being a dumba** on that post.

[Twilight053]

One thing they could make up with the removal of serration is to buff the original elemental mods. Look at Archwing mods for instance, all the elemental mods are 120% whilst the event mods are 60% for increased status chance. It makes the event mod insignificant for DPS build but useful for other purpose.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Twilight053

[Helch0rn]

If you want build diversity - you want MORE mods, equally or situationally good. Not less. And that is obviously achieved not by removing, 

but by balancing. 

 

If you want to free a slot - get rid of multishot. Its a mod you put on every weapon, a "mandatory" mod just like Serration, but it has no long-term progress/levelling up. Its just a matter or RNG/trading to get it.

some weapons do not benefit from multishot (Penta, Castanas, Angstrum)

Inherent Multishot would reduce their usefulness

[Arcadiace]

some weapons do not benefit from multishot (Penta, Castanas, Angstrum)

Inherent Multishot would reduce their usefulness

Perhaps you're meaning the Penta and Castanas still have a maximum deployment, despite launching >2 projectiles at a time. In a way, yes they don't entirely benefit from multishot, but their DPS is still greatly increased due to multiple simultaneous deployments. All aforementioned weapons do benefit from multishot in every aspect. The Angstrum loses accuracy per projectile launched, so multishot isn't always a staple on that secondary.

[ndantony]

...

It's just a game.

Don't say it lightly. While it's an entertainment, at the end of the day everybody has stakes in it. Some even have spent a lot of money and time invested in it.

[Vaskadar]

If same-type effect stacking gets removed, then you solve the damage-loading issues. You'll have to pick between more damage, or more proc. They'll have to rebalance the mods for this to happen, but yeah.

 

Removal of stacking will also most likely solve the issue that we have with super-efficiency builds being able to spam 24/7.

[UrbanShade]

Im dont want my Serration to be removed, if this will happen, im will slap another elemental on weapon. Why? Because its effective. Im not want to put Ammo Drum or anything from this, because its weak mods. Warframe - arent Battlefield, u cant balance weapons around utilitarian things like accuracy, stability or recoil. in Battlefield or any other action/shooter with this kind of "deep" balance is no level scaling (with additive health/ armor/ shield and dmg increase on enemy), but there u can kill same mob with easyness on Earth, but unable to kill this mob (Lancer, as example) in Ceres.

If they remove Serration and other strict dmg buff mods, they should FIRST balance the bad scaling of enemies, what will became practically invincible to our weapons on high level, or they should make strict weapon tiring, like in WOW or any other games, so everybody will cry, that their beloved Akmagnus is Tier 2 weapon (of totally 7 tiers, as example) and just can tickle mobs on planets after Saturn.

yeah, i know, that they will introduce situational dmg mods, like headshot multiplier, etc, but this will not compensate for losing of firepower, and instead of weapons everybody will run "nuke" builds on certain frames, to be able to pass the crazy scaling of mobs. So, before balancing our firepower they should balance our targets (enemies), and only after it rebalance our arsenal.

[Monolake]

Removing Serration and other baseline damage mods would be a way of balancing. Admit it, which weapon in this game doesn't feel like you're throwing cotton balls at the enemy unless you put in Serration/Hornet Strike/..? That's my main problem with those mods - because of them, enemies have to be stronger, so every weapon is just dead weight until you get it to level 14 (or 7 with a V slot). You can't say "Oh, shiny new weapon" and bring only this one to a mission to try it out, but you have to bring at least one other level 30 weapon that does the killing.

Removing is not balancing, its the opposite. Example: you get 2 apples, I get 10, a bit unfair for you... you remove all my apples - thats  just creating another disbalance skewed in your favour now. Instead I should give you 4 apples so we both have 6 -  thats balance.

 

And why do you think weapons and especially low-ranked weapons would suddenly become better with mod removal? if anything they would become much weaker and you'd need to have them at lvl30 to unlock full base damage (just like you need to max a frame now to unlock all the abilities at max level, were before you could slot all the maxed abilities right away).  You'd get opposite of what you are hoping for.

[Bibliothekar]

You're really comparing apples and damage multiplier? Kay ...

[Thrymm]

If you want build diversity - you want MORE mods, equally or situationally good. Not less. And that is obviously achieved not by removing, 

but by balancing. 

 

If you want to free a slot - get rid of multishot. Its a mod you put on every weapon, a "mandatory" mod just like Serration, but it has no long-term progress/levelling up. Its just a matter or RNG/trading to get it.

I see this alot, and I don't necessarily disagree with it, but there is a reason that removing it outright is being tossed out there as a very real suggestion.

 

I had a maxed serration(and point blank, and hornet strike, and pressure point) LONG before I got split chamber.  I burned myself out and had to take a break from the game, I ground out the same crap for so long to try to get this damned thing.  If the assertion is that it's a better choice to get rid of, in lieu of Serration, I heartily disagree.

 

Getting rid of BOTH, for exactly the same reason, on the other hand....yeah, I get behind that.  They're a staple.  If you're building anything remotely conventionally effective, you've already budgeted them both into every, or almost every, weapon build in the game.  They directly subtract from mod diversity.

 

Assuming the direct scaling with other mods mechanic behind both of these, I'm not sure what number they'd have to be at to mathematically be simultaneously worth slotting at all and not necessarily mandatory.  Too low and other mods would simply take their place on the damage chain.  Too high(where they are now) and they are mandatory slots.

 

This scaling effect, if it where simply a reduced mod, obviously would change how it is put on in the leveling process--a greatly reduced serration might not be a good choice with one elemental mod, but would almost certainly be mandatory slotting once you've got four on a weapon.  And in the end, my opinion is that mods should be balanced and tailored toward what they do for a total build, rather than their singular addition, since actual weapon use really happens much more with a developed and functional weapon than it does with the leveling aspect behind it.

[StinkyPygmy]

Lets buff physical dmg mods while we're at it along with the other possible additions/reworks that will be added.