Understanding Serration's Removal

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

What people fail to understand is that Serration and other so called "staple" mods are essentially time sinks. They offer a sense of progression overall to your builds. If we were to remove all the staple mods, we'd be removing a lot of progression in the game.

 

Or to put it into another way:

 

In a world without Serration, you have ZERO damage progress on a weapon once you've maxed it out to 30.

In a world without Vitality, Steel Fiber and Redirection, you have ZERO survivability progression on a Warframe past level 30.

 

You max everything out early, you get max power at your fingertips right away, there's zero reason to play the game after that.

 

If you want to see easy progression and get a taste of how it's like to play in a world without staple mods, look at melee weapons.

First off, they max out almost instantly, all mods there are easily obtained and have few levels. If you slot in a potato in a melee weapon and have a stance that corresponds with it's stance slot, 9/10 you won't even have to forma the weapon ONCE to get it maxed out.

 

I've played this game two years now and I'm really happy that I had the opportunity to max out my melee builds before the stance system ruined any semblance of progression possible with melee weapons. I'm also happy that we're getting primed mods, because by having maxed out all the old level 10s, I now have some more long term goals to work towards. So no, I disagree, staple mods are there for a reason, and by taking them away, you would pretty much make the game pointless for old timers like myself.

 

Would I like other things to work towards? Yes, definitely, but that's how this game is constructed and if DE would tear up the old systems, we'd be left with a huge mess that'd spell death for the game in the end. I've seen it before and I seriously hope I won't have to see it again.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Hap-muhr

[Bibliothekar]

In a world without Serration, you have ZERO damage progress on a weapon once you've maxed it out to 30.

We already don't have now once you have one maxed Serration in your inventory. There is no incentive to max another.

 

If we were to remove all the staple mods, we'd be removing a lot of progression in the game.

Well, that part could be moved to the focus system. Once you have all mods and weapons maxed, there is no progression besides crafting and maxing new weapons. Focus as a sink for excess affinity would add new ways of progression for those players that don't have any now. If we remove some of the earlier instead, that shouldn't be much of a problem.

[Sidathe]

What people fail to understand is that Serration and other so called "staple" mods are essentially time sinks. They offer a sense of progression overall to your builds. If we were to remove all the staple mods, we'd be removing a lot of progression in the game.

 

Or to put it into another way:

 

In a world without Serration, you have ZERO damage progress on a weapon once you've maxed it out to 30.

In a world without Vitality, Steel Fiber and Redirection, you have ZERO survivability progression on a Warframe past level 30.

 

You max everything out early, you get max power at your fingertips right away, there's zero reason to play the game after that.

 

If you want to see easy progression and get a taste of how it's like to play in a world without staple mods, look at melee weapons.

First off, they max out almost instantly, all mods there are easily obtained and have few levels. If you slot in a potato in a melee weapon and have a stance that corresponds with it's stance slot, 9/10 you won't even have to forma the weapon ONCE to get it maxed out.

 

I've played this game two years now and I'm really happy that I had the opportunity to max out my melee builds before the stance system ruined any semblance of progression possible with melee weapons. I'm also happy that we're getting primed mods, because by having maxed out all the old level 10s, I now have some more long term goals to work towards. So no, I disagree, staple mods are there for a reason, and by taking them away, you would pretty much make the game pointless for old timers like myself.

 

Would I like other things to work towards? Yes, definitely, but that's how this game is constructed and if DE would tear up the old systems, we'd be left with a huge mess that'd spell death for the game in the end. I've seen it before and I seriously hope I won't have to see it again.

Staple mods take up valuable slots that could potentially be used for something else, and DE's already overhauled stuff in the past and things didn't die.

 

Dmg+ mods and Multishot currently do nothing but provide pure bonus. Why the hell would you ever not put them on your stuff? That's just ridiculous and utterly unthinkable. So we technically only have 6 mod slots on our weapons. Just like when Warframe Abilities had to be installed, only worse; we don't have the choice in taking them off. They are absolutely, completely, required in their entirety, unlike Abilities that you could remove and use for something else. Like more survivability or whatever.

[Eric1738]

Staple mods take up valuable slots that could potentially be used for something else, and DE's already overhauled stuff in the past and things didn't die.

the real question is what else? another elemental mod? how is that different. still wont increase diversity. instead of removing serration, bad mods should be buffed.

if we only remove serration, there will be another "serration". u cant keep deleting them and force players to use the remaining S#&$ty mods like ammo drum

Edited January 17, 2015 by Eric1738

[SeargantHaztagazpacho]

Remove serration and make your weapon damage scale with level. It would make forma-img so much easier, when you don't have to fight level 50 enemies with a weapon that does base damage still. 

[Sidathe]

the real question is what else? another elemental mod? how is that different. still wont increase diversity. instead of removing serration, bad mods should be buffed.

if we only remove serration, there will be another "serration". u cant keep deleting them and force players to use the remaining S#&$ty mods like ammo drum

Sure, why not an elemental mod? And why not buff the bad mods as well? Either way, Serration will need removing or changed to make it less...perfect is the right word? And multishot might need some kind of drawback (Reduced damage if it doesn't proc, perhaps?).

[Eric1738]

Sure, why not an elemental mod? And why not buff the bad mods as well? Either way, Serration will need removing or changed to make it less...perfect is the right word? And multishot might need some kind of drawback (Reduced damage if it doesn't proc, perhaps?).

change for sure. i beleive we can have better solutions than just removing it.

[sanj66]

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.

this is not true tbh, as removing all these mods would just reduce all weapons across the board by the same % or factor per class, making them still have the same tier or levels of "goodness" these mods just across the board exponentially increase the already innate stats. also if you are talking about in terms of relative vs mobs, it still would basically be the same as you would have to scale down enemy hp relative to the % or factor of damage lost which equates to the same scenario. i also dont get why people say baseline damage mods or the type of damage system should be removed, most compare to other games, well guess what what works for one game doesnt mean it will work for another, that other game is not warframe and warframe is not that other game.

[Bibliothekar]

these mods just across the board exponentially increase the already innate stats.

But exponential increase of numbers means that the difference between those numbers increases exponentially, too. So without them, the field won't spread as wide as it is at the moment. Boltor Prime might only deal 20% more damage than MK1-Braton at best instead of 1000%. That is a way of balancing weapons against each other.

And weapons at different levels would be closer together, too, so you could kill an enemy almost as easily with your level 15 weapon as the next guy with his level 30 (at the moment, the difference is more like 2 shots vs 1 mag).

 

the real question is what else? another elemental mod? how is that different. still wont increase diversity.

I've seen suggestions to categorize weapon mods. So you'd have e.g. 4 "free" slots (for any kind of mod) and 4 utility slots, that only take utility mods like magazine size or zoom. Once you can't fill your weapon with nothing but damage mods any more, builds will diversify by themselves, because not everyone considers the same utility mods useful. One player increases magazine size, while another chooses reload speed.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Bibliothekar

[sanj66]

But exponential increase of numbers means that the difference between those numbers increases exponentially, too. So without them, the field won't spread as wide as it is at the moment. Boltor Prime might only deal 20% more damage than MK1-Braton at best instead of 1000%. That is a way of balancing weapons against each other.

And weapons at different levels would be closer together, too, so you could kill an enemy almost as easily with your level 15 weapon as the next guy with his level 30 (at the moment, the difference is more like 2 shots vs 1 mag).

 

I've seen suggestions to categorize weapon mods. So you'd have e.g. 4 "free" slots (for any kind of mod) and 4 utility slots, that only take utility mods like magazine size or zoom. Once you can't fill your weapon with nothing but damage mods any more, builds will diversify by themselves, because not everyone considers the same utility mods useful. One player increases magazine size, while another chooses reload speed.

it will still be spread wide, and people still wont use lower weapons, also another thing that would be very hard hit would be crit based weapons, as their multiplier would be severely diminished by that exponential reduction more than a flat damage based weapon, how would you deal with that? also a level 15 weapon that would do that would render the level 30 gun pointless, as does the same happen now with different guns, it still doesnt change anything positively, also again i ask why is damage based mods bad in warframe? or why do you deem it bad? if you're gonna say game x or game y etc that that is irrelevant and pointless and has absolutely no bearing here as this is not game x or game y.

[(PSN)Astro_BS-AS]

No. Just no. This topic is a bad idea.

Look, it took many people way too long to get to max serration, and doing it makes you feel more "Tenno" (and a much less social person irl) so I don't want it removed. If anything I 'd like a Primed Serration (with a v polarity, please) wich do 220% more dmg at max level.

This is another well written topic that doesn't add anything good to an already very good game.

[Ergo-Proxy]

I've seen suggestions to categorize weapon mods. So you'd have e.g. 4 "free" slots (for any kind of mod) and 4 utility slots, that only take utility mods like magazine size or zoom. Once you can't fill your weapon with nothing but damage mods any more, builds will diversify by themselves, because not everyone considers the same utility mods useful. One player increases magazine size, while another chooses reload speed.

I don't know if "locking" mods slots is a good idea. You are limiting players and forcing them to use mods that some may deem worthless in the build. Locking mods would prevent you as a player from using elemental stat mods, slash/puncture/blast mods, and base damage mods like serration and heavy caliber. I really see no good way to justify removing serration tbh.

[UrbanShade]

I've seen suggestions to categorize weapon mods. So you'd have e.g. 4 "free" slots (for any kind of mod) and 4 utility slots, that only take utility mods like magazine size or zoom. Once you can't fill your weapon with nothing but damage mods any more, builds will diversify by themselves, because not everyone considers the same utility mods useful. One player increases magazine size, while another chooses reload speed.

Why u want to force me to use damn Eagle Eye or Ammo Drum? So, this, basically, will force me, and most of players to use nuke builds and pure melee weapons, because melee, atleast, have combo multiplier, because main and secondary weapons will became very weak. Again, utility mods on weapons -  BAD mods, they weak, and again, Warframe - not Battlefield or Call of Duty, where u can have advantage of less recoil or more ammo. Warframe - game with scaling of levels (with scaling of armor, health, shields and damage). Firstly - they should change, how scaling work, and only after this they should change our equipment. Im not want to stay against lvl 50 bombard with weapon, that will just tickle him.

When they will rebalance the powerlevel of enemies, with reduced health, shield, armor and their dmg - im 100% 200% sure, that Serration and others should be deleted. but only in this case. Not in current system of enemy scaling and stats.

 

Edit: And if they will remobe my Serration and Hornet Strike - im waiting for 1 legendary core for each of them, or 2 leg cores for my Heavy Caliber, because im spended too much time, cores and credits for this.

 

Edit2: Maybe im read not carefully, and if they add innate damage to weapons, like leveling weapon and gain more damage - in this case im kinda agree. But removing serration anyway should be compensated very highly, because its hard to level.

Edited January 18, 2015 by UrbanShade

[Sziklamester]

These mods are core mods and long times serve us. Many of us spent a lot of time and material to improve them and max the possibilities so the removal could make more chaos. They cannot compensate us because this take a long long time process to max them. They need to search other ways to balance the mods and instead of removing actual mods should buff and combine mods which are unused or useless. 

 

Same with primed mods instead make them they can balance the actual mods and turn down the power creep.

 

If they will remove the raw damage mods they should give us 10 legendary cores / mod and they should give damage improve ability to the utility mods with better stats.

[LtZefar]

I've seen suggestions to categorize weapon mods. So you'd have e.g. 4 "free" slots (for any kind of mod) and 4 utility slots, that only take utility mods like magazine size or zoom. Once you can't fill your weapon with nothing but damage mods any more, builds will diversify by themselves, because not everyone considers the same utility mods useful. One player increases magazine size, while another chooses reload speed.

4 Utility slots and you think one might chose reload speed over larger magazines? Or you know you could just use BOTH and then throw in an Ammo Mutation and NEVER run out of ammo. Unless it's Twin Vipers or some other useless weapon that waste ammo.

But we still got one more slot left for utility. I could throw in further reload from Corruption mods or extra attack speed as I see that as an utility mod.

 

But for the four main damage mods. Well Puncture, slash and impact mods will be worthless. Other than the 120% one.

So lets assume you also think the good mods are supposed to be removed as well.

Then we have like.

2 or 3 90% elemental mods and one 120% main damage mod.

 

Status chance mods are not worth it with their 60% damage bonus anymore. All of the 30% normal damage bonus are not worth it. Even those for faction specific.

 

Critical weapons? Well they only got the choice of a dual element stat.

As it's

Critical chance

Critical damage

2 90% Elemental damage mods. So they can get Corrosive or some other element.

 

But a weapon like Latron and all of it's other version have superb ammo handling which makes utility mods almost utterly useless in every single way.

 

So that'd be a horrible system.

[Thrymm]

These mods are core mods and long times serve us. Many of us spent a lot of time and material to improve them and max the possibilities so the removal could make more chaos. They cannot compensate us because this take a long long time process to max them. They need to search other ways to balance the mods and instead of removing actual mods should buff and combine mods which are unused or useless. 

 

Same with primed mods instead make them they can balance the actual mods and turn down the power creep.

 

If they will remove the raw damage mods they should give us 10 legendary cores / mod and they should give damage improve ability to the utility mods with better stats.

Awful.  Simply awful, and greedy to boot.

 

The whole "it took a long time to make it" idea is crap.  Piled on top of that is the notion that you'd need some stupid number of legendary cores to compensate for the loss.  The reason for this is that all of that time can easily be transferred with a single compensation.

 

I maxed my first serration with ONE legendary mod.  One core, one confirm, done.  I got it when Steel Charge was nerfed.  What world of lunacy would suggest that you need more than that to compensate for the leveling process?  Have the people that think this would need some massive level of compensation ever actually used a legendary mod to know what it does?

 

One legendary core literally transfers all of that time into a different mod---and we're getting primed mods every other week from ducats, it's not like there is a shortage of difficult to level mods out there if that's really what makes a person feel like they've progressed.

 

You simply cannot be on board with keeping a multiplicative damage increase and be against power creep at the same time.  The reason this mod is necessary in every build and makes newer, better weapons become an even larger gap is because it is scalar--ANY power creep at all is magnified by the existence of these mods.

 

I agree with the logic(can't remember if it was in this post or another) that 20-30% damage from serration is about the amount that would put it in line with current mods, making it something that was as interchangeable as the other mods.  This is a damned harsh nerf to it, though.

 

And I'd certainly agree that totally balancing the mods would be a better idea---but I've yet to see a genuine, non"nerf into the ground" idea that actually makes it work.  Combining and buffing worthless mods is a great idea--and removing serration will not increase the value of some of these, such as the base status mods and ammo drum.  I'd love to see a REASONABLE logic that would make other mods on par with a 165% multiplicative damage addition. 

 

Heck, considering the fact that DE is even considering this route, I'm sure they'd love to see it to, and their eyes are the place something like that can make a difference.

[Bibliothekar]

4 Utility slots

 

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e.g.

Abbreviation of Latin exemplī grātiā (“for example”). Gratiā here is in the ablative case which is translated into the prepositional phrase "for the sake". Exempli is a genitive case noun meaning "of example". Therefore, the full phrase is "for the sake of example".^[1] Previously abbreviated to ex. gr.

 

But yeah, let's go totally nuts over and make assumptions based on numbers used as an example.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Bibliothekar

[LtZefar]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e.g.

 

But yeah, let's go totally nuts over and make assumptions based on numbers used as an example.

 

I'm just showing how utterly broken it would be to have 4 utility slots. If it breaks down that quickly don't even bother to suggest it unless you have something to back it up with.

 

It's the same with if someone suggested the removal of all damage mods. You can't balance all the planets and Void missions about utility mods. You just can't. It'd probably stop at the third or fourth planet and after that everything is the same no matter what you do.

[plsql]

lol :) 165% serration is a problem, but 220% hornet strike - no? 2 multishot mods on sidearms - no? sinoid gammacor with 47k burst/40k sustained dps - no?

 

balance, balance... remove serration/make him 90% like point blank - and primary weapon will have no chance at all. bows, rifles... hail to new king, baby?

[sanj66]

Awful.  Simply awful, and greedy to boot.

 

The whole "it took a long time to make it" idea is crap.  Piled on top of that is the notion that you'd need some stupid number of legendary cores to compensate for the loss.  The reason for this is that all of that time can easily be transferred with a single compensation.

 

I maxed my first serration with ONE legendary mod.  One core, one confirm, done.  I got it when Steel Charge was nerfed.  What world of lunacy would suggest that you need more than that to compensate for the leveling process?  Have the people that think this would need some massive level of compensation ever actually used a legendary mod to know what it does?

 

One legendary core literally transfers all of that time into a different mod---and we're getting primed mods every other week from ducats, it's not like there is a shortage of difficult to level mods out there if that's really what makes a person feel like they've progressed.

 

You simply cannot be on board with keeping a multiplicative damage increase and be against power creep at the same time.  The reason this mod is necessary in every build and makes newer, better weapons become an even larger gap is because it is scalar--ANY power creep at all is magnified by the existence of these mods.

 

I agree with the logic(can't remember if it was in this post or another) that 20-30% damage from serration is about the amount that would put it in line with current mods, making it something that was as interchangeable as the other mods.  This is a damned harsh nerf to it, though.

 

And I'd certainly agree that totally balancing the mods would be a better idea---but I've yet to see a genuine, non"nerf into the ground" idea that actually makes it work.  Combining and buffing worthless mods is a great idea--and removing serration will not increase the value of some of these, such as the base status mods and ammo drum.  I'd love to see a REASONABLE logic that would make other mods on par with a 165% multiplicative damage addition. 

 

Heck, considering the fact that DE is even considering this route, I'm sure they'd love to see it to, and their eyes are the place something like that can make a difference.

this is not true at all, did you even watch the stream? it was a question posed to them for the devstream by a player and serration was used as an example, stop misleading players.

[Bibliothekar]

-snip-

 

lol :) 165% serration is a problem, but 220% hornet strike - no? 2 multishot mods on sidearms - no?

Everything that goes for Serration or rifle multishot can be applied to the other weapon categories as well. Would be rather pointless to remove Serration from the game and leave Hornet Strike in, wouldn't it? At least to me, it goes by itself that they shouldn't remove Serration alone but all other raw damage mods as well (maybe find something different for the corrupted mods).

 

this is not true at all, did you even watch the stream?

This question has come up a for a number of devstreams now and I think to remember that in one of them they mentioned that Serration and other raw damage multipliers were a rather bad idea that they'd like to get rid of. They're just afraid of the backlash from the community - which can be seen pretty well in this thread.

[Thrymm]

this is not true at all, did you even watch the stream? it was a question posed to them for the devstream by a player and serration was used as an example, stop misleading players.

Err...what are you talking about?

 

They've put up a poll in the hot topics with this in the subject.  They discussed it in the devstream.  They've discussed in the past the fact that they are not satisfied with the status of "mandatory" mods, pointing out items like multishot and direct damage multipliers.

 

The very reason it's up again is because it's a topic of interest.  I'm not misleading anyone.  I'm suggesting that all these folks that screech "BALANCE IT ALL WITHOUT NERFS AAAHHH!" Should maybe consider showing HOW they'd do this, because it gets put out there all the time and yet nobody seems to offer numbers that make it all jive.  If they did, I'd think it would be well received.

 

And yes, in my opinion(because, I thought that was inferred, my apologies, I didn't realize I'd become so powerful as to be taken as fact), DE would LOVE to see an actual suggestion that did this.  And, in my opinion, they are the ones that can actually change the game code and design.  There is no misdirection here.

[sanj66]

Err...what are you talking about?

 

They've put up a poll in the hot topics with this in the subject.  They discussed it in the devstream.  They've discussed in the past the fact that they are not satisfied with the status of "mandatory" mods, pointing out items like multishot and direct damage multipliers.

 

The very reason it's up again is because it's a topic of interest.  I'm not misleading anyone.  I'm suggesting that all these folks that screech "BALANCE IT ALL WITHOUT NERFS AAAHHH!" Should maybe consider showing HOW they'd do this, because it gets put out there all the time and yet nobody seems to offer numbers that make it all jive.  If they did, I'd think it would be well received.

 

And yes, in my opinion(because, I thought that was inferred, my apologies, I didn't realize I'd become so powerful as to be taken as fact), DE would LOVE to see an actual suggestion that did this.  And, in my opinion, they are the ones that can actually change the game code and design.  There is no misdirection here.

they never said in the stream it was an idea it was in relation to a question, even rebecca said so after she posed the question to steve who himself said to remove serration would to allow for other mods would be difficult as every enemy in the game from void to star chart would have to be overhauled, but thats the thing all of that was in relation to answering a question posed by a player, it was not per say a dev topic for the stream. the reason they posted those topics was because people blew up after the stream posting their own threads and ideas, some of which did not understand what the mention was about and others just because it was an idea they wanted.

[-ODIN-Bibimbap]

Serration should be removed, as it is absolutely necessary to use it in a weapon, heavy caliber however, should stay in the game, as it gives an accuracy reduction the more you level it up

[sunmaggot]

if serration is removed, then guns are weaker (there is no other mod that can provide +165% damage except heavy caliber, which is also an essential mod for weapon build). the removal of serration is actually a gun nerf because players now have to replace that serration slot with a worse mod. just don't suddenly try to make useless update or ruining something working well at the moment. otherwise, the game will be a failure and people will go to another game ( warframe is not the only shooter game ).