Efficiency Is Inevitable; Why Removing Serration Won't Fix Anything

[motorfirebox]

you are not getting it, that is still stacking more than 1 damage mod, an elemental mods is a damage mod, you claimed you wanted to reduce damage mods to 1 per load out and the rest for utility, so how can you now say yes you can still stack elementals, i am not contesting how you want them to stack now, but you clearly now contradict yourself, and it is doing the exact same thing as before, you are still building elemental combos via elemental mods which will still be staple damage mods with the damage 2.0 system.

I'm really not sure how to make this any clearer. I want net increases to damage to be limited to a single mod. Elemental mods will, as I envision them, not provide a net damage increase. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I don't want people to stack elemental mods to gain elemental combos.

 

Are you saying that 2.25x isn't close to 2.65? It's pretty damn close. The 'wrong' elements provides almost as much of a penalty as not having serration, and costs just as many mods. And that ignores the earlier point you made about opportunity cost; not bringing serration gives you an extra mod slot. 3 elementals of the 'right' type are better than serration and 2 elementals of the 'wrong' type.

Yes, I'm absolutely saying that 2.25x, at a cost of 22 capacity and 2 slots, is nowhere close to 2.65x at a cost of 14 capacity and 1 slot. Especially once polarization comes into the picture. And the opportunity cost isn't anywhere near equivalent, because forgoing Serration doesn't provide you with any opportunities. As we've already established, Serration is always the best choice. If you don't pick Serration, you're paying an opportunity cost on whatever you replace Serration with, because you had the opportunity to pick Serration and you squandered it. The fact that 3 elementals of the right type do more damage than Serration + two elementals of the wrong type is immaterial because you're never going to not put Serration in that fourth slot. Or, really, the first slot, before you start picking out elemental mods.

 

 

And yes, there is a little more room to play with elementals, but that's only if you aren't making a damage focused build. My torid runs a lot of blast for floor dancing... but I'm giving up damage to do it. However, I don't have to give up too much since blast is a generally good damage type, and the rest is the highly effective corrosive damage. And that's how the modding system works best; small sacrifices for a large gain somewhere else. Dual element mods as well; some guns I run them instead of formaing for more 11pt mods because I like the proc chance. The reason you can get away with not picking the 'best' element is that there is a middle ground option; you aren't chosing between rad and mag damage; you can chose something moderatly effective with a utility effect. But that still isn't freedom of choice. Many weapons have no use for the utility effects of the 'okay' damage types, and you are taking a massive penalty, almost (if you want to think of it your way) as bad as serration, for picking the wrong one.

Yes, there's a little more room to play with elements if you're not making a completely damage-focused build. You don't even have to do it in order to gain whatever status effect. You can do it just because you're too lazy to swap out your mods, and the penalty for doing so is—at worst, against a portion of a single faction—still being able to do competitive DPS. Not top DPS, obviously, but enough to make a significant damage contribution to the group.

 

That is most definitely freedom of choice.

Edited January 24, 2015 by motorfirebox

[00zau]

 

Yes, I'm absolutely saying that 2.25x, at a cost of 22 capacity and 2 slots, is nowhere close to 2.65x at a cost of 14 capacity and 1 slot. Especially once polarization comes into the picture. And the opportunity cost isn't anywhere near equivalent, because forgoing Serration doesn't provide you with any opportunities. As we've already established, Serration is always the best choice. If you don't pick Serration, you're paying an opportunity cost on whatever you replace Serration with, because you had the opportunity to pick Serration and you squandered it. The fact that 3 elementals of the right type do more damage than Serration + two elementals of the wrong type is immaterial because you're never going to not put Serration in that fourth slot. Or, really, the first slot, before you start picking out elemental mods.

 

Please stop ignoring the way I stated my case. When comparing weapons with an equal number of mods, which is what I did in my calculations, the damage type is nearly as important as serration. The difference between two damage mods giving radiation, and two damage mods givine magnetic, is ~as large as the difference between having serration and not having it.

 

Again, I'm not argueing that elemental mods are the equal of serration when moding for deeps. I'm saying that when modding for deeps, damage type matter. A lot.

 

Do you dispute the statement that "Chosing the worst elemental combination can penalize you nearly as much as not using serration would"? Because that, and only that, is the point I was originally argueing.

[motorfirebox]

Against a specific subset of mobs within a particular faction, yeah, choosing the wrong elemental combo can sometimes reduce your damage almost as much as not using Serration. If that's the only point you're arguing, then I think I'm going to let this sidebar drop, because I don't see that it bears much on the points I'm trying to argue.

[Ryjeon]

The main reason I've voted against removing Serration is that there just aren't a lot of options for mods in the weapons departments. I never really feel like I'm sacrificing something I would rather be using by having to use Serration and Multi-shot. Eight Mod slots is a good amount for what we have going on with weapons. Taking out Serration would just mean more overall damage increasing elemental mods. So I don't think just removing it will suddenly open up interesting choices.

 

But I do think the mod set-up with guns is a problem. If we want a serration free equipment system it seems like the whole thing would have to be reconstructed from the ground up with more mod types introduced. And like the OP says no matter what there is going to be an optimal set-up that determines the late-game damage curve. 

 

But I do think we can serve to have more interesting choices. Warframe mods have the other problem. There are so many interesting and different mods you can run even before introducing augments. And with Augments eight mod slots is feeling really tight. But maybe that space feels tight because our weapons push the power curve so high that it exerts ever greater pressure to fine-tune our frame set-up in order to keep up.

[Volume]

Been saying this since day 1 of mods 2.0

 

There will always be an optimal build with this mod system.

 

I kind of miss being able to find cool stuff that no one else had in the old old old system.

[Qynchou]

Youre talking about efficiency when this whole thing has absolutely nothing to do with it. It has everything to do with all those damage mods being required on every weapon.

[ThePresident777]

Removing Serration will do something.  It'll send everybody back to Mercury.  Seen many Whales at Mercury for long?

 

And, if the enemy is adjusted then, we're right back to where we started.  But, if we're not, that's a nerf, which doesn't require getting rid of serration.

 

Serration being "required" is moot because putting it on the weapon means that it's still "required".  Getting rid of it just makes something else "required".  Something is always "required".  Even if there is only one weapon slot.

 

Getting rid of damage mods means more mod slots open for other "required" mods.

 

If one really wishes to talk about required mods, one should talk about Speed Trigger being "required" compared to many elemental damage mods and reload and magazine mods:  https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/372681-things-i-learned-in-warframe-builder-today-whacky-mods/ 

Edited January 24, 2015 by ThePresident777

[vaugahn]

Something is always "required". 

 

Not true.

 

Imagine if weapon damage was totally independent of the mod system. You could shuffle around elements and stuff, or maybe add a bit of multishot, but mods did not change damage profiles. Sure, someone could say they have a "best" build, but is that build really better than any other builds? All the builds are dealing essentially the same damage, after all.

[xmegarockx]

they should put 4 moar slot on every weapons and those slot cost 50p each so u want more slot it will cost u plat and those slot don cost space so pretty nice

[LazyKnight]

Not true.

 

There is never a way to obfuscate what is the best for 'x', and people will always find that 'best' then deem all other options pointless. If there is a damage combination that is 1% better, that will end up the required build for min/max'er. If all builds are able to do the same damage, then there would no-longer be an to Incentive to participate in the system. 

 

The rank 10 damage mods exist as a progression benchmark. Without the R10's, the game would likely look like 'Border Lands', and DE would likely populate the game with numerous tiers of disposable weapons. They have already made far too many weapons to make each weapon a unique personalty that is worthy of special consideration.

Edited January 25, 2015 by LazyKnight

[ProfessorZero]

Has nobody yet brought up that someone the conditional damage mods would literally be replacing 1 mod with at least six or more? Honestly you'd just be sending people back to the farm location and making it stupid hard for newbs to make gains (good lord, wall running shots? like they would land those consistantly.) Conditional damage is dumb because it is just a nerf by another name.

[00zau]

Has nobody yet brought up that someone the conditional damage mods would literally be replacing 1 mod with at least six or more? Honestly you'd just be sending people back to the farm location and making it stupid hard for newbs to make gains (good lord, wall running shots? like they would land those consistantly.) Conditional damage is dumb because it is just a nerf by another name.

The best part is that it would mean no change in builds towards utility modding; you just replace serration with one of a dozen difference not!serration mods. That's about as much 'build diversity' as damage 2.0 gave us by making us mod for 3 different types of rainbow for the different factions.

[motorfirebox]

Has nobody yet brought up that someone the conditional damage mods would literally be replacing 1 mod with at least six or more? Honestly you'd just be sending people back to the farm location and making it stupid hard for newbs to make gains (good lord, wall running shots? like they would land those consistantly.) Conditional damage is dumb because it is just a nerf by another name.

Yes, this issue has been discussed at length. The best solution I've seen is to make Serration-type mods an aura/stance for firearms, and make every other damage mod zero-sum so that you're effectively trading one damage type for another.

[00zau]

Yes, this issue has been discussed at length. The best solution I've seen is to make Serration-type mods an aura/stance for firearms, and make every other damage mod zero-sum so that you're effectively trading one damage type for another.

Making damage mods zero sum doesn't help because damage type is still important for DPS, and there currently aren't any mods that would serve better than a DPS increase. Most players aren't going to take Fast Hands or Magazine Warp when they would claw back some DPS by changing as much of their damage as possible to an 'optimal' type, or a more useful type for status (like blast).

 

If this mod makes the numbers over your enemies head bigger, and that one doesn't, this one is gonna get more usage.

[Innocent_Flower]

There is never a way to obfuscate what is the best for 'x', and people will always find that 'best' then deem all other options pointless. If there is a damage combination that is 1% better, that will end up the required build for min/max'er. If all builds are able to do the same damage, then there would no-longer be an to Incentive to participate in the system. 

False, False, False and then t... False. Unless a build is doing a good 50% more dps and utility remains entirely less useful than damage, it really won't matter. 

[LazyKnight]

False, False, False and then t... False. Unless a build is doing a good 50% more dps and utility remains entirely less useful than damage, it really won't matter. 

It's been true for RPG (and MMo) for years, read any weapon forums such as Vindictus. The best weapon is best, and all others avoided. Dozens of RPGs I have played all have the same mindset (Was a raider and played numerous on-line/off-line RPGs for years). It does not matter if it is just '1%' better, that reputation of being best makes all other options trashed, as soon as that best is acquired.

 

Utility is cared about if it is CC, otherwise it has no value, to all but the most casual. Utility requires sacrificing damage, damage is measurable to people, as is CC.

 

My points:

 

====================================================================================================

It is not false: it is impossible to obfuscate any system (really try, it will be solved in days)

 

It is not false: min/max'er will take max damage.

 

The only thing that is up for debatable, is participation in a zero sum system. Would people buy catalyst if it did not increase their power? <--I sincerely doubt it, would be bad for DE to lower the reasons to buy them.

====================================================================================================

If you want to say something is false, at least have a clue.

 

Utility is always a stupidly vague word; It includes 'CC' that is far and away more valuable than any amount of damage, with things like 'scope zoom' that are of trivial concern.  There are also utility function that influence damage/DPS and feature that do not affect it, as at most they have a visual effects; all of these items get lumped together, for some reason, by people on these forums when they are being deliberately vague when talking about utility.

 

 

 

DE would have to make every weapon unique, for a zero sum system to survive to survive on utility. There are too many weapons in the same category for DE to rebuild the game now, as each weapon would have to be an entirely unique personalty. 

Edited January 27, 2015 by LazyKnight

[motorfirebox]

 

Making damage mods zero sum doesn't help because damage type is still important for DPS, and there currently aren't any mods that would serve better than a DPS increase. Most players aren't going to take Fast Hands or Magazine Warp when they would claw back some DPS by changing as much of their damage as possible to an 'optimal' type, or a more useful type for status (like blast).

 

If this mod makes the numbers over your enemies head bigger, and that one doesn't, this one is gonna get more usage.

This has also been addressed. The use of pure utility mods is not a good marker for build diversity. Choosing damage type, and how much to focus on damage type vs crit vs proc chance vs other possibly useful damage types... is a choice. Yes, there will be builds that are more common, maybe even significantly more common, than other builds. That will still be much more diversity than we have currently, where a single mod is the first one picked for every single build.

 

False, False, False and then t... False. Unless a build is doing a good 50% more dps and utility remains entirely less useful than damage, it really won't matter. 

The key is to make different builds require different playstyles. Say the Build A does 100 DPS, and Build B does 75 DPS. However, Build B goes up to 150 DPS if you can land a headshot every five seconds. If you're Headshot McShootHeads of the Clan McShootHeads, then you're going to pick Build B. If you're not, you'll pick Build A.