Here's How We Remove Serration And (Attempt To) Balance The Game. Damage 2.5 (Designated Megathread)

[notionphil]

Disclaimer, I haven't read through the thread, nor have I participated in WF forums for some time.

 

However, I proposed a very simple solution to the serration-as-must-have-mod problem some months ago, and feel it might be helpful as part of this discourse.

 

We need better "core" mods

 

Essentially, I suggest that all "core" mods such as Serration come in different variants, each with different pros and cons. So yes, you keep using serration but because there are many variants, build diversity becomes stronger.

 

Progression stays the same, which is its own blessing or curse, depending on how you view it. That was not the problem I was attempting to solve here.

Edited January 19, 2015 by notionphil

[CaptainEras]

We have been here before, and before , and before . . . this is why there is no screaming.

 

It really is all very simple, DE issue some lip service so that we don't feel left out and then implement whatever is coming our way.

I don't mind, yes, there will be screaming and shouting about it all being worse than before . . . a game breaker, etc., etc., and then we all dust ourselves down and get stuck in learning all the changes . . .

 

This will happen over and over if you stick around long enough, and if you really like the game you stick around and get on with it . .

I love the game, whatever comes is ok by me. Sure, I'll pop my head into the forum from time to time and stir up the noddy's . .get them agitated and baying for blood . . .it's all part of gaming.

 

I love the excitement of firing up the game and seeing a massive patch being downloaded, thinking, "what the hell have they done now", lol . . .

Edited January 19, 2015 by CaptainEras

[(PSN)KaxMcc]

Okay so I've only read to about page 11 but I'm getting the gist of the arguments on both sides. Finished reading thead. Still coming to the same conclusion.

 

One side wants to remove serration to result in more build diversity.

 

The other rejects the idea due to:
-possible progression/balance issues
-Lack of proper compensation for the time put into leveling serration
-The fact that another required mod would take serrations place

I think I have a solution that would appease both sides. Don't remove serration. Separate progressive(required) mods from preferential(non-required) mods. And give each type their own mod space.

 

The issue with the current mod system is that it tries to cram vertical progression and horizontal progression into the same mod space. The former always takes precedence because it is needed to progress and the latter is largely ignored.

 

If required mods were given their own mod space they wouldn't interfere with utility and specialization mods and they would still be able to provide the vertical progression that is important to a lot of people.

Edited January 20, 2015 by (PS4)KaxMcc

[Scryed]

There's lots of very long threads about it. But our current "Warframe" Is unbalanced and admittedly has issues that could be fixed, so I don't know why people are complaining to keep those problems. We're here to help make the game better, so why don't we? Who cares if the changes may have to be big.

how can you say warframe is unbalanced, for pvp I would agree, but for pve its fine we have infinite scaling mobs, if anything weapons are underbalanced :P

Edited January 20, 2015 by Scryed

[Angus_JTV]

NO TNX.

Edited January 20, 2015 by -CM-Angus

[Alphafox]

Disclaimer, I haven't read through the thread, nor have I participated in WF forums for some time.

 

However, I proposed a very simple solution to the serration-as-must-have-mod problem some months ago, and feel it might be helpful as part of this discourse.

 

We need better "core" mods

 

Essentially, I suggest that all "core" mods such as Serration come in different variants, each with different pros and cons. So yes, you keep using serration but because there are many variants, build diversity becomes stronger.

 

Progression stays the same, which is its own blessing or curse, depending on how you view it. That was not the problem I was attempting to solve here.

Oh my, thank you! I have been looking for your thread to show everyone what they could be missing but I could not find it.

Seriously guys look at that thread it's wonderful. 

Edited January 20, 2015 by Alphafox

[Ionus]

Hahahaha . . there is always one . .

 

OK, define, exactly, how my comments become "strawman" . . . no help, off the top of your head . .

 

"Other than that the majority whining here are low MR ranked lazy arses . . . they see the monumental mountain of maxing serration and go whimpering to DE to change the game . . . I hope DE stick by all the guys like me who climbed that mountain, and every other maxed mod mountain, and tell these kiddies to bugger off . . ."

 

"Low MR noob" founder that supports their removal, reporting in.

^^ That.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Ionus

[MaverickZero]

"Other than that the majority whining here are low MR ranked lazy arses . . . they see the monumental mountain of maxing serration and go whimpering to DE to change the game . . . I hope DE stick by all the guys like me who climbed that mountain, and every other maxed mod mountain, and tell these kiddies to bugger off . . ."

I don't appreciate your blanket statement. MR 18 and a CB player here. Serration and similar mods were proposed numerous times to be revamped from the day of their creation. A ton of suggestions were made month after month to avoid the problems we have today like the segregated mod slots (utility/offense/defense) for example but sadly DE shrugged it off as 'we'll get to it later'. The most intelligent and creative CB players were working really hard to address the foundation of the game but after being ignored for so that long most of them left.

[Ionus]

I don't appreciate your blanket statement. MR 18 and a CB player here. Serration and similar mods were proposed numerous times to be revamped from the day of their creation. A ton of suggestions were made month after month to avoid the problems we have today like the segregated mod slots (utility/offense/defense) for example but sadly DE shrugged it off as 'we'll get to it later'. The most intelligent and creative CB players were working really hard to address the foundation of the game but after being ignored for so that long most of them left.

 

It wasn't my statement. It was from the first person I quoted.

[Tyrian3k]

how can you say warframe is unbalanced, for pvp I would agree, but for pve its fine we have infinite scaling mobs, if anything weapons are underbalanced :P

He says that it is unbalanced because weapons aren't tiered properly and often don't have the firepower that you'd expect from them due to the difficulty of acquiring them whereas other weapons that have lots of firepower are quite easy to get.

---> weapons are unbalanced to each other

Warframe abilities and weapons scale disproportionately, meaning that abilities of an unmodded warframe are very powerful compared to an unmodded weapon while a weapon is far superior once modded.

---> weapons and warframes aren't balanced to each other

There are tons of useless mod around that are vitually unused because they are vastly underpowered and have no place to be in a build.

---> mods are unbalanced

Calling this game well balanced would not be true in any way.

[Sidathe]

-snip-

Allow me to rectify the situation, as Ionus forgot to source things. :P

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/387330-heres-how-we-remove-serration-and-attempt-to-balance-the-game-damage-25-designated-megathread/?p=4277394

[CY13ERPUNK]

Disclaimer, I haven't read through the thread, nor have I participated in WF forums for some time.

 

However, I proposed a very simple solution to the serration-as-must-have-mod problem some months ago, and feel it might be helpful as part of this discourse.

 

We need better "core" mods

 

Essentially, I suggest that all "core" mods such as Serration come in different variants, each with different pros and cons. So yes, you keep using serration but because there are many variants, build diversity becomes stronger.

 

Progression stays the same, which is its own blessing or curse, depending on how you view it. That was not the problem I was attempting to solve here.

 

yep, i really hope we see/hear more from DE about this stuff this year, they have been avoiding the issue for far too long IMHO

[(PSN)VariantX7]

yep, i really hope we see/hear more from DE about this stuff this year, they have been avoiding the issue for far too long IMHO

Avoiding it would be putting it mildly, seems like they've been making it even worse with primed mods.

[03-K64]

I like the current mod system.

[Ionus]

Allow me to rectify the situation, as Ionus forgot to source things. :P

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/387330-heres-how-we-remove-serration-and-attempt-to-balance-the-game-damage-25-designated-megathread/?p=4277394

I didn't forget. I just messed up my quote order and was too lazy to fix it. :p

[Jahadaya]

Just edited OP and added a great post by Innocent_Flower explaining why this change should happen. My post mainly spoke about how we could implement it. 

[Innocent_Flower]

Just edited OP and added a great post by Innocent_Flower explaining why this change should happen. My post mainly spoke about how we could implement it. 

But y'know, I'm pretty against several things in the OP.

 

Here's a thread I wrote that got ignored (maybe I write too much. The topic is just way too important to not get excited about) https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/388264-there-are-multiple-ways-to-change-damage-mods/  Although your idea is better than not changing a thing, I see it as one of the most flawed methods we could do.  

 

Also

Multishot; Make it a utility/weapon mechanic changing function. Different for each weapon; Be it burst fire on a semi auto, widening the cone of damage so that you hit more, spliting a missile/grenade into several smaller ones, or doing the whole legolas thing with firing two arrows. Something simple like a nerf could work; but I'd like to see DE expand on some things. 

 

As for elements. I'd say conversions are great, but another thing I'd like to see is no projectile damage at all for elemental mods; adding an elemental mod adds the status, and ranking said mod up increases the severity of the status, and the variety of the effects the status has. Plus enemy flesh types are changed so that certain parts of an element are stronger/weaker/more likely to proc/less likely to proc. At the moment we've got this thing where some elements are entirely useless on one faction and incredibly effective on another; It sort of limits choices. 

Edited January 21, 2015 by Innocent_Flower

[manub]

all your suggestions are interesting but as you say yourself this would need a HUGE rework of the health/armor/scaling system

I don't see DE getting into that soon

but do vote, it's on this month community hot topics, offer your suggestions there

 

on personnal side, I would love a new system getting rid of serration & the likes. as of now our weapons don't have 8 mod slots, they have 6 for primaries & 5 for secondaries because any weapons becomes useless after a while if we don't use pure damage/multishot mods

[Very_Melon]

No. Besides there is already a very long thread about this.. and split chamber, and everything else that makes warframe, warframe.

So what makes Warframe, Warframe is S#&$ty "customization" system? Okay.

[CaptainEras]

It wasn't my statement. It was from the first person I quoted.

Hahaha . . .that's what happens when you adopt the smartass approach, lol . . .

[CaptainEras]

I don't appreciate your blanket statement. MR 18 and a CB player here. Serration and similar mods were proposed numerous times to be revamped from the day of their creation. A ton of suggestions were made month after month to avoid the problems we have today like the segregated mod slots (utility/offense/defense) for example but sadly DE shrugged it off as 'we'll get to it later'. The most intelligent and creative CB players were working really hard to address the foundation of the game but after being ignored for so that long most of them left.

I agree, Ionus can't just walk around firing off blanket statements like this . .

[(PSN)Onder6099]

Okay, so I was in the middle of typing a MASSIVE thread about this like 5 minutes ago, but then I pressed backspace then SUDDENLY the page reloaded and all my 4 paragraphs were gone. That's happened 3 times now on these forums and each time I've just said screw it and given up and not shared my ideas. I'm not  doing that again., I feel too strongly about this subject.

 

Granted, I'm still gonna say screw it and not type nearly as much, but I'm still posting nonetheless. 

 

So here's just a quick rundown on how I feel DE should handle this situation:

 

 

1. Remove all pure base damage mods. These include: Serration, Hornet Strike, Point Blank, and Primed Point Blank. 

 

2. Compensate us with credits and cores equivalent to the amount spent, plat, or legendary cores. 

 

3. Integrate +5.5% damage per level into every weapon, for a total of +165% damage at level 30 - equal to a max Serration. Keep the same numbers the same for primaries, secondaries, and melee's for consistency. 

 

4. Add in the Conditional mods Rebecca spoke about on Devstream 44 (such as +x% damage on headshots, or +x% damage on unalerted enemies). This would be a great way to encourage varied playstyles while also having effective variety, something that the massive scaling and base damage mods help to kill (more on this later).

 

5. Heavily nerf (Hear me out. This is what's needed, and I'll tell you why) the other "essentially-essential" mods that people say would just replace Serration's spot in everyone's builds. These include: 

 

 

Heavy Caliber - Give it something like +30% damage and -15% accuracy. On the other hand, make it easier to max for less unnecessary grindy-grind. 

 

Elemental Mods - Instead of having them just add straight up more damage, have them change a portion of your weapons damage to become that elemental. For example, say you have a weapon that does 50 slash, 50 puncture, and 50 impact damage. Say you put on a +30% fire damage mod. It would then do 35 slash, 35 puncture, 35 impact, and 45 fire damage. 

 

Multishot mods - Instead of these mods just adding extra shots for free, have them sort of "split your shots in two", doubling your proc chance, and increasing crit. Either this, or just nerf them to do something along the lines of +25% multishot. 

 

I could do more mods, like spoiled strike and magnum force - but you get the point. These mods should be nerfed to a point where you'll actually consider using Utility mods that fit your playstyle over them, and using the newly freed Serration slot for a higher variety of mods. With this, and the addition of Conditional mods that also encourage a higher variety of playstyles, players won't be forced to use mods that make their weapons 90x more effective in every situation. Also, this helps to make it so that damage output is more innate as you level up and less tied to mods that you grind to max. Now of course with these heavy nerfs, enemies will have to change too. 

 

6. Rework enemy health, armor, and shields to scale correctly with out new damage outputs. This one's obvious, as since we just recieved such heavy nerfing, enemies will have to, too. This ties in with my next suggestion.

 

7. Completely rework scaling. This includes a reworking of enemy scaling, level scaling, and endless mission scaling. Our damage output, now with the removal of ridiculous damage-altering mods, won't scale nearly as much as it does now. This is a good thing. This makes missions generally more enjoyable, and the game a lot more balanceable. We won't be one-shotting things up until 40 minutes into a T4S, when they then start one-shotting us and becoming bullet-sponges. 

 

I actually think they should remove endless missions entirely. There's no point in having them go on forever, when once after a certain point the mission literally becomes impossible. That's not good at all. Instead, I think endless missions should each end at a certain point, and have their scaling reworked so that they scale a bit quicker so Vets and the people looking for a challenge still get the challenge they seek.

 

Survival could only go for 60 minutes, or 90 minutes or something. And Defense; only for 100 waves. But the scaling is different so it's still just as challenging as now - but more exciting as there could be a SUPER good end-of-mission reward for those that complete it (like 100-200 R5 Cores, or a Prime Part in that mission of your choosing - just something really good that makes it worth it).

 

Maybe there could also even be an even more challenging bonus-mission at the end of these endless missions to spice things up. Something with even BETTER rewards to really make things worth it. 

 

8. Introduce more obvious weapon tiering, and mastery locking accordingly. There could be 5 tiers. 5 being the highest, 1 being the lowest. Which weapons go in which tier is another topic, but it should be very obvious in the UI which tier a weapon is in. This also makes it easier to put out an equal amount of weapons in each tier for DE. 

 

To make newbies not have as much of an exponential increase in their weapon damage (previously Serration stopped this, but since in this case it gets removed and integrated in weapon levels, getting +165% damage at level 30 will make new players just swipe through all the early star chart too easily) the Tiering system could work like this:

 

We could have weapons of lower tiers have a smaller damage increase (Since 5.5% per level maxes out to be 165% like Serration, that could be for tier 5 and tier 1 could be a 1.1% increase per level for a max of 33% increase in damage). Of course, that could greatly anger people who liked using weapons that are not of higher tiers, so you can raise that with maybe a new potato/ a forma/ mastery rank/ something else DE comes up with :P

 

And I think the tiers of weapons you can use/unlock should be tied to Mastery Rank. Tier 1 for Ranks 1-2. Tier 1+2 for ranks 2-4. Tier 1+2+3 for ranks 4-6. Tier 1+2+3+4 for ranks 6-8. All 5 Tiers unlocked for Ranks 8 and above. I think this would be great. 

 

This is where I start things start to get a bit hard for me to decide, so that's where you guys come in!

 

Upvote if you mostly agree, and surely leave a comment on this (huge) change that DE may be planning. 

 

 

EDIT: A great post in the spoiler about why this should happen, which my post didn't really cover fully - I covered more how we should implement it. 

 

 

Innocent_Flower made this post. It's at the bottom of page 6 of this thread. 

 

Wow, how many changes just for one mod named Serration. Thx dude, that you discovered to me how precious Serration is, but plz rename the tittle for something like this: Here ´s why not remove Serration...

[Jahadaya]

Wow, how many changes just for one mod named Serration. Thx dude, that you discovered to me how precious Serration is, but plz rename the tittle for something like this: Here ´s why not remove Serration...

The only reason I wrote so many changes was to satisfy all the people saying "Oh removing Serration wouldn't solve 100% of our issues so it's useless". <--- That's not true, but I just decided to post out what we would need in order to fully solve our balancing issues.

 

But still, only removing Serration and integrating it into weapon levels would be WAY better than what we have now. 

[-FV-Metheria]

Maybe they shouldn't compensate to remove the damage mods (and replace them) because all the plat/L cores would cause massive unbalance.

 

Maybe if they replaced the damage mods with other mods of the same rank, that wouldn't unbalance the entire game.

People would not WANT those other mods. Also I say nerf Heavy Calibur by making it a rank 5 mod only.

[Jahadaya]

But y'know, I'm pretty against several things in the OP.

 

Here's a thread I wrote that got ignored (maybe I write too much. The topic is just way too important to not get excited about) https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/388264-there-are-multiple-ways-to-change-damage-mods/  Although your idea is better than not changing a thing, I see it as one of the most flawed methods we could do.  

Which exact things are you against in the OP? Why is this one of the most flawed ways we could do it? Just curious on what you think.

 

 

Also

Multishot; Make it a utility/weapon mechanic changing function. Different for each weapon; Be it burst fire on a semi auto, widening the cone of damage so that you hit more, spliting a missile/grenade into several smaller ones, or doing the whole legolas thing with firing two arrows. Something simple like a nerf could work; but I'd like to see DE expand on some things. 

 

As for elements. I'd say conversions are great, but another thing I'd like to see is no projectile damage at all for elemental mods; adding an elemental mod adds the status, and ranking said mod up increases the severity of the status, and the variety of the effects the status has. Plus enemy flesh types are changed so that certain parts of an element are stronger/weaker/more likely to proc/less likely to proc. At the moment we've got this thing where some elements are entirely useless on one faction and incredibly effective on another; It sort of limits choices. 

Well I merely suggested possible alternatives to these mods, not the only possible way I think they should get changed. It's mainly up to DE what to do with them - as long as they make them not as essential so not to give us false-choice. I like your ideas on them just as much as I like my own :P