Nerfing Nova For The Sake Of Challenging Missions.

[vaugahn]

Those stats are context free.  The context includes people who enjoy playing with that kind of power.  The context includes all sorts of externalities not being factored such as enemies, maps, missions, etc.  As I stated before the nerfs would be better as enemy abilities, etc.  Games are better off being unique rather than following "balance" idealogies that ignore the fact that players have fun.  In fact, one of Warframe's basic premises is players having fun in unconventional ways.  Unconventionality is not achievable by following "the rules".

I don't think you really understand what I'm talking about when I say balance. Let me clarify:

Balance does not mean we should be weak compared to enemies. Balance does not mean following a strict set of rules. It does not mean turning the game into dark souls or gears of war, and it does not mean deviating from the core of warframe you continuously quote around.

Balance means similar choices are equally viable. What it means is that someone can take a Banshee and a Paracyst into a mission and not get stuck with 1% of the damage while a Rhino Prime/Boltor Prime roflstomps everything in front of them. In a balanced Warframe, we would still be devastating massive armies, except we can devastate said armies with all of our gear, not just a fraction of it.

There are many ways to go about achieving that. Sometimes we nerf things, sometimes we buff things. The irrationally nerf-phobic attitude you and many others hold is hampering that progress, and in some cases actively making the game worse. Balance is good for everyone, whether you choose to believe so or not.

[-SLX-J3tAc3]

Those stats are context free.  The context includes people who enjoy playing with that kind of power.  The context includes all sorts of externalities not being factored such as enemies, maps, missions, etc.  As I stated before the nerfs would be better as enemy abilities, etc.  Games are better off being unique rather than following "balance" idealogies that ignore the fact that players have fun.  In fact, one of Warframe's basic premises is players having fun in unconventional ways.  Unconventionality is not achievable by following "the rules".

That's the truth I was just messaging a staff member earlier about this.

[-SLX-J3tAc3]

 

 

 

What I'm hearing in favor of nerfing Nova is:

1)  There is The Right Game and The Wrong Game.

2)  The Wrong Game shouldn't exist, at all, ever, in any way shape or form, no matter what anyone says, even if it was the developer's widely expressed intent through out all these year to make it.  No matter how successful it is.

3)  Warframe is The Wrong Game, because Nova, and everything else.

4)  People who don't like The Right Game do not matter.

5)  People who don't like The Right Game need to get right.

Yeah, and we know how number 6 goes:

6) The Right Game is the way I see it, and if you disagree with me, you're so blinded by your own bias, you don't know what the term "balance" means.

[Oriviagene]

nova is the best option for difficult mission when playing solo,so I don't think it's a good idea to nerf her,also there's a lot of way to challenge yerself other than asking for the useless nerf

[gvidzix]

Oh god, nerf all frames, make them trashframes ...

She is as said before glass-canon, very squishy, but comes with tons of dmg.

 

Yes her M Prime is very useful, but cmon, almost all frames are good for one purpose (or built around one).

I agree her original M Prime was a bit of overkill, the new one is good, and doesn't need any changes.

 

And what is it with this feedback forum section, there is so much hate for everything, I thought I have some time I will check out forums, no thank you I shouldn't have done that.

[Raital]

There's only one Nova I enjoy playing, and it's speed nova.  In fact, I'd love it if the slow percentage was determined based on the the greater of two magnitudes:  A pre-determined one based on level rank, or flat power strength % (with +-75% cap as usual).  30% speed is not enough, I need more speed!

 

Then I'll just hop into a pub game and everyone can talk about how much less challenging the missions are as a result of having a nova around.  It's so fun!

 

In other words, Nova's don't have to make the game boring; they have the opportunity to make the game exciting, challenging, and fun too.  Don't rob me of my speed nova, please.

[MoonlightAngel]

this again. wouldn't it easier to take off all of her ability? I don't think "nerf" would be satified your taste at all.

[TypeSaber]

God...I did not expect it to get this big...uh wall of Text In coming fokes, if you don't care to read it then can we just let this thread die already? please?

I don't think you really understand what I'm talking about when I say balance. Let me clarify:

Balance does not mean we should be weak compared to enemies. Balance does not mean following a strict set of rules. It does not mean turning the game into dark souls or gears of war, and it does not mean deviating from the core of warframe you continuously quote around.

Balance means similar choices are equally viable. What it means is that someone can take a Banshee and a Paracyst into a mission and not get stuck with 1% of the damage while a Rhino Prime/Boltor Prime roflstomps everything in front of them. In a balanced Warframe, we would still be devastating massive armies, except we can devastate said armies with all of our gear, not just a fraction of it.

There are many ways to go about achieving that. Sometimes we nerf things, sometimes we buff things. The irrationally nerf-phobic attitude you and many others hold is hampering that progress, and in some cases actively making the game worse. Balance is good for everyone, whether you choose to believe so or not.

Actually you have just explained the very fault in yours and every nerf focused player on this forum. Your focus as always seems to be Damage and Kills. Something which in fact is only one aspect of this game and a aspect most seem to understand very poorly.

For example. Lets take a Ember and a Rhino for instance. Both frames have CC/ some way of boosting their damage and are reasonably tanky. The Ember would have higher damage is spec'ed properly but because she while she has CC and can amp her own damage modifier she is currently using fireball to give the Rhino a 300% damage boost. The Rhino is also giving a damage boost to the ember but it is obviously much less effective, however during that match the Rhino is much tankier and has a much better form of CC letting the ember be more reckless and survive. By the end of the match the Rhino would probably have 20% more damage at least then the Ember. But does that mean they are not balanced?

A guy has a burston prime 4 forma'd built for status and forcing corrosive procs. The other guy has a soma prime 3 forma'd built for slashing and fire. They both are targeting the heavys to down them quickly. The Soma player has 70% of the total damage, however that damage would be infinitely less if the burston player wasn't negating the heavys armor.

Damage is not everything in this game, Warframe combat is a combination of.~

Damage, Debilitation through Status, Survival, Mobility, CC and support.

Frames are expected then to do well in at-least two of these category with the popular frames often either being highly specialized in two categorys at the risk of weakness in others or possessing incredible versatility and ease of use. What does this mean towards balance tho?

Well balance in a video game is complicated as I said earlier, since to balance something you require a baseline or goal that is the thing your balancing around. If we were to only use DPS as the prerequisite to whether things needed to be nerfed or buffed it would be a simple matter to rank all the ability's, pick a middle found and balance accordingly. This however would be idiotic, as all ability's that were only damage based would then also need equalized ranges and costs as well as secondary features or the abilities would still be picked apart by people for what would still be more desirable to have and this argument in 'balance' would start all over again since this version of balance is based on personal opinion rather then actual design or understanding of the mechanics of battle.

Now in warframe the medium as it were what things are balanced around like I said is a combination of usability in those 6 features I mentioned above as well as two more. Fun and Theme. For example, under the current system the ember is functionally a fantastic frame to take for the rolls of CC and Amplification, a combination of Accelerant and Fireball Frenzy with high power and decent duration was a fantastic frame to have during our t4 70min run. I was almost doubling my teams weapon damage, and the stunlock and boost from Accelerant helped everyones damage even more. FireBlast was great for making space, and even fireball was good for panicking enemies during the run. As she currently is, she is balanced perfectly towards being a CC/Support frame. People however often state how because of World on Fire's terrible design her nuking ability is terrible compared to frames like Excalibur, Saryn, Mag and Mesa. If we were to judge her by that prerequisite instead then she is of course not well balanced at all, infact she is pretty bad. Now stick with me here because this is where it gets complicated.

When you Nerf something, you are removing a undesirable feature from the game, or lowering something that is dominating the field it is apart of back to (hopefully) the level of the next highest choice. Thusly Nerfing is something you do with great care, You must be fully aware of both the subjects capability's, the capabilities of every other aspect of the game and finally how you can maintain that abilities useability and function after changing it.

This is why for instance I fully approved of the Trinity blessing Nerf. That was an ability performing an unreplicatable feature, far surpassing any other feature in the game that would perform similar rolls as well as having no functional negatives nor activation requirements. Thus it was rightly nerfed.

In fact people who are overly nerf pro are infact the people hampering progress because they can't look past the tiny world views they have created for themselves which they use for determining balance. Before a cry of nerf is ever called first people think carefully about who that weapon or frame is effecting, its rolls, its strengths, its weakness's, its place in the game, its thematic design, as well as is it fun to play.

Here is a further example of a weapon that is overly barraged with nerf calls when in fact those people should instead be requesting buffs and rebalanced for other weapons which require a retuning in design. The Synoid Gammacor, is it strong, hell yes no one can deny that, however the question is, is it overpowered? Honestly not really While it possess a lot of powerful features and not many negative ones it is part of a grouping of equally powerful secondary's that all have something in common. They are fun to use. Honestly discounting the infinite energy nonsense (which got nerfed thank god) the gammacor while strong is weaker then the other weapons both in Burst Damage and Throwing Status Effects onto foes. Its superior ammo efficiency, ease of aim and high base damage allows for it to have great sustain giving it a PLACE in the game. The game would be much more enjoyable if their were more choices for secondary's as strong as primary's rather then less choice we would end up with by nerfing it.

Because that is what nerfing does, it is the removal of an option, giving the players less options until a baseline is reached, sure you could do a blanket nerf, and hit every weapon of similar power until you reach a particular desirable level but that generally just ends you up with a disappointed player base since then the choice is replaced with monotony and boring choices because everything is the same.

That is why buffing is the better solution 80% of the time, when a player logs on and finds a weapon they really enjoyed but found out was weaker in all ways to another available option they are feel happy. Their weapon is given validation. The other players who used the stronger options also are happy, because they are given more versatility and choice. The only people upset by this option is people left with useless items still and people who selfishly wanted their option to remain the only feasible one.

But you might say that at aspect of buffing everything leads to power-creep. Now that is a thing laced with stigmata, but in fact, if you look at it from a logical viewpoint. PowerCreep is only a problem in games that have limited leveled content and stagnant design. As a game develops their will always be powercreep, its natural that new ideas, new designs and new tactics can all lead to shifts in the meta of how things are done, as well as sometimes trvilizing earlier content. Such however is the way of any game that involves levels or advancement of any kind. This however is not an issue. DE is fairly good with its introduction of new content, and as has been mentioned many times over the forum the difficulty system is being reworked to better allow people to adjust the challenge of the game to the one they desire.

Furthermore would you rather have a game perfectly balanced around set damages, with every frame/weapon having the exact same effects abilities and CC functions. Or would you want a game with lots of variation, abilities and functions. Sure some things would be more efficient choices then others, but as long as each ability was uniquely useful in its own way then players would have their choice on what to play and be happy for it.

So yes kindly stop mistaking peoples desire for their things not to be nerfed as nerf-phobic when the actual problem is that too many people are misusing the claim of 'Needs to be nerfed'

People are just trying to defend things they enjoy in this game from people who selfishly want to take it away while claiming balance or overpowered as a shield to protect their frustrations. Especially in a game when they have a lot of choice on who they can and cant play with generally~

I admit that Warframe is a game that currently needs a lot of abilities and weapons to be overhauled and improved. There is however nothing I believe in the current version of the game that is so overpowered it actually requires a nerf.

Edited February 3, 2015 by TypeSaber

[Revel72]

For the last time. DE will not nerf Nova. For the sake of new players. Nova will stay strong. God quit whining already.

[Acedhero]

-snip to avoid wall of quote text-

 

I love this post, you explained everything very well :D.  Also to expand on one of the cons of the Synoid Gammacor, it has limited range! And laser pointers are 50% ineffective against alloy armor :D.. Making it a bit unfavorable when going against some of the biggest threats in Warframe.

 

Examples: normal and corrupted Bombards, Napalms. 

[AlphaHorseman]

 

God...I did not expect it to get this big...uh wall of Text In coming fokes, if you don't care to read it then can we just let this thread die already? please?

Actually you have just explained the very fault in yours and every nerf focused player on this forum. Your focus as always seems to be Damage and Kills. Something which in fact is only one aspect of this game and a aspect most seem to understand very poorly.

For example. Lets take a Ember and a Rhino for instance. Both frames have CC/ some way of boosting their damage and are reasonably tanky. The Ember would have higher damage is spec'ed properly but because she while she has CC and can amp her own damage modifier she is currently using fireball to give the Rhino a 300% damage boost. The Rhino is also giving a damage boost to the ember but it is obviously much less effective, however during that match the Rhino is much tankier and has a much better form of CC letting the ember be more reckless and survive. By the end of the match the Rhino would probably have 20% more damage at least then the Ember. But does that mean they are not balanced?

A guy has a burston prime 4 forma'd built for status and forcing corrosive procs. The other guy has a soma prime 3 forma'd built for slashing and fire. They both are targeting the heavys to down them quickly. The Soma player has 70% of the total damage, however that damage would be infinitely less if the burston player wasn't negating the heavys armor.

Damage is not everything in this game, Warframe combat is a combination of.~

Damage, Debilitation through Status, Survival, Mobility, CC and support.

Frames are expected then to do well in at-least two of these category with the popular frames often either being highly specialized in two categorys at the risk of weakness in others or possessing incredible versatility and ease of use. What does this mean towards balance tho?

Well balance in a video game is complicated as I said earlier, since to balance something you require a baseline or goal that is the thing your balancing around. If we were to only use DPS as the prerequisite to whether things needed to be nerfed or buffed it would be a simple matter to rank all the ability's, pick a middle found and balance accordingly. This however would be idiotic, as all ability's that were only damage based would then also need equalized ranges and costs as well as secondary features or the abilities would still be picked apart by people for what would still be more desirable to have and this argument in 'balance' would start all over again since this version of balance is based on personal opinion rather then actual design or understanding of the mechanics of battle.

Now in warframe the medium as it were what things are balanced around like I said is a combination of usability in those 6 features I mentioned above as well as two more. Fun and Theme. For example, under the current system the ember is functionally a fantastic frame to take for the rolls of CC and Amplification, a combination of Accelerant and Fireball Frenzy with high power and decent duration was a fantastic frame to have during our t4 70min run. I was almost doubling my teams weapon damage, and the stunlock and boost from Accelerant helped everyones damage even more. FireBlast was great for making space, and even fireball was good for panicking enemies during the run. As she currently is, she is balanced perfectly towards being a CC/Support frame. People however often state how because of World on Fire's terrible design her nuking ability is terrible compared to frames like Excalibur, Saryn, Mag and Mesa. If we were to judge her by that prerequisite instead then she is of course not well balanced at all, infact she is pretty bad. Now stick with me here because this is where it gets complicated.

When you Nerf something, you are removing a undesirable feature from the game, or lowering something that is dominating the field it is apart of back to (hopefully) the level of the next highest choice. Thusly Nerfing is something you do with great care, You must be fully aware of both the subjects capability's, the capabilities of every other aspect of the game and finally how you can maintain that abilities useability and function after changing it.

This is why for instance I fully approved of the Trinity blessing Nerf. That was an ability performing an unreplicatable feature, far surpassing any other feature in the game that would perform similar rolls as well as having no functional negatives nor activation requirements. Thus it was rightly nerfed.

In fact people who are overly nerf pro are infact the people hampering progress because they can't look past the tiny world views they have created for themselves which they use for determining balance. Before a cry of nerf is ever called first people think carefully about who that weapon or frame is effecting, its rolls, its strengths, its weakness's, its place in the game, its thematic design, as well as is it fun to play.

Here is a further example of a weapon that is overly barraged with nerf calls when in fact those people should instead be requesting buffs and rebalanced for other weapons which require a retuning in design. The Synoid Gammacor, is it strong, hell yes no one can deny that, however the question is, is it overpowered? Honestly not really While it possess a lot of powerful features and not many negative ones it is part of a grouping of equally powerful secondary's that all have something in common. They are fun to use. Honestly discounting the infinite energy nonsense (which got nerfed thank god) the gammacor while strong is weaker then the other weapons both in Burst Damage and Throwing Status Effects onto foes. Its superior ammo efficiency, ease of aim and high base damage allows for it to have great sustain giving it a PLACE in the game. The game would be much more enjoyable if their were more choices for secondary's as strong as primary's rather then less choice we would end up with by nerfing it.

Because that is what nerfing does, it is the removal of an option, giving the players less options until a baseline is reached, sure you could do a blanket nerf, and hit every weapon of similar power until you reach a particular desirable level but that generally just ends you up with a disappointed player base since then the choice is replaced with monotony and boring choices because everything is the same.

That is why buffing is the better solution 80% of the time, when a player logs on and finds a weapon they really enjoyed but found out was weaker in all ways to another available option they are feel happy. Their weapon is given validation. The other players who used the stronger options also are happy, because they are given more versatility and choice. The only people upset by this option is people left with useless items still and people who selfishly wanted their option to remain the only feasible one.

But you might say that at aspect of buffing everything leads to power-creep. Now that is a thing laced with stigmata, but in fact, if you look at it from a logical viewpoint. PowerCreep is only a problem in games that have limited leveled content and stagnant design. As a game develops their will always be powercreep, its natural that new ideas, new designs and new tactics can all lead to shifts in the meta of how things are done, as well as sometimes trvilizing earlier content. Such however is the way of any game that involves levels or advancement of any kind. This however is not an issue. DE is fairly good with its introduction of new content, and as has been mentioned many times over the forum the difficulty system is being reworked to better allow people to adjust the challenge of the game to the one they desire.

Furthermore would you rather have a game perfectly balanced around set damages, with every frame/weapon having the exact same effects abilities and CC functions. Or would you want a game with lots of variation, abilities and functions. Sure some things would be more efficient choices then others, but as long as each ability was uniquely useful in its own way then players would have their choice on what to play and be happy for it.

So yes kindly stop mistaking peoples desire for their things not to be nerfed as nerf-phobic when the actual problem is that too many people are misusing the claim of 'Needs to be nerfed'

People are just trying to defend things they enjoy in this game from people who selfishly want to take it away while claiming balance or overpowered as a shield to protect their frustrations. Especially in a game when they have a lot of choice on who they can and cant play with generally~

I admit that Warframe is a game that currently needs a lot of abilities and weapons to be overhauled and improved. There is however nothing I believe in the current version of the game that is so overpowered it actually requires a nerf.

 

You are my hero!

[ThePresident777]

Similar choices equally viable for what purpose, for which players?  There is more to a game than just one corner.  All the different parts have to come into contact with each other to entertain players.   And players, paying customers, deserve respect no matter what the EULA says.  Nerfing their fun is not respectful at all.  Not to mention that challenge can't be built by nerfing stuff.  If one faction does not have an ability, the other faction cannot have a counter to it.

[Second_Measure]

[...]Because that is what nerfing does, it is the removal of an option,[...]

 

Nerfs are adjustments for the sake of balacing, which -can- use the removal of an option, but that's not a necessary thing devs do.

Often, numbers and ability effects are just swapped out.

The damage multiplier on M-Prime can be on AMD for what I care, giving additional incentive to use it.

[Soul.Fire]

I love this post, you explained everything very well :D.  Also to expand on one of the cons of the Synoid Gammacor, it has limited range! And laser pointers are 50% ineffective against alloy armor :D.. Making it a bit unfavorable when going against some of the biggest threats in Warframe.

 

Examples: normal and corrupted Bombards, Napalms. 

Oh, and any heavy gunners you run into. Actually, anything with any armor to speak of kind of neuters the effects of both the Gammacors. The regular one first of course, but anything from Uranus onwards with Grineer involved is a place where people who want to survive won't dream of taking a Gammacor, Synoid or otherwise.

[Soul.Fire]

this again. wouldn't it easier to take off all of her ability? I don't think "nerf" would be satified your taste at all.

lol Probably not XD I'm thinking they won't quit asking for nerfs for Nova until we no longer even have a Nova XD 

[Soul.Fire]

There's only one Nova I enjoy playing, and it's speed nova.  In fact, I'd love it if the slow percentage was determined based on the the greater of two magnitudes:  A pre-determined one based on level rank, or flat power strength % (with +-75% cap as usual).  30% speed is not enough, I need more speed!

 

Then I'll just hop into a pub game and everyone can talk about how much less challenging the missions are as a result of having a nova around.  It's so fun!

 

In other words, Nova's don't have to make the game boring; they have the opportunity to make the game exciting, challenging, and fun too.  Don't rob me of my speed nova, please.

Actually, I think that's how the slow on Nova works now. Unfortunately if you want to Speed Nova I don't think that Overextended gives as much speed as Intensify gives slow because the default of M.Prime is a slow proc, but I could be wrong. Personally I like to snipe, so I rarely run Speed Nova, but if they break Base Nova the way this thread wants to we won't have a Slow Nova or a Speed Nova, we'd just have A Nova. It would be a terrible thing I think if we couldn't have both in the game, it would kill our variety.

[Soul.Fire]

nova is the best option for difficult mission when playing solo,so I don't think it's a good idea to nerf her,also there's a lot of way to challenge yerself other than asking for the useless nerf

Well, Nyx is good for soloing too I think, since with Nova they are still fully concentrating on you, but when you take Nyx they are busy with each other and they sort of forget you most of the time. You can then kill them at your leisure without too much headache. So really, I think Nyx is the more powerful, I just enjoy Nova more.

[TypeSaber]

Nerfs are adjustments for the sake of balacing, which -can- use the removal of an option, but that's not a necessary thing devs do.

Often, numbers and ability effects are just swapped out.

The damage multiplier on M-Prime can be on AMD for what I care, giving additional incentive to use it.

 

Actually that isn't what Nerfs are. A nerf is the removal / weakening or changing of a feature that results in a worst ability.

 

Re-balancing/Redesigning or Adjustments may end up with a 'nerfed' ability but more often then not they are done because an ability isn't working as intended or is far weaker or stronger then its design intended it to be. Take the Ember's changed ultimate. Upon the update it was a straight nerf, as the power was now a toggle ability but with a duration, this change ended up weakening both power builds and efficiency builds while preventing users from regaining energy during its use (a feature we had before its change). As such that was a Nerf. Afterwards they patch fixed it so we could now pick up and gain energy during its duration as well as added an initial greater burst to the ability bringing it back up to where it was in use and utility but in different ways. Making it a Redesign,  since it wasn't a straight up downgrade to the power or utility  it was not a nerf (wish the power didn't suck in the first place tho haha)

 

Also as a second point AMD is probably in the top 5 strongest powers in this game, Infinitely more powerful then MP anyways. Sadly players do not experiment in this game as much as they should, advancements in optimization and technique usually happen from people taking ability's and just seeing how far they can go with it. Not making broad assumptions without experimentation or at-least some solid research allows for some pretty under-appreciated ability's to be damn amazing. ^-^. Such is the reason I find myself on threads like these lately trying to inform people about the fallacy in their assumptions about 'quote' overpowered ability's when their opinions are mostly driven by  "I see lots of people use it tons and they are effective at their roll more then I am. needs to be NERFED!"

 

Joke is their are people who don't even forma their weapons/frames before yelling that something else is OP and needs a NERF or is weak and is a terrible choice. I have a friend who was convinced the Torid of all things was a terrible weapon because his unformaed, unpotatoed weapon was doing worst damage then his potatoed ogris.... *facepalm*

[Soul.Fire]

Actually that isn't what Nerfs are. A nerf is the removal / weakening or changing of a feature that results in a worst ability.

 

Re-balancing/Redesigning or Adjustments may end up with a 'nerfed' ability but more often then not they are done because an ability isn't working as intended or is far weaker or stronger then its design intended it to be. Take the Ember's changed ultimate. Upon the update it was a straight nerf, as the power was now a toggle ability but with a duration, this change ended up weakening both power builds and efficiency builds while preventing users from regaining energy during its use (a feature we had before its change). As such that was a Nerf. Afterwards they patch fixed it so we could now pick up and gain energy during its duration as well as added an initial greater burst to the ability bringing it back up to where it was in use and utility but in different ways. Making it a Redesign,  since it wasn't a straight up downgrade to the power or utility  it was not a nerf (wish the power didn't suck in the first place tho haha)

 

Also as a second point AMD is probably in the top 5 strongest powers in this game, Infinitely more powerful then MP anyways. Sadly players do not experiment in this game as much as they should, advancements in optimization and technique usually happen from people taking ability's and just seeing how far they can go with it. Not making broad assumptions without experimentation or at-least some solid research allows for some pretty under-appreciated ability's to be damn amazing. ^-^. Such is the reason I find myself on threads like these lately trying to inform people about the fallacy in their assumptions about 'quote' overpowered ability's when their opinions are mostly driven by  "I see lots of people use it tons and they are effective at their roll more then I am. needs to be NERFED!"

 

Joke is their are people who don't even forma their weapons/frames before yelling that something else is OP and needs a NERF or is weak and is a terrible choice. I have a friend who was convinced the Torid of all things was a terrible weapon because his unformaed, unpotatoed weapon was doing worst damage then his potatoed ogris.... *facepalm*

Your friend... I have no words, that is just sad, the Torid is a great weapon. Although, to be fair I've heard the same thing about the Phage and yet it will literally melt just about anything in the game when built right.

 

About Ember, I think they still need to rework World on Fire because it's a mobile skill that is way, waaay too dependant on a stationary one, among other severe problems it has right now, but that's Ember.

 

I grant you that AMD is hugely powerful, but that's when it works right. It will often give up when you pump a large amount of damage into it and revert to 0 so you get a big boom and a flash and not much else. Another thing it will do, is sit there circling a target for 10 seconds straight before landing on the ground behind said target, then wait another second before exploding. Sometimes that has a better effect than if it had stuck where you wanted it in the first place, but other times it's just sad because the intended target moves away from the bomb -_- Other times you will hit it two or three times, then its flight speed increases for no discernable reason and it flies off and sticks to a wall where the explosion doesn't even touch the enemies. I'd probably like better than M.Prime if it didn't do things like this. Although, I don't have Nova Prime yet and a friend tells me that her AMD is much, much more reliable than regular Nova's. No idea how that's even possible, but I'm keen to try it out now, once I can manage to get the rest of her parts to come to me that is.

[TypeSaber]

Another big part of its utility is the augment, allowing you to cast it as a shield that absorbs incoming damage, making it both a powerful nuke as well as a powerful defensive skill, given to a frame that previously had no utility towards damage prevention outside of just slowing the enemy down. It also gave speed nova's further utility as sped up enemies just charge the AMD faster. While yes it can bug out and be a pain, that is more a technical issue rather then one of useability.

[Soul.Fire]

Another big part of its utility is the augment, allowing you to cast it as a shield that absorbs incoming damage, making it both a powerful nuke as well as a powerful defensive skill, given to a frame that previously had no utility towards damage prevention outside of just slowing the enemy down. It also gave speed nova's further utility as sped up enemies just charge the AMD faster. While yes it can bug out and be a pain, that is more a technical issue rather then one of useability.

That's true, and yeah, without that augment she's pretty much a sitting duck half the time. I'm just not yet able to rank up with Steel Meridian, don't have the part they want. But, I'm really looking forward to playing with the augment, it adds a nice little something to the AMD to make it a useful defensive skill as opposed to just being a damage dealer. I like the skill when it functions properly anyway, it's just when I'm getting overrun and it decides to bug out, it's not all that fun XD If I don't resort to M.Prime at that point I usually end up dead lol XD

Edited February 3, 2015 by Soul.Fire

[vaugahn]

-snip-

 

Like many others, you've kind of missed the point.

 

First off, nobody is nerf focused. Off the top of my head, there's maybe three things I'd nerf and several dozen I'd buff. I think you might be confusing me with some of the less astute members of this forum. When considering a balance change, "rolls, its strengths, its weakness's, its place in the game, its thematic design" are all things that I consider before asking for a buff or a nerf.

 

Damage and kills are the easiest metric by which to gauge the effectiveness of something. It's true, there are support roles, and the example I gave was an extremely simplified one. But when you're looking at the overall power of a weapon especially, damage and kills are the easiest way to tell how powerful it is. Just look at the most recent by the numbers. 

 

There are also many different degrees of nerf. Your definition is good, but not quite there. Any downward change in something is a nerf. Reducing M Prime's blast damage to 799 instead of 800 woud be a nerf, and taking away the damage aspect of that ability entirely would also be a nerf. When confronting someone over their opinion that something needs to get nerfed, it's very important to keep that in mind. Very few people (almost no one, I'd wager) want to just keep nerfing until everything sucks. That's stupid, and it's stupid to even consider it. You also have to consider why people might be asking for something to be nerfed. Dismissing an entire position with "oh, they're just frustrated and want everything to be weak!" is lazy. In the Synoid Gammacor's case, many people think that it breaks the syndicate weapon mold, as when the gammacor got buffed an even heavier buff carried over to it, making it a straight upgrade instead of a sidegrade with utility like the other syndicate weapons. 

 

You also touched on the delicate subject of power creep. This is a bit of a wonky one, as when new things get added they get added at many different stages of progress. You've got things like the vanilla Gammacor or some of the new combo weapons, which are pretty obviously aimed at low to mid-tier players. You've also got things like the Supra and Paracyst, which despite their high-tier research and build costs are very weak. Power creep is when you're given a stronger weapon without earning it. Finally building a Soma is not power creep, building a Boltor Prime at MR2 is. Power creep is basically when you jump the chain of progression via development "errors". Buffing everything would not necessarily lead to power creep, though it would be very silly. In a sense, it would just be inflation for damage values. The reason nerfing exists is so we can stay in relatively the same place value-wise while balancing, rather than ending up with 40k burst DPS weapons being considered low-tier. 

 

And finally, yes, people are nerf-phobic. You're correct in saying that people want to defend things they like. However, some things happen to be bad for the health of the game. I'm sure we all disagree on what those things are, but feel free to look up all the "don't like it, don't use it" threads that were made when Blessing and Iron Skin got nerfed for an example.

 

Similar choices equally viable for what purpose, for which players?  There is more to a game than just one corner.  All the different parts have to come into contact with each other to entertain players.   And players, paying customers, deserve respect no matter what the EULA says.  Nerfing their fun is not respectful at all.  Not to mention that challenge can't be built by nerfing stuff.  If one faction does not have an ability, the other faction cannot have a counter to it.

 

Refer back to "varying degrees of nerf". Not all nerfs have to involve taking away an ability entirely. Also:

 

4. The Open Beta will change often and possibly without notice. Weapons, Warframes, and every feature of the game may change as often as every day. We will keep you updated with these changes when you launch the game. By agreeing to these terms, you express consent for updating.

 

You agreed to that.

[TypeSaber]

I agree that somethings require nerfing. For example the most recent and important nerf was reducing the amount of energy gained by Syndicate Weapons and Mods. It was honestly ridiculous how much energy you could get with a simple primed flow equipped and I was happy to see it get reduced down.

 

That said however you cant deny that a vast majority of these threads demanding nerfs do so usually based on the opinion of an individual not accounting for the full amount of variables involved in re-balancing a power and often complaining about things that in fact are not that overpowered. Stronger then other options withing a specific scenario perhaps but not overpoweringly so.

 

I thus dismiss the entire premise of most peoples use of the word nerf since I believe there will be no positive progress made to this game with a purely weakening outlook on re-balancing, also while its true the slight re-balancing of a weapon or powers values to be weaker is technically a nerf I feel that often any reasonable player who used it before it was nerfed will not complain since they will be already aware that it was perhaps released too strongly. That said I stand by that no weapon or ability is currently so overpowered it needs a nerf.

 

As towards power-creep again. That just comes down to once again them having to buff or shuffle the mastery requirements of the weapons to better reflect their physical stats. Currently the highest end weapons are functionally strong but not overpowered, especially when going for records times in endless runs. Its just a shame their is a lot of weapons not performing any roll well. Nerfing the strong weapons however wont fix that only lower the capability of all endless and high-tier runs.

 

You say people don't want to nerf things until everything sucks. However often since people dont know what their talking about this is exactly what happens, curse public opinion. (RIP past Ember). If warframe was like Dota then a very specific set of balancing would be needed and required to to keep all weapons and abilitys near constant polarity with eachother. Same could be said if it was an MMORPG. It is however neither. Balancing things too much with nerfs often means the uniqueness and positive aspects of things gets degraded and lowered to a point where your options are all essentially cosmetic as everything is just copys of other options with different skins. What happens when the saryn's ult, embers ult, frosts ult and volts ult all become the same ability, with the same damage, a stagger for 1second and the same range & cost. Sure the elemental theme nuke frames would be balanced. But that would be boring as hell thats for damn sure.

[vaugahn]

-snip-

 

Some threads do indeed ask for nerfs for selfish and misguided reasons. Some threads ask for buffs for selfish and misguided reasons. That's no justification to dismiss either offhand. 

 

If you'd like evidence that even minor downward changes are subject to the same hate as big nerfs, I'll point you to a thread in the weapons section from several month ago. The OP suggested reducing the Boltor Prime's damage by 5 points overall, and adding a slight increase to projectile travel time. 6 pages of "no nerfs ever!!!" flame later, he finally quit and asked a mod to lock the thread. 

 

That was a reasonable request. Very few reasonable people consider that weapon okay in its current implementation. I don't need to tell you who the unreasonable people in that situation were.

 

Regardless of which way you slice it, there are some things that are currently in need of both minor and major nerfs. Not very many things, and there are far more things that are in need of buffs both minor and major, but they do exist. 

 

Finally, do you know what a slippery slope is? Let's not forget that DE is the ones doing the balancing, not the community. I'd like to think they're not idiots, given their 20+ years of experience across dozens of games. Nobody is asking for those abilities to all become the same. Those abilities are in need of buffs, if anything. I wouldn't even consider that outcome really balanced in the context of Warframe. As I said before, it's stupid to even bring that up.

[ThePresident777]

Challenge is multi-faceted.  It involves attack, counter attack, defense, maps, missions parameters, spawn rates/sizes, etc.  Mprime doesn't impede any of that which is why this thread is misguided to think that Mprime needs to be nerfed for the sake of challenge.

 

Yes, praise the EULA and prepare your bodies for the Buff Overlords!