Nerfing Nova For The Sake Of Challenging Missions.

[AlphaHorseman]

Let me explain the concept of nerfing to you, since you clearly do not get it.

 

Imagine you're playing your favorite game, FrameWar. In FrameWar there are two classes, Ember and Frost. Ember is speedy and deals a lot of damage, but can't take any hits. Frost is slow and can't deal very much damage, but he's really tanky. For all intents and purposes, the game is balanced. Any serious gameplay requires both a Frost and an Ember. Then, one day the developers decide to introduce a new class. We'll call him Ash. Ash is tanky and deals a lot of damage. Now days, any serious gameplay requires a full squad of Ashs, and Ember and Frost are seen as novelties. 

 

What is the solution? Well, there are two ways to fix that problem. The first way is to buff up Ember and Frost, and the second way is to nerf Ash. You might say "well, nerfs are evil! Do the first way!", except now all three classes are very powerful, and any sort of difficulty the game had is taken away. So now you need to buff up the enemies, and it ends up at the same place as if you had just nerfed Ash to begin with. See how that works?

Nerfing still isn't the better solution, and you've not said the rest of it.

 

Nerfing isn't going to help grow the game, it's going to stagnate it because you're keeping the paradigm the same and not advancing the game. Mecha is right, if we get buffs to those frames, integrating new enemy mechanics can help to diversify and make interesting the encounters we have with them. I gave examples earlier, giving Frost's Ice Wave a knockback would severely help with not only that powers scale ability, but also his theme overall as an AoE lockdown/denial Frame and Ice Mage theme. In essence, buffing up a lackluster power to make it good.

 

In tandem with this buff, you make it to where enemies like the Scorpion now have the ability to shoot their grappling hooks into the ground. Thus, when they're hit with Ice Wave, they can stop themselves from being thrown backwards, but still receive the damage and secondary affects of the ability. There you have it, buffs to the lackluster abilities to make them good, and increasing the variety of enemy mechanics to make them interesting.

 

There is no nerf to Ash, the other two frames are just on par with his viability, and that isn't a bad thing. It is not at the same place, because now you have three frames that are good frames, rather than one good and the other two lacking. Your enemies are stronger (with better mechanics instead of bullet sponging, I hope), and thus you've got three very good frames and enemies that are interesting to fight, rather than just the same old boring bullet sponges.

[LazyKnight]

Sure buffs for equality is okay, but as of currently, the game's balance is way out of line. We need more balance, progression, challenge, and less forced grind.

To highlight the problem with balancing against other characters and not the NPC, one only needs to look at the damage dealing Warframe's '1' key. Nearly all of them are balanced against each others, but they are universally mediocre. They are balanced, true, but not in a useful way. 

 

Just so there is no confusion. I am not saying any of the '4' are balanced. 

[MechaKnight]

To highlight the problem with balancing against other characters and not the NPC, one only needs to look at the damage dealing Warframe's '1' key. Nearly all of them are balanced against each others, but they are universally mediocre. They are balanced, true, but not in a useful way. 

 

Just so there is no confusion. I am not saying any of the '4' are balanced. 

Simply said: infinite targets in a 2*pi*r^3 x-ray sphere. It's not balanced to any of our other abilities. They either have to be lowered, or everything else systematically buffed. It's a lot of work, and the enemies need the same effort too simultaneously or else this game would die to power creep.

 

Sure nerfing looks like the easiest solution, but a full rework... as unlikely as it is, would please people. It's just hell to imagine changing that many things. Quality abilities are fine, we just can't have the hole in the ground where the gameplay used to be before corrupted mods and power creep.

Edited January 31, 2015 by MechaKnight

[vaugahn]

Nerfing still isn't the better solution, and you've not said the rest of it.

 

Nerfing isn't going to help grow the game, it's going to stagnate it because you're keeping the paradigm the same and not advancing the game. Mecha is right, if we get buffs to those frames, integrating new enemy mechanics can help to diversify and make interesting the encounters we have with them. I gave examples earlier, giving Frost's Ice Wave a knockback would severely help with not only that powers scale ability, but also his theme overall as an AoE lockdown/denial Frame and Ice Mage theme. In essence, buffing up a lackluster power to make it good.

 

In tandem with this buff, you make it to where enemies like the Scorpion now have the ability to shoot their grappling hooks into the ground. Thus, when they're hit with Ice Wave, they can stop themselves from being thrown backwards, but still receive the damage and secondary affects of the ability. There you have it, buffs to the lackluster abilities to make them good, and increasing the variety of enemy mechanics to make them interesting.

 

There is no nerf to Ash, the other two frames are just on par with his viability, and that isn't a bad thing. It is not at the same place, because now you have three frames that are good frames, rather than one good and the other two lacking. Your enemies are stronger (with better mechanics instead of bullet sponging, I hope), and thus you've got three very good frames and enemies that are interesting to fight, rather than just the same old boring bullet sponges.

 

Just so we're clear, I'm not suggesting we actually nerf Ash, and that was a very very simplified scenario. And I'm not saying we should only ever nerf things, buffs are just as important.

 

The problem with what you're suggesting is that it arrives in the same place as nerfing something, with way more effort. Buffing everything up and the buffing enemies will give the thing that was going to be nerfed the same level of relative effectiveness in the end. That's what i was really getting at with that little example. In that Example, you have a strong defensive frame (Frost), a strong offensive frame (Ember), and a halfway frame (Ash). Regardless of whether we buffed the other two frames or nerfed Ash, in the end he would still be a halfway frame. And none of that excludes the introduction of new enemy mechanics.

 

In some situations, nerfing things is the right choice. In some situations, buffing things is the right choice. Mindlessly clinging to one or the other is no good.

[MechaKnight]

It all boils down simply: the major reason why players want to nerf content is because we lose doubt the developers could ever buff everything in correct balance to where the game is playable, enjoyable, and has some substance. The nerf option is only to be used when the outlier is so extreme it would be like building a highway to get past an anthill. Sure we can buff everything simultaneously and try to win the balance lottery, but it's a long and arduous process. I am concerned for the developers because it's a lot of work, and I'm also concerned for us because the power creep getting really hard to tolerate now, and it could get worse.

 

All we can do is talk endlessly everywhere. The developers make their choice, we just put down ideas. So it's good to make every kind of thread. For nerfs, buffs, balance, progression, and other. I think as of now progression and balance are the most major focuses of the year. The two warframe buffs were cool and not game breaking. Now we need a solar system buff and some kind of enemy expansion and scaling tweak.

Edited January 31, 2015 by MechaKnight

[vaugahn]

It all boils down simply: the major reason why players want to nerf content is because we lose doubt the developers could ever buff everything in correct balance to where the game is playable, enjoyable, and has some substance. The nerf option is only to be used when the outlier is so extreme it would be like building a highway to get past an anthill. Sure we can buff everything simultaneously and try to win the balance lottery, but it's a long and arduous process. I am concerned for the developers because it's a lot of work, and I'm also concerned for us because the power creep getting really hard to tolerate now, and it could get worse.

 

Well that goes without saying.

 

If it would be a shorter process to buff whatever you're trying to balance, then buff it. If it would be a shorter process to nerf it, then nerf it. We're trying to achieve balance within a framework, we don't want to have to change the framework every time we do something.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

Only 40 minutes? At least 70 minutes in T4 survival is every survival for me. It can be achieved with 3 players or fewer. Simply bring Nova. Done.

 

Man, I wish it worked like that. I'd gladly go for an easy third hit at the rotation C bong instead of having to struggle past 40 minutes because even with damage buffs from prime and roar my endgame guns start falling off vs bombards unless I'mma running in a 4x CP squad. (Also nullifiers say hi, lol.)

But it doesn't. To get that 75% speed reduction requires bloody huge tradeoffs. Crippling trade offs. How many 155e M-primes is your average nova going to spam? Seriously? I'm a pretty skilled player, in a clan of skilled players. If Nova made T4S as easy as you claimed, I'd be running T4S constantly for those delicious ducats since I stocked up on keys before the great key nerf.

 

The nerf option is only to be used when the outlier is so extreme it would be like building a highway to get past an anthill.

 

Bluntly speaking, I think the players who are asking for nerfs in this case overwhelmingly don't know how the game mechanics actually work so they see "extreme outliers" when none exist. They see a highly skilled player of [Frame X] killing more than they do and they think "wow that's OP!" without understanding anything at all. It's like they're posting from a timewarp before the great nova nerf when M-prime lost its panic button traits because they introduced effect propagation time.

 

For instance, people who talk about 75% speed reduction as if that's the default. The notion that her damage boost's duration and speed debuff isn't affected by power duration. The utter ignorance of the fact that her wave takes time - lots of time with some builds - to propagate because it's also dependent on power duration.

[MechaKnight]

@Cpl_Facehugger: 75 minutes with the new nullifiers and bombard. Just Nova, Loki, and Oberon. Easy enough. Also, if you maxed your Primed Continuity and Narrow Minded you wouldn't notice the losses from Fleeting Expertise and Transient Fortitude. Constitution optional. That said, evaluate your team and weapons, we got that far by just saying "YOLO" and taking our favorite frames.

 

Also, you're speaking as if Nova's Molecular Prime scales off range to spread far. The spread distance is entirely based off duration, you don't need to mod for range. With 3 duration mods, it's very easy to balance around FE and TF. Nova's base duration for M. Prime is 30 seconds, which is disproportionately long for many abilities. The fact that you're stacking so many duration mods means it never really runs out unless you're not even trying.

 

As for the time it takes to spread, you can copter once, use Reflex Guard, use Wormhole, step into a corner for 2 seconds. It's a very generous disadvantage for the amount of range it has. You can cast it while in the air.

 

I already said earlier that I wouldn't nerf anything that can be appreciably worked around. As for your team progress in T4S, practice makes perfect. After the corrosive projections you'd want viral. We only had 3x CP on our team and 75 minutes was fine. Although yes, teamwork did help somewhat for the result too. Still, Nova is incredibly potent. You shouldn't deny that.

 

Overall, the game needs balancing. Enemies need to last longer, scale in a more fun way in infinite content, and missions everywhere need to feel useful and fun. Enemy and mission balance is priority. Buffing abilities comes after or simultaneously--the power creep is already extreme.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

@Cpl_Facehugger: 75 minutes with the new nullifiers and bombard. Just Nova, Loki, and Oberon. Easy enough. Also, if you maxed your Primed Continuity and Narrow Minded you wouldn't notice the losses from Fleeting Expertise and Transient Fortitude. Constitution optional. That said, evaluate your team and weapons, we got that far by just saying "YOLO" and taking our favorite frames.

 

As for the time it takes to spread, you can copter once, use Reflex Guard, use Wormhole, step into a corner for 2 seconds. It's a very generous disadvantage for the amount of range it has. You can cast it while in the air.

 

I already said earlier that I wouldn't nerf anything that can be appreciably worked around. As for your team progress in T4S, practice makes perfect. After the corrosive projections you'd want viral. We only had 3x CP on our team and 75 minutes was fine. Although yes, teamwork did help somewhat for the result too. Still, Nova is incredibly potent. You shouldn't deny that.

 

Overall, the game needs balancing. Enemies need to last longer, scale in a more fun way in infinite content, and missions everywhere need to feel useful and fun. Enemy and mission balance is priority. Buffing abilities comes after or simultaneously--the power creep is already extreme.

 

Maxed primed continuity (lol yes, because every player has access to the 450+ rare 5 cores and millions credits it takes to max, assuming they even have Primed continuity which has only appeared once for two days thus far) gives 55% duration boost.

 

That's going to nullify the downside of either transient fortitude or fleeting, not both. Slotting in a max rank narrow minded (lol rare 10 mod, so another 300+ rare 5 cores and million+ creds) will make up for the duration hit, but that's all it does for 16 points and takes up a precious mod slot and utterly cripples wormhole, which you yourself suggest later as a key mobility power. (And also cripples M-prime's explosions, but at the levels we're talking about those don't matter.) Adding in constitution on top of that gives a meager 28% duration boost at the cost of yet another slot.

 

Assuming you're not exaggerating how "easy" T4S was for you, I'm going to have to suggest that maybe, if you're that good, it's not the fault of Nova but rather your own skill.

 

I'm going to go further and suggest that your experience is not representative of what the majority of players experience when playing Nova, on account of how you casually refer to ultra expensive rare/leg 10 mods in your build suggestions.

 

 

Also, you're speaking as if Nova's Molecular Prime scales off range to spread far. The spread distance is entirely based off duration, you don't need to mod for range. With 3 duration mods, it's very easy to balance around FE and TF. Nova's base duration for M. Prime is 30 seconds, which is disproportionately long for many abilities. The fact that you're stacking so many duration mods means it never really runs out unless you're not even trying.

 

No, I'm speaking as if its propagation speed scales off duration, which it does. Cutting duration (which you have to do to get the 75% slow spammable M-prime you're talking about) slows down the rate of propagation immensely unless using narrow minded, which cripples wormhole.

 

As for the time it takes to spread, you can copter once, use Reflex Guard, use Wormhole, step into a corner for 2 seconds. It's a very generous disadvantage for the amount of range it has. You can cast it while in the air.

 

No can do, Batman. Reflex guard takes up a slot that you can't fit in your build without giving up something else (and is another rare 10 mod to boot, and at the level we're talking even blocking 55% damage from the forward arc isn't enough), and wormhole's range is utterly crippled by your narrow minded (which is required to get the duration from your transient and fleeting mods under control). Coptering is practically the only solution you have, but you absolutely shouldn't nerf something that requires player skill to perform. And it definitely takes skill to combine coptering and M-prime like you're suggesting because if you flub it once, you're getting gunned down.

 

Still, Nova is incredibly potent. You shouldn't deny that.

 

"Potent" is not "Overpowered." Nova is top tier in the same range as Loki or Mesa, but you guys are talking about nerfing her (after she's already been nerfed repeatedly) based on faulty premises. She's not so gamebreakingly powerful that a nerf is necessary.

[MechaKnight]

@Cpl_Facehugger: Okay maybe I'm jaded since I maxed a bunch of expensive mods. And one of them was limited edition. Part of the problem with how the game feels tainted by powercreep is within the strength of mods, and also limited edition mods. I really do feel guilty for all those players who can't proc viral every 3 bullets fired and can't cancel out all their duration penalties like I can. It's a really weird kind of game where there's so much power creep in limited edition stuff, part of the claims that we're overpowered is from the massive heap of limited edition content DE needs ignore for balance because the general entering player will not have them. As a person who's stacked lots of limited edition mods, this is part of the majorly bad trend that's harming the game. I wonder if some attributes should have max caps.

Edited January 31, 2015 by MechaKnight

[Cpl_Facehugger]

I honestly don't see how it's bad for the game. Ultrarare endgame trophy mods that are the work of literal months to max are basically the cap on progression. They should make a player feel incredibly powerful. Once you've polished off those mods there's nothing to do beyond make your own challenge by doing things like making novelty builds.

 

But once you've reached that level there's little point about complaining about how "OP" those mods make you, because you've reached the point where you're basically at the top of the mountain. The only challenge left is the player generated challenge once you've reached that level of play. Asking devs to nerf the endgame stuff because "muh challenge" is asinine in context of a video game. Players will always be better than the AI, and a sufficiently skilled player will dominate nearly any situation assuming his gun can actually kill the target, so nerfing things based on said skilled player screws up the balance more than "power creep" ever could.

 

It's akin to a Dark Souls SL1 playthrough, or a "no alien weapons" challenge runs in XCOM, or other such things. For players who've done everything and need more challenge, ultimately the only thing they can do is restrict themselves in ways the devs don't intend. Eventually a player's skill will rise so much that no difficulty of dev-provided content will "challenge" them, unless it's via fake challenge of inflated HP.

Honestly, people complaining about "power creep" in an unironic fashion is one of the most malignant cancers harming this game. Progression is a feature, not a flaw, and when a player has reached the peak of their progression, when their skill and gear can't get any better, it's time for them to start making their own challenge.

 

Because nerfs under the justification of "power creep" punch everyone else, everyone who hasn't reached the top, in the balls. More to the point, they don't even work to provide challenge because as players grow in skill and learn the game's patterns and how to optimally exploit those patterns, the "challenge" that nerfing the "power creep" was meant to fix evaporates.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Cpl_Facehugger

[TypeSaber]

Nova is potent Ill never deny that, and I agree that the game itself needs some re-balancing, (The Difficulty scale system they are working on is my dream for helping that) and I agree that making enemies more complex is a step in the right direction to doing all of that.

That said I disagree with your premise that it was the Nova made you reach 75 easily. If I had to say the reason for such a easy time I would point out towards the Loki and say that guy. A loki with a gammacor + a torid doing his job can take care of most major threats while invisible and drawing no threat himself, making the life of his teammates infinitely easier and allowing them to also focus on dealing with important threats. Not only that but he acts as both a air runner and medic allowing safe resurrections assuming his team can take out the nullifies efficiently. Is MP good sure, is MP good as people keep saying uh not really.

Last Point, the slow is based on power as your aware, while having all that duration is handy as it primes things in outside rooms, you end up with congestion points as enemies are spawning but your forced to go to them to kill them, lowering the amount of kills and thus air your getting during your run without moving through rooms in a roaming type setup. However at around 50min that Loki and Nova on your team is IKO'ed by most things so all it takes is one bad turn into a room with a nulifier or two to TPK. Which means during this match your describing, your team is moving as a professional hit squad, roaming together through rooms to take out primed enemies while simultaneously playing quickdraw with nulifier to avoid a TPK that could come at any time. That sounds cool, and sounds like you have a good team there, but easy? yeh give 100 sets of players that setup and they would barely make 50.

Like every nerf call I seem to see on this forum the Nova's MP is amazing for lower content, but as you make your way to harder missions and endless runs it really does become take it or leave it. Honestly take the last tactical alert as the best example for this. Frosts, Nyx, Zephir, Volt, Trinity, Mag, Valkyr. All amazing at that mission. I cant say in the 30-40 times I had to run it that I ever saw nova's doing anything else other then being carried by frames much better suited towards that mission type. If MP was truly over powered this wouldn't have been the case.

As a final note and I hate myself for saying this. It essentially comes down to Nullifier units are a fantastic way of countering ability spam and honestly each major faction needs some kind of (anti ability user mob) That said if that did happen you would find me swearing at them all day over my teamspeak, happy at the challenge, but so angry that one of them snuck up on me and downed me.

Edited January 31, 2015 by TypeSaber

[MechaKnight]

Difficulty modes, more nullifiers, and a spread on the reward table sounds okay. Maybe a level expansion too. There needs to be more reason to play game modes on every tileset. Buffing abilities would be cool if enemies were more resistant to certain kinds of ability use. Difficulty mode would be great so long as the reward was worth it. I'd have no problem having fun with more difficulty if the payout was worthwhile. Something constant, not like nightmare mode where players go for some mods and quit when they have all of them.

[vaugahn]

Honestly, people complaining about "power creep" in an unironic fashion is one of the most malignant cancers harming this game. Progression is a feature, not a flaw, and when a player has reached the peak of their progression, when their skill and gear can't get any better, it's time for them to start making their own challenge.

 

Because nerfs under the justification of "power creep" punch everyone else, everyone who hasn't reached the top, in the balls. More to the point, they don't even work to provide challenge because as players grow in skill and learn the game's patterns and how to optimally exploit those patterns, the "challenge" that nerfing the "power creep" was meant to fix evaporates.

 

There's an important difference between power creep and progression.

[JoMenton]

@ OP how many frames do you have??? and how many

hours have you playing Warframe?

 

i dont understand people who asking for nerfs in general

[AlphaHorseman]

i dont understand people who asking for nerfs in general

Me and you both.

 

I can understand in a few cases, but this is absurd.

[Airwolfen]

I just hope that the 8 man raid will actually just be for the veterans in some way. To make those with the strongest gear just feel like they are a total noob without any mods.

Sorry new players. But give the vets something to do as well. :c

 

As a final note and I hate myself for saying this. It essentially comes down to Nullifier units are a fantastic way of countering ability spam and honestly each major faction needs some kind of (anti ability user mob) That said if that did happen you would find me swearing at them all day over my teamspeak, happy at the challenge, but so angry that one of them snuck up on me and downed me.

 

I like the countering. But getting one shot by their sniper shenanigans is the frustrating part.

[LisRestall]

I can't wait for Warframe 2016 where every frame has 99% damage reduction and a 999999 damage radial nuke that hits the whole map.

Yup, Nova is overpowered but we cannot nerf it so better buff all frames to be on par with Nova's abilities. It would be really so fun to see 4 Tenno devastating a planet with just a few button presses.

[ThePresident777]

99% and 99999999 are just numbers.  The other half of the equation is being ignored.  There is more to a game than just player content.  And in the end, it has to entertain players.

Edited February 1, 2015 by ThePresident777

[Soul.Fire]

Yup, Nova is overpowered but we cannot nerf it so better buff all frames to be on par with Nova's abilities. It would be really so fun to see 4 Tenno devastating a planet with just a few button presses.

If that ever happens Lis, you and Pandemonium will be the only ones playing. Your game will be a lot emptier than you know, and on top of that, boring ^^

[akira_him]

Yup, Nova is overpowered but we cannot nerf it so better buff all frames to be on par with Nova's abilities. It would be really so fun to see 4 Tenno devastating a planet with just a few button presses.

My comment to the quote you quoted is concluded in 3 words: "APPEAL TO EXTREMES"

Edited February 1, 2015 by akira_him

[LisRestall]

If that ever happens Lis, you and Pandemonium will be the only ones playing. Your game will be a lot emptier than you know, and on top of that, boring ^^

Yup, also, try reading this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

[Soul.Fire]

Yup, also, try reading this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

Clearly I read his comment a bit backwards, I had to read his again. Damage reduction the way you people have been using it up to now means reducing the damage we put out, not the damage we receive. But either way, I don't think the one he suggested has even a remote chance of happening, and it still stands that if what you and him want ever happened, you two would still be the only ones playing.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Soul.Fire

[LisRestall]

*facepalm*

[Soul.Fire]

*facepalm*

You know, I find it all rather amusing at this point. You and Pandemonium keep asking for Nova Nerfs, you keep insisting its necessary and she's overpowered. But she isn't. There are so many other things that so many other frames can do better that I still believe it's the flash that has you giving beef rather than the actual effect. Nyx, her CC is much better, and to top it all off the enemies are not shooting at you, they are shooting at each other, and she has absorb on her side, Nova doesn't even have a decent damage dealer, what with the enemy helper that is Null Star and the bug fest that is AMD. I won't go into Limbo, but look no farther than Cataclysm. That's just the tip of the iceberg of great frames that can do great things. I also find it a very interesting tell that this "nerf a good frame at any cost" mantra of yours is getting no support. Why, I wonder, do you think that is? You and Pandemonium are very special cases as far as I can see, even the founders I've played with, while they still have their own opinions on what's good or bad for the game, they still have no problem voicing how tired they are of seeing so very much nerf with so little restitution. They have different ideas for how to fix it, but that is as it should be and it doesn't change the fact that if someone says to nerf a frame, ability or weapon the general consensus is no more nerfing, there's been too much already.