Weapon Balance Versus Adding New Weapons

[plznohurtme]

Since there was another thread I saw complaining about fixes/changes versus new stuff being introduced I thought I would take a direct look at what I consider to be the biggest problem in Warframe. Adding new weapons and letting old ones fall by the wayside with regards to balancing.

since U15 (I don't think I've missed anything, if I have please do correct me)

Weapon Balance Changes:

u15.1.0 - Heavy Weapons - Gram/Galatine/Scindo Prime/Jat Kittag/Magistar/Fragor/Scindo

h15.2.1 - Velocitus

h15.5.5 - Paracyst/Gammacor/Synoid Gammacor/Redeemer

h15.5.7 - Braton Prime/Braton Vandal

u15.6.0 - Dual Decurion/Velocitus

u15.7.0 - Kohm

u15.7.2 - Velocitus

h15.10.1 - Panthera

u15.13.0 - Rakta Ballistica/Kohm/MK1 Paris

u15.16.0 - Aklato/Sicarus Prime/Rakta Ballistica

Weapons Introduced:

u15: Opticor/Halikar

u15.2.0 - Rathbone/Velocitus

u15.5.0 - Redeemer/Gammacor/Paracyst/Dual Decurion/Vaykor/Secura/Telos/Synoid/Rakta/Sancti

u15.6.0 - Kohm

u15.7.0 - Soma Prime/Vasto Prime

u15.7.2 - Centaur/Fluctus

u15.9.0 - Tipedo

u15.10.0 - Panthera

u15.13.0 - AKJagara

21 different Weapons have received balance changes total.

Velocitus has had 3, Rakta Ballista 2 and Kohm has had 2 for a total of 25 weapon balance changes.

Of these changes 7 of them were contained in the heavy weapon balance so I'd count those as a class change since every weapon needed to be fixed. Braton Prime and Braton Vandal again are in the same class (quite literally) and thus I'd count that as 1 balance change. If we take those 9 and count them as 2 and also count repeat weapon balances as 1 we're left with a total of 14 weapon balance changes since u15.

Interestingly enough we have had 22 weapons introduced since u15. With the large amount of players and weapons available this seems like a lot of weapons compared to the amount of balance being done.

The last thing I want to point out is that with the exception of the MK1-Paris, Bratons and Heavy Weapons all balance has been weapons introduced since u15. This lack of balancing done leaves older weapons to languish while new shiny things are introduced.

edit: 15.16.0 happened updated everything accordingly.

Edited February 26, 2015 by plznohurtme

[plznohurtme]

Is this really not an important issue to anyone else or was my prior less obvious topic title the problem?  Really hoping the latter, because this issue going unresolved is really hurting the game's longevity.

[rudman88]

Its a game.

 

How powerfull or broken a weapon can be depends on yourself and how you like it.

 

If you say that the weapon require balance, specifically define how a weapon can be balanced.

 

If you say a weapon to strong, you weaken it but think about how much others has invest to build that thing.

 

If you say a weapon is too weak look at how easy to build it and the price.

 

 

Warframe its a game.

 

the life depends on the liquidity of the game.

 

The variety of the missions,

 

variety of equipment / mods and skills is the thing that makes the game interesting.

 

If they just keep making weak and simple to build weapon stronger, whats the point of building new ones? Thats why DE allowed us to forma our weapon to make it stronger.

 

and your maths is horrible.

25 balances vs 22 new weapons so how on earth you can get  61% new weapon?

[Vargras]

There's really a pretty big issue that pops up as a result of this, and a lot of it is rooted in Warframe being a F2P game.

 

If you spend time balancing existing weapons instead of putting out new ones, players begin to complain about a lack of new content. Some players only login when there's a new content patch or a new set of Tenno Reinforcements, after all.

 

If you spend time making new weapons instead of balancing existing ones, you begin to contribute even further to powercreep.

[Artized]

I think that for every weapon added, an older weapon should be balanced to keep things equal. Players get newer content and new ways to use older content.

 

Of course, this is in a perfect world. It sounds like they have a minimal amount of people balancing weapons, and when it's time to work on the bigger updates like U15 and U16, that small team works exclusively on that update and not on older content. So it actually sounds like there's a problem with the development team distribution.

 

EDIT: And for weapon balancing to catch up to the newer content added, we'd have to have DE spend more time balancing weapons as opposed to adding weapons for a while until things are even.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Artized

[plznohurtme]

Its a game.

 

How powerfull or broken a weapon can be depends on yourself and how you like it.

 

If you say that the weapon require balance, specifically define how a weapon can be balanced.

 

If you say a weapon to strong, you weaken it but think about how much others has invest to build that thing.

 

If you say a weapon is too weak look at how easy to build it and the price.

 

 

Warframe its a game.

 

the life depends on the liquidity of the game.

 

The variety of the missions,

 

variety of equipment / mods and skills is the thing that makes the game interesting.

 

If they just keep making weak and simple to build weapon stronger, whats the point of building new ones? Thats why DE allowed us to forma our weapon to make it stronger.

 

There are a ton of weapons which have balance issues especially with regards to how much they cost.  There are also a ton of forum posts which go completely ignored for some reason because DE simply shows no willingness to care about weapons having any sort of longevity or usability despite whatever their cost may be (supra is a prime example MR7 ton of mats and isn't worth making except for MR fodder).

 

and your maths is horrible.

25 balances vs 22 new weapons so how on earth you can get  61% new weapon?

 

If you actually read my post you'd see how I came to that number, but it would seem that you didn't bother to so I don't know what else to tell you.

 

There's really a pretty big issue that pops up as a result of this, and a lot of it is rooted in Warframe being a F2P game.

 

If you spend time balancing existing weapons instead of putting out new ones, players begin to complain about a lack of new content. Some players only login when there's a new content patch or a new set of Tenno Reinforcements, after all.

 

If you spend time making new weapons instead of balancing existing ones, you begin to contribute even further to powercreep.

 

There's no reason that they couldn't do weapon balance and release new weapons at the same time.  They managed to put some people onto pvp (I believe they said 3 people in a devstream) who are rebalancing weapons, warframes and mods in what appears to be a successful manner.  There is simply no evidence that they couldn't put one person part time on revisiting weapons and making sure their cost/performance ratios make sense.  I do agree with you that they can't do just one or the other and you are right about what has happened in the game due to the way they've handled it thusfar.

 

I think that for every weapon added, an older weapon should be balanced to keep things equal. Players get newer content and new ways to use older content.

 

Of course, this is in a perfect world. It sounds like they have a minimal amount of people balancing weapons, and when it's time to work on the bigger updates like U15 and U16, that small team works exclusively on that update and not on older content. So it actually sounds like there's a problem with the development team distribution.

 

EDIT: And for weapon balancing to catch up to the newer content added, we'd have to have DE spend more time balancing weapons as opposed to adding weapons for a while until things are even.

 

It doesn't appear that they have anyone working on weapon balance and from the crass reactions on the devstreams they don't seem to particularly care about it either.  I really do wish that they would make any effort to balance weapons that have fallen behind as new stuff has been introduced.

[Racercowboy]

There has always been a severe lack of weapon balancing (Supra, anyone?). I think a large portion of it has to do with the fact that there really is no clear upgrade path or direction in the game, or no clear system for weapon balance in general.

 

Another thing that many seem to not consider is how a rebalanced weapon can be like a new weapon. You cannot say when the bows got buffed that it was the same Dread or Paris Prime. They may work the same, but the stats were completely different. Suddenly, people had a very good reason outside of favoritism to get a Dread or Paris Prime due to the change. you cannot say that the current Ratka Ballistica is the same as it was before the buff (Sam base damage as Lanka on charge? DE please). The current one does 3x more damage. Many may now choose to invest potatoes and formas into it who would not do so before.

 

Another thing properly balancing weapons can do is show new people a clear path to follow. Right now, everything is scattered all over the place and its very hard to find direction. The best source of direction right now are other players and that should not be the case. If, for example, they went with a weapon tree system new people would see the different weapon trees and go down the one that seems interesting to them. This would help them know where to go for farming materials and such and thus get hooked into the Great Farming Wars.

 

With all the things proper weapon balance can bring, one has to wonder why they don't do it. 

[Vaskadar]

There's really a pretty big issue that pops up as a result of this, and a lot of it is rooted in Warframe being a F2P game.

 

If you spend time balancing existing weapons instead of putting out new ones, players begin to complain about a lack of new content. Some players only login when there's a new content patch or a new set of Tenno Reinforcements, after all.

 

If you spend time making new weapons instead of balancing existing ones, you begin to contribute even further to powercreep.

 

You don't have to halt production to have a designer go and balance weaponry. That's absurd. Takes a lot less time to adjust a few values in code than it does to create entirely new classes in script.

[plznohurtme]

You don't have to halt production to have a designer go and balance weaponry. That's absurd. Takes a lot less time to adjust a few values in code than it does to create entirely new classes in script.

 

Pretty much this, not to mention the lack of having to create new art assets.  This compounds how bad their unwillingness to balance is.