Defense 1-80 ~ Difficulty And Reward Scaling Proven To Be Completely Off

[Argoms]

Ever consider its simply not designed for you to go higher than about 15 or 20 (while every block of 5 waves after that is the same chance), but can if you so desire? (it's nice to have a choice)

 

Prehaps DE decided to not end the defence missions so you can go higher than that for the braging rights.

Wave 20 rewards are no different from wave 5 ones. They don't ramp up to get better until 20 and then stop improving or anything, they never get better.

[Lord.Finster]

Just two things I would wish for:

 

1)Farming for specific mods weapons, blueprints or else (as a guaranteed reward after the mission). For rare or powerful stuff, the missions might be balls to the wall hard.

 

2)Transparency on the actual drop rates from the side of the developer. Without a solid basis, there is no use for argumentation.

[drunkpunk222]

Nice, i wish to play with people who like chalanging game and not start to cry after wave 10-15 waves, sick of 5 wave noobs! For now i dont car about drops, xp or anything else, i play for fun.

[Damned72]

from wave 20 i've only received hellfire mods, and I already have tons of it. When you fight against lv85 ancients, lots of them, and finally the wave is over and you see as a reward "hellfire" is really really horrible :C

[Aerensiniac]

Im also curious as to why 95% of all rare mods presented by the claim&exit choice are frame efficiency mods.

[Mietz]

So do you have any form of evidence which indicates a steep increase or change in drop tendencies after waves 80?

Instead of us, it is you who is speculating that the drop chances are in fact higher than anybody in this topic implies.

Even if i do not count your self contradiction, what you are saying is still completely unrelated to the topic since the reward scaling is not good enough to justify aiming for higher waves.

 

Please quit derailing the tread and inciting a flame war with straw man arguments. Otherwise i will be forced to report you in.

 

I am responding to your speculation and demanding evidence for your "implications".

I have at no point in time made any claim about any actual numbers or that I know them.

 

I have however questioned -YOUR- claims and demand evidence.

 

YOU are making claims.

You present them as if they are self evident, well, they aren't. Your single video of one lvl80 run proves -nothing- in the grand scheme of things. It provides no statistically verifiable data beyond an anecdote.

 

So own up and post some evidence.

 

I am asking again, and I will keep asking until I have an answer, how do you know reward scaling is not good enough?

 

Im also curious as to why 95% of all rare mods presented by the claim&exit choice are frame efficiency mods.

 

Do you have evidence for your 95% figure or is that also just pulled directly from between a Moa's legs?

 

 

PS: I am largely unimpressed with your threats of reporting me

 

PPS: Please do read up what a Straw Man argument is because you keep using that word and it does not mean what you think it means.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Mietz

[liavalenth]

YOU are making claims.

You present them as if they are self evident, well, they aren't. Your single video of one lvl80 run proves -nothing- in the grand scheme of things. It provides no statistically verifiable data beyond an anecdote.

You obviously know math, and you are correct a single instance of something happening proves nothing. However, it does show good cause to ask for the official drop rates from the devs, or to have someone do a test. It is enough to form a hypothesis, now it just needs testing.

[stacey69]

The stream can be found at: http://www.twitch.tv/bsbwarframe/c/2264123

 

So first of all: Not only did they get an uncommon hellfire mod for completing a 4 hour marathon at wave 80, the drops remain constantly useless through out the entire match.

 

Quoting wiki (http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Mods)

 

 

 

I would consider most of these entries fallacious at best.

Even IF there is any form of reward scaling with difficulty, it clearly needs a lot more thought and tuning cause just like it has been expressed a hundred thousand times with the last patch that made mod and resource acquisition impossible upon failing the mission: There is no point in going to higher waves other than bragging rights.

You are by definition still a hundred times better off with going till wave 5 or 10 and then just redoing the entire mission again.

 

There needs to be a true, tangible reason to actually aim for higher waves.

Whether its resources, mod drops or special rewards once hitting a specific level, it does not matter, but as it stands, it seems to that nothing has been done to resolve the scaling issue.

It is completely and utterly irrational to get a common staggering force mod after sitting for 5 hours in a defense match and reaching level 100.

 

Personally i recommend the creation of special blueprints and/or cosmetic items which can be only gotten from (i.e.) each 25 or 50 waves, so even in the case that nothing has been done for scaling, it would still offer some sort of compensation, (and whats more important) point to go higher defense waves.

Also: i find it unlikely that the devs would ever want to touch mod drop rates (giving better rates would make mod packs obsolete) as a conclusion i recommend the amplification of (at least) resources through out waves (U8 and base building is coming anyway).

 

And Steve: You really do owe these guys one of those pink shorts.

Your reward was to have Steve and Rebecca in your channel watching if your BB clan. If your playing at this level then no in game reward will be any good for you.

[Argoms]

Your reward was to have Steve and Rebecca in your channel watching if your BB clan. If your playing at this level then no in game reward will be any good for you.

Now that's just a cop out. 

[stacey69]

Now that's just a cop out. 

[Emotitron]

My 2 cents....

 

People are trying to imagine there is an endgame here where there is not. There is no endgame and once you potato your frame/weapons and mostly max out your mods... you are done and the game is effectively over. They haven't made an endgame for Warframe yet, and you can't ask them to turn what currently exists into endgame or they will end up painting themselves into a corner.

 

They need to properly envision how the game will scale in the future and what a real endgame will look like.

 

The endless waves are NOT endgame, they are just something to amuse ourselves with. If they started dropping rares with regularity they would just as quickly become a problem again. Players would max out their rares and bump right back into that same ceiling.

 

Instead of asking them to make endless wave missions into endgame, I would spend more energy thinking about viable endgame scenarios, as I suspect they are still not quite sure themselves how to go about that yet.

[Tattutattikawa]

Farming and RNG is all part of the mMO (m in this case medium) design. What would you do after you have every mod? Hard part is getting the first one then you can upgrade it with anything.

I grinded for "Split chamber" like crazy in OT, eventually it dropped it was more fun that my team was teasing me (wave 38) that they are going afk etc; we had a great laughs as it turned me to softly speaking, British gentleman for the duration :D

There is no need to rush, the more it takes the sweeter it gets, Just have fun.

[Aerensiniac]

Your reward was to have Steve and Rebecca in your channel watching if your BB clan. If your playing at this level then no in game reward will be any good for you.

Could you elaborate this for me...?

I dont really seem to understand what you are getting at since next to anyone can pull off the same feat of going 60-70+ as long as they have a beefed frost, nyx and triny.

It involves almost no skill, only time and having the right frames with the right mods and an oc.

In fact, i myself have everything to reproduce the frost shown in the stream, so i dont really understand what you mean by "no ingame reward will be any good for me".

 

No. Sir.

I just havent got any reason to attempt the same thing they did.

I do not care about the bragging rights. I care about the drops.

I find my suggestions reasonable. Resource increase or an achievement/unique visuals at (i.e.) wave 50 and 100.

[Argoms]

My 2 cents....

 

People are trying to imagine there is an endgame here where there is not. There is no endgame and once you potato your frame/weapons and mostly max out your mods... you are done and the game is effectively over. They haven't made an endgame for Warframe yet, and you can't ask them to turn what currently exists into endgame or they will end up painting themselves into a corner.

 

They need to properly envision how the game will scale in the future and what a real endgame will look like.

 

The endless waves are NOT endgame, they are just something to amuse ourselves with. If they started dropping rares with regularity they would just as quickly become a problem again. Players would max out their rares and bump right back into that same ceiling.

 

Instead of asking them to make endless wave missions into endgame, I would spend more energy thinking about viable endgame scenarios, as I suspect they are still not quite sure themselves how to go about that yet.

In practice, higher waves give less mods because you're taking more time to kill enemies, giving more potential opportunities to despawn (while the rate of drops doesn't increase). Additionally, you get less chances to get a drop in a given amount of time because every individual enemy takes longer to kill. It'd be nice if this was at least balanced out by higher level mobs dropping slightly more mods.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Argoms

[Firebat86]

The only issue with this then becomes abusing the system.  Start off on the lowest level defense you can find, power house through the easy low levels, and boom you are at the higher levels getting uncommon/rare mods simply because you out level/gear the mission.  I totally agree with your point, but you also have to take into consideration the abuse.

 

(See Chronus BP etc. Or why they are so iffy on trading and what can be traded.)

[Emotitron]

In practice, higher waves give less mods because you're taking more time to kill enemies, giving more potential opportunities to despawn (while the rate of drops doesn't increase). Additionally, you get less chances to get a drop in a given amount of time because every individual enemy takes longer to kill. It'd be nice if this was at least balanced out by higher level mobs dropping slightly more mods.

 

Seems a no-brainer solution for that is to request that mods not despawn? I still think the entire endless wave thing acting as endgame is going to make endgame more complicated for the devs. When they finally release some real endgame type content you are going to have players with huge disparities in gear. The guys who have been farming endless waves endlessly already are going to have maxed out rare mods.

The main issue will remain, and is becoming more urgent. They need to envision the endgame sooner than later and start working toward it. People squabling over which gun is OP and dojos are distracting the devs from the #1 critical item for this game...

How will it scale and what will endgame look like?

You can't ignore that question without risking your game imploding. Endless waves is also how Plants vs Zombies ended... that didn't inspire most people to keep playing it. Only a handful took on that challenge, most just called the game done.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Emotitron

[mmSNAKE]

Drop chance for rare mods should not only scale up with waves but also with enemy level. So enemies at lwave10 on Xini should should have higher chances to drop better stuff than enemies of wave 10 on Io.

 

Regarding the reward, it never changes, regardless of what wave you are in. You have the same sort of chance to get Junk at end of wave 5 as you do at end of wave 30.

 

I laugh when I see a Vitality or something as we complete wave 25 on Xini.

 

There should be some incentive to go further. As it is now, there is no reason to go above 15. Even if the drop chance increases slightly with level it's extremely minute. You can blame it on randomness, but that doesn't help it. It's not fully random anyway. Fact that we have rarities in mods defeats the whole "it's RNG". Some things drop more often, some don't. That isn't random, that's probability. The RNG is applied after those chances take effect, even then it's skewed depending on which faction you face, so it really isn't as random...Stop blaming the random number generation. The issue is the overall frequency of specific rare drops, and rare drops in general in scale to enemy level, and all the awards depending on wave in defense missions.

 

A game with close to full randomness is something like Sword of the Stars: The Pit. Where you really need the game to give you some food, instead you get a rocket launcher.

[Aerensiniac]

A game with close to full randomness is something like Sword of the Stars: The Pit. Where you really need the game to give you some food, instead you get a rocket launcher.

Sort of my thoughts as well. Tossing RNG everywhere can backfire.

[PapaKicks]

I still find it stupid that Defense is the main source of rare mods because some folks like me aren't fans of standing around to clean hoards. They should make the rates more common for every other mode :(

And every reward past the first 15 waves should rare because many of us have no patience for it past level 10

 

Try mobile defense (like Kappa on Sedna). Lots of mods, lots of enemies, much more enjoyable than waiting for waves.

[Aerensiniac]

I am responding to your speculation and demanding evidence for your "implications".

I have at no point in time made any claim about any actual numbers or that I know them.

I have however questioned -YOUR- claims and demand evidence.

YOU are making claims.

You present them as if they are self evident, well, they aren't. Your single video of one lvl80 run proves -nothing- in the grand scheme of things. It provides no statistically verifiable data beyond an anecdote.

So own up and post some evidence.

I am asking again, and I will keep asking until I have an answer, how do you know reward scaling is not good enough?

Do you have evidence for your 95% figure or is that also just pulled directly from between a Moa's legs?

PS: I am largely unimpressed with your threats of reporting me

PPS: Please do read up what a Straw Man argument is because you keep using that word and it does not mean what you think it means.

I do not feel like verifying a thing for you Mietz.

The forum is ran for players, not people who waltz in here without playing the game once, just to then start asking for evidence on every claim because they havent made any experiences for them self.

Pretty much every other poster in the thread had no issues whatsoever with gasping what i am talking about and what i am basing it on. Only you.

 

I am constantly running defenses up to wave 30.

The overall amount should be around 40. I have never experienced any form of loot scaling with difficulty and am constantly amused by the fact that im getting common skill cards most of the time from lvl 100+ enemies.

The video i have posted confirms this trend for me, so at this point, if you have anything that refutes what i have said, please come forward and say it. If not, then be so kind and pester/troll others with your mental gymnastics till the point you get enough warning points for a ban.

Thank you.

 

P.S.: I welcome any arguments pro or contra, and encourage you to actually play the game and get an understanding what i am talking about and what i am basing it on.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Aerensiniac

[Emotitron]

I do not feel like verifying a thing for you Mietz.

The forum is ran for players, not people who waltz in here without playing the game once, just to then start asking for evidence on every claim because they havent made any experiences for them self.

Pretty much every other poster in the thread had no issues whatsoever with gasping what i am talking about and what i am basing it on. Only you.

 

I am constantly running defenses up to wave 30.

The overall amount should be around 40. I have never experienced any form of loot scaling with difficulty and am constantly amused by the fact that im getting common skill cards most of the time from enemies lvl 100+ enemies.

The video i have posted confirms this trend for me, so at this point, if you have anything that refutes what i have said, please come forward and say it. If not, then be so kind and pester/troll others with your mental gymnastics till the point you get enough warning points for a ban.

Thank you.

 

I really think the problem being experienced is that there is no actual endgame, and people are using endless waves as an endgame placeholder. They can up your rewards, but it will just bump you right back into the ceiling when you max out all of your rares - and leave them with a problem of what to do to entertain all of these obscenely overpowered players who will cream any new content designed for the average player.

Sounds like you are an endgamer, you might be a good person to start coming up with recommendations for where the long game should be leading. I hope endless waves isn't the future of Warframe!

[Aerensiniac]

I really think the problem being experienced is that there is no actual endgame, and people are using endless waves as an endgame placeholder. They can up your rewards, but it will just bump you right back into the ceiling when you max out all of your rares - and leave them with a problem of what to do to entertain all of these obscenely overpowered players who will cream any new content designed for the average player.

Sounds like you are an endgamer, you might be a good person to start coming up with recommendations for where the long game should be leading. I hope endless waves isn't the future of Warframe!

Yes, i am and end gamer, but view the issue separately from my needs.

As i am right now, i do not need anything with the exception of a flow mod maybe which didnt drop in 300 hours, but thats an another story. I merely give feedback as a player and as a gamer.

Imho difficulty scaling makes only sense as long as there is also a reward and/or reward scaling.

Anyone can tell that its a bad idea to have level 10 mobs drop the same loot as level 100+ and level 15 missions offering the exact same rewards as level 50 ones.

As a conclusion, i can only tell, that endless defense needs to have a tangible reward system which scales and/or fix drops/achievements for completing each X waves. This would give the players a reason to aim for higher waves.

 

Furthermore: I do agree with you on end game, but this goes without saying.

As it is Warframe is nothing more than a grinding simulator without any form of longterm goal or content.

Needless to say how this is bad for everyone involved, yet this is not really the thread to discuss this and its also futile since U8 is but a week away.

I would wait till after U8 with reopening discussions about end-game. The devs have made a lot of promises. We should wait and see how many of them they will be able to fulfill.

[Gravefire]

Ok so let me shade some light onto this for one.

 

1. The person who made the comment of us having DE_Steve and DE_Rebecca and that was our gift. We invited everyone to the stream they just happened to show up(and twitted the event) and wanted to see how far we could get. We have had some of the community mangers come in and chill and talk with us.

 

2. We did this for fun and as a challenge for us as a guild.

 

3. Aerensiniac isn't part of BsB. But his concern of why go higher in Waves/Mobs attempts if the rewarded is not greater has a point. ( But again we did it for fun)

 

4. We had a few rare MODs(2 streamlines and 2 focus and maybe a continuity)  plus 2 Banish Blueprints drop during the event.

 

5. Remember this is a game and currently there is no End Game so we just made our own for the clan or clans ( If someone can get higher would love to see it)

[Aerensiniac]

Ok so let me shade some light onto this for one.

 

1. The person who made the comment of us having DE_Steve and DE_Rebecca and that was our gift. We invited everyone to the stream they just happened to show up(and twitted the event) and wanted to see how far we could get. We have had some of the community mangers come in and chill and talk with us.

 

2. We did this for fun and as a challenge for us as a guild.

 

3. Aerensiniac isn't part of BsB. But his concern of why go higher in Waves/Mobs attempts if the rewarded is not greater has a point. ( But again we did it for fun)

 

4. We had a few rare MODs(2 streamlines and 2 focus and maybe a continuity)  plus 2 Banish Blueprints drop during the event.

 

5. Remember this is a game and currently there is no End Game so we just made our own for the clan or clans ( If someone can get higher would love to see it)

Should i put this in the OP just to clear things up?

[Lord.Finster]

The only issue with this then becomes abusing the system.  Start off on the lowest level defense you can find, power house through the easy low levels, and boom you are at the higher levels getting uncommon/rare mods simply because you out level/gear the mission.  I totally agree with your point, but you also have to take into consideration the abuse.

 

(See Chronus BP etc. Or why they are so iffy on trading and what can be traded.)

It's not abusive since it takes more time to grind through the waves of cannonfodder.

Consider it a time vs. risk tradeoff.

 

But seriously, the reward every 5 waves should depend on the level of the enemy and not at the number of waves survived.