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On The Subject Of Balance


Sixty5
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Ok so this is going to be alot of writing, so I'll put subheadings in and a TL;DR at the bottom for anyone who doesn't like to read. 

 

Why is Balance Important in a PVE Game?

 

Primarily balance is important as it promotes variety in the game, rather than the use of a single setup which makes the game simplistic. So far this game has done this rather well, judging by the variety of Warframes and weapons seen in each game. 

 

However, I personally believe that things are sitting too close to the high powered end of the spectrum as generally this game is rather easy, though late game still has not been implemented and a difficulty system is likely to be implemented as well, meaning things are likely to be better balanced in future.

 

 

So What is Overpowered?

 

Personally I would say something is overpowered when something becomes a simple routine, which by completing, almost assures victory. The closest example I can think of is this is spamming AOE ultimate powers. 

For instance, recently I have been using Volt on Kappa in order to get to level 30 before selling him and moving onto the next Frame. However with my current setup I can press 4 and kill everything in a massive area, and then I can do it another two times instantly. This is the case for many of the frames,

 

However, due to the flat damage nature of these abilities, they become nearly useless at higher difficulty missions, due to enemies having a massive health pool.

This actually shows good balance as a new player has access to these high-powered, easy to use abilities, meaning that they stand a chance at playing "higher" leveled missions in order to obtain credits and mods which will allow them to be useful without these abilities. 

 

Another example is Loki's abilities. Though he doesn't have any sort of damaging ability, the utility he holds, along with his speed makes him, in my opinion, one of the very best frames. For instance, Radial disarm when coupled with placing a Decoy out of melee range allows for a large crowd of enemies to be shut down for a large period of time. Again, this is not overpowered, as tactics like this still rely upon your own ability to do damage, and is a risky strategy, requiring you to be right among a large group of enemies, though invisibility does mitigate this.

 

Rhino's Iron Skin, pre-nerf was verging upon being overpowered, as it worked well at any level, was easy to execute, and offered no risk to the user. This was illustrated by the fact that his other skills, particularly Charge and Radial Blast were largely ignored.

Crowd control is something that is severely underutilized in this game, mostly because it is so easy to flat out kill any enemy you come across. Both of these abilities can stagger a large number of enemies at a time, and anything that is staggered or knocked down cannot hurt you, granting pseudo invulnerability. 

Furthermore Rhino has the highest base shield capacity in the game, meaning that he can still easily fulfill the role of a tank.

 

Important note, I do still believe that Iron Skin was overnerfed, and should still provide immunities to anything that is not gun, melee or explosive damage.

 

 

Weapons

 

In general there are two ways to balance weapons in-game, either by tier, or by making all weapons equal. It is fairly obvious that the approach taken here is the second one, as the last weapon available, the Hek is pretty much on par with starter weapons such as the Strun or Braton. 

This approach works well for a game like Warframe, where any weapon can be ranked up and supercharged with mods, as balance by tier would either make high tier weapons absolutely godly, or low tier ones garbage. 

 

Though not strictly based on weapons, the store changes will be talked about here. These were nesecary due to the recent surge in availability of credits available to players. Furthermore the movement of many weapons from direct purchase to the blueprint pool was also a justified choice as it works to slow down progression through the current game, giving it more longevity as well as giving new players a greater sense of achievement when they attain their first new weapon. Personally I remember working hard towards getting the Strun when I first started playing. Since it was my main goal, and was limited to rank one I had no problem with getting enough credits to purchase it, and in fact had a quite a surplus left over, and in all honesty, I thought it was all a bit too easy.

 

 

What is the Game Balanced For?

 

This is something that I have only recently come to realize, there is no easy way to balance a game due to the varied playerbase, and the stages they are at in-game. For instance, my near-fully modded out Grakata and Akbolto make fighting anything below 40 a breeze, with my Akbolto currently requiring ~9 shots to kill a heavy on Kappa, meaning that by definition, they arre very overpowered, yet when playing on Pluto this does not occur. 

 

There is nothing stopping a person from building up their arsenal at low levels and then breezing though everything, but said person would eventually become bored with the lack of a challenge and either complain that their gear is overpowered or try a higher difficulty and find that they cannot one-shot everything and go back to where they can. This is also true for very good players who find the highest level of the game too easy.

 

 

 

A Final Point

 

I would just like to say thank you to DE for providing such an amazing game,and to keep doing what you are doing in order to keep this game fresh and fun for its playerbase. Personally I would purchase a founders package in a heartbeat in order to support you and this game, but current circumstances prevent me from doing so.

 

 

Tl;dr

 

Balance keeps this game fun for everybody, and "sadly" nerfs are a part of that. it is also better to think of nerfs as a challenge to get better rather than acting like a child who has had their toys taken away from them.

 

 

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i cant help but think.

the people who would need to read something like this wont. they are too busy raging.

edit: side point. balance is conflict. people envision it as this ideal place where everybody is happy. it isnt. it is where the various self-interest camps are all of equal size. lacking in pro/con ammunition to shut out the others.

the only thing you can never balance is people.

Edited by MetalGerbil
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Balance keeps this game fun for everybody, and "sadly" nerfs are a part of that. it is also better to think of nerfs as a challenge to get better rather than acting like a child who has had their toys taken away from them.

 

Now wasn't that easier to say? =P

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No, you don't seem to grasp the idea of balancing in a game.

 

There are two types of balancing: numerical balancing and mechanics balancing. Numerical balancing is about tweaking numbers around to make sure everything is as fair as possible. Mechanics balancing happens when a game mechanic is undesirable and has to be changed. This can happen in many ways, for example, when a game mechanic completely nullifies other game mechanics that are deemed important. cough * invulnablility* cough

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No, you don't seem to grasp the idea of balancing in a game.

 

There are two types of balancing: numerical balancing and mechanics balancing. Numerical balancing is about tweaking numbers around to make sure everything is as fair as possible. Mechanics balancing happens when a game mechanic is undesirable and has to be changed. This can happen in many ways, for example, when a game mechanic completely nullifies other game mechanics that are deemed important. cough * invulnablility* cough

 

There are multiple approaches in balancing the game. The OP has the 'overall' perspective while you have the 'mechanic' perspective. Both serve the same function.

 

Simply, PvE balance is about make all strategy roughly equal to others through changes, be they buff or nerf. Many players has been using certain strategy which are available at the beginning of the game which make them feel powerful and fun. These strategies are easy to execute, grant players many benefit - FOO strategy. However, many of the players got trapped within these strategies and don't learn other alternatives - this create an extremely bad problem for Warframe in term of player's skill progression. 

 

We have many players who claimed that some frames are good only for one power - Loki is only good for invisibility. Rhino is good only for iron skin, etc. This kind of claim demonstrates a bad design in level and AI in Warframe. No enemies can counter these abilities thus players are encouraged to use them over and over again without thinking.

- Rhino stomp has been claimed by many players to be useless because it doesn't deal damage. In fact, it's very powerful ability which stop enemies from generating damage while allow the team to generate damage without any risk - Iron skin for an entire team. 

 

We need introduction of enemies that are able to counter our strategies. Encourage players learn to adapt their playstyles against certain enemies and find alternatives in higher level.   

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There are multiple approaches in balancing the game. The OP has the 'overall' perspective while you have the 'mechanic' perspective. Both serve the same function.

 

Simply, PvE balance is about make all strategy roughly equal to others through changes, be they buff or nerf. Many players has been using certain strategy which are available at the beginning of the game which make them feel powerful and fun. These strategies are easy to execute, grant players many benefit - FOO strategy. However, many of the players got trapped within these strategies and don't learn other alternatives - this create an extremely bad problem for Warframe in term of player's skill progression. 

 

We have many players who claimed that some frames are good only for one power - Loki is only good for invisibility. Rhino is good only for iron skin, etc. This kind of claim demonstrates a bad design in level and AI in Warframe. No enemies can counter these abilities thus players are encouraged to use them over and over again without thinking.

- Rhino stomp has been claimed by many players to be useless because it doesn't deal damage. In fact, it's very powerful ability which stop enemies from generating damage while allow the team to generate damage without any risk - Iron skin for an entire team. 

 

We need introduction of enemies that are able to counter our strategies. Encourage players learn to adapt their playstyles against certain enemies and find alternatives in higher level.   

 

My point exactly, Not sure how many people here played ME3 but something like the Phantom would be good to implement, bubble of immunity to powers, large damage reduction, high threat, but rolled over by crowd control. 

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