Damage /scaling / Guns 3.0

[Carl_Bar]

I'm with someone on the previous page. Endless missions need to go. you hit rotation c that's it, missions ends gg no re.

 

Then we can start balancing things.

 

I also agree with the OP, the rate at which player health takes hits is wildly over the top at the top difficulties. Literally at standard engame a 1 second burst from any enemy weapon will kill you unless you in a frame with > 200 armour and stacking steel fibre and possibly armoured agility on top. And that's assuming your using maxed vigor + redirection + vitality. For many builds that only pack one or two of those it takes far less. EHP of players at anything besides the mid levels, (level 25 and below more or less), is awful. Very early and you probably don't have enough mods or warframe levels to have a lot of EHP. higher levels and all the mods in the world won't stop the enemy popping you en passant.

 

To be fair with time good use of cover et al can greatly offset your damage intake, but it's still wildly out of line. From around level 40 up any real mistake is punished by instant death. et into nightmare and it gets even worse enemies can kill you in 3-4 bullets.

 

Honestly the main reason DPS has been allowed to climb as high as it has, (a properly equipped braton can have 26 times the damage output of a completely unmodded stock one for example), is that aside from abusing warframe power spamm for CC chain lock abuse killing the enemies at an absurd rate so they never get effective shots off is the only way to stay alive at higher levels.

 

Get player ability to weather fire back under control and subject to some ammo changes to avoid ammo issues we could take some very heavy damage nerfs without issue.

[Lorthos_Mornin]

I'm with someone on the previous page. Endless missions need to go. you hit rotation c that's it, missions ends gg no re.

 

 

That's how it used to be (well, everything except survival).  You got one reward, period.  You could try and stay until something you wanted showed up, but you only got one reward, and it was better to just start over.  Let me tell you, it sucked, and it was a slow grind if you wanted to get something.  I'd much rather the game not start reverting changes that reduced grind so that we can have old grind on top of new grind.

 

Additionally, no one has to go for truly endless and the devs have stated they don't balance around it.  Nor should they.  It sounds like they balance to around 50 and then you're on your own.  I like it this way, clearly a few of the loudest voices on the forums don't, but I'm not alone either.  Endless content is part of what makes warframe worth playing for me, otherwise I might as well go play some other rank and file rpg or shooter where I've got the best gear, know how to use it, and have found the maximum amount of challenge (or fun for that matter) I'll ever find in those games.  Warframe goes further, and I hope they don't change that.

[jfhsanseiIII]

I feel it would be better to balance all weapons and enemies. Then make enemies function differently. Currently, let's take defense for example, the enemies run in a straight line right towards you until they get in range, then they unload. Occasionally they'll take cover or throw a grenade. Id like to see them get more tactical. Coordinate themselves more. This would be more fun for me. If guns had all damaged balanced then DE could make more damage types that are meaningful for different units. Also take away nuke abilities and make them more meaningful and fun as well.

[Abenoki]

DE should pick a level cap for enemies.

That may SOUND controversial, I know. "But I like the endless scaling!" I get that. It's been a fun and unique part of Warframe and it's difficulty.

But at this late stage, as our arsenal grows faster and faster, we need balance more than we need that uniqueness. In fact, that uniqueness is in the way.

DE ought to set a static level cap and rework ALL enemy scaling to fit smoothly into a predictable curve. That way future alterations to weapons can be done with the knowledge that DE can tune them accurately to fit in a specific place in relation to enemy power levels.

In the current climate ALL guns, regardless of position in player tiering, eventually and inevitably get rendered majorly ineffective. Same with many, many skills. This is because enemy scaling is an endless upward spiral. It's time for that to change. Warframe needs to mature into a more controlled environment for both us as players and DE, who is stuck making the pieces fit.

Until that happens I strongly feel that changes like what is being done to multishot, along with most other weapon changes, are going to do little aside from alter which weapons and mods are 'mandatory for peak effectiveness'.

You can't 'fix' the problem in build variety by just attacking what effective builds are in place. You've gotta work on the reasons why we want and need things to the point that they become 'mandatory' at all.

Edit: I seriously think a lot of you guys ought to start pondering this very idea. Brainstorming is best when done with others.

I really like this idea, currently things just continue to scale and scale exponentially, currently just pumping as much power into us and our weapons in the only solution.

On top of this I've been wondering why we still use % based dmg modifiers vs flat dmg values. Setting a level cap with flat number dmg modifiers imo would help slow down and be a step towards fixing power Creep, set a maximum difficulty, and allow more weapons to compete more effectively with each other. Instead of having these built in slash/puncture/impact values you have a base dmg amount then the different dmg mods would add on top of that.

I.E

-----

Gun has 100dmg

toxic mod with +200 toxic = 300toxin

Add a +200 cold = 500 viral

Add +200 slash = 200 slash + 500 viral

-----

That's just the quick run down of the general idea hope it made sense.

Scaling infinitely is cool, but is itself a problem. There needs to be a defined cap and this cap then can be raised over time or tweaked. Power Creep in Warframe is born from infinite scaling and not defining a cap and evening the playing field between weapons (not entirely even but brining things closer together) creates problems like what happened with people being upset over vaykor Hek.

Edited September 11, 2015 by Echoa

[CandyDragon]

Ok, not nightmare. So why doesn't DE want endless? To much loot? Every 20 minutes, reduce all drops by 50%, and slow down new life support things. Eventually, no drops. And maybe only one round of aabc rewards. Players could go on if they want more challenges, but getting less loot.

So basically punish players for having skill or dedication to lasting longer than normal players.  Do you work for Konami?

 

They'd be better off removing it rather than ruining it. 

[Nolla]

you're saying MR as a whole should do it? No, that means anyone new will have to grind every weapon up to be useful. Also Founders and players with event weapons will always be stronger

Well there must be some reward for grinding for the last three years.

 

Also, each forma adds to the base damage of the weapon. Forma you can get from the void. So each forma increases the stats of the weapon - reload speed, damage, crit chance - would be great for shotguns as currently we have no high crit chance ones.

[Lorthos_Mornin]

Well there must be some reward for grinding for the last three years.

 

Also, each forma adds to the base damage of the weapon. Forma you can get from the void. So each forma increases the stats of the weapon - reload speed, damage, crit chance - would be great for shotguns as currently we have no high crit chance ones.

 

As cool as that might be...that system could get out of hand.  Consider, how much forma have you spent in game?  Now imagine all that forma applied to a single weapon under your system.  Even an Mk1-Braton would become a Destroyer of Worlds.  It would probably red-crit with a ridiculous amount of damage and reload in the blink of an eye.

[Kinetos]

For the record there are Braton Vandals out there with 100+ Forma on them.