Steps to balance without losing Warframe's "feel"

[Kettunen]

6 hours ago, ReshyShira said:

Warframe suffers from being a game where the difficulty is largely derived from numbers rather than tactics.  Warframe is not what I would called a "Skill Indexed" game, it's all about adding numbers together to beat the enemy's numbers.  There's not a whole lot of weapons or abilities that reward player skill.  The relentless hoard gameplay removes any semblance of strategic thought from the game

One could that say that WF actively punishes you for skillful play. You're rewarded less for high risk-high reward play than low risk- high reward play. Therefore we it's EB/BS/tonkor/SynSim all-day, everyday. And unlike some players have voiced, horde mode game doesn't necessitate brainless gameplay nor does it forgo strategic planning by default. Left 4 Dead 2 was horde mode game but you had to carefully manage your resources (ammo, health, items and rezzes) and you'd have keep an eye out for various minibosses which would severely punish you for rushing and soloing. Vermintide follows the same vein. WF is horde mode with ample resources and zero elements which would require you to plan ahead.

[BlackCoMerc]

11 hours ago, Chipputer said:

A couple of weeks? Try a couple of hours. :P

 

Yeah. This is true. I think the blinding part is unnecessary, but I feel like Reckoning with a knockdown and rad proc is a good place for it to be. Good frame based AoE shutdown.

I can confirm this: As soon as I had Bastille and Vortex unlocked, I completely forgot about the number 2. As in, literally forgot to even use it. No point to it; its utterly superfluous on Vauban. 

I hate to say this; I do. I love DE, and I think deep down they are wonderful people who want to make a fun game their players enjoy. I believe that.

But sometimes...sometimes, you need a little outside help. You've got top notch level designers. Amazing animators. Passionate community leaders who care about players. You've got awesome art teams and fantastic technical folks.

What you dont have...is a game designer. A person - that visionary person - who can take all these separate technical aspect, combine them according to one unifying vision, and turn that into a compelling, ENJOYABLE, balanced game people want to play for hours and hours. 

Games are made from several disparate parts: Animations, levels, leveling mechanics; weapon and enemy design. Concept art. I think sometimes, some teams get so focused on making sure each part is up to par - and Waframe NAILS that - that they sometimes forget about combining those parts in ways that make a game fun for players.

[Mr.Lube]

On 5/19/2016 at 0:59 AM, ReshyShira said:

Warframe suffers from being a game where the difficulty is largely derived from numbers rather than tactics.  Warframe is not what I would called a "Skill Indexed" game, it's all about adding numbers together to beat the enemy's numbers.  There's not a whole lot of weapons or abilities that reward player skill.  The relentless hoard gameplay removes any semblance of strategic thought from the game

It's really a shame that current Warframe is all about crunching numbers and seeing "what gets me the most loot with the least amount of effort". It works for some games, but Warframe has all these tools at it's disposal to make you want to engage the enemy and be a badass space ninja. 

[ysmer]

signed this is the honest true

[vazerd68]

On 25/2/2016 at 1:54 AM, Mr.Lube said:

 

• Apply diminishing returns to enemies, preventing ability spam.
• Remove all enemies that disable abilities in any way, we are done with them.

  Hide contents

 

This thread is gold, I'd just add my opinion on thoses 2 suggestions.

First, I'd rather have a major balance pass on CC abilities, making them less effective (like a 20%-ish slow cap on nova instead of the current 75%). We should be able to spam abilities but weaker versions that come as a drawback of modding for a lower energy cost.

Second, having an enemy immune/resistant to abilities isn't always a problem. The current implementations don't provide a fair chalenge but I think that it's a concept that can be explored (yeah this one his more nitpicky).

[Aventador92]

well yeah need a lot of rework of enemies, like the one i suggest is the ancient healer : they mitigate damage 90% to their ally while healing them self for the damage we done to them, and bonus make immune to stun and ragdoll make the ancient is really imba in my opinion

yep, the enemies lvl scalling, really absurd in my opinion, when start with some mission that enemies range come from 15-25, then they goes up to lvl 50+, is like the almost got buffed about 300%.

yeah, the enemies abillity to disable our skill, even is only one enemies the nullifier guy, but when we encounter them in mission and they come to us in number, it almost make everything get screwed as for example when we try to kill this guy, then the heavy gunner or the bombard beside this guy, they can knockdown us and make us vulnerable to get kill if we not careful, so i suggest better to get rid this guy abillity and change it like some buffer or anything, and for one thing, the eximus energy leecher, need to rework for their effect when happen, like make warning when we got affected, since sometimes we didn't notice when this guy get closer when a lot of enemies around

[Mr.Lube]

On 5/19/2016 at 8:10 AM, Kettunen said:

One could that say that WF actively punishes you for skillful play. You're rewarded less for high risk-high reward play than low risk- high reward play. Therefore we it's EB/BS/tonkor/SynSim all-day, everyday. And unlike some players have voiced, horde mode game doesn't necessitate brainless gameplay nor does it forgo strategic planning by default. Left 4 Dead 2 was horde mode game but you had to carefully manage your resources (ammo, health, items and rezzes) and you'd have keep an eye out for various minibosses which would severely punish you for rushing and soloing. Vermintide follows the same vein. WF is horde mode with ample resources and zero elements which would require you to plan ahead.

Excellent point. Glad I'm not the only one who feels that Warframe suffers from "not enough limitations". Once you can do everything with little to no consequence, what stands in your way?

[taiiat]

pfft. i'm glad i didn't see this until now.

if you're saying 'stop this and do this instead' about Game Development, in almost every possible scenario you're just showing your lack of knowledge of how Game Development Pipelines work.

 

it's all needed to achieve the intended goal. whether that be Enemies, Players, or Stats/Mods/Upgrades (or whatever else you can think of).

[Mr.Lube]

1 minute ago, taiiat said:

pfft. i'm glad i didn't see this until now.

if you're saying 'stop this and do this instead' about Game Development, in almost every possible scenario you're just showing your lack of knowledge of how Game Development Pipelines work.

 

it's all needed to achieve the intended goal. whether that be Enemies, Players, or Stats/Mods/Upgrades (or whatever else you can think of).

Reworking Warframes to fit in this meta does nothing but make them carbon copies of each other. All they are doing is adding some sort of CC to unused abilities. They are trying to build on top of a faulty foundation, and that does nothing but lead to disaster.

[Mr.Lube]

On 5/22/2016 at 7:51 PM, taiiat said:

pfft. i'm glad i didn't see this until now.

if you're saying 'stop this and do this instead' about Game Development, in almost every possible scenario you're just showing your lack of knowledge of how Game Development Pipelines work.

 

it's all needed to achieve the intended goal. whether that be Enemies, Players, or Stats/Mods/Upgrades (or whatever else you can think of).

Priorities. When you rework a Warframe, you want it to be able to fit in and survive in the meta. Unfortunately the current meta revolves around avoiding combat at all costs. If we want interesting, engaging Warframes, we must first fix the foundation.

[BlackCoMerc]

18 minutes ago, Mr.Lube said:

Priorities. When you rework a Warframe, you want it to be able to fit in and survive in the meta. Unfortunately the current meta revolves around avoiding combat at all costs. If we want interesting, engaging Warframes, we must first fix the foundation.

Could not agree more.

Case in point: Mag and Volt.

Mag gets YET ANOTHER armor reduction ability. How many of these do we need before we realize armor scaling us an issue?

Volt, the potential, damage dealing frame, gets...crowd control tacked on. Sure it's useful. But it's nowhere near as effective as Nyx, Loki or Nova. So we STILL won't bring him for damage, and we also don't want him for CC. So tell me...other than fondness...why play Volt? What's his role, again?

The fact that it REQUIRES armor reduction or CC to make people want to play a frame ought to be a sign that something is badly flawed...

[Mr.Lube]

1 minute ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Could not agree more.

Case in point: Mag and Volt.

Mag gets YET ANOTHER armor reduction ability. How many of these do we need before we realize armor scaling us an issue?

Volt, the potential, damage dealing frame, gets...crowd control tacked on. Sure it's useful. But it's nowhere near as effective as Nyx, Loki or Nova. So we STILL won't bring him for damage, and we also don't want him for CC. So tell me...other than fondness...why play Volt? What's his role, again?

The fact that it REQUIRES armor reduction or CC to make people want to play a frame ought to be a sign that something is badly flawed...

Exactly.

[taiiat]

3 hours ago, Mr.Lube said:

we must first fix the foundation.

everything is the foundation.
it's all important.

i already said that.

[Mak_Gohae]

The problem with the enemies is that the stages change. That means that you have to create general enemies because if you create specific enemies that means that some will not be able to be used in certain situations.

[Mr.Lube]

38 minutes ago, taiiat said:

everything is the foundation.
it's all important.

i already said that.

Everything is not the foundation. Everything revolves around enemies, without enemies there would be no way for players to progress.

[taiiat]

1 minute ago, Mr.Lube said:

without enemies there would be no way for players to progress.

Enemies in Video Games exist to impede progress and to make play more interesting.
then, Enemies tend to drop/award things for being Killed to make Players want to Kill them rather than avoid them.

[Mr.Lube]

19 minutes ago, taiiat said:

Enemies in Video Games exist to impede progress and to make play more interesting.
then, Enemies tend to drop/award things for being Killed to make Players want to Kill them rather than avoid them.

I'm sure that was their initial intention, but now enemies are the reward. Enemies feed us exp, resources, and loot. so we find the best way to herd them like cattle. Right now, the mission objective is the thing impeding our progress by making it harder for us to kill the enemies (loot bags).

[TheBrsrkr]

No. 

Changing enemies and changing frames are two completely separate aspects of the game. Frames are being changed so that enemies actually have a chance. Example:

Let's say nullifier units were removed or changed in some manner, in this case only activating the bubble at close range. Bombard missiles stop homing. Enemy scaling is fixed to whatever you consider fixed. Whatever. Will Mirage somehow stop blinding them because of it? Will punch through affect them less from EB? Will they magically be able to damage Valkyr in Hysteria? Will they be unaffected  by M Prime? Will they do 199% damage when Trinity gives DR ? No. Enemies can be broken, and frames can be broken, but broken frames is what led to the broken enemies in the first place. 

[P0TAT0CANN0N]

2 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

No. 

Changing enemies and changing frames are two completely separate aspects of the game. Frames are being changed so that enemies actually have a chance. Example:

Let's say nullifier units were removed or changed in some manner, in this case only activating the bubble at close range. Bombard missiles stop homing. Enemy scaling is fixed to whatever you consider fixed. Whatever. Will Mirage somehow stop blinding them because of it? Will punch through affect them less from EB? Will they magically be able to damage Valkyr in Hysteria? Will they be unaffected  by M Prime? Will they do 199% damage when Trinity gives DR ? No. Enemies can be broken, and frames can be broken, but broken frames is what led to the broken enemies in the first place. 

The people that actually had a damn chance to begin with were only using those frames because it was the ONLY effective way to beat them! Does that sound fair to the players!?

 

[Mr.Lube]

2 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

No. 

Changing enemies and changing frames are two completely separate aspects of the game. Frames are being changed so that enemies actually have a chance. Example:

Let's say nullifier units were removed or changed in some manner, in this case only activating the bubble at close range. Bombard missiles stop homing. Enemy scaling is fixed to whatever you consider fixed. Whatever. Will Mirage somehow stop blinding them because of it? Will punch through affect them less from EB? Will they magically be able to damage Valkyr in Hysteria? Will they be unaffected  by M Prime? Will they do 199% damage when Trinity gives DR ? No. Enemies can be broken, and frames can be broken, but broken frames is what led to the broken enemies in the first place. 

You're right. Maybe my title is a bit misleading but we have the same idea. Both sides of the equation should be looked at, but I feel that enemies should be the first to get revamped since they are the core of the game. The whole game is killing enemies. Warframes and weapons are just tools to accomplish that goal and should be balanced around the enemies.

My title was meant to send a message to the developers in light of the recent Warframe reworks that attempted to make them conform to our current meta. Our current meta revolves around avoiding combat at all costs which is boring and bad for gameplay. Change the meta, then the Frames.

[TheBrsrkr]

2 hours ago, P0TAT0CANN0N said:

The people that actually had a damn chance to begin with were only using those frames because it was the ONLY effective way to beat them! Does that sound fair to the players!?

 

Not even remotely true. You know what people did before the nullifiers? Before the corrupted Bombards? Before the rep cap, and the AFK timer? They sat in one spot, and they farmed. What was going to stop them? Nothing. Those people had their chance to change the system. Those same people spent their time asking for more content, which they burned through within days of release, and they asked to go for longer distances. They asked, time and time again, for more farming, and that's what they got. Now they are expected to. They created their own mess. 

[CandyDragon]

1 hour ago, TheBrsrkr said:

They created their own mess. 

This reeks of victim blaming.  The developer is solely responsible for the content that is created. If what you suggest is true, it implies they had no creative vision and simply wanted to create a skinnerbox from the beginning.

The reason players farmed efficiently, was because none of the other missions were rewarding. The reasons players still do it, is because in order to "progress" you are expected to run through hundreds of repeating flaming hoops. You try to optimize that experience. 

The reason people are upset now however, is that the ability to efficiently grind has been damaged. But the enemies and difficulty remains the same. A fear that this change is going to stick, while not addressing the rest of the game is making people upset. Rightly so. 

Edited May 29, 2016 by Nariala

[P0TAT0CANN0N]

On 5/28/2016 at 11:52 PM, TheBrsrkr said:

Not even remotely true. You know what people did before the nullifiers? Before the corrupted Bombards? Before the rep cap, and the AFK timer? They sat in one spot, and they farmed. What was going to stop them? Nothing. Those people had their chance to change the system. Those same people spent their time asking for more content, which they burned through within days of release, and they asked to go for longer distances. They asked, time and time again, for more farming, and that's what they got. Now they are expected to. They created their own mess. 

People grind and farm anyways!

If anything the addition of those enemies made people do it more! If DE wants to change the game then they should start rolling back the enemies and THEN scale back the frames.

[Guest]

On 5/22/2016 at 3:05 PM, vazerd68 said:

This thread is gold, I'd just add my opinion on thoses 2 suggestions.

First, I'd rather have a major balance pass on CC abilities, making them less effective (like a 20%-ish slow cap on nova instead of the current 75%). We should be able to spam abilities but weaker versions that come as a drawback of modding for a lower energy cost.

Second, having an enemy immune/resistant to abilities isn't always a problem. The current implementations don't provide a fair chalenge but I think that it's a concept that can be explored (yeah this one his more nitpicky).

Then you run into the problem of abilities getting weaker the more you use them making no sense for things like bladestorm where you are teleporting around and stabbing things in the neck/spine/eyeball etc, or for Atlas/Valkyr where one is literally punching the enemy in the face with stone and the other is cutting the enemy to bits and pieces. But that could definitely work with soul punch; how exactly we are punching the soul out of moas or human-ish enemies multiple times is a bit strange.

[TheBrsrkr]

37 minutes ago, P0TAT0CANN0N said:

People grind and farm anyways!

They could do that without breaking the game. Instead they trade fun for efficiency, and now look at it. 

 

37 minutes ago, P0TAT0CANN0N said:

 

If anything the addition of those enemies made people do it more!

That was the point. You want to power grind all day? Now you're expected to. Because the game caters to what people do, and what they did was spam. How do you counter spam,without changing the actual spamming? Take a wild guess. 

 

40 minutes ago, P0TAT0CANN0N said:

 If DE wants to change the game then they should start rolling back the enemies and THEN scale back the frames.

Changing the enemies will not solve anything, since the enemies are being shut down anyway by the frames. It makes no sense fixing something if the hammer that is the Tenno keeps swinging.