Steps to balance without losing Warframe's "feel"

[Tsuru]

On 28.5.2016 at 9:17 PM, BlackCoMerc said:

 How many of these do we need before we realize armor scaling us an issue?

This, very much. Armor scaling means only a handful of frames and weapons are viable in high level content. It also makes Corrosive Projection pretty much the only aura worth slotting. This is very bad game design.

[BlackCoMerc]

11 minutes ago, Tsuru said:

This, very much. Armor scaling means only a handful of frames and weapons are viable in high level content. It also makes Corrosive Projection pretty much the only aura worth slotting. This is very bad game design.

And once you pair outrageous armor with similar enemy damage, it virtually REQUIRES Cheesing enemies. Since killing any one of them takes so long you die in one shot to the others.

This needs fixed. It should never have reached this point to begin with, but it NEEDS corrected.

[MokutoBunshi]

" like killing and out maneuvering....in a space Ninja game "

This I can agree with.

But also how about making it so that harder enemies (bombards as opposed to balistas?) have higher level caps that way we can enjoy some scaling of enemies that goes beyond a fixed 100 but isn't infinite.

 

]\'[

[Misgenesis]

Im pretty sure reworking enemies is a bigger job than adjusting abilities. Makes sense to go for powers first.

[vazerd68]

5 hours ago, SigmaLambdaOmega said:

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.

I never supported diminishing returns upon each ability use O_o My post was criticizing it after OP's suggestion.

[Asdryu]

Is it me, or there is no kid saying "git gud" while clearly that's not the problem here (yeah face it, they nerfed immortality)? You deserve a lot of respect and I'm glad you did this topic so I didn't have to.

The main thing I liked is that you faced the wall of unicorn and rainbows "every Warframe/weapon is good and has its own utilities that can be used everywhere". That is fun vs efficency! Who wants to run a long defense mission without Frost? Stradavar looks fancy as hell, isn't it? I dare everyone to use that only on a solo t4s for 60 mins and see how long they last and I can even allow Chroma to be used however they want.

The other big problem here that I have on this game is explosives. Even Zetonkor is a joke compared to this problem I'm gonna say.

For some reasons, most of our explosive/AoE weapons are just worthless, but when enemies use those, it's just hell on Earth. If enemies are level 80+ and your frame isn't a tank or isn't invisible all the time and there's just one enemy with explosive weapon... FORGET every kind of enemy you're facing, because that guy will destroy you if that explosion is near you. And that's just scratching the surface of the problem. The other problem is that that the explosion radius is as big as this problem is, it's an uzi (angstrum used by modular corpus) and the weapon is a relentless and unlimited factory of very accurate sentient missles that will curve every obstacle unless you don't make a certain maneuver wich is passing behind them... Did i tell you to forget about the other enemies? Don't! Because there's a horde of them behind that missle, hopiing that the room isn't a claustrophobic-proof one either.

And ffs, it's obvious that bots have aimbot, but just don't make it SO obvious! For example, a lot of times. I'm behind a wall, or somewhere where I'm sure that I'm not being seen by any enemy... AND OPS! A Napalm shot the thick wall and I'm magically burning to death!

I would disagree on you about removing enemies that magically disable our legendary Tenno powers that no one is able to replicate, because that would make some enemies defenseless, but not while I know that explosions exist.
 

[SpeedOfLightPuncher]

These next 2 months are months of change... Everything gets changed... Solar chart 3.0... Damage 3.0... New loot system...

Tenno the wait will soon be over, let the twin Queens together with U19 welcome you to a whole new world.

On devstream 74 we saw a glimps of solar chart 3.0. Here it all begins tenno... In the heart of warframe...

[Asdryu]

Yes and possibly 3 more other nerfs as well: Bladestorm, tonkor and multishot! It's that era!

[Mr.Lube]

On 5/30/2016 at 11:42 AM, Misgenesis said:

Im pretty sure reworking enemies is a bigger job than adjusting abilities. Makes sense to go for powers first.

Enemies are the core of the game, where Warframe's and weapons are just equipment. In order to balance equipment you need a reference point.

[Mr.Lube]

On 5/30/2016 at 4:22 PM, RyuGold said:

 "every Warframe/weapon is good and has its own utilities that can be used everywhere". 

This also reminds me of the age old "If you don't like it, don't use it" argument. Both are invalid.

[PiggyKid]

I agree that enemies in end game should not be OP.  The real world is already full of hardship, many people just play games for fun, to have a relief and a sense of accomplishment, but not for being constantly beaten down and killed in the so-called end game.

Edited June 15, 2016 by PiggyKid
typo

[Mr.Lube]

On 6/14/2016 at 10:15 PM, PiggyKid said:

I agree that enemies in end game should not be OP.  The real world is already full of hardship, many people just play games for fun, to have a relief and a sense of accomplishment, but not for being constantly beaten down and killed in the so-called end game.

I get that. I feel a game such as Warframe should provide a healthy medium between the two. 

[TheVeiledScion]

This is my opinion, but I think the recurring issue of balance really comes down to gameplay mechanics and mission design. The game keeps oscillating between too difficult and too easy. So you get people who constantly demand nerfs or buffs. But the real issue is that Warframe's simplistic game design makes balance all but impossible. Every game has mission creep. That's the expectation with items and characters that constantly increase in stats. With a more complex game, those increases enhance, rather than simplify, gameplay. But in a simple game, all it does is increase or decrease difficulty. 

DE has made attempts to introduce more complex game modes, but the characters, movements, and core gameplay functionality don't really support complexity. So the solution lies in overhauling the core gameplay mechanics.

The problem, of course, is that WF would lose the quick, simple and fast gameplay that many have come to love. So the key issue is how to balance complex gameplay and simple gameplay, rather than enemy and player stats.

[Chipputer]

On 6/7/2016 at 5:24 PM, Mr.Lube said:

Enemies are the core of the game, where Warframe's and weapons are just equipment. In order to balance equipment you need a reference point.

That's backwards.

Without changing our abilities first they have no reference point to balance the enemies toward. They also have to keep in mind that people are still playing the game during the time they're doing that balancing-- if you lower the enemy ability now, you end up with a phase of the game that is basically just a bunch of people farming items as much as possible because there's significantly less challenge in doing so.

This isn't an in-development RPG Maker game. You can't just make sweeping changes to the player's only obstacle and then change the players later. That would be detrimental to the game, as a whole.

Beyond that, tweaking the frames is a much bigger job than tweaking the enemies. Enemies are static. They respond in the same manner to everything. Frames are dynamic. Each frame has a different method of handling everything. Change the frames, balance the enemies around those changes. This saves both time and headache as you can, then, design enemies to dynamically counter your frames, increasing the challenge, replay value, and overall health of the game, rather than changing the enemies first and then giving the players the tools to outplay the enemies.

Edited June 26, 2016 by Chipputer

[Soketsu]

On 26/02/2016 at 1:54 AM, Mr.Lube said:

                                                                                       Warframe is Operating Under Two Extremes

 

     Originally, when I made this post I believed that simply balancing one side of the equation before the other would be a solution to Warframe's age old problem with balance. Simply put, after much thought and feedback my stance has changed, but not by much. Warframe is operating under two extremes. By that I mean that both sides of the equation (Enemies and Warframes) are too powerful/extreme.

We had a pretty balanced game, then we got more powerful with the introduction to corrupted mods which was fine. The problem was that the enemies never really played catch-up, and we kept getting stronger and stronger until the game was a complete cake walk. We were operating at an extreme. Players wanted a challenge, but nothing could really challenge us in a fair and fun manner. So then Nullifiers, Spam-CC Bursas, and Sorties at level 80-100 were introduced. Now the enemies are operating under extremes and it is seen as cheesy, rightfully so. People want balance but they don't understand it goes both ways.

Original Thoughts -

  Reveal hidden contents

 In Warframe's high level content you are punished for not having spammable CC, invisibility, or invincibility. Enemies become too potent to handle with conventional methods (like killing and out maneuvering....in a space Ninja game...wot). Enemies' armor and damage scaling is so bad that there comes a point when not killing the enemies and just refreshing ability timers becomes the most effective way to complete a mission. That is ridiculous.

Warframes that do not have one of these features (Mass CC/Invincibility/Invisibility) are punished by being one shot by enemies you can't even see. These are the frames that are deemed "useless" by a large number of the community and although I want to disagree (so badly) I really can't. Useless may not be the correct term but they are, without a doubt, at a serious disadvantage. Unfortunately, when these frames that are struggling are "buffed" they are typically seen sporting some random type of CC that was slapped on one of their abilities in order to make them viable, but by doing so they have therefore made that frame or another frame less interesting.

 

By continuing down this path of reliance on CC or Invincibility every frame would essentially be doing the exact same thing with a different visual effect. Because of this DE is so limited to what they can do in terms of Warframe design and it is so sad. Stop trying to make frames conform to it because all it does is limit what you can do. A hefty overhaul is in need to keep Warframe healthy.

 

My theory is that the biggest hindrance of Warframes balance is the infinitely scaling enemies. Let me explain why. Without a set enemy power level there is no real model to balance Warframes and weapons around. A new weapon/Warframe is released that pushes the boundaries that other equipment isn't able to accomplish, therefore making the older equipment less valuable. This also results in "mastery fodder". 

 

In short, the devs are trying to balance their content around a faulty and broken system. It is a fools errand, and the devs need to start looking at the bigger picture.

   There are two parts of the equation and, therefore two parts to balance. Let's start with enemies first.

 

Solution: (Part 1, enemy scaling)

 

1. Cap enemy scaling. Enemies will stop getting stronger after a certain point. Call this cap level 100.
2. Adjust enemy armor/health/damage scaling to be gradual and stop at the new level 100. Level 100 grunts should not be able to tank or one-shot us.
3. Introduce an enemy hierarchy. Grunts (Lancers/Butchers/Crewman/Prodman) should be commanded by more powerful units that give buffs/resupplies/cover.
4. Grant commanding units diminishing returns to CC and disabling powers.
5. Apply Sortie/Nightmare like de-buffs and/or mini-bosses to endless missions after level 100. This forces players out but can be endured by those skilled enough.

 

These changes; in my eyes make sense from a gameplay and a lore standpoint. Focusing key targets will become a well practiced tactic, making single target abilities along with Snipers more valuable. The classic Warframe feel of destroying hordes will remain as well.

Solution: (Part 2, Warframe ability/energy management)

 

1. Remove Fleeting expertise. Players will be refunded.
2. Remove Primed mods. Players will be refunded.
3. Increase all Warframe's base energy at max rank to match that of an equipped flow mod. (ie. level 30 Ash base energy goes from 150>300)
4. New flow mod now increases Warframe's max energy to match that of a currently equipped Primed Flow. (ie. level 30 Ash max energy goes from 300>450)
5. Energy Siphon is now innate to all Warframes.
6. Duration no longer effects efficiency in any way. This was a band-aid to Fleeting.
7. Nullifiers are removed or re-purposed. We do not need them anymore.
8. Warframes start with full energy at the beginning of each mission.
9. Energy restores are capped at 5 per mission. Or are changed to increase energy regen for a short period of time upon activation. (Not stackable)
10. Trinity's Energy Vampire is replaced with another ability. I understand this is going to get a lot of hate, but remember that unlimited power is what got us in this mess in the first place. There needs to be a bit of sacrifice.

 

These changes seek to remove a lot of unwanted "cheese" from the game, while not going into extremes such as cooldowns. Players will have to manage their energy more than they do now, but that really isn't saying much.

 

I understand that the removal of Primed mods will rub a lot of people the wrong way, but I feel it is essential to keep the game from feeling "bloated" with too much power. Feedback as always is appreciated.

even if generally i'm against massive balance/nerf/buff, for one time i see a complete OP, with good axe of thought you deserve my upvote

just questions like that, the other way to gain energy, did you think about it or you let this on purpose that we need a special kind of stuff ? will the raid will be changed in consequence (not just the cap power)?

may asking you something later ;)

Edited July 16, 2016 by Soketsu

[Mr.Lube]

9 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

That's backwards.

Without changing our abilities first they have no reference point to balance the enemies toward. They also have to keep in mind that people are still playing the game during the time they're doing that balancing-- if you lower the enemy ability now, you end up with a phase of the game that is basically just a bunch of people farming items as much as possible because there's significantly less challenge in doing so.

This isn't an in-development RPG Maker game. You can't just make sweeping changes to the player's only obstacle and then change the players later. That would be detrimental to the game, as a whole.

Beyond that, tweaking the frames is a much bigger job than tweaking the enemies. Enemies are static. They respond in the same manner to everything. Frames are dynamic. Each frame has a different method of handling everything. Change the frames, balance the enemies around those changes. This saves both time and headache as you can design enemies to dynamically counter your frames, increasing the challenge, replay value, and overall health of the game, rather than changing the enemies first and then giving the players the tools to outplay the enemies.

My comment was made a while ago, while I had different views. That said, changing the Warframes first is not the solution either. Changing one before the other would result in a temporary state of major imbalance. Changing the enemies first will result in the game being a farm-fest cake walk. Changing the Frames first will result in the game being an overly-difficult stomp fest. Both sides need to be toned down, and the only way to do that safely is to do it at the same time. 

[Mr.Lube]

On 6/26/2016 at 3:02 PM, Soketsu said:

even if generally i'm against massive balance/nerf/buff, for one time i see a complete OP, with good axe of thought you deserve my upvote

just questions like that, the other way to gain energy, did you think about it or you them on purpose that we need a special kind of stuff ? will the raid will be changed in consequence (not just the cap power)?

may asking you something later ;)

Thank you.

If something like my OP was applied to the game then yes, Raids/Trials would have to change.

[blazinvire]

Well, after perusing 95% of the thread, I can definitely start to see how things are connected.

I had an idea awhile ago to slightly overhaul the energy system to give power use a bit more infrastructure, but I'm starting to see you'd have to tackle nearly all the other aspects of the game at exactly the same time to make sure nothing explodes in the interim.

You have a whole bunch of variables: Weapons, Mods, Warframes, Energy, Powers, Enemies; change one and it increases the stress on the others.  I have a feeling Warframe's going to need to be knocked down in order to rebuild it with some sturdier infrastructure -something they can work with, like how they said the new Starchart will give them options.

We need a way to systematically tackle each variable, whilst constantly monitoring its relationship to the other variables.

I could post a link to my energy system idea if anyone's interested, but on its own it's probably not that useful without Enemy reworks and Mod reworks, and reworking those would effect or require reworks to Weapons or Powers, etcetera.

[Mr.Lube]

On 6/26/2016 at 2:37 PM, Arktourus said:

This is my opinion, but I think the recurring issue of balance really comes down to gameplay mechanics and mission design. The game keeps oscillating between too difficult and too easy. So you get people who constantly demand nerfs or buffs. But the real issue is that Warframe's simplistic game design makes balance all but impossible. Every game has mission creep. That's the expectation with items and characters that constantly increase in stats. With a more complex game, those increases enhance, rather than simplify, gameplay. But in a simple game, all it does is increase or decrease difficulty. 

DE has made attempts to introduce more complex game modes, but the characters, movements, and core gameplay functionality don't really support complexity. So the solution lies in overhauling the core gameplay mechanics.

The problem, of course, is that WF would lose the quick, simple and fast gameplay that many have come to love. So the key issue is how to balance complex gameplay and simple gameplay, rather than enemy and player stats.

I see where your coming from. My short term intention is not to make the game more complex (although that would be nice), my intention is to make Warframe's quick fast paced gameplay more engaging than simply "press button to turn enemies off".

I believe this is a good first step. 

[blazinvire]

Made some notes, felt like sharing.

Attempting to focus mostly on infrastructure and avoid bandaids.
Sort of adopt a theme of: 'Difficult to lose, difficult to recover'
Meaning it simultaneously gives us a feeling of being powerful, but also there's an inevitable limit.
Will warn you, individually these changes will seem potentially random or stupid -they're not meant to be criticized in a vacuum.

Overheat for Energy

• Warframes start missions with full energy
• Average Max Energy is in the several thousands
• Limit Energy Orb production to byproducts of Warframe abilities rather than obscure loot from RNG
• Energy Restores screw with heat production/dispersion for a duration.
• Innate energy regen around 1-10 per second
• Ability usage generates heat relative to the energy cost of the ability
• Maxing Overheat doesn't do anything initially; casting abilities when the gauge is full causes any number and kind of side effects

Thoughts

• Maintains freedom of casting/spamming, even after you've maxed out the heat gauge you can technically keep going, things just get progressively worse is all; encourages self-moderation without suffocation -or at the very least, the infrastructure to steadily and inevitably reach that goal.
• Options to alter one's own risk/reward trade-off with heat-altering mods, stronger the ability, bigger the consequence
• Ultimate abilities can be added/redesigned/reimagined as a legendarily powerful ability that automatically puts you over max heat gauge as a cost for doing something massive, as well as eating an insane chunk of energy.
• Customization of playstyle, as improving heat efficiency allows more power usage in the short term, and improving energy efficiency allows more power usage in the long term
• Shouldn't require too much modification of powers like Energy Vampire in order to balance the system.
• Effects like Magnet will need altering though...

Theory is to make energy feel more valuable, to remove the 'Binary Energy Problem' and perhaps even throw a bit of lore-friendly stuff in for an added win.
If Warframes had, for example, 5000 max energy, with an in-built 10 energy per second regen, it'd be awfully difficult to run out, but without sources like Trinity, Energy Restores or the random Energy Orb, when you run out you'd be kind of screwed.

So you're somewhere between having to be careful with your energy usage, but mostly not really having to worry about it and are free to use powers left and right, encouraging a moderation.
I also imagine it would make it more lore-friendly, that the Warframe's power/energy source comes from the Operator, rather than some random external thing like Energy Orbs or Energy Restores -Energy Orbs would be the kinds of things Warframes themselves create using powers, if we wanted a reason for them to exist beyond gameplay design.

***
Weapons

• A loose 'points' system: if every point of damage, status chance, crit chance, crit damage, element, reload, ammo, accuracy, fire rate, or quirk like explosive or ricochet, costed 1 or more points each, to easily quantify a weapon.
• Weapons could compose of for example: 120 points, where 100 of those points are modifiable using mods, and those 20 points are for Niche Protection, to ensure the weapon is still unique regardless of how heavily modded it is.

Thoughts

• Ensures all weapons are effectively equal, and with a high chance of everyone finding a use for them via modifying them to personal taste.

Theory is to make all weapons statistically equal, although not situation-equal -situation would be dependent on mission type and enemy type, which could be explored when the weapon system is stable.
Once they have a number they can consistently work around, they can tweak enemy variables so they die at a respectable pace to both current and any possible future weapons without making any individual weapon decidedly better in all aspects.

***
Damage Control

• Make health a little bit more precious by making it obscure to recover; the idea of one's physical health yo-yoing between 1hp and 900hp constantly within the space of a few minutes could be seen as kind of ridiculous, considering how much it would stress the body's cells.
• Limit maximum regen and health recovery, and put excess healing into a decaying buffer, reduce max hp relative to damage taken, though have max hp recoverable over time -potentially using the buffer when health meets the reduced cap- and through obscure methods like some kind of healing station.
• Provide more options for protecting health, like melee blocking is 100%, dodging and cover easier to use/integrated.
• Potentially an Armour-style resource, a decaying damage reduction/deflection, its own kind of health that's difficult to restore, not specifically a 'bar' either.  Something for the armour-tanking warframes to use rather than shield-tanking, and reflects a bit more of an organic system considering the nature of armour.  Armour-resource could have its own resistances that could be moddable, for the tank junkies and the tough missions.
• Shield Gating for some minor assistance; if the attack would have done significant damage to health, the impact could explode and have the warframe recoil away as kind of a small, realistic cost for the Gating.  Could also Armour Gate, depending on the attack or the Armour.

Thoughts

The idea is to make health more precious, make it simultaneously easier to protect your health pool, and harder to recover it.  Provides a nice foundation for a Damage and Enemy Scaling rework, and a soft limit that slowly amps up the tension the crazier the fight gets; could also mean less of a requirement for crowd control abilities and more options.
Shields would sort of serve as your damage mitigation in the short-term, and Armour for the long-term.

***
Enemy Rework?

• Enemy variety/types/weapons could probably be more explored, as we gain more and more types of Warframes and Weapons to blast existing content with, adding more enemy types or variations of existing enemies to change their weapons or gadgets and such, could help balance the equation a little if increase complexity a bit.  Much like how Rathuum sported a frankenstein of existing powers and enemies with some new stuff.
• Utilize resource-management on enemies to make them more dynamic; if Armour is something breakable, opponents might run or regroup to fix their armour, or enemies behave differently when they're about to run out of bullets like retreating or calling for a friend to cover them.  If there's more enemies in one location they might get more aggressive and push forward.  Maybe enemies have a stagger pool, where they can only be staggered or crowd controlled a certain number of times in a short duration, and different enemies have different levels of resistance.

Thoughts

Theory: The more options the enemies have for defending themselves, the weaker you can actually make them, to make them sort of 'brittle' where they're still really easy to kill if you hit them just right.  You might not be able to spam a single attack on an enemy without them doing something to disrupt you, but the point is you won't particularly need to spam the attack: ie, instead of having to hit an enemy 100 times with your sword, they bat you away or something after the 5th swing if you're just spamming, but they'll only need 20 hits with your sword instead.
It'll make the enemies seem a little bit smarter while also making people change up their tactics a bit, and make the enemies less of a bullet sponge

 

[Mr.Lube]

13 hours ago, blazinvire said:

Made some notes, felt like sharing.

Attempting to focus mostly on infrastructure and avoid bandaids.
Sort of adopt a theme of: 'Difficult to lose, difficult to recover'
Meaning it simultaneously gives us a feeling of being powerful, but also there's an inevitable limit.
Will warn you, individually these changes will seem potentially random or stupid -they're not meant to be criticized in a vacuum.

Overheat for Energy

• Warframes start missions with full energy
• Average Max Energy is in the several thousands
• Limit Energy Orb production to byproducts of Warframe abilities rather than obscure loot from RNG
• Energy Restores screw with heat production/dispersion for a duration.
• Innate energy regen around 1-10 per second
• Ability usage generates heat relative to the energy cost of the ability
• Maxing Overheat doesn't do anything initially; casting abilities when the gauge is full causes any number and kind of side effects

Thoughts

• Maintains freedom of casting/spamming, even after you've maxed out the heat gauge you can technically keep going, things just get progressively worse is all; encourages self-moderation without suffocation -or at the very least, the infrastructure to steadily and inevitably reach that goal.
• Options to alter one's own risk/reward trade-off with heat-altering mods, stronger the ability, bigger the consequence
• Ultimate abilities can be added/redesigned/reimagined as a legendarily powerful ability that automatically puts you over max heat gauge as a cost for doing something massive, as well as eating an insane chunk of energy.
• Customization of playstyle, as improving heat efficiency allows more power usage in the short term, and improving energy efficiency allows more power usage in the long term
• Shouldn't require too much modification of powers like Energy Vampire in order to balance the system.
• Effects like Magnet will need altering though...

Theory is to make energy feel more valuable, to remove the 'Binary Energy Problem' and perhaps even throw a bit of lore-friendly stuff in for an added win.
If Warframes had, for example, 5000 max energy, with an in-built 10 energy per second regen, it'd be awfully difficult to run out, but without sources like Trinity, Energy Restores or the random Energy Orb, when you run out you'd be kind of screwed.

So you're somewhere between having to be careful with your energy usage, but mostly not really having to worry about it and are free to use powers left and right, encouraging a moderation.
I also imagine it would make it more lore-friendly, that the Warframe's power/energy source comes from the Operator, rather than some random external thing like Energy Orbs or Energy Restores -Energy Orbs would be the kinds of things Warframes themselves create using powers, if we wanted a reason for them to exist beyond gameplay design.

***
Weapons

• A loose 'points' system: if every point of damage, status chance, crit chance, crit damage, element, reload, ammo, accuracy, fire rate, or quirk like explosive or ricochet, costed 1 or more points each, to easily quantify a weapon.
• Weapons could compose of for example: 120 points, where 100 of those points are modifiable using mods, and those 20 points are for Niche Protection, to ensure the weapon is still unique regardless of how heavily modded it is.

Thoughts

• Ensures all weapons are effectively equal, and with a high chance of everyone finding a use for them via modifying them to personal taste.

Theory is to make all weapons statistically equal, although not situation-equal -situation would be dependent on mission type and enemy type, which could be explored when the weapon system is stable.
Once they have a number they can consistently work around, they can tweak enemy variables so they die at a respectable pace to both current and any possible future weapons without making any individual weapon decidedly better in all aspects.

***
Damage Control

• Make health a little bit more precious by making it obscure to recover; the idea of one's physical health yo-yoing between 1hp and 900hp constantly within the space of a few minutes could be seen as kind of ridiculous, considering how much it would stress the body's cells.
• Limit maximum regen and health recovery, and put excess healing into a decaying buffer, reduce max hp relative to damage taken, though have max hp recoverable over time -potentially using the buffer when health meets the reduced cap- and through obscure methods like some kind of healing station.
• Provide more options for protecting health, like melee blocking is 100%, dodging and cover easier to use/integrated.
• Potentially an Armour-style resource, a decaying damage reduction/deflection, its own kind of health that's difficult to restore, not specifically a 'bar' either.  Something for the armour-tanking warframes to use rather than shield-tanking, and reflects a bit more of an organic system considering the nature of armour.  Armour-resource could have its own resistances that could be moddable, for the tank junkies and the tough missions.
• Shield Gating for some minor assistance; if the attack would have done significant damage to health, the impact could explode and have the warframe recoil away as kind of a small, realistic cost for the Gating.  Could also Armour Gate, depending on the attack or the Armour.

Thoughts

The idea is to make health more precious, make it simultaneously easier to protect your health pool, and harder to recover it.  Provides a nice foundation for a Damage and Enemy Scaling rework, and a soft limit that slowly amps up the tension the crazier the fight gets; could also mean less of a requirement for crowd control abilities and more options.
Shields would sort of serve as your damage mitigation in the short-term, and Armour for the long-term.

***
Enemy Rework?

• Enemy variety/types/weapons could probably be more explored, as we gain more and more types of Warframes and Weapons to blast existing content with, adding more enemy types or variations of existing enemies to change their weapons or gadgets and such, could help balance the equation a little if increase complexity a bit.  Much like how Rathuum sported a frankenstein of existing powers and enemies with some new stuff.
• Utilize resource-management on enemies to make them more dynamic; if Armour is something breakable, opponents might run or regroup to fix their armour, or enemies behave differently when they're about to run out of bullets like retreating or calling for a friend to cover them.  If there's more enemies in one location they might get more aggressive and push forward.  Maybe enemies have a stagger pool, where they can only be staggered or crowd controlled a certain number of times in a short duration, and different enemies have different levels of resistance.

Thoughts

Theory: The more options the enemies have for defending themselves, the weaker you can actually make them, to make them sort of 'brittle' where they're still really easy to kill if you hit them just right.  You might not be able to spam a single attack on an enemy without them doing something to disrupt you, but the point is you won't particularly need to spam the attack: ie, instead of having to hit an enemy 100 times with your sword, they bat you away or something after the 5th swing if you're just spamming, but they'll only need 20 hits with your sword instead.
It'll make the enemies seem a little bit smarter while also making people change up their tactics a bit, and make the enemies less of a bullet sponge

 

Very interesting. I really do like these ideas and the concept of "difficult to lose, difficult to recover".

Edit: I feel like you should copy paste this and make your own thread. I would like to see other people's opinions on it.

Edited August 4, 2016 by Mr.Lube

[blazinvire]

Eh I spose I could, I just felt it was similar enough in theme I should keep the subjects together, both sort of tackling the issues with the foundations of Warframe as opposed to the endless of tug-of-war you see with buffs and nerfs and futzing with RNG.

More awareness needs to be raised about the importance of core aspects, more people focusing on them and in turn guiding DE's attention back to the core issues.  Too many people get hung up on trying to fix the symptoms rather than the cause.

[blackheartstar_pc]

On 6/12/2016 at 6:05 PM, Mr.Lube said:

This also reminds me of the age old "If you don't like it, don't use it" argument. Both are invalid.

Sorry not everything can be the best answer to every encounter. Things need to be different and have pros and cons. Early weapons easily gotten should be weaker than later weapons and if one weapon is good in one situation it does not mean that other weapons need to be anywhere near as good or at least as good in the same.