Multiplicative Stacking Needs to Stop

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Let me start off by saying that I love this game and love the mod system. The problem is that it is horribly broken as a result of multiplicative stacking. We've already seen two major changes: crit damage and shields.

Multiplicative stacking needs to stop.

1. It is horrendously OP. If you stack pure armor, enemies will do nigh negligible damage to your health. With a mere two range mods, my Overload can clear several rooms. With three multishot mods, I have a gun that can instagib any mob in the game. With five 150% crit mods, you can do this: http://www.youtube.c...=youtu.be��Each time you stack a mod of the same type on an item, the result is greater than before. Let's say you found a 100% damage mod. I know they don't exist, but for argument's sake, let's say they did. In calculations, this means that everyone of those mods that you stack on your gun multiplies its power by 2 again and again and again. 5 mods would make your gun spew out 32 times its normal damage. The more you stack of a single type, the more powerful you become. It is exponential.

2. It prevents variety. I'd love to equip one of my new 25% elemental mods that I got today, but there's a problem. See, I have 3 multishot mods already plus a puncture and a piercing of the same percent. Obviously I don't want to get rid of the piercing. It's just too good overall. I'm not sacrificing the utility of that +5 puncture. And that leaves me with 3 ~70% multishot mods. Those things literally boost by damage output by 400%. I'm dealing 5 times more than I should. And you know what? Despite how much I'd hate having to do so, if I found another multishot, I'd get rid of the piercing damage. Why? Because it's plain inferior to the raw damage output of stacking again and again. I can't justify it. Mathematically, I will do better if I just build more of the same. There's no diversity here. Mathematically, another multishot would be superior. The same could be said if I had damage mods of this level or crit damages (see above video).

3. Weapon choice is irrelevant. Some people say the Burston is weak. Those people are probably right. The problem is, this is hidden by getting mods that can cover it up. In fact, if you only judged by the performance of my weapon, you'd probably want to nerf the Burston which would be a mistake. Honestly, the weapon you use doesn't actually matter if you get it to rank 30 and start putting crazy mods on it of the same type. You will faceroll everything. You can use a wimpy gun, but if you have enough of the same type on it, your performance is almost indistinguishable from someone with a great one. In fact, because of my mods, I can generally clear faster than people with a Gorgon just because of the nature of the guns and how they interact with mods.

Multiplicative stacking flat-out needs to stop. It shatters any notion of balance and prevents any sort of variety by locking players in to whatever mod type hasn't been hit by the nerfbat yet. I know multishot's time is coming. I know. But see, multishot isn't the problem. Multishot in its ultimate effect is no different from a %damage mod. It increases your average damage output by x%. Likewise, armor isn't the problem. Crit damage wasn't the problem. Shields weren't the problem. Multiplcative stacking like this is.

Now you may say, "But Volt, why not just nerf them and have them scale more appropriately with the enemies we have?" And this would be great except that it does nothing to address problem 2. No matter how much you nerf, unless you nerf to oblivion (which is what happened to crit damage unless you stack pure crit and use a shotgun), you will not prevent people from stacking out of necessity the same thing. The best players will do this because of simple mathematics, causing higher difficulty missions to be balanced around that by necessity. Correspondingly, other players must follow suit, lest they not be strong enough to survive such levels. People will continue to use all mods of the same type until and unless the system is changed to one that is additive. Only then will actual variety be possible and with it, the customization and personalization that I think the devs had in mind.

EDIT: As KGeddon pointed out, this does not in fact affect the relationship of multishot/damage/rate/elemental and they can be balanced to allow for variety as it stands. In the case of armor, stamina, speed, shields, and crits however, they must be additive to prevent the reasons mentioned above. At this point, the only reason to switch all things to an additive system would be standardization.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[[DE]Steve]

Agreed. The problem is we haven't finished support for ratio (%) mods that stack additively. We're on it.

[Sealgaire]

Agreed. The problem is we haven't finished support for ratio (%) mods that stack additively. We're on it.

This pleases me greatly.

[UkyoSonoda]

Changing the % stacking to additive instead of multiplicitive IMO is the first step to fixing alot of the weapon balance complaints as well. Alot of them stem from really how often certain weapons (Gorgon/Hek) are likely to be supercharged lv 30 with high end mods stacked on them vs other weapons.

[Sev7n]

maybe just reduce all the mods % boosts? cause imo 50% seems over powered for mods this early in the game and there are ones that exceed that >.<

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Agreed. The problem is we haven't finished support for ratio (%) mods that stack additively. We're on it.

Yay :D

maybe just reduce all the mods % boosts? cause imo 50% seems over powered for mods this early in the game and there are ones that exceed that >.<

Already answered this...

...

Now you may say, "But Volt, why not just nerf them and have them scale more appropriately with the enemies we have?" And this would be great except that it does nothing to address problem 2. No matter how much you nerf, unless you nerf to oblivion (which is what happened to crit damage unless you stack pure crit and use a shotgun), you will not prevent people from stacking out of necessity the same thing. The best players will do this because of simple mathematics, causing higher difficulty missions to be balanced around that by necessity. Correspondingly, other players must follow suit, lest they not be strong enough to survive such levels. People will continue to use all mods of the same type until and unless the system is changed to one that is additive. Only then will actual variety be possible and with it, the customization and personalization that I think the devs had in mind.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[roniseyez]

Depends on % you are talking about. I tried stacking some 50ish % armor, and once shield was gone, my HP were still dropping quite fast.

[KGeddon]

Let me start off by saying that I love this game and love the mod system. The problem is that it is horribly broken as a result of multiplicative stacking. We've already seen two major changes: crit damage and shields.

Multiplicative stacking needs to stop.

1. It is horrendously OP. If you stack pure armor, enemies will do nigh negligible damage to your health. With a mere two range mods, my Overload can clear several rooms. With three multishot mods, I have a gun that can instagib any mob in the game. With five 150% crit mods, you can do this: http://www.youtube.c...=youtu.be��Each time you stack a mod of the same type on an item, the result is greater than before. Let's say you found a 100% damage mod. I know they don't exist, but for argument's sake, let's say they did. In calculations, this means that everyone of those mods that you stack on your gun multiplies its power by 2 again and again and again. 5 mods would make your gun spew out 32 times its normal damage. The more you stack of a single type, the more powerful you become. It is exponential.

2. It prevents variety. I'd love to equip one of my new 25% elemental mods that I got today, but there's a problem. See, I have 3 multishot mods already plus a puncture and a piercing of the same percent. Obviously I don't want to get rid of the piercing. It's just too good overall. I'm not sacrificing the utility of that +5 puncture. And that leaves me with 3 ~70% multishot mods. Those things literally boost by damage output by 400%. I'm dealing 5 times more than I should. And you know what? Despite how much I'd hate having to do so, if I found another multishot, I'd get rid of the piercing damage. Why? Because it's plain inferior to the raw damage output of stacking again and again. I can't justify it. Mathematically, I will do better if I just build more of the same. There's no diversity here. Mathematically, another multishot would be superior. The same could be said if I had damage mods of this level or crit damages (see above video).

3. Weapon choice is irrelevant. Some people say the Burston is weak. Those people are probably right. The problem is, this is hidden by getting mods that can cover it up. In fact, if you only judged by the performance of my weapon, you'd probably want to nerf the Burston which would be a mistake. Honestly, the weapon you use doesn't actually matter if you get it to rank 30 and start putting crazy mods on it of the same type. You will faceroll everything. You can use a wimpy gun, but if you have enough of the same type on it, your performance is almost indistinguishable from someone with a great one. In fact, because of my mods, I can generally clear faster than people with a Gorgon just because of the nature of the guns and how they interact with mods.

Multiplicative stacking flat-out needs to stop. It shatters any notion of balance and prevents any sort of variety by locking players in to whatever mod type hasn't been hit by the nerfbat yet. I know multishot's time is coming. I know. But see, multishot isn't the problem. Multishot in its ultimate effect is no different from a %damage mod. It increases your average damage output by x%. Likewise, armor isn't the problem. Crit damage wasn't the problem. Shields weren't the problem. Multiplcative stacking like this is.

Now you may say, "But Volt, why not just nerf them and have them scale more appropriately with the enemies we have?" And this would be great except that it does nothing to address problem 2. No matter how much you nerf, unless you nerf to oblivion (which is what happened to crit damage unless you stack pure crit and use a shotgun), you will not prevent people from stacking out of necessity the same thing. The best players will do this because of simple mathematics, causing higher difficulty missions to be balanced around that by necessity. Correspondingly, other players must follow suit, lest they not be strong enough to survive such levels. People will continue to use all mods of the same type until and unless the system is changed to one that is additive. Only then will actual variety be possible and with it, the customization and personalization that I think the devs had in mind.

The problem with your solution is that everything will be too similar. We need differentiation. Otherwise why bother with mods? Just call everything "+xx% stuff" and we'll replace if the number is higher.

Edited January 23, 2013 by KGeddon

[KGeddon]

Depends on % you are talking about. I tried stacking some 50ish % armor, and once shield was gone, my HP were still dropping quite fast.

The first +70% armor mod is worth 35% of your health. The 8th +70% armor mod on a warframe is worth 1436% of your health

[roniseyez]

A great and addictive feeling in video games comes from the exponential power your character gets as he lvls up.

Many devs went the easy way by dumbing down games, and failed to give the "awesome" feeling players look for.

The other way is to provide higher challenge to high end (powerhouse) characters, by adding content dedicated to hardcore min-maxers.

This tends to satisfy every player accross the board, but requires more work/content than what is already available.

Edit: Thanks KGeddon for the clarification. I'm far from having so much and so high armor mods.

Edited January 23, 2013 by roniseyez

[UkyoSonoda]

Also for the guy saying his health still drops fast with armor mods. Remember each bullet that hits you will still do minimum 1 damage. So if theres say 15 moa's all shooting you at full spin your health will still drop fast even with 8 70% armor mods stacked just from sheer volume of fire.

[Ronyn]

Agreed. The problem is we haven't finished support for ratio (%) mods that stack additively. We're on it.

This is good news.

However I'm concerned about what it will do to my particular build.

As it is right now the only way to make a melee weapon aproach similar damage numbers to firearms is to stack melee damage mods on your frame.

Are you going to adjust standard melee damage numbers to account for the inability to get the same punch from stacking these mods?

[Sev7n]

This is good news.

However I'm concerned about what it will do to my particular build.

As it is right now the only way to make a melee weapon aproach similar damage numbers to firearms is to stack melee damage mods on your frame.

Are you going to adjust standard melee damage numbers to account for the inability to get the same punch from stacking these mods?

I dont think melee weapons were intended to be as powerfull as firearm weapons >.< swords with right mods in them can still 1 shot kill mobs on full charge attacks. Not sure about the other melee weapons though i havnt played em yet :P

[KGeddon]

A great and addictive feeling in video games comes from the exponential power your character gets as he lvls up.

Many devs went the easy way by dumbing down games, and failed to give the "awesome" feeling players look for.

The other way is to provide higher challenge to high end (powerhouse) characters, by adding content dedicated to hardcore min-maxers.

This tends to satisfy every player accross the board, but requires more work/content than what is already available.

Edit: Thanks KGeddon for the clarification. I'm far from having so much and so high armor mods.

Considering the mobs increase in armor/hp and can shoot me from more angles, that "exponential" power increase seems to be limited only to multishot for offense, and armor/iron skin for defense currently(both of which are getting nerfed soon). If you do Pluto with mostly +damage% mods, you don't oneshot things. And doing Pluto, I actually equip lightning over AP(because it's mostly Corpus).

[Volt_Cruelerz]

The problem with your solution is that everything will be too similar. We need differentiation. Otherwise why bother with mods? Just call everything "+xx% stuff" and we'll replace if the number is higher.

You'll be able to pick what you want rather than being locked into "well, I've already got 4 multishots, why would I ever equip that +50% ice mod if I just got another +80% multishot?" Things are too similar now, or at least will be if you wait for long. Recall we're already seeing nerfs on account of this sort of thing. It would get worse if the devs weren't already working on this. This will allow people to actually go with whatever they prefer (which, true, will often be what is the highest number, but then again, the current scenario is a more extreme version of that).

This is good news.

However I'm concerned about what it will do to my particular build.

As it is right now the only way to make a melee weapon aproach similar damage numbers to firearms is to stack melee damage mods on your frame.

Are you going to adjust standard melee damage numbers to account for the inability to get the same punch from stacking these mods?

It is beta, so I don't think you should worry about tweaking. I'm sure mine will need overhauled when they finally get around to nerfing multishot down to reasonable levels. Heck, today, I experienced the no-mods bug and at first I thought the devs had nerfed multishot and while sad that I would no longer be instagibbing things and would have to overhaul my build, I was happy for the very reasonable balance change. Obviously I was wrong, but you get the point :P

Regarding melee though, I'm sure that like shields were (and I'm sure critical damage will be as well), this will be buffed to compensate.

I dont think melee weapons were intended to be as powerfull as firearm weapons >.< swords with right mods in them can still 1 shot kill mobs on full charge attacks. Not sure about the other melee weapons though i havnt played em yet :P

True, but a gun can kill much much faster from a far safer distance. Melee should do more damage to compensate for the safety risk involved.

Considering the mobs increase in armor/hp and can shoot me from more angles, that "exponential" power increase seems to be limited only to multishot for offense, and armor/iron skin for defense currently(both of which are getting nerfed soon). If you do Pluto with mostly +damage% mods, you don't oneshot things. And doing Pluto, I actually equip lightning over AP(because it's mostly Corpus).

The end-result of multishot is no different from %damage (unless you're going against an enemy so armored that all shots deal 1 damage). Both result in a straight increase in damage output because everything scales off them. The reason multishot is OP (aside from multiplicative stacking) is just because the numbers are so high. A 20% multishot is no different than a 20% damage.

[KGeddon]

You'll be able to pick what you want rather than being locked into "well, I've already got 4 multishots, why would I ever equip that +50% ice mod if I just got another +80% multishot?" Things are too similar now, or at least will be if you wait for long. Recall we're already seeing nerfs on account of this sort of thing. It would get worse if the devs weren't already working on this. This will allow people to actually go with whatever they prefer (which, true, will often be what is the highest number, but then again, the current scenario is a more extreme version of that).

The end-result of multishot is no different from %damage (unless you're going against an enemy so armored that all shots deal 1 damage). Both result in a straight increase in damage output because everything scales off them. The reason multishot is OP (aside from multiplicative stacking) is just because the numbers are so high. A 20% multishot is no different than a 20% damage.

So we should just remove multishot. It serves no real purpose.

Test it out. Go into pluto with +dmg% mods and a small number of armor mods. See how your playstyle differs.

[Ronyn]

I dont think melee weapons were intended to be as powerfull as firearm weapons >.< swords with right mods in them can still 1 shot kill mobs on full charge attacks. Not sure about the other melee weapons though i havnt played em yet :P

It is beta, so I don't think you should worry about tweaking. I'm sure mine will need overhauled when they finally get around to nerfing multishot down to reasonable levels. Heck, today, I experienced the no-mods bug and at first I thought the devs had nerfed multishot and while sad that I would no longer be instagibbing things and would have to overhaul my build, I was happy for the very reasonable balance change. Obviously I was wrong, but you get the point :P

Regarding melee though, I'm sure that like shields were (and I'm sure critical damage will be as well), this will be buffed to compensate.

My question is as much about intention as it is action.

Sure its a beta, but that only means I have nothing to worry about IF they INTEND to have melee on par with guns.

If thats the case its just a matter of my patience.

If not then DE finishing the game wont help me in that regard.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Ronyn

[Sev7n]

Well i think melee weapons can somewhat compensate for that close range risk atm since swords are able to 1 hit kill on fully charged attacks, and there are already good mods out there to increase the charge damage on melee weapons so unless they get nerfed as well i think they should be fine for now

But as for multi shot it probably does need to be nerfed cause it is really op, 100% multi shot means each bullet shoots an extra one 200% means each bullet shoots 2 extra bullets. I have about 200% multi shot on my afuris right now and all i know is it tears enemies apart way to easy. The damage mods arnt as op i dont think because 100% would double your damage in each bullet which is same damage output as the extra bullet coming out in multi shot, but with multi shot stacked (even if its same amount as damage increase builds) more bullets mean more crits which will end up in more damage.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Sev7n

[Volt_Cruelerz]

So we should just remove multishot. It serves no real purpose.

Test it out. Go into pluto with +dmg% mods and a small number of armor mods. See how your playstyle differs.

lol except that's not doable currently because %damage mods don't go that high. If I had 3 70% damage mods, I'd gladly test it, but they don't exist.

[Ronyn]

Well i think melee weapons can somewhat compensate for that close range risk atm since swords are able to 1 hit kill on fully charged attacks, and there are already good mods out there to increase the charge damage on melee weapons so unless they get nerfed as well i think they should be fine for now

Look at the dps comparison on guns and melee weapons. There is a huge difference.

Go to pluto and see how many times you have to hack at an enemy compared to how many times you have to shoot it.

See how many charge attacks you need compared to shotgun blasts.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Ronyn

[Sev7n]

Look at the dps comparison on guns and melee weapons. There is a huge difference.

Go to pluto and see how many times you have to hack at an enemy compared to how many times you have to shoot it.

See how many charge attacks you need compared to shotgun blasts.

I already been on pluto and have used my charged attacks :P it doesnt kill in 1 hit there but then again my sword is only lvl 15 with weak mods, however it still is only taking 2-3 which is enough considering the mobs there are lvl 40 >.<

[Ronyn]

I already been on pluto and have used my charged attacks :P it doesnt kill in 1 hit there but then again my sword is only lvl 15 with weak mods, however it still is only taking 2-3 which is enough considering the mobs there are lvl 40 >.<

lol my point is the comparison.

Without the influence of mods.

In the time it takes to do enough slashes or charge attacks with your melee weapon to kill somebody you could have blown away two to three times as many enemies with your gun at longer range.

[KGeddon]

lol except that's not doable currently because %damage mods don't go that high. If I had 3 70% damage mods, I'd gladly test it, but they don't exist.

That is my point exactly. Don't say everything is OP because you don't want to unequip OP stuff.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

That is my point exactly. Don't say everything is OP because you don't want to unequip OP stuff.

It is OP to stack all of the same thing. I'm not saying that Multishot isn't OP (though honestly, after multiplicative stacking is removed, %damage will likely be buffed up to multishot's levels, but that's just a guess), in fact, I'm pretty sure I've admitted that it is and that that needs to happen in this thread.

I'm not quite sure where you're driving at here.. Multishot > %damage only by virtue of numbers. There is no intrinsic difference between them regarding your overall performance (aside from the aforementioned corner case). Say you've got a 100% multishot and are comparing to a 100% damage. The multishot will double the number of bullets your gun puts out whereas the 100% damage will double the damage of the bullets that you fire, resulting in double the damage. They would have the same effect. Since we have multiplicative stacking, the two are interchangeable. If we had additive stacking, the two would actually synergize.

Not sure where you're coming up with the idea that I am calling everything OP just so I don't have to unequip OP stuff. Multiplicative stacking is very problematic and causes horrendous balance issues. It also causes variety issues. This was detailed in the original post...

Edited January 23, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[KGeddon]

It is OP to stack all of the same thing. I'm not saying that Multishot isn't OP (though honestly, after multiplicative stacking is removed, %damage will likely be buffed up to multishot's levels, but that's just a guess), in fact, I'm pretty sure I've admitted that it is and that that needs to happen in this thread.

I'm not quite sure where you're driving at here.. Multishot > %damage only by virtue of numbers. There is no intrinsic difference between them regarding your overall performance (aside from the aforementioned corner case). Say you've got a 100% multishot and are comparing to a 100% damage. The multishot will double the number of bullets your gun puts out whereas the 100% damage will double the damage of the bullets that you fire, resulting in double the damage. They would have the same effect. Since we have multiplicative stacking, the two are interchangeable. If we had additive stacking, the two would actually synergize.

Not sure where you're coming up with the idea that I am calling everything OP just so I don't have to unequip OP stuff. Multiplicative stacking is very problematic and causes horrendous balance issues. It also causes variety issues. This was detailed in the original post...

You have trouble choosing because the choice is obvious. Multishot is better, you said so yourself. If we make everything the same, that's not a choice. It's a lack of choice. It's "+stuff".

I'd rather have "+%damage", "+%AP", "+%lightning", "+% clip size" when a weapon has a small clip and I die reloading, "+%maximum ammo" when the pool size is small and I have to hop between ammo oases, "+%fire rate" with a higher percentage than multishot to give me a higher damage multiplier at the cost of actual rounds, etc Frankly, ATM the problem lies with oddities in balance between weapons and a lack of choice within the upgrade trees(30 nodes, 30 levels, 5 points of customization)