Tonkor: Let's fix easy mode

[LazyKnight]

25 minutes ago, NKDG said:

But... but... but... that affects ALL the launchers... my secura penta really can't take a damage halving all that well... how would you address that??

Just quoting your post so I do not have to find that part @TheBrsrkr wrote.

There is no point at all doing all the extra code. Make the critical chance of all the launchers 0% and make the base damage wherever DE Scott thinks it should be.

There was no reason to have the critical hit stat on a launcher, and it wouldn't be hard to make Tonkor have 450 damage and zero critical hit (number pulled out of a hat). That would get rid of the head-shot problem (and it would still hit harder than Secura Penta) and it would take DE about 30 seconds to change a few values, without fear of breaking a dozen other things that would need fixing.

Edited April 3, 2016 by LazyKnight

[Irorone]

27 minutes ago, LazyKnight said:

Just quoting your post so I do not have to find that part @TheBrsrkr wrote.

There is no point at all doing all the extra code. Make the critical chance of all the launchers 0% and make the base damage wherever DE Scott thinks it should be.

There was no reason to have the critical hit stat on a launcher, and it wouldn't be hard to make Tonkor have 450 damage and zero critical hit (number pulled out of a hat). That would get rid of the head-shot problem (and it would still hit harder than Secura Penta) and it would take DE about 30 seconds to change a few values, without fear of breaking a dozen other things that would need fixing.

I disagree on the crit removal for one reason.  Crit damage is calculated differently in one particular instant, shields you can't crit a shield.  Admittedly you can just throw a toxin mod on it to bypass the shield but removing a weapon that functions differently homogenizes an already lackluster weapon category.

[IceColdHawk]

9 minutes ago, Irorone said:

I disagree on the crit removal for one reason.  Crit damage is calculated differently in one particular instant, shields you can't crit a shield.  Admittedly you can just throw a toxin mod on it to bypass the shield but removing a weapon that functions differently homogenizes an already lackluster weapon category.

You can indeed crit against shields.

[LazyKnight]

I think Tonkor already lost its key selling point with parkour mobility improvements. I'll likely star a flame war saying this, but that feature is as useless now as super jump would be if it was still in the game. Also, reminds me of Vauban's bounce pads, now it is only useful if there is a pit to send NPCs to their death.

Tonkors' two main selling points right now, would be the low self damage and the critical hit bonus. The low self damage is a great point of the weapon and that alone is something that could be considered highly valuable. This is something that no other explosive weapon has and it makes the Tonkor even more user friendly than concealed explosive for the throwing knives (not even Loki can one shot himself with a tap fire).

The Tonkor critical hit percentage is something that puts it in the same range as the bows for single target damage and that's an issue due to it being auto seeking. That's the main issue that makes Tonkor problematic due to its very high critical hit chance almost always getting the critical head shot bonus.

Personally, I would rather DE make the explosive family of weapons unique in their usage. I think kulstar is a good example of an interesting explosive weapon and there are ways to make each weapon do something unique. They could give Ogris a homing fire mod, and it would be something that would rekindle people interest in it(watch that get called OP, lol). 

[NKDG]

I believe someone by the name of @CapedBaldy just found our Occam's razor to this dilemma. He suggested simply if the grenade doesn't hit anything, it disarms. This would promote skill, justify the need for low self damage, and still keep the tonkor's identity intact. Anyone else think this is an ingenious idea?

[LazyKnight]

14 minutes ago, NKDG said:

Anyone else think this is an ingenious idea?

Yeah, that's a great idea. Although, It's likely not enough to make it a marksmen's weapon (and cut Tonkor some slack) due to the decent blast radius it enjoys from a direct hit. I am not sure what its currently blast radius is (it seems to be the same as my Secura Penta, but I am not 100% sure) but if it was reduced to 2-3 meters it would be enough to say it was a marksmen's launcher.

[CapedBaldy]

27 minutes ago, LazyKnight said:

Yeah, that's a great idea. Although, It's likely not enough to make it a marksmen's weapon (and cut Tonkor some slack) due to the decent blast radius it enjoys from a direct hit. I am not sure what its currently blast radius is (it seems to be the same as my Secura Penta, but I am not 100% sure) but if it was reduced to 2-3 meters it would be enough to say it was a marksmen's launcher.

Could be partially or fully fixed by adjusting explosion mechanics to fall off with distance from centre of explosion

also, missed shots tend to catch stray mobs, especially at longer ranges when just blindly fired. A missed shot is not a non-function like any other hitscan

Anybody who used tonkor a decent amount before would know that quite well

[cx-dave]

4 hours ago, NKDG said:

A game must have a set of consistencies to enhance immersion. The tonkor is, as I stated before, the cheater of the bunch. Thus, its tools for cheating the system must be removed (uncapping the self damage.)

also, how would you like it if gravity suddenly didn't work in the game? But it's a game, and this game has some things that are unreal right? No, you rely on consistencies to play the game. Thus, my point has an example at least to point out your false correlation. 

For low and medium level stuff you can kill more enemies at a much faster rate with rifles, shotguns, pistols, a flame thrower, or even just Warframe powers. No reasonable player is going to die here either. You won't be much of a factor with the Tonkor. So, where is the cheat?

At high levels where you won't be able to do much with a rifle, the enemies are the risk factor. Try 2 hours of T4S for instance. With high speed Nullifiers coming at you and enemies hiding in the bubbles. Not so easy with the Tonkor now. Again, what's the point of adding self-damage just when the weapon has its use? It will just become useless, unless there's a Trin Bless around.

...and please don't come up with isolated Simulacrum examples. That's not what happens in a real game. Killing from a distance with no risk was mentioned. Well, you can currently do that with any launcher type of weapon. There no risk of self-damage for any at a distance.

[Robm]

8 hours ago, NKDG said:

I shall also contradict this, as it 1-shots lvl 30 mobs unmodded, something most guns can only dream of doing without mods. So I don't think it particularly sucks as bad as you say

Nope, mine only did 250 damage to lvl 30 enemies in the void. Could not one hit them. 

[NKDG]

31 minutes ago, Robm said:

Nope, mine only did 250 damage to lvl 30 enemies in the void. Could not one hit them. 

Try non void then? Earth (moon tilesets, I'm not stupid) enemies are OHKO'd by the damn thing XD

[[DE]Danielle]

Hey Tenno - The last two pages of the thread were cleaned from the inflammatory posts and personal attacks that were derailing the thread. Please keep to the discussion at hand, thank you. 

[TheLexiConArtist]

8 minutes ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Hey Tenno - The last two pages of the thread were cleaned from the inflammatory posts and personal attacks that were derailing the thread. Please keep to the discussion at hand, thank you. 

Thank you. I think I lost some relevant post content in the collateral damage, but nothing that can't be rectified, all for the best.

Hopefully we can keep to debate now, instead of falling to argument.

15 hours ago, NKDG said:

I believe someone by the name of @CapedBaldy just found our Occam's razor to this dilemma. He suggested simply if the grenade doesn't hit anything, it disarms. This would promote skill, justify the need for low self damage, and still keep the tonkor's identity intact. Anyone else think this is an ingenious idea?

Sorry to repeat a notification ping on you, but my response to this is one thing that seems to have gotten lost in the thread detox.

I'll paraphrase from what I recall:

The Occam's Razor is just to give the Tonkor the same proportional, scaling self-damage to make it in accordance with the rest of its category.

The defenders, and users of the Tonkor in its current state generally describe or imply that a missed shot is functionally useless. That claim is currently not accurate, so I have doubts that changing mechanics to make that actually the case will, alone, be enough to address the risk/reward imbalance.

[CapedBaldy]

It may not be enough, but it's better than destroying the entire weapon by removing crit or adding self damage when the explosions cannot be reasonably controlled after firing.

A fix to explosion mechanics so that there is a damage fall-off from the middle could be beneficial in terms of game health if applied to both players and enemies. This fall-off could be unique to all launchers so that more niches can be established. Something like Tonkor can drop off rather rapidly, whereas Ogris have near minimal drop off.

But hey, it's just my opinion.

[LazyKnight]

28 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

The Occam's Razor is just to give the Tonkor the same proportional, scaling self-damage to make it in accordance with the rest of its category.

The defenders, and users of the Tonkor in its current state generally describe or imply that a missed shot is functionally useless. That claim is currently not accurate, so I have doubts that changing mechanics to make that actually the case will, alone, be enough to address the risk/reward imbalance.

There is no risk verse reward motivation associated with self-damage. It's a motivation and a push to get people into camping a point and that's a determent to the game's flow. Warframes is supposed to be a fast paced game and that "camp" game-play style is something that people complain about almost as often as Mondays.

Self-damage motivates people to camp an area and bombard a spawn points (or defense target) from a high ledge or box that is out of range of friendly fire. This isn't me being biased, it's extremely common to see in a random group when a experienced user is firing Penta or Ogris.

From what I have seen there are two stages of using a self-damage weapon for a user that has any survival instinct.

The first stage: This is when a user experiments with it as a run and gun weapon and after running out of revives often enough they give up the foolishness (unless they just do not care or for reasons...).

The second stage: This is graduating to firing from a box or using a ledge and raining death without risk of anything happening to them. 

Stage 2 is not risk a reward scenario, as it's boring and people shelve the weapon rather than risk random death in normal game-play.

Edited April 4, 2016 by LazyKnight

[TheLexiConArtist]

16 minutes ago, CapedBaldy said:

It may not be enough, but it's better than destroying the entire weapon by removing crit or adding self damage when the explosions cannot be reasonably controlled after firing.

A fix to explosion mechanics so that there is a damage fall-off from the middle could be beneficial in terms of game health if applied to both players and enemies. This fall-off could be unique to all launchers so that more niches can be established. Something like Tonkor can drop off rather rapidly, whereas Ogris have near minimal drop off.

But hey, it's just my opinion.

Most explosives can't be controlled after firing. The Penta can. The Kulstar can slightly but with a strictly increased risk potential (detonating the clusters closer than they would automatically).

I've suggested a UI element to track existing explosive projectiles (similar to what the Elytron Archwing abilities provide) in order to aid the player in avoiding some of the wayward self-damage that could arise from a stray Tonkor grenade assuming it was given appropriate self-damage and not the Loch-n-Load 'direct hit or fizzle' treatment.

 

Interesting to bring up the fall-off issue. I'm relatively sure from my fledgling days with the Ogris that there was damage falloff over an explosion's radius. Not sure when that stopped, or perhaps my memory is inaccurate.

Still, the biggest problem lies with the headshots/headcrits; the damage values can never be appropriately balanced while explosives automatically headshot most enemies, and most of those also add extra damage multipliers.

On a damage level, comparing a Penta's damage output to a Tonkor's damage output against a Charger, immune to auto-headshot, is much more favourable towards "stronger but not completely outshadowing" than comparing the outputs on a humanoid target where the critical stats grant an extra tier of magnitude. Removing the crit stats therefore (with a possible base damage improvement, but certainly not more than doubling) would do well to tighten the power imbalance. It still enjoys relatively insignificant risk for similar rewards; just not that lack of risk and far greater rewards.

 

Just now, LazyKnight said:

There is no risk verse reward motivation associated with self-damage. It's a motivation and a push to get people into camping a point and that's a determent to the game's flow. Warframes is supposed to be a fast paced game and that "camp" game-play style is something that people complain about almost as often as Mondays.

Self-damage motivates people to camp an area and bombard a spawn points (or defense target) from a high ledge or box that is out of range of friendly fire. This isn't me being bias it's extremely common to see in a random group when a experienced user is firing Penta or Ogris.

From what Ii have seen there are two stages of using a self-damage weapon for a user that has any survival instinct.

The first stage: This is when a user experiments with it as a run and gun weapon and after running out of revives often enough they give up the foolishness (unless they just do not care or for reasons...).

The second stage: This is graduating to firing from a box or using a ledge and raining death without risk of anything happening to them. 

Stage 2 is not risk a reward scenario, as it's boring and people shelve the weapon rather than risk random death in normal game-play.

I've advocated changing self-damage on a core level, but the fact remains that it is a risk/reward balance. The danger of harming oneself is what offsets the instantaneous high AOE damage dealt to enemies, whereas other AOEs are generally continual, over-time damage with their own drawbacks (such as how you keep things inside Torid clouds, and being shot until the damage adds up).

 

Don't presume to speak for everyone. I'm sure that people who use a Kulstar currently, or anyone who remembers using Pentas before the Tonkor entered the field, could weigh in with anecdotes of their own that contradict yours.

Even so, I mentioned my ideal for self-damage being lessened as a whole (and the Tonkor being subject to the new, less-punishing but relevant self damage); if a mistake was dangerous rather than deadly, you'd have less people terrified to get off their boxen and actually use their explosives on the move, wouldn't you?

[LazyKnight]

28 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

Don't presume to speak for everyone. I'm sure that people who use a Kulstar currently, or anyone who remembers using Pentas before the Tonkor entered the field, could weigh in with anecdotes of their own that contradict yours.

Even so, I mentioned my ideal for self-damage being lessened as a whole (and the Tonkor being subject to the new, less-punishing but relevant self damage); if a mistake was dangerous rather than deadly, you'd have less people terrified to get off their boxen and actually use their explosives on the move, wouldn't you?

Your post is irritating, on several levels  Are you deliberately being obtuse or dismissive?  

Do you even remember how the meta was for farming infested back when Ogris came out? Here's a hint for you, if your memory's failed you: There is a reason that DE gave the infested a means to climb all the boxes and ledges in the various maps. There were topic after topic of complainants about that so called "anecdote", that you claim will be refuted.

Edited April 4, 2016 by LazyKnight

[(PSN)pepe-GER-]

Enabled self-damage on tonkor or nerf it and noone will use this weapon again in the entire history of warframe. It is the same thing with ogris. Everyone used this - then the ammo amount was patched: No one used this weapon again and this was before the Tonkor was released. There are a lot of weapons that will be a better companion without killing myself.

[TheLexiConArtist]

6 minutes ago, LazyKnight said:

Your post is irritating, on several levels  Are you deliberately being obtuse or dismissive?  

Do you even remember how the meta was for farming infested was back when Ogris came out? Here's a hint for you, if your memory's failed you: There is a reason that DE gave the infested a means to climb all the boxes and ledges in the various maps therein. There were topic after topic of complainants about that so called "anecdote", that you claim will be refuted.

Infested were trivialised by standing on boxes. Therefore, self-damage caused people to stand on boxes. I'm sorry, what?

All I'm saying is that you can't speak for everyone. You can't claim that nobody will ever stray from a static, elevated position, just because a static, elevated position has been used with a self-damaging weapon in the past.

Will some people lack the brass to use an explosive weapon dynamically because of the personal risk? Yes. Will everyone? No.

If that risk is reduced to a non-deadly state, is it not likely that proportions between those two camps will shift towards dynamic usage as a result?

 

8 minutes ago, (PS4)pepe-GER- said:

Enabled self-damage on tonkor or nerf it and noone will use this weapon again in the entire history of warframe. It is the same thing with ogris. Everyone used this - then the ammo amount was patched: No one used this weapon again and this was before the Tonkor was released. There are a lot of weapons that will be a better companion without killing myself.

The Ogris has far more problems than its self damage. It needs its blast radius bringing up to par with other primary ordnance, and probably improving its rate of fire.

If you don't want as much risk, you shouldn't get as much (or in this case, even more) reward, simple concept. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[LazyKnight]

3 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

Infested were trivialized by standing on boxes. Therefore, self-damage caused people to stand on boxes. I'm sorry, what?

Here's it is. 

1: Infested were 100% melee back then.

2: Ogris is beyond lethal in melee rage. Melee range is normal considered less than 5-6 meters from a player. (if you want to argue this, troll someone else).

3: Standing on box kept the NPCs out of the minimum safe range of Ogris(use common sense to guess on what height the boxes were along with how far away the targeted NPCs were).

19 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

All I'm saying is that you can't speak for everyone. You can't claim that nobody will ever stray from a static, elevated position, just because a static, elevated position has been used with a self-damaging weapon in the past.

No, i said, "unless they do not care or for reasons(I am insinuating they do not learn)":. It gets old reviving people repeatedly in the same mission due to self inflicted bleed-out.  And you're right, not everyone one cares, as some people just rage at others for not reviving them because they self immolated. 

The risk is shared by the group that has to deal with an explosive user. Sigh, It's why I do not bring these self damage weapons in parties because I hate being a liability.

22 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

If that risk is reduced to a non-deadly state, is it not likely that proportions between those two camps will shift towards dynamic usage as a result?

If it is non deadly what's the point? I know it adds realism, but what game-play element do you want to encourage? If the goal is to prevent point blank firing, It would give the same effect by just having no explosion unless it was fired at least "x" distance. 

[TheLexiConArtist]

4 minutes ago, LazyKnight said:

Here's it is. 

1: Infested were 100% melee back then.

2: Ogris is beyond lethal in melee rage. Melee range is normal considered less than 5-6 meters from a player. (if you want to argue this, troll someone else).

3: Standing on box kept the NPCs out of the minimum safe range of Ogris(use common sense to guess on what height the boxes were along with how far away the targeted NPCs were).

No, i said, "unless they do not care or for reasons(I am insinuating they do not learn)":. It gets old reviving people repeatedly in the same mission due to self inflicted bleed-out.  And you're right, not everyone one cares, as some people just rage at others for not reviving them because they self immolated. 

The risk is shared by the group that has to deal with an explosive user. Sigh, It's why I do not bring these self damage weapons in parties because I hate being a liability.

If it is non deadly what's the point? I know it adds realism, but what game-play element do you want to encourage? If the goal is to prevent point blank firing, It would give the same effect by just having no explosion unless it was fired at least "x" distance. 

I feel like that's a correlation being misappropriated to causation. Limit the variables: was the same tactic of standing on boxes solely used against other, more ranged factions too? Frost notwithstanding, I'd guess not, because you're a sitting duck. Moving also generates range between you and desired targets; next-level anti-infested box technology was most likely a product of infested having no offensive counter to it moreso than it providing a safe haven from self-damage.

Put aside that you wouldn't see them because the Tonkor is better offensively and safer, what would happen if that tactic is repeated today without a Globe or Bastille keeping things sufficiently at bay (which works regardless of box)? Tar, hooks, death.

 

People will always be partly made up of trolls and impatient people. I could say the same about the average Tonkor user, should a squadmate sick of its effect opt not to revive them because [thought process]: there's no way they should've managed to drop anyway, wielding that utterly broken weapon, they deserve it.

Well, instead of the user of a self-damaging launcher being a liability if they slip up, we get things like reckless Tonkor/SySim use causing ally death in Radiation Hazard or radiation Elemental Enhancement sorties. The more things change, the more they stay the same... only you're not forced to get the person up who killed themselves, but you are damn sure forced into feeling the pain of being killed by mindless use of AOE weapons under Radiation proc effects.

 

If it's non-deadly, then you still harm yourself, meaning you have to be careful with subsequent shots (adding up to a death if multiple mistakes are made), and you make yourself more vulnerable to enemies that your mistake failed to deal with.

Self damage can be non-fatal without being completely insignificant. There's room between that dichotomy for dangerous, where you feel your mistake without paying instantly for it with your entire health bar.

 

I'm not going to lie, I might be projecting a bit here, but... For me at least, that's part of the fantasy of using explosive ordnance. It's just not a visceral, satisfying explosive until you risk taking some backlash yourself.

I had an absolute blast a few weeks back when I brought out my 15x Navigator Ivara and Heavy Cal Ogris (synergy!) to clear my way through a sortie mission, even though it would've been far easier with a Tonkor (and I wouldn't have killed myself with a wayward rocket I had to fire at some Hyekka while my energy was too low to Navigate).

[LazyKnight]

1 minute ago, EDYinnit said:

I feel like that's a correlation being misappropriated to causation. Limit the variables: was the same tactic of standing on boxes solely used against other, more ranged factions too? Frost notwithstanding, I'd guess not, because you're a sitting duck. Moving also generates range between you and desired targets; next-level anti-infested box technology was most likely a product of infested having no offensive counter to it moreso than it providing a safe haven from self-damage.

There were several issues with the infested, and no questions or arguments about that. The box was a counter to melee units entering the self damage range it's just a method to enforce your distance. 

 

34 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

If it's non-deadly, then you still harm yourself, meaning you have to be careful with subsequent shots (adding up to a death if multiple mistakes are made), and you make yourself more vulnerable to enemies that your mistake failed to deal with.

Self damage can be non-fatal without being completely insignificant. There's room between that dichotomy for dangerous, where you feel your mistake without paying instantly for it with your entire health bar.

It could probably be accomplished by giving the launcher fixed self-damage that is not affected by mods. Most of the problems come from how the damage keeps increasing well past the point of overkill to all but a few Warframes, once a few mods are on the weapon.

I think DE did a fine job of balancing the concealed explosive mod, as it hurts most Warframes enough that it is dangerous but mistakes are only lethal if you ignore your melting health bar. If DE balance the explosive weapons all like that I wouldn't complain.

[TheLexiConArtist]

7 minutes ago, LazyKnight said:

It could probably be accomplished by giving the launcher fixed self-damage that is not affected by mods. Most of the problems come from how the damage keeps increasing well past the point of overkill to all but a few Warframes, once a few mods are on the weapon.

I think DE did a fine job of balancing the concealed explosive mod, as it hurts most Warframes enough that it is dangerous but mistakes are only lethal if you ignore your melting health bar. If DE balance the explosive weapons all like that I wouldn't complain.

Well, the Concealed Explosives mod doesn't scale its reward with damage mods, only fire-rate and multishot, so it's not quite that easy.

I'd look for one of two options:

Either further reduce the proportion of self-damage (instead of 30% as the Ogris is at the moment, maybe as low as 15% or even 10%) so that the risk still increases with the reward but takes 2-3 times longer to get to suicide levels, and would probably only reach that with a full damage build (heavy cal included) and/or for people using squishy frames without modding some EHP

Or make the self-damage scale only on a portion of mod strength according to the proportion of selfdamage to base explosion damage, again in the Ogris' case, the self damage would only mod up by 165% * 30% = 49.5% damage increase from maxed Serration instead of the full 165%.

Applying either of those changes would keep a direct tying of risk to reward, but bring the overall equation down to a more survivable level. I think this would benefit people as they get familiar with a weapon through using it. To begin with, the self-damage is relatively low to the point of being a learning aid - noticing that you damaged yourself, but not putting yourself in too much danger while doing so - then as the weapon gains levels, and mods are added, you're less likely to hit yourself by the time the damage you would deal to yourself becomes an actual danger to avoid.

 

Plus, as a bonus, it hurts Draco levellers because they skip the "okay, how do I not point the gun at my face" step. And that just satisfies my schadenfreude.

[TheBrsrkr]

I think part of the disparity of opinions in the self damage discussion is due to the way it happens. I like explosives, in case you couldn't tell by my name. I use them very often in other games, and I have blown myself up, often to death, more than a few times. So why is it in Warframe that I feel it's unfairly punishing while in other games it's completely okay?

I can come up with a couple reasons. First and foremost, accuracy. You could call rocket and grenade launchers many things, but inaccurate is not one of them. As a rule, your shot goes exactly where you want it, so long as you account for arc or whatever. In Warframe, however, there is a distinct trend of inaccuracy  in explosives. The Angstrum and Kulstar, for example, along with the Ogris and even the Penta have either very poor accuracy or seemingly randomised impact areas. 

    Using the Halo rocket launcher as an example, if you blow yourself up you know whose fault it was. Spnkr rockets go where you put them, you just put them wrong. If you blow yourself up with the Kulstar on the other hand, you aren't completely sure where that shot is going to go. Sure, it'll end up where you point it, but not EXACTLY where you point it. When the possibility of killing yourself is there, reassurances like these are important. 

Another thing I can think of is bounce. Warframe's grenades are entirely too bouncy. A good amount of bounce is welcome,  sure,  but for a grenade to bounce all the way back to the launch position is really ridiculous. In most games the bounce is less than half the arc of the first shot, and bounces at most 4 times. The arc of the Penta after the actual shot is almost the same size as the arc you shot it. This, in turn with the almost comical bouncing off of walls, turns explosives into waking to a literal minefield. 

What discussion of explosions would be complete without bring up a lack of indicators? Warframe is a very shiny game, with many things vying for your attention at the same time. Just changing to a bright energy color isn't going to cut it. Make them bigger. Make them flash with light. Hell, you could even just put a small arrow over them. Something. 

Finally, there's the part where 90% of the time you flat out kill yourself. This is what ties all the other factors together, because it's reasonable by itself.  If I get hit with an explosive, I expect to die, or at least be near death. However, all the other factors above mean that I'm not completely in control of when this  happens. This is the main reason self damage seems so cheap. If I blow myself up, it has to be MY fault, not because of a random roll of the dice. 

[Necrius]

Why tonkor is easymode? I can't hit the hek with it, it got no premature detonation for its grenades unlike Penta, so if I miss an enemy, they just fly wherever they want.

[TheLexiConArtist]

9 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

I think part of the disparity of opinions in the self damage discussion is due to the way it happens. I like explosives, in case you couldn't tell by my name. I use them very often in other games, and I have blown myself up, often to death, more than a few times. So why is it in Warframe that I feel it's unfairly punishing while in other games it's completely okay?

Accuracy and radius

Bouncy grenades

What discussion of explosions would be complete without bring up a lack of indicators? Warframe is a very shiny game, with many things vying for your attention at the same time. Just changing to a bright energy color isn't going to cut it. Make them bigger. Make them flash with light. Hell, you could even just put a small arrow over them. Something. 

Finally, there's the part where 90% of the time you flat out kill yourself. This is what ties all the other factors together, because it's reasonable by itself.  If I get hit with an explosive, I expect to die, or at least be near death. However, all the other factors above mean that I'm not completely in control of when this  happens. This is the main reason self damage seems so cheap. If I blow myself up, it has to be MY fault, not because of a random roll of the dice. 

Funny you should mention indicators. That's part of my overall ideal for reworking explosives. Take a look at this if you will:

So what do we see? We see a projectile being launched. We know that it's responsible for an explosion (or in this case, several explosions. Thumper is just prettier with the trail.).

We have an indicator attached so that we can see when it's at the right range to do the job.

 

The tech is in the game to attach such a UI indicator to a spawned projectile. Wouldn't just adding that onto all explosives solve almost all those problems with self-damage?

Accuracy: Indicated, so you know it's off course.

Radius: ...Okay, it doesn't fix this, but I haven't really seen inconsistent radii. Pentas and Tonkor have a higher radius than the Ogris, Angstrum and Kulstar, that's all I know. It seemed pretty consistent when I tested all those for a point about blast radius differences earlier in the thread.

Bounciness: Indicated, so you can see where it's bouncing to (including back towards yourself).

Lethality: Indicated, so you are far better equipped to avoid that self-damage if you're paying attention.

 

As I've said already, personally I'd see that lethality throttled down a bit to only being so instantly lethal at the uppermost echelons of modding, at worst. But an indicator just seems like common sense. Especially for launchers with mechanically or functionally limited active projectiles. Ogris can't fire fast enough to overflow much, Pentas have a hard limit...