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[DE]Rebecca
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On the topic of enemy scaling; I think this is probably the most important potential change in Warframe today. It's ridiculous, you have weapons that deal way too much damage, so you release a new enemy that deals way too much damage and has way too much health just to absorb the players ridiculous damage output. But now there is a greater requirement for player damage output, so you release another horribly op weapon that again needs to be countered by even more firepower. This has been happening for literal years, and it is not sustainable.

You could argue that arms race between the players and their enemies is just another way to keep content fresh, but I disagree, because it ultimately means (at least in the way it has been handled) that there are at any given time only a small selection of effective weapons. Think of all the weapons that became common place over the years, the Soma, the Boltor Prime, and now the Synoid Simulor and Tonkor; there has always been a small group of favored weapons that are not necessarily favored because they are fun to play with --at least not after they end up being the only weapons you ever see, but because they are miles more effective than their competitors purely in terms of damage output. This is partially due to grind, as players inevitably end up wanting the end result more than the journey they pick dull, but effective weaponry, however grind is a story for another day. The ultimate problem here is that most weapons in the game are not practically usable, and the game has a backlog of content that for all practical purposes is best leveled and thrown away, while a select few are actually practical, which is a shame as there is so much content that could be used.

Some time ago --forgive me for not remembering exactly when-- there was a similar problem was to what we face now, and it was addressed by lowering the maximum level of enemies encountered on the starchart to thirty, and flattening out the enemy and player scaling curves. It seems though that the mistakes of the past have been repeated, and here we are again with out of whack scaling. The solution is another rebalancing, but this time it should not stop with just enemies, it should be a complete rebalance of all mods as well. Make no mistake however, that while this would mean nerfs across the board, it should not be cause for player despair, as I mean nerfs for all things; push down the maximum limits of mods as well as the maximum limits of enemies, which if done right, would not mean that all weapons are suddenly trashed, but that players would have more room for more interesting mods --that are currently unequivocally ignored, rather than just standard builds. If we had a flatter playing field more nuanced gameplay could emerge, as modding would make up a more equal portion of success as opposed to almost solely determining it --as it does now, and it would help keep content challenging even for players heavily invested in the modding metagame.

If we could see the effectiveness of raw damage mods drastically reduced, than not only would they become less of boring, standard mods but more of a choice, enemy balancing would also be much easier, as the damage output of weapons would be more predictable across players. Multishot should be similarly balanced, but instead of reducing its numerical effectiveness, it should simply be changed to do something other than just increase the number of projectiles (perhaps spread total damage amongst all projectiles with only a minor increase to damage?), which would have similar benefits to the above. Other mods should simply be ensured to not allow for drastic damage increases, at least not without some balancing ill effect.

Serious TL; DR, loving the game DE, but as a long time player, I'm worried about the future; the damage scaling for both the enemies and the players is out of whack, and there needs --and has needed for some time-- to be a serious balancing pass to make sure that content is challenging for all players, but that the challenge is due in equal parts to gameplay, and the modding metagame.

Edited by JamesMcJam
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6 hours ago, JamesMcJam said:

On the topic of enemy scaling; I think this is probably the most important potential change in Warframe today. It's ridiculous, you have weapons that deal way too much damage, so you release a new enemy that deals way too much damage and has way too much health just to absorb the players ridiculous damage output. But now there is a greater requirement for player damage output, so you release another horribly op weapon that again needs to be countered by even more firepower. This has been happening for literal years, and it is not sustainable.

You could argue that arms race between the players and their enemies is just another way to keep content fresh, but I disagree, because it ultimately means (at least in the way it has been handled) that there are at any given time only a small selection of effective weapons. Think of all the weapons that became common place over the years, the Soma, the Boltor Prime, and now the Synoid Simulor and Tonkor; there has always been a small group of favored weapons that are not necessarily favored because they are fun to play with --at least not after they end up being the only weapons you ever see, but because they are miles more effective than their competitors purely in terms of damage output. This is partially due to grind, as players inevitably end up wanting the end result more than the journey they pick dull, but effective weaponry, however grind is a story for another day. The ultimate problem here is that most weapons in the game are not practically usable, and the game has a backlog of content that for all practical purposes is best leveled and thrown away, while a select few are actually practical, which is a shame as there is so much content that could be used.

Some time ago --forgive me for not remembering exactly when-- there was a similar problem was to what we face now, and it was addressed by lowering the maximum level of enemies encountered on the starchart to thirty, and flattening out the enemy and player scaling curves. It seems though that the mistakes of the past have been repeated, and here we are again with out of whack scaling. The solution is another rebalancing, but this time it should not stop with just enemies, it should be a complete rebalance of all mods as well. Make no mistake however, that while this would mean nerfs across the board, it should not be cause for player despair, as I mean nerfs for all things; push down the maximum limits of mods as well as the maximum limits of enemies, which if done right, would not mean that all weapons are suddenly trashed, but that players would have more room for more interesting mods --that are currently unequivocally ignored, rather than just standard builds. If we had a flatter playing field more nuanced gameplay could emerge, as modding would make up a more equal portion of success as opposed to almost solely determining it --as it does now, and it would help keep content challenging even for players heavily invested in the modding metagame.

If we could see the effectiveness of raw damage mods drastically reduced, than not only would they become less of boring, standard mods but more of a choice, enemy balancing would also be much easier, as the damage output of weapons would be more predictable across players. Multishot should be similarly balanced, but instead of reducing its numerical effectiveness, it should simply be changed to do something other than just increase the number of projectiles (perhaps spread total damage amongst all projectiles with only a minor increase to damage?), which would have similar benefits to the above. Other mods should simply be ensured to not allow for drastic damage increases, at least not without some balancing ill effect.

Serious TL; DR, loving the game DE, but as a long time player, I'm worried about the future; the damage scaling for both the enemies and the players is out of whack, and there needs --and has needed for some time-- to be a serious balancing pass to make sure that content is challenging for all players, but that the challenge is due in equal parts to gameplay, and the modding metagame.

I agree that enemy scaling is the real issue but I do not see the weapons or their mods as the impetus, its always back to the enemy scaling as the reason itself that enemies are further boosted and thus why newer weapons are often boosted to be appealing and able to deal with the increased threat. If you look at Oberon's touch-up and rework that almost no one remembers, the warframe's armor was doubled, moves made more effective in general and several other boosts like increased max health. The next major patch increased base enemy armor, and boosted enemy damage while making enemies have super accuracy. Stuff like the Tonkor came after several nerfs to other area effect weapons and buffs to several annoying faction enemies to weaken the effect of area effect weapons - as the Torid and Penta were the most used weapons by players at the time; killing several hundred thousand more enemies than the next two contenders - the Boltor Prime and Soma prime. There is often a discussion of power-creep, and enemy scaling is the cause of that situation.

If enemy scaling is removed, and replaced with a form of power plateau enemy scaling; then I could see the often asked for removal of the mandatory mods; damage, multi-shot, and elemental damage - as at this point we are seemingly going for modifiers to play-styles. It seems to me, that the first step of this, the Acolyte mods are already being embraced by many players. I am curious if they would be so well received if mods like Argon Scope were said to be the replacement rather than compliment to Vital Sense. Multi-shot removed entirely as the suggested changes to making it take more ammo would simply be faster fire rate by another name and elementals would be changed to mods that simply made the gun do its damage as that elemental in addition or perhaps in replacement. The problem with a complete deconstruction of the mod system as suggested in such a scenario is that we would remove the core progression aspect for the player in the game.

Instead of looking first at removing mods, we look at the enemies. These currently scale infinitely or at least to a maximum growth of lvl 9999 gaining additional percentage based increases to base stats given to said units. While this allows an ease of use in giving players a sense of difficulty, it quickly becomes such that player tools are out-scaled in a mostly one-sided arms race. This is the reason of player tools given by the devs like Mirage's Prism blind, Trinity's Blessing health/shield heal and damage resist, and the recent exalted ability weapons. Tools which become an overused crutch for fighting endless numbers of enemies that have no realistic end in power. It has been said in this thread and others that we need balance, a word that is often used to but rarely results in a true sense of parity. I contend that for balance to be obtained, we must first eliminate the current enemy scaling and put in its place a system for enemies instead gaining the equivalent to mod points and mod slots for the game to customize these units. This situation would create several points of balance by creating a parity between player and enemy scaling as enemies and player would have the same progression possibilities available, reliance on mandatory mods could be relaxed and other options be slid in as both sides would have access, and this would make it so less weapons get lost in a sea of similarity once the mods are considered. With this we would have a danger of both neutrality due to enforced regularity. The danger of some gear raising to dominance in even playing fields would also exist but this would be the time to look at re-balancing and reworks now that the environment itself is leveled.

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I just leave it here...


i`ve played this game over 2+ years. I really enjoyed it. Untill i reached max rank with all frames and weapons maxed. After that i`ve started to grow kubrows :D Yeah it took some time, but still...And now, i have no idea what to do here. Just...What?:D Long survival u say? Yeah sure. I really enjoy it. But it became such a ridicolous thing, same as long defence missions. Why, you ask? Because there is no smooth transition to the higher dificulty :D 1-40 lvls enemies are just a joke, then go 40-75 where we meet barely strong resistance. Aaaand then, after 70 lvls we dealing with our dear friends named "oneshots".  Frost, Volt  , Limbo, Valk , Nova , Loki , Nyx , Trinity. Theese guys only can be used to survive on high lands. Yeah of course , we have more usefull frames in this game, yes! But theese guys are core if you want to  survive. Only when you have at least couple of them in your team, you are able to pick others. 75-110 lvls enemies require a lot about teamplay with certain equipment. Thing is..After 110+ lvl i have nothing for my enemies :D  Usually , when im playing something over 70-100 lvls, i already have troubles (not mentioning my dear sentinel, rip bro), but it still can be played at some point. After that,  i have to quit ;D Really, i simply dont have such a strong team -_-  Clan? Region? They are very situational :D Sometimes you can play whole day with some strangers or your mates. Sometimes there is a dead zone, all quite :D  Weapons? Well...no.We all know..In camping sure, you can use torid. When they all debuffed by nova`s ulty, while you standing behind the vortex :D  Ah, also for abilities, right.

Frames?  We need hp / armor / shields system rework. We do, just believe me.

Farm. I heared so much about "G.R.I.N.D." from everywhere :D On forums people do cry about how hard to obtain something here. Well,yes. And No! When i had problems with all my resources, i simply created a team with same goals. Bought both boosters and spent like 1-2 hours hardcore farming for an each resource i`ve needed. That`s it :D I forgot about them almost for a year :p  This is not so hard, really.  Also, i want to mention about resources one more thing! Half of them jsut useless. So meaningless. (Nitain is not -_- This is such an asspain, for real. Fine by me)  We are not suposed to have an easy farm, it is not fun at all when you can get everything you want by one click!But at the same time, it MUST be interesting! For now, it is NOT. At all. Weapons and frames? Yeah here we have some troubles :D I will be talking about primes. That hardcore Many-hours- sweatty-true-grind, just because you want to obtain your treasure. Yeah. At some point, this is trully interesting :D But generally? This is too much "farming" you know. It is just a routine. Booooring , meaningless routine. We have only survival and defence for some really high lvls. Well, mostly survival :D  If you gonna farm other missions...they require keys...brrr. Additional boring "grind" source. Nothing more.  Always just a few, always S#&$ reward :D (t3  t4 keys).  So, this is all about endure the pain from the farm?:D  to get what you want? And what i am gonna do with this thing, which i farmed just now? Play more rapping simulator? Eh, i dont know :D I have a really stong feeling you DE, going to a wrong core direction.

Reward system:D It needs scalling at least. And please. Just pleaaase, deal with orokin cell as a reward. This is trully ridicilous :D Resources must be the drop, not the reward. Especially in Voids, come on :D. Nitain not included, at least one must be hard-to-get. Or how about you make sometithing like...T1- T2 - small stuff (mods , keys , formas , maybe some easy-to-craft weapons, for medium difficulty missions, and other crap :p). T3 - T4 - prime frames  and weapons only?Maybe prime mods? with very rare drop chance?:D  Same missions, different difficulty, different goal! Pretty simple and good, at my view. And honestly, i think we REALLY NEED MORE DIFFERENT REWARDS! Like lotus dog bp?:D In voids? :D Or something else, something needed, usable and rare :D

Credits. Not fair at all. One crap mission - 15k max, t3-t4 and ds - 25-35. Long surv or def - over 100 k per run. Max mod? Millions. Every Mod! We need how many mods?By the way, we DONT NEED HALF OF ALL EXISTING MODS. So we need really many mods...And you can`t grind credits, you need them all the time everywhere. Especially it is very hard for novices.

Market prices are so wrong, sorry ;D Just nooot fair at all. Beyond reality. I mean resources, for example :D
In conclusion we have: You have to endure the pain from the farming for hours to get 1/4  of the thing u need. And when you will get everything you need, you will simply realize that you have nothing to do there anymore. You dont have your "Valhalla". Where you can trully release all potentional of your weapons and frames. Because there is no potential:D After 65 lvl you are a powerless deadmen. But that`s exactly where the Fun lives! -_-

Also, i want to talk about "press 4 to win". Warframe is a horde game. We facing many many enemies form all sides icnoming. Sometimes we simply have no time / energy /something else to deal with a horde. We need an oportunity to kill entire room, if we really need it. Extermination is example. Who needs to play it, if you have survival or md? Only the reward is the reason. So its natural, if you want to finish this as fast as it possible. We need " cleaners" in this game. But it must be optional. Saryn was a good example :D When we had an old saryn, yes i used her to wipe everybody in short time, because i dont wanna spend much time for something totally meangless. I`ve played 3000+ hours in this game, so i think i have the right to say it.
At the same time, i liked to play melee tank as saryn. You know, it was optional! It completely depends on a person and a goal.  I couldn`t use saryn as an aoe dmger for a long defence or survival or any other thing above 55 lvl. Same as Ember now. And it was completely okay. Its not okay if we talking about 100 lvls, whom killed by one button in one second.This is OP, yes.
Frames ARE OPTIONAL. Some good for survival, some for spy. And we need "bosses" for every mission type. Same as we need " help" in farming. Like Mag was. (Just for example, dont yell at me!) And i guess, we need a frame,like...daily, u know ;D Clean there, def here, capture someone, but stricly for low lvls / middle lvls. High lvls must be the challenge ofcourse, but...reasonable:D More sweat - sweeter the rewards. Thats how it must be.
Synergy in frames is a really good idea, but untill we have "cast speed" thing, we will prefer to use 1 button in hard situations.

So, i think, main problem is about core calculation of damage, useless health armor and shields system, unfair rewards and main prices for everything.  If i can help somehow, call me :D

And well i wanna balance my words :D  Even with all these, Warframe is a great game, and you guys doing good, i do believe you can do even better!

 
P. S. Not mentioning Archwing for a reason :D

Open for negotiations :D

Edited by WhyNotBro
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On 6/3/2016 at 2:29 PM, LegionCynex said:

I'm sorry but, do you really think they will NOT give you the passive or changes, just for consoles?, I don't think..so 

You get what we get

Just for consoles? Not at all. But they often wait to fix up a lot of issues before picking what build to give us. My comments are things I'd hoped PC would have seen before they picked what build to send to consoles - I was hoping more of the fixes would be in before they'd drop it on us. Just doesn't feel like they are quite done with the reworks. But I'm sure they've already submitted our build for our Friday update. Hopefully PC will get some more tweaks soon that address the many issues being brought up in the threads, but since we are getting a big update on consoles this week any fixes may take months to get to us. 

 

Edited by (PS4)Bowjangelz
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11 minutes ago, (PS4)Bowjangelz said:

Just for consoles? Not at all. But they often wait to fix up a lot of issues before picking what build to give us. My comments are things I'd hoped PC would have seen before they picked what build to send to consoles - I was hoping more of the fixes would be in before they'd drop it on us. Just doesn't feel like they are quite done with the reworks. But I'm sure they've already submitted our build for our Friday update. Hopefully PC will get some more tweaks soon that address the many issues being brought up in the threads, but since we are getting a big update on consoles this week any fixes may take months to get to us. 

 

usually if im not mistaken most of our bugs are already worked out prior to them shipping it to consoles. but alas a few do slip threw the cracks. it may be easier if we were on the same patch but since consoles have to be cert'd first it takes awhile.

Edited by Ookami_Nihonto
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On 5. Juni 2016 at 8:58 PM, WhyNotBro said:

I just leave it here...


i`ve played this game over 2+ years. I really enjoyed it. Untill i reached max rank with all frames and weapons maxed. After that i`ve started to grow kubrows :D Yeah it took some time, but still...And now, i have no idea what to do here. Just...What?:D Long survival u say? Yeah sure. I really enjoy it. But it became such a ridicolous thing, same as long defence missions. Why, you ask? Because there is no smooth transition to the higher dificulty :D 1-40 lvls enemies are just a joke, then go 40-75 where we meet barely strong resistance. Aaaand then, after 70 lvls we dealing with our dear friends named "oneshots".  Frost, Volt  , Limbo, Valk , Nova , Loki , Nyx , Trinity. Theese guys only can be used to survive on high lands. Yeah of course , we have more usefull frames in this game, yes! But theese guys are core if you want to  survive. Only when you have at least couple of them in your team, you are able to pick others. 75-110 lvls enemies require a lot about teamplay with certain equipment. Thing is..After 110+ lvl i have nothing for my enemies :D  Usually , when im playing something over 70-100 lvls, i already have troubles (not mentioning my dear sentinel, rip bro), but it still can be played at some point. After that,  i have to quit ;D Really, i simply dont have such a strong team -_-  Clan? Region? They are very situational :D Sometimes you can play whole day with some strangers or your mates. Sometimes there is a dead zone, all quite :D  Weapons? Well...no.We all know..In camping sure, you can use torid. When they all debuffed by nova`s ulty, while you standing behind the vortex :D  Ah, also for abilities, right.

Frames?  We need hp / armor / shields system rework. We do, just believe me.

Farm. I heared so much about "G.R.I.N.D." from everywhere :D On forums people do cry about how hard to obtain something here. Well,yes. And No! When i had problems with all my resources, i simply created a team with same goals. Bought both boosters and spent like 1-2 hours hardcore farming for an each resource i`ve needed. That`s it :D I forgot about them almost for a year :p  This is not so hard, really.  Also, i want to mention about resources one more thing! Half of them jsut useless. So meaningless. (Nitain is not -_- This is such an asspain, for real. Fine by me)  We are not suposed to have an easy farm, it is not fun at all when you can get everything you want by one click!But at the same time, it MUST be interesting! For now, it is NOT. At all. Weapons and frames? Yeah here we have some troubles :D I will be talking about primes. That hardcore Many-hours- sweatty-true-grind, just because you want to obtain your treasure. Yeah. At some point, this is trully interesting :D But generally? This is too much "farming" you know. It is just a routine. Booooring , meaningless routine. We have only survival and defence for some really high lvls. Well, mostly survival :D  If you gonna farm other missions...they require keys...brrr. Additional boring "grind" source. Nothing more.  Always just a few, always S#&$ reward :D (t3  t4 keys).  So, this is all about endure the pain from the farm?:D  to get what you want? And what i am gonna do with this thing, which i farmed just now? Play more rapping simulator? Eh, i dont know :D I have a really stong feeling you DE, going to a wrong core direction.

Reward system:D It needs scalling at least. And please. Just pleaaase, deal with orokin cell as a reward. This is trully ridicilous :D Resources must be the drop, not the reward. Especially in Voids, come on :D. Nitain not included, at least one must be hard-to-get. Or how about you make sometithing like...T1- T2 - small stuff (mods , keys , formas , maybe some easy-to-craft weapons, for medium difficulty missions, and other crap :p). T3 - T4 - prime frames  and weapons only?Maybe prime mods? with very rare drop chance?:D  Same missions, different difficulty, different goal! Pretty simple and good, at my view. And honestly, i think we REALLY NEED MORE DIFFERENT REWARDS! Like lotus dog bp?:D In voids? :D Or something else, something needed, usable and rare :D

Credits. Not fair at all. One crap mission - 15k max, t3-t4 and ds - 25-35. Long surv or def - over 100 k per run. Max mod? Millions. Every Mod! We need how many mods?By the way, we DONT NEED HALF OF ALL EXISTING MODS. So we need really many mods...And you can`t grind credits, you need them all the time everywhere. Especially it is very hard for novices.

Market prices are so wrong, sorry ;D Just nooot fair at all. Beyond reality. I mean resources, for example :D
In conclusion we have: You have to endure the pain from the farming for hours to get 1/4  of the thing u need. And when you will get everything you need, you will simply realize that you have nothing to do there anymore. You dont have your "Valhalla". Where you can trully release all potentional of your weapons and frames. Because there is no potential:D After 65 lvl you are a powerless deadmen. But that`s exactly where the Fun lives! -_-

Also, i want to talk about "press 4 to win". Warframe is a horde game. We facing many many enemies form all sides icnoming. Sometimes we simply have no time / energy /something else to deal with a horde. We need an oportunity to kill entire room, if we really need it. Extermination is example. Who needs to play it, if you have survival or md? Only the reward is the reason. So its natural, if you want to finish this as fast as it possible. We need " cleaners" in this game. But it must be optional. Saryn was a good example :D When we had an old saryn, yes i used her to wipe everybody in short time, because i dont wanna spend much time for something totally meangless. I`ve played 3000+ hours in this game, so i think i have the right to say it.
At the same time, i liked to play melee tank as saryn. You know, it was optional! It completely depends on a person and a goal.  I couldn`t use saryn as an aoe dmger for a long defence or survival or any other thing above 55 lvl. Same as Ember now. And it was completely okay. Its not okay if we talking about 100 lvls, whom killed by one button in one second.This is OP, yes.
Frames ARE OPTIONAL. Some good for survival, some for spy. And we need "bosses" for every mission type. Same as we need " help" in farming. Like Mag was. (Just for example, dont yell at me!) And i guess, we need a frame,like...daily, u know ;D Clean there, def here, capture someone, but stricly for low lvls / middle lvls. High lvls must be the challenge ofcourse, but...reasonable:D More sweat - sweeter the rewards. Thats how it must be.
Synergy in frames is a really good idea, but untill we have "cast speed" thing, we will prefer to use 1 button in hard situations.

So, i think, main problem is about core calculation of damage, useless health armor and shields system, unfair rewards and main prices for everything.  If i can help somehow, call me :D

And well i wanna balance my words :D  Even with all these, Warframe is a great game, and you guys doing good, i do believe you can do even better!

 
P. S. Not mentioning Archwing for a reason :D

Open for negotiations :D

Great post - thanks.

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I'm just going to leave this here. I feel like this just should not be possible.

I really think, as you look into balancing for enemies, you should also look into how rewards are distributed, because getting rewards like this is just feel bad when farming for primed parts.

29CB14E1F2292D7B5C61A48F22A9AEE122A52D44

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13 minutes ago, Lithorrhage said:

I'm just going to leave this here. I feel like this just should not be possible.

I really think, as you look into balancing for enemies, you should also look into how rewards are distributed, because getting rewards like this is just feel bad when farming for primed parts.

29CB14E1F2292D7B5C61A48F22A9AEE122A52D44

Quoted for truth.

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50 minutes ago, (PS4)Magician_NG said:

 

*sighs*..Wonderful, so no info what so ever if we get any update today on Limbo/Ash, and of course this means, we won't be getting U19 until after E3/TennoCon.

This feels like such a waste of time, tho maybe we get something good in hte videos

Edited by LegionCynex
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