Returning Player Questions: Balance Changes

[Callback]

Basically, what hasn't been nerfed into the ground?

 

Mesa seems to have been double-nerfed making her ult double-useless.  

 

What even is the new efficiency formula for channeled abilities?  It seems duration has some effect, but so does efficiency modded OVER the 175 cap.  And yet fleeting expertise definitely does still help?

 

Greedy Mag seems to be nerfed as well.  No longer 360 degrees and it seems you now need line of sight to the items?  What is even the point then?  If you have to move around the entire map getting LoS on every nook and cranny to pull it, why are you pulling at all?

 

Synoid Gammacor seems to have never been un-nerfed.

 

What else is useless now?  What remains that is in any way decent?

[GinKenshin]

well, the mindset of people thinking every little 'balancing' change is a nerf hasn't been nerfed, I can tell you that : P 

[NinjaKitsune56]

5 minutes ago, Callback said:

Basically, what hasn't been nerfed into the ground?

 

Mesa seems to have been double-nerfed making her ult double-useless.  

 

What even is the new efficiency formula for channeled abilities?  It seems duration has some effect, but so does efficiency modded OVER the 175 cap.  And yet fleeting expertise definitely does still help?

 

Greedy Mag seems to be nerfed as well.  No longer 360 degrees and it seems you now need line of sight to the items?  What is even the point then?  If you have to move around the entire map getting LoS on every nook and cranny to pull it, why are you pulling at all?

 

Synoid Gammacor seems to have never been un-nerfed.

 

What else is useless now?  What remains that is in any way decent?

I don't know the exact efficiency formula for channeled abilities (ie: World on Fire) so I couldn't tell you right off the top.

As for "decent" weapons... depends on what you're after.

For Warframes... you can still use any Warframe in any situation, but some are trickier than others, especially with the Nullifiers and Eximus units.

[Nova]

Mesa's ult is powered off secondary mods, it's a pretty decent buff if you know how to mod a weapon

Or, you can just use Dual Toxocyst with her ult and kill lvl 150 bombards in less than 3 seconds, as headshots with it buff all secondary weapon fire rates, including Peacemaker

Greedy Mag got rekt because of abusive players, but now her bullet jump is basically a mini 360 vacuum

Power duration extends the time it takes for a channeled ability to drain energy, I believe it's just relative to the duration (150 duration = 1.5x longer time for energy drain)

Synoid gammacor got nerfed? It's in a pretty decent place last I played around with it

EDIT: this guy's right about duration v

Edited October 18, 2016 by -domi-

[[DE]Momaw]

Mesa's ultimate now does utterly absurd amounts of damage. You should try it.

Synoid Gammacor is still a very powerful weapon.

Greedy Mag was changed because it led to lazy, stationary styles of gameplay.

 

Efficiency for sustained abilities is:

cost * (200-efficiency) / 100 / duration

With a minimum energy cost of 25% of baseline. This change means that sustained abilities no longer get duration "for free".  Negative duration increases energy use per second, while positive duration reduces energy per second.

 

If you're looking for new stuff to try, I see that your most used primary weapon is Latron Prime.  Perhaps you would like the Stradavar?  Build it for crits and use it on semi-automatic mode. Not as powerful per shot as the Latrons, but significantly faster and the magazine size is huge.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Momaw

[PoisonHD]

@Momaw said it better then I could. So just listen to him lol

Edited October 18, 2016 by PoisonHD

[bluepheonix13]

29 minutes ago, Callback said:

Basically, what hasn't been nerfed into the ground?

TL;DR: Everything. There is a difference between nerfing into the ground and balancing abusive/trivializing abilities/weapons.

My long answer for your concerns: I started playing Warframe shortly before the Efficiency change you speak of and thus, never got to try the other things you mentioned before their change, but I can say that:

• The Efficiency change has it's positive and negative sides, but overall I like it. On the one hand you can't go min duration on channeling frames now (but Streamline + Fleeting still gives min drain, see http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Power_Efficiency for details) and on the other hand, frames which also need duration can now be played without Fleeting and still get a decent energy drain
• Mesa is one of my most liked frames and she can wreck enemies easily (try modding her secondary weapon for crit), especially since she can now use elemental mods
• Mag is a frame, whose style never really spoke to me, but I must admit that she feels a lot better to play now and she is very viable against Grineer AND Corpus
• Synoid Gammacor, well can't say anything about that, I don't like it. At least it gives energy.

[John89brensen]

Mesa nerfed?! First of all, she hasnt been nerfed ever, unless you consider the removal of "press 4 to win" a nerf. Second, she got a nice buff, and now her peacemaker is affected by her secondary weapon mods achieving insane amounts of damage, plus shooting gallery applies on Mesa for the whole duration and still rotates amongst teammates.

And here i thought there was too much powercreep.

Edited October 18, 2016 by John89brensen

[Inarticulate]

49 minutes ago, Callback said:

Mesa seems to have been double-nerfed making her ult double-useless.  

No idea what you're talking about. Mesa's Regulators can now be modded using your secondary weapon mods, and you're now able to prioritize targets unlike the old 360-degree auto-target.

51 minutes ago, Callback said:

What even is the new efficiency formula for channeled abilities?  It seems duration has some effect, but so does efficiency modded OVER the 175 cap.  And yet fleeting expertise definitely does still help?

• [channeled power cost] = [power base cost] x (1 - [power efficiency modifier]) / (1 + [power duration modifier])

where [power efficiency modifier] is simply the sum of all mods affecting power efficiency and [power duration modifier] is simply the sum of all mods affecting power duration. If (1 - [power efficiency modifier]) / (1 + [power duration modifier]) is less than 0.25, use 0.25 instead. Note that the "efficiency cap" is calculated after both efficiency and duration are considered, so efficiency greater than +75% still counts.

57 minutes ago, Callback said:

Greedy Mag seems to be nerfed as well.  No longer 360 degrees and it seems you now need line of sight to the items?  What is even the point then?  If you have to move around the entire map getting LoS on every nook and cranny to pull it, why are you pulling at all?

This is what happens when people abuse their powers.

57 minutes ago, Callback said:

Synoid Gammacor seems to have never been un-nerfed.

And...? It still does just as much damage as before, but has low ammo economy. There's this thing called balance. Look into it.

59 minutes ago, Callback said:

What else is useless now?  What remains that is in any way decent?

Everything is fine. You're making a big deal out of nothing.

[Dogefighter]

56 minutes ago, -domi- said:

Or, you can just use Dual Toxocyst with her ult and kill lvl 150 bombards in less than 3 seconds, as headshots with it buff all secondary weapon fire rates, including Peacemaker

Yup

Love those Toxocysts <3

[(PSN)CrackFoxLegend]

Basically, as you can see, a bunch of new players started playing while you were gone and whined and complained to DE so much that they started making everything boring to use. Completely ruining the investment you made before they ever heard about this awesome game. And as you can see, they have very little respect for anyone else's opinion because they feel like they're getting a pat on the head every time something gets nerfed.

[Askell91]

Mesa hits like a truck... just saying.

[Callback]

1 hour ago, bluepheonix13 said:

TL;DR: Everything. There is a difference between nerfing into the ground and balancing abusive/trivializing abilities/weapons.

My long answer for your concerns: I started playing Warframe shortly before the Efficiency change you speak of and thus, never got to try the other things you mentioned before their change, but I can say that:

• The Efficiency change has it's positive and negative sides, but overall I like it. On the one hand you can't go min duration on channeling frames now (but Streamline + Fleeting still gives min drain, see http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Power_Efficiency for details) and on the other hand, frames which also need duration can now be played without Fleeting and still get a decent energy drain
• Mesa is one of my most liked frames and she can wreck enemies easily (try modding her secondary weapon for crit), especially since she can now use elemental mods
• Mag is a frame, whose style never really spoke to me, but I must admit that she feels a lot better to play now and she is very viable against Grineer AND Corpus
• Synoid Gammacor, well can't say anything about that, I don't like it. At least it gives energy.

Max fleeting, so I need another copy to rank since the 50 and 30 versions are still useful.

Make that 2 copies so I can have a 40% as well for Nyx (185 eff 60 dur = 175 overall eff)

Meanwhile sound quake Banshee has no real balanced build there.  I guess go 200 efficiency so it's always minimum cost even at minimum duration (transient fortitude)?

Ugh, farming 2 more copies of fleeting to have 2 is going to be annoying.  Did DE really never consider the request from WAY back to allow mods to be downclocked in a slot?  Max 1 copy and pick any rank to actually use when actually installing it?

 

Edit:
Oh great, it's worse.  Dragon keys are even harder to craft now.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Callback

[bluepheonix13]

29 minutes ago, Callback said:

Max fleeting, so I need another copy to rank since the 50 and 30 versions are still useful.

Make that 2 copies so I can have a 40% as well for Nyx (185 eff 60 dur = 175 overall eff)

Ugh, farming 2 more copies of fleeting to have 2 is going to be annoying.  

You have real first world problems, but

29 minutes ago, Callback said:

Did DE really never consider the request from WAY back to allow mods to be downclocked in a slot?  Max 1 copy and pick any rank to actually use when actually installing it?

I second this.

29 minutes ago, Callback said:

Meanwhile sound quake Banshee has no real balanced build there.  I guess go 200 efficiency so it's always minimum cost even at minimum duration (transient fortitude)?

What do you mean with balanced build? Also, 200 Eff is only possible with the Arcane helment and I have no idea how that would work. Probably make duration irrelevant as you say. If you want to minimize drain AND use transient fortitude without the Arcane helmet, you can counter the -dur with Constitution or a simple Continuity. 190eff and 40 dur is min drain.

29 minutes ago, Callback said:

Edit:
Oh great, it's worse.  Dragon keys are even harder to craft now.

With the change to relics (which are consumed much faster), I find it actually better that it doesn't use relics and 10 traces are really not much.

[Callback]

7 minutes ago, bluepheonix13 said:

What do you mean with balanced build? Also, 200 Eff is only possible with the Arcane helment and I have no idea how that would work. Probably make duration irrelevant as you say. If you want to minimize drain AND use transient fortitude without the Arcane helmet, you can counter the -dur with Constitution or a simple Continuity. 190eff and 40 dur is min drain.

I mean that 190/40 and 185/60 both equal exactly 25% cost, so no wasted energy.  Banshee the best I can do for energy is to go full 200 efficiency which should negate duration since 0 times any penalty is still 0, which is then raised to the cap of 25.

 

Yes arcane chorus.  Why else would I single our Banshee and Nyx?  They're the 2 channeled frames with efficiency arcanes.  Vespa is the reason I can do 185/60 on Nyx.  Loki has no channeled so he can go 175/70 before adding duration buffs (since he thrives on duration buffs)

[bluepheonix13]

Quote

that they started making everything boring to use.

Aren't you mixing things up? Playing Mesa was not boring before? It is SO much better now and actually needs you to do something. I am not the guy who will defend DE for anything they do (the 6m Vacuum was way too low), but I appreciate almost every change they made, because they were much needed QoL improvements and/or the untrivialization of content.

1 hour ago, (PS4)CrackFoxLegend said:

Basically, as you can see, a bunch of new players started playing while you were gone and whined and complained to DE so much

Quote

Completely ruining the investment you made before they ever heard about this awesome game. And as you can see, they have very little respect for anyone else's opinion because they feel like they're getting a pat on the head every time something gets nerfed.

I don't know what players you met, but I'm pretty sure DE didn't change the things they changed because "a bunch of new players" whined, but because things were not balanced and/or trivializing the game. Also, Warframe is an everchanging game, which you should know by now (even a "newbie" as I am can see that). Sorry to say it, but you sound like you are the type of person who can't stand any change and maybe Warframe is not the right game for you if you feel like all your investment is ruined once a change comes.

 

[bluepheonix13]

3 minutes ago, Callback said:

I mean that 190/40 and 185/60 both equal exactly 25% cost, so no wasted energy.  Banshee the best I can do for energy is to go full 200 efficiency which should negate duration since 0 times any penalty is still 0, which is then raised to the cap of 25.

As I said, you can counter TransFort's -dur with Constitution or Continuity, which is a "balanced build" for me.

 

3 minutes ago, Callback said:

Yes arcane chorus.  Why else would I single our Banshee and Nyx?  They're the 2 channeled frames with efficiency arcanes.  Vespa is the reason I can do 185/60 on Nyx.  Loki has no channeled so he can go 175/70 before adding duration buffs (since he thrives on duration buffs)

I'm sorry, Arcane helmets have been gone for a while now (since before I started) and I won't bother to buy any with plat, that is why I have no idea about which helmet gives what.

[(PSN)CrackFoxLegend]

3 hours ago, bluepheonix13 said:

I don't know what players you met, but I'm pretty sure DE didn't change the things they changed because "a bunch of new players" whined, but because things were not balanced and/or trivializing the game. Also, Warframe is an everchanging game, which you should know by now (even a "newbie" as I am can see that). Sorry to say it, but you sound like you are the type of person who can't stand any change and maybe Warframe is not the right game for you if you feel like all your investment is ruined once a change comes.

 

Saryn has gone from pressing one button while on the move, to pressing two buttons while standing still. Ash is going from spamming one button to spamming two buttons, etc. fun stuff. Saran does increased damage (balance much?) while staying in one spot. Your point? Also, I was addressing the founder in the room.

[John89brensen]

4 hours ago, (PS4)CrackFoxLegend said:

Saryn has gone from pressing one button while on the move, to pressing two buttons while standing still. Ash is going from spamming one button to spamming two buttons, etc. fun stuff. Saran does increased damage (balance much?) while staying in one spot. Your point? Also, I was addressing the founder in the room.

Standing still is not the only way to play Saryn, you can cast spores and toxic lash, and then cast miasma. Its not the best idea by far, but its much better than having someone standing still pressing one button repeatedly and killing everything. This is because DE refuses to use cooldowns for powers, so they force you to be more "active" in your play style.

 

Edit: in any case OP is completely wrong about Mesa, she is in her best moment.

Edited October 19, 2016 by John89brensen

[(PSN)CrackFoxLegend]

38 minutes ago, John89brensen said:

Standing still is not the only way to play Saryn, you can cast spores and toxic lash, and then cast miasma. Its not the best idea by far, but its much better than having someone standing still pressing one button repeatedly and killing everything. This is because DE refuses to use cooldowns for powers, so they force you to be more "active" in your play style.

 

Edit: in any case OP is completely wrong about Mesa, she is in her best moment.

I think you missed the point. They changed saryn because players spammed her 4th. Now players only have to cast molt, spam her 1st, and shoot it. Woo hoo, fun. All sarcasm aside, there will always be a "meta" and nobody can stop that in ANY game without shutting down the servers. Just leave the unique characters alone and focus on important issues at the moment. Like my buddy constantly getting kicked from his first mission literally every time he logs in or getting frozen every time I go to view a profile, clipping of tons and tons of in game items. You know quality stuff, the stuff that's kept many others and myself playing for years. Vets aren't going to stop playing because things are easier to trivialize or to earn. That's dumb, were still here are we not?

[John89brensen]

20 minutes ago, (PS4)CrackFoxLegend said:

They changed saryn because players spammed her 4th.

Yes, and that is a problem, what is the point of playing a game if you can just spam 4 and kill everything. DE keeps increasing powercreep, making spaming 4 or 1,2,4 a moot point. This problem could be easily solved with a cooldown counter.

 

23 minutes ago, (PS4)CrackFoxLegend said:

All sarcasm aside, there will always be a "meta" and nobody can stop that in ANY game without shutting down the servers.

Yes, and the current meta seems to be having a Saryn thats constantly hocking loogies. My god, i even offer myself as dps, so long as i dont have to listen 20 minutes of Saryn casting. Much more enjoyable using a Quake Banshee, which if you are reading OP, you are completely wrong, Quake Banshee is not as over powered as she might look at first glance, she is heavily dependant on EV.