Automatics Should Suffer Distance Falloff in Conclave

[Lemonpartydragon]

Automatics are a strong weapon choice. Several of them have huge magazines with very low TTK/high damage-per-hit (Bratons, Karak Wraith). This would be fine if they were limited to medium range, but they are currently able to do full damage even at extreme distances. Although they are not that accurate, they are still effective enough to outperform weapons ostensibly intended for range such as the Daikyu or sniper/marksman rifles.

Note that I am primarily talking about hitscan automatics. Weapons such as the Boltor are generally fine due to the added penalty of projectile drop at long range. The Soma and Soma Prime are debatable - their damage is lower, but they have such absurd magazine sizes that they often end up functioning similarly.

My potential solution? Introduce a Conclave-exclusive distance-based damage falloff, similar to (but obviously gentler than) that of shotguns. This would prevent autos from being spammed at all ranges for easy kills, conferring more niche-specific utility on weapons like sniper rifles and semiautomatic marksman rifles.

• Example: Automatics now suffer a 2.5%/m damage penalty past 35m, capped at 35%.

Alternatively, lower automatic damage by a percentage proportional to their magazine size relative to some baseline.

• Example: Let the Karak be the baseline at 30 magazine size. For every 5 magazine size above 30, nerf other automatics' damage by 1.2% (Karak W. would drop by 7.2%).

The first option is preferable, as it more clearly defines the long-distance niche for Conclave weapons and leaves automatics generally powerful, but still prevents them from being used effectively as pseudo-snipers.

The second option would be a major power shift for the metagame, and does not confer any additional benefits beyond making other weapons relatively more powerful.

[Phasedragon]

I disagree. Most automatics are far too inaccurate to work at long ranges consistently. The ones that are accurate have tradeoffs elsewhere for that exact reason. And even in the case of the most accurate ones, snipers still outclass them simply because of zoom.

[Irorone]

9 minutes ago, Phasedragon said:

I disagree. Most automatics are far too inaccurate to work at long ranges consistently. The ones that are accurate have tradeoffs elsewhere for that exact reason. And even in the case of the most accurate ones, snipers still outclass them simply because of zoom.

And the fact you have to stay on target with automatics as opposed to handful of potshots.

[Witchydragon]

Automatics have lower TTK and outperform ranged weapons in terms of damage because of multiple factors:

1. The sporadic velocity changes that players are capable of make it extremely challenging to track targets for any length of time
2. Most automatics suffer from high inaccuracy, so between constant velocity changes, and the constantly contorting hitboxes which come with parkour maneuvers, more shots will miss purely due to random chance.
3. The inaccuracy also reduces it's effective range unless scoped in, in which case a skilled sniper will outperform the skilled rifle user because the rifle user has to track the sniper for a longer period of time, and does not have the luxury of single tap headshots.

If automatics had perfect spread, or players could not use bulletjump/doublejump, I could possibly see falloff fitting automatic hitscan weapons. However in the game's current state, the addition of falloff will neuter automatics and they will not have a place in most player's inventories with the exception of finishers. 

In any match that is populated by experienced players, automatics are already uncommon because most of these players are more accurate when doing flick shots than tracking. 

[Pythadragon]

Autos doing full damage at range is necessary to allow for new and average players (who do not have the aim skill to use precision weapons against hyper mobile opponents) to get random kills against experienced players (and players who are just mashing jump-crouch-roll randomly).

Edited November 7, 2016 by Pythadragon

[(PSN)Xx-Ribbium-xX]

Automatics are fine the way they are you just need to learn how to deal with them like everyone else 

[(PSN)Radek-98]

Maybe its time to follow your own advice

Edited November 7, 2016 by (PS4)TheKiller9805

[(PSN)Radek-98]

8 hours ago, (PS4)Xx-Ribbium-xX said:

S#&$ F*** *@##$

Delete this

Edited November 7, 2016 by (PS4)TheKiller9805

[(PSN)Xx-Ribbium-xX]

1 hour ago, (PS4)TheKiller9805 said:

S#&$ F*** *@##$

Delete this

 

[Lemonpartydragon]

On 11/6/2016 at 9:43 PM, Phasedragon said:

I disagree. Most automatics are far too inaccurate to work at long ranges consistently. The ones that are accurate have tradeoffs elsewhere for that exact reason. And even in the case of the most accurate ones, snipers still outclass them simply because of zoom.

 

On 11/6/2016 at 9:54 PM, Irorone said:

And the fact you have to stay on target with automatics as opposed to handful of potshots.

Grouping Phase and Irorone for this response.

The issue isn't so much one of accuracy as it is one of damage relative to magazine size making these weapons overperform. Sure, several assault rifles have mediocre accuracy at a distance, but when they require <40% of their magazine to deliver a kill, that "tradeoff" becomes significantly less problematic. I'm not sure what the "tradeoffs elsewhere" that you speak of even are - looking at the Bratons, Karaks, Stradavar, only the MK-1 Braton has an accuracy different from 28.6 (it has 40.0), and the differences in TTK across all of these weapons are minimal. I assume reload speed to be negligible considering the holster-reload mod paradigm. So what you end up with is a host of rifles that have comparable and good kill potential, but several with such absurd magazines (78 w/ FC on the Karak Wraith? So much ammo) that it is possible to wildly spam the gun even from the distance where spread has a substantial effect and still score kills. I think that is bad.

Even if you need to stay "on target," realistically you only need to do this for a series of short bursts or a very short time due to how strong these weapons are, and this just exacerbates the problem stemming from the magazine/damage interactions.

21 hours ago, Pythadragon said:

Autos doing full damage at range is necessary to allow for new and average players (who do not have the aim skill to use precision weapons against hyper mobile opponents) to get random kills against experienced players (and players who are just mashing jump-crouch-roll randomly).

Random kills are the opposite of skilled gameplay, and should not be something that a good balance paradigm encourages in this way. The solution to a gap in player skill is practice and improvement.

13 hours ago, (PS4)Xx-Ribbium-xX said:

Automatics are fine the way they are you just need to learn how to deal with them like everyone else 

This is so terribly constructive. Really.

[Irorone]

2 hours ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

 

Grouping Phase and Irorone for this response.

The issue isn't so much one of accuracy as it is one of damage relative to magazine size making these weapons overperform. Sure, several assault rifles have mediocre accuracy at a distance, but when they require <40% of their magazine to deliver a kill, that "tradeoff" becomes significantly less problematic. I'm not sure what the "tradeoffs elsewhere" that you speak of even are - looking at the Bratons, Karaks, Stradavar, only the MK-1 Braton has an accuracy different from 28.6 (it has 40.0), and the differences in TTK across all of these weapons are minimal. I assume reload speed to be negligible considering the holster-reload mod paradigm. So what you end up with is a host of rifles that have comparable and good kill potential, but several with such absurd magazines (78 w/ FC on the Karak Wraith? So much ammo) that it is possible to wildly spam the gun even from the distance where spread has a substantial effect and still score kills. I think that is bad.

Even if you need to stay "on target," realistically you only need to do this for a series of short bursts or a very short time due to how strong these weapons are, and this just exacerbates the problem stemming from the magazine/damage interactions.

Random kills are the opposite of skilled gameplay, and should not be something that a good balance paradigm encourages in this way. The solution to a gap in player skill is practice and improvement.

This is so terribly constructive. Really.

Overperform?

Dps of three conclave primed weapons all bodyshot values, some slight errors during input so it's not down to the decimal point.

Vectis Prime 112.5

Tigris Prime 290.4

Soma Prime 255.4

Also the matter of accuracy is RIDICULOUSLY relevant when we're talking conclave considering that the targets aren't huskily jogging Grineer they're bullet-jump-spam tenno.  That Soma Prime damage is assuming you can stay on target with it.  The tigris prime damage however you just have to unload both barrels at a relatively close distance while staying on target (a fair challenge considering said bullet-jump-spam).  The vectis prime damage may seem not worth it at first but keep that it's also a LOT more accurate than the other two and has a much higher headshot bonus.

Again you putting air quotes on staying on target CONSIDERABLY underestimates how effective bullet jumping is for throwing off aim.  You can literally chain bullet jumps at incredibly sharp angle changes which is why all the bullet jump speed mods I've seen for conclave come with a tradeoff in effective health.  If you try to aim for any considerable timeframe in a 1v1 scenario you just open yourself up to the potshots from tigris, vectis, etc.  Simple fact is if you have the aim to maintain auto fire on a target you probably have even better aim with the potshot weapons.

The only time I've seen full auto weapons excel was when an ember player would use WoF to soften up the target first.

Also NOTHING about conclave equipment is random aside from accuracy, there are no "no skill weapons".  There is no crit chance, there is no status chance,

Projectile weapons need to lead their target, including the explosive ones.

Full auto need to stay on target to be effective.  That Soma Prime DPS?  That's if you stay 100% on target, not missing a SINGLE shot, chewing through 15 out of 200 rounds a second.  You also can only maintain that dps if you regularly grab ammo boxes since you'd be chewing through 7.5% of your total ammo a second of fire.

Burst damage type weapons (semi auto shotguns, snipers) need click timing and careful reloading in the cases of vectis and tigris.

Warframes themselves?  Not sure about balanced but definitely not random.

 

You know what IS required for ironclad balance?

Symmetrical warframe loadouts (so that no team has any sort of power advantage over the other)

Symmetrical weapon loadouts (so that it comes down to player skill average with those weapons)

Symmetrical maps (so it comes down to player knowledge and skill on LoS and pickup times)

 

 

Edited November 8, 2016 by Irorone

[Nighttide77]

2 hours ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

Random kills are the opposite of skilled gameplay, and should not be something that a good balance paradigm encourages in this way. The solution to a gap in player skill is practice and improvement.

Just my 2 cents:

As much as I personally hate getting fragged by stray bullets and arrows, I think standard Conclave already requires a high level of skill. If imposing a damage-fall-off on autos would widen the skillgap between casual and expert, then we would see even fewer players. I'm pretty sure that would be detrimental to the game mode.

The Variant mode is already pretty much a haven for skilled play. What standard mode could probably use are more things that make it more accessible to casuals so they have fun playing it, rather than farming it for Rep.

[Lemonpartydragon]

9 hours ago, Irorone said:

Overperform?

Dps of three conclave primed weapons all bodyshot values, some slight errors during input so it's not down to the decimal point.

Vectis Prime 112.5

Tigris Prime 290.4

Soma Prime 255.4

Also the matter of accuracy is RIDICULOUSLY relevant when we're talking conclave considering that the targets aren't huskily jogging Grineer they're bullet-jump-spam tenno.  That Soma Prime damage is assuming you can stay on target with it.  The tigris prime damage however you just have to unload both barrels at a relatively close distance while staying on target (a fair challenge considering said bullet-jump-spam).  The vectis prime damage may seem not worth it at first but keep that it's also a LOT more accurate than the other two and has a much higher headshot bonus.

Again you putting air quotes on staying on target CONSIDERABLY underestimates how effective bullet jumping is for throwing off aim.  You can literally chain bullet jumps at incredibly sharp angle changes which is why all the bullet jump speed mods I've seen for conclave come with a tradeoff in effective health.  If you try to aim for any considerable timeframe in a 1v1 scenario you just open yourself up to the potshots from tigris, vectis, etc.  Simple fact is if you have the aim to maintain auto fire on a target you probably have even better aim with the potshot weapons.

The only time I've seen full auto weapons excel was when an ember player would use WoF to soften up the target first.

Also NOTHING about conclave equipment is random aside from accuracy, there are no "no skill weapons".  There is no crit chance, there is no status chance,

Projectile weapons need to lead their target, including the explosive ones.

Full auto need to stay on target to be effective.  That Soma Prime DPS?  That's if you stay 100% on target, not missing a SINGLE shot, chewing through 15 out of 200 rounds a second.  You also can only maintain that dps if you regularly grab ammo boxes since you'd be chewing through 7.5% of your total ammo a second of fire.

Burst damage type weapons (semi auto shotguns, snipers) need click timing and careful reloading in the cases of vectis and tigris.

Warframes themselves?  Not sure about balanced but definitely not random.

 

You know what IS required for ironclad balance?

Symmetrical warframe loadouts (so that no team has any sort of power advantage over the other)

Symmetrical weapon loadouts (so that it comes down to player skill average with those weapons)

Symmetrical maps (so it comes down to player knowledge and skill on LoS and pickup times)

 

 

The Vectis Prime v. Tigris Prime v. Soma Prime comparison:

• Not the actual DPS, you aren't accounting for damage type interactions
• Vectis gets two shots into a reload and the DPS difference is mostly attributable to that frequent downtime
• Missed the entire point about how autos don't need to be accurate to be successful because they have so much ammo and damage together
• DPS does not decrease because you are off-target, it simply ceases; the DPS measures for all three cited weapons are relevant only for on-target time, but only one of them (Soma Prime) has the ability to maintain a series of intermittent periods of on-target fire - this is the problem
• Tigris Prime isn't really relevant to the topic at hand; it is a shotgun and has a definite and serious tradeoff on its kill power in the form of accuracy (DBD is basically mandatory), high downtime from reloads, and terrible effective range (due to both spread and damage falloff)

My putting air quotes on "on target" emphasizes my disdain for the idea that you need to have pinpoint tracking to make autos effective - you don't, and that's pretty much the entire point of what I'm arguing, that autos are too effective for how often they hit simply based on bullet spray, rather than good aim.

There are actually no-skill/low-skill weapons; post-SotR melee spam comes to mind, as does the Latron series when Double Tap was bugged. Autos are probably much less egregious than these, but a small pile of faeces is still a pile of faeces. And if you've only ever seen autos being effective when used with WoF, you obviously haven't played much - or watched players with excellent tracking like Witchydragon, _Sky, etc.

Symmetrical weapons, loadouts, and maps create homogeneity, but not balance - and even games with a high focus on team-based play like LoL or DotA allow significant asymmetry in item/hero variation, which is analogous to our loadouts. Variety is a good thing, and it is possible for many different weapons/frames to be balanced within a dominant numerical schema. Symmetry of the sort you allege is not necessary at all. Not to mention that it cannot even be implemented in FFA.

 

 

[Irorone]

3 minutes ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

The Vectis Prime v. Tigris Prime v. Soma Prime comparison:

• Not the actual DPS, you aren't accounting for damage type interactions
• Vectis gets two shots into a reload and the DPS difference is mostly attributable to that frequent downtime
• Missed the entire point about how autos don't need to be accurate to be successful because they have so much ammo and damage together
• DPS does not decrease because you are off-target, it simply ceases; the DPS measures for all three cited weapons are relevant only for on-target time, but only one of them (Soma Prime) has the ability to maintain a series of intermittent periods of on-target fire - this is the problem
• Tigris Prime isn't really relevant to the topic at hand; it is a shotgun and has a definite and serious tradeoff on its kill power in the form of accuracy (DBD is basically mandatory), high downtime from reloads, and terrible effective range (due to both spread and damage falloff)

My putting air quotes on "on target" emphasizes my disdain for the idea that you need to have pinpoint tracking to make autos effective - you don't, and that's pretty much the entire point of what I'm arguing, that autos are too effective for how often they hit simply based on bullet spray, rather than good aim.

There are actually no-skill/low-skill weapons; post-SotR melee spam comes to mind, as does the Latron series when Double Tap was bugged. Autos are probably much less egregious than these, but a small pile of faeces is still a pile of faeces. And if you've only ever seen autos being effective when used with WoF, you obviously haven't played much - or watched players with excellent tracking like Witchydragon, _Sky, etc.

Symmetrical weapons, loadouts, and maps create homogeneity, but not balance - and even games with a high focus on team-based play like LoL or DotA allow significant asymmetry in item/hero variation, which is analogous to our loadouts. Variety is a good thing, and it is possible for many different weapons/frames to be balanced within a dominant numerical schema. Symmetry of the sort you allege is not necessary at all. Not to mention that it cannot even be implemented in FFA.

 

 

Damage type interactions?  Last I checked there are no status procs or crit procs in conclave so the only interaction would be armor which varies by frame.

Not exactly no as I mentioned but pretty close.  He was saying that the only two things to keep in mind is per shot damage and mag size which is why I kept mentioning how the accuracy stat is a big deal.

And the fact you only have to stay on target for 2-4 shots as opposed to 20-40 in a rapidly direction changing movement environment.

Except they do because it's not like an Ignis you have to be in the correct ballpark to even hit with an automatics.

Last time I checked MISSING affects your dps a LOT.

Tries to take player accuracy and weapon based bullet spread out of the picture in a statement about PVP damage *facepalm*.

Have you ever tried to melee somebody mid bullet jump jousting?  I doubt it based on how easy you think melee kills are on rapidly moving targets in conclave.  Also the fact you're bringing in a "bugged mod" in a discussion about pvp balance on weapons.  Again if they have the tracking for it than they're probably even better with aforementioned potshot weapons.  Also I mentioned WoF because said spray and pray weapons tend to work a lot better if something else softens up the targets first.

Actually it does create balance in a PVP environment, people just don't consider balance necessarily fun.  If each side has the same weapons, the same map opportunities etc. then the only difference is in player skill AKA balanced PVP.

Symmetry IS necessary for balanced PVP but as mentioned; balanced pvp is not necessarily fun pvp.  Also yes it can be implemented in FFA, it's called radial symmetry. It's not a matter of balance at that point it's a matter of fun and last I checked "balance" was supposed to be the point of your argument.

Different styles of weapons require different playstyles to maximize effectiveness.

Shotguns-get close and on target

Autos-staying on target and adjusting for variances in bullet spread between different autos.

Projectiles-leading and predicting enemy movement

 

If you're gonna say automatics are OP just because they have a LOT of bullets despite everything I've mentioned (player tracking and skill, weapon variety, ammo efficiency etc.)  than this topic is really nothing more than you ranting about how you don't like automatics in PVP cuz they offer a steady stream of bullets. 

*Drops mic exits stage right*

 

[Lemonpartydragon]

On 11/8/2016 at 0:35 PM, Irorone said:

Damage type interactions?  Last I checked there are no status procs or crit procs in conclave so the only interaction would be armor which varies by frame.

Not exactly no as I mentioned but pretty close.  He was saying that the only two things to keep in mind is per shot damage and mag size which is why I kept mentioning how the accuracy stat is a big deal.

And the fact you only have to stay on target for 2-4 shots as opposed to 20-40 in a rapidly direction changing movement environment.

Except they do because it's not like an Ignis you have to be in the correct ballpark to even hit with an automatics.

Last time I checked MISSING affects your dps a LOT.

Tries to take player accuracy and weapon based bullet spread out of the picture in a statement about PVP damage *facepalm*.

Have you ever tried to melee somebody mid bullet jump jousting?  I doubt it based on how easy you think melee kills are on rapidly moving targets in conclave.  Also the fact you're bringing in a "bugged mod" in a discussion about pvp balance on weapons.  Again if they have the tracking for it than they're probably even better with aforementioned potshot weapons.  Also I mentioned WoF because said spray and pray weapons tend to work a lot better if something else softens up the targets first.

Actually it does create balance in a PVP environment, people just don't consider balance necessarily fun.  If each side has the same weapons, the same map opportunities etc. then the only difference is in player skill AKA balanced PVP.

Symmetry IS necessary for balanced PVP but as mentioned; balanced pvp is not necessarily fun pvp.  Also yes it can be implemented in FFA, it's called radial symmetry. It's not a matter of balance at that point it's a matter of fun and last I checked "balance" was supposed to be the point of your argument.

Different styles of weapons require different playstyles to maximize effectiveness.

Shotguns-get close and on target

Autos-staying on target and adjusting for variances in bullet spread between different autos.

Projectiles-leading and predicting enemy movement

 

If you're gonna say automatics are OP just because they have a LOT of bullets despite everything I've mentioned (player tracking and skill, weapon variety, ammo efficiency etc.)  than this topic is really nothing more than you ranting about how you don't like automatics in PVP cuz they offer a steady stream of bullets. 

*Drops mic exits stage right*

 

You really miss the point here, I think.

All PvE damage-type interaction are present in Conclave. Cold is better against Alloy armor, Puncture against Ferrite, Electric against Magnetic, etc. This is important, as some automatics have particularly effective damage spreads atop their already high damage per-shot (Karak W. is a good case: primarily Impact means that it shreds shields, which have been a slight bulk on eHP for some time now, if I recall correctly).

As for DPS, yes, obviously missing decreases your DPS over the timespan of a whole match or engagement. This has absolutely nothing to do with how, for shots that land, DPS is consistent and high for automatic weapons - and thus how, because large-mag automatics can just keep spraying and reliably hit 15-20% of their shots even when a blind stoat is pulling the trigger, autos consistently deal outsize damage despite the players using them having terrible aim. Staying on-target only scales this damage advantage higher, creating a weird performance curve for the weapon class where they overperform for both low and very high skill, and are on-par somewhere in the middle.

Melee hits mid-BJ are not exceptionally difficult. During the reaper air melee metagame it was easy to pick up kills or wear down enemies this way, particularly when jumping past each other for this exact purpose was common. This is also fairly irrelevant.

Not sure where you get off dropping a mic you don't even have.

Edited November 18, 2016 by Lemonpartydragon

[SevenLetterKWord]

2 hours ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

All PvE damage-type interaction are present in Conclave. Cold is better against Alloy (Tenno) armor, Electric against Shields, etc.

Players in Conclave have ferrite armor and electric damage has no modifier against shields.

[Lemonpartydragon]

54 minutes ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

Players in Conclave have ferrite armor and electric damage has no modifier against shields.

Since when is our armor Ferrite in Conclave?

Modified the other bit; I was thinking of Magnetic and ended up projecting that onto Electric damage somehow. Oops.