Launcher Rebalancing; the Zarr proves that not even uncontrollable explosive ordnance is an excuse for a lack of selfdamage risk for AOE reward.

[TheLexiConArtist]

Still waiting on that Tonkor and Synoid/Simulor rebalance that was promised several Devstreams past.

The Zarr makes me giddy from the sheer feedback of wielding it, but as a launcher it's still useless in comparison to those broken alternatives.

 

Those clustered 'seeking' rockets go pretty much wherever they please, but you can be damn sure you still take damage from them yourself. Where's the crying of "Can't put selfdamage on muh Tonka toy, how will I not blow myself up all day" babies now?

 

"Clustering Mortar that doubles as a shotgun in a pinch" is the most Grineer thing I have ever heard and I love it. Please, fix the obsolescence of weapons that don't even exist yet. Balance the Tonkor and Simulor.

 

That headshot bugfix wasn't a nerf. Remember THIS? We all proved the need for this many, many, MANY times over.

Edited November 14, 2016 by EDYinnit

[SDGDen]

the tonkor im quite alright with. but the simulor i just cant stand. every time i join a survival there is at least one mirage spamming it making sure she gets all the kills. leaving the other players to do nothing but pick up loot and activate life support. which takes all the fun out of the game. 

[Dawn11715]

How about doing the opposite and remove selfdamage completely?

Just look at ogris: Its a greater thread to yourself then to everyone else, thats not how weapons should work.

Decreased self damage would make it usable again. That being said I agree that s. simulor is op right now and should get some rebalancing, but not by making it killing its user. For me self inflicted damage is just nothing that fits into warframe, just like damage from falling. Your teammates dont die from your guns, so why should you...

 

[Chewarette]

Activating self damage is a band-aid that will solve the problem, indeed, but not at all as you want it to.

Nerf Tonkor so that it OS its user ? Great, everybody will ignore rocket/grenade launcher, as you are guaranteed to suicide a couple of times. And you will just have to leave every tileset that includes corridors.

Congratulations, Tonkor is nerfed but Penta/Ogris and all their brothers are still not used. Guess why ? The problem was not the Tonkor's lack of self damage.

The only "problem" you can solve is reducing Tonkor's base damage, yes. You want to fix grenade launchers ? Reduce self damage for all. That's an horrific mechanic, getting OS'd  by something is usually boring if that's inevitable. Getting OS'd by your own weapon because it bounces weirdly / a mate passed in front of you / you're surrounded by Infested / you can't see S#&$ in these corridors is completely boring.

Simulor is another kind of problem. I'd say it should be modified in a way that the vortexes stay as long as you didn't stack it, once you stack it 5 times it explodes and disappears.

[Tsukinoki]

Why does everyone who yells "WE NEED SELF DAMAGE ON THE SYNOID SIMULOR" utterly fail to recognize that the damage area of the Synoid Simulor is larger than its firing range?
Seriously, if the Synoid SImulor had self damage you would be completely unable to avoid the damage and it would just become a suicide button.
I can understand the need/want to rebalance that weapon, but it needs to be done in a way that doesn't turn it into a guaranteed suicide button.
Rebalancing shouldn't be done with the idea "Lets make this weapon utter trash that is literally impossible to use!"

Honestly they need to reduce self damage across the board.
Maybe not to Tonkor levels but at least to a point that you can't one-shot yourself due to team-mates running right in front of you suddenly.

[TheLexiConArtist]

28 minutes ago, Dawn11715 said:

How about doing the opposite and remove selfdamage completely?

20 minutes ago, Chewarette said:

Activating self damage is a band-aid that will solve the problem, indeed, but not at all as you want it to.

Risk/reward is a thing. Remove selfdamage entirely and witness non-launchers become irrelevant because the launchers do big damage in an area without the drawback... like the SySim and Tonkor, especially during autoheadshot days, quite handily accomplished.

 

However, your false dichotomy arguments fall utterly flat when you realise that I am and have been asking for launcher rebalances across the board, of which the reduction in effectiveness of SySim/Tonkor is but one part.

 

13 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

Why does everyone who yells "WE NEED SELF DAMAGE ON THE SYNOID SIMULOR" utterly fail to recognize that the damage area of the Synoid Simulor is larger than its firing range?
Seriously, if the Synoid SImulor had self damage you would be completely unable to avoid the damage and it would just become a suicide button.
I can understand the need/want to rebalance that weapon, but it needs to be done in a way that doesn't turn it into a guaranteed suicide button.
Rebalancing shouldn't be done with the idea "Lets make this weapon utter trash that is literally impossible to use!"

Honestly they need to reduce self damage across the board.
Maybe not to Tonkor levels but at least to a point that you can't one-shot yourself due to team-mates running right in front of you suddenly.

Now you're just mixing up the analogies; the SySim isn't explosive ordnance (and it's actually controlled moreso than wildly seeking rockets / bouncing grenades), that claim against self-damage was levied only upon the Tonkor crowd.

 

To wit, I quote from my continued attempt to get this problem changed in the Coming Soon Devstream post-your-questions threads:

Quote

I'd suggest the following to start with:

 - As per the Elytron Archwing, grant a UI element projectile beacon for launcher weapons to help guard against mistakes (and helps triggered explosives be used more effectively).

 - Alter the paradigm of self-damage so that players (with appropriate effective health mods) are protected from instant suicide until much closer to an upper limit on modding for power than current functionality. - Give the Tonkor this tamer, more balanced self-damage.

Amazing, it's almost like I had a rationale to my balance change suggestions beyond "OMG NERF PLS".

 

The Synoid Simulor is just fundamentally broken. Even the Tonkor would be a lot closer to fair with self-damage applied, but the sheer range of Simulorb combinations is ridiculous, it ignores fire rate and ammo balance levers (technically not even a launcher, like the Zarr's barrage isn't technically a shotgun weapon but appears like one, the Simulor is a rifle with launcher mechanics), and it really doesn't suffer that much in damage comparitively.

 

It's visually, audially and effectually intrusive for every player other than the one using it. It can't keep those properties, and needs a serious rethinking. At least a significant numerical nerf will stop it being so ubiquitous in the meanwhile until it can be made healthier for both parties - the user, and the people around it.

Edited November 14, 2016 by EDYinnit

[Dawn11715]

13 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

Risk/reward is a thing. Remove selfdamage entirely and witness non-launchers become irrelevant because the launchers do big damage in an area without the drawback... like the SySim and Tonkor, especially during autoheadshot days, quite handily accomplished.

 

Most launchers have a relatively low rate of fire, traveltime or some other drawback. so I dont think they would be that superior to a strong assault rifle like boltor or soma prime. Aside from that theirs still things like quanta vandal that do no selfharm and do huge damage andthings like my poor ogris that are barely usable after lvl 45 while still destroying anything exept a rhino with maxed ironskin in a single blow.

Therefore I think the way selfharm works now is completely broken. In my opinion, it should either  go completely or get some serious nerv, maybe by a simple multipier, maybe by limiting it to inflickt a blast proc, or maybe by limiting the maximum damage it can do.

Id be ok with having it as a light punishment, but should never be more dangerous for us,than the enemy's its supposed to protect us from.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Dawn11715

[TheLexiConArtist]

1 minute ago, Dawn11715 said:

Most launchers have a relatively low rate of fire, traveltime or some other drawback. so I dont think they would be that superior to a strong assault rifle like boltor or soma prime. Aside from that theirs still things like quanta vandal that do no selfharm and do huge damage andthings like my poor ogris that are barely usable after lvl 45 while still destroying anything exept a rhino with maxed ironskin in a single blow.

Therefore I think the way selfharm works now is completely broken. In my opinion, it should either  go completely or get some serious nerv, maybe by a simple multipier, maybe by limiting it to inflickt a blast proc, or maybe by limiting the maximum damage it can do.

Id be ok with having it as a light punishment, but should never be more dangerous for us,than the enemy's its supposed to protect us from.

Some rifles have the same. Powercreep does work on all levels, but as with all actual balancing, there's room to move things up as well as down, even if the latter is more important in the short term.

You might personally use an Ogris because you like rawket lawnchairs in spite of its currently rather lacking output and area of effect (especially after the universal halving of launcher damage from the removal of autoheadshot), but if something clears the map before you can even charge up a rocket unless you're in solo, that thing needs to be lessened before you can even make that choice, whether or not the Ogris got a bump up in damage or AOE. Nerfing ridiculous outliers always comes first.

 

There are a couple of options regarding selfdamage at a balanced level. Personally, I like a clear correlation between mods in -> power AND risk out. Capping the damage doesn't cut it, but the average selfdamage currently (roughly a flat 30% for most) scales way too high for what you need in this age of Sorties.

You could apply a greater personal damage reduction (from 70% less damage dealt to self than enemies up to 80% less, etc), or apply the existing reduction in a multiplicative sense - only applying that fraction of a mod's damage improvement to self-damage (For example, a +100% damage mod only adds +30% to the base selfdamage, which is itself 30% of outgoing, therefore drastically reducing the actual curve of increases).

The latter's a bit more codework, but I think it scales the modding better. Depending on the percentage selected for the former, that's only pushing the limitation back until the next powercreep threshold.. like the potential of the Riven mods we now have.

[Dawn11715]

3 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

 

You could apply a greater personal damage reduction (from 70% less damage dealt to self than enemies up to 80% less, etc), or apply the existing reduction in a multiplicative sense - only applying that fraction of a mod's damage improvement to self-damage (For example, a +100% damage mod only adds +30% to the base selfdamage, which is itself 30% of outgoing, therefore drastically reducing the actual curve of increases).

The latter's a bit more codework, but I think it scales the modding better. Depending on the percentage selected for the former, that's only pushing the limitation back until the next powercreep threshold.. like the potential of the Riven mods we now have.

Thats actually a really nice idea.

[(PSN)shadowraith_666]

remove self-damage, AI enemies don't suffer from self-damage so why should we?

[TheLexiConArtist]

1 minute ago, (PS4)shadowwraith_666 said:

remove self-damage, AI enemies don't suffer from self-damage so why should we?

Because we're capable of fully dynamic thought, because we're not surrounded by tens of allied units all doing their own thing as well, because even if AI enemies did self-damage, the manner in which effective enemy health scales in comparison to the damage output scaling up to a point of lethality against players, you wouldn't even notice the difference.

 

AI implicitly follows different rules to player characters. Your sentinel doesn't run out of ammo because it can't rationalise using it efficiently and replenishing it. Same with specters. Have you ever given a rescue target / sortie defense operative an explosive secondary? They have no qualms about blowing their own faces up with it, so they just don't take self-damage - and that's a Tenno-friendly unit.

[TheLexiConArtist]

Hotfixed to not do self-damage with the clusters.

 

You keep acknowledging that Tonkors and Synoid Simulors are dangerously meta.

Yes, meta weapons are in the selection pool, but Riven Mods are not needed to make this gear (like the Tonkor or Synoid Simulor) more powerful.

(From @[DE]Rebecca in Dev Workshop on Riven Mods)

Stop REINFORCING their meta dominance by denying Launcher-class overhauls and balance changes and removing the consistency in your game with the risk involved with explosive ordnance weapons, as the Zarr's Cannon-mode is.

Previously, only the Tonkor defied the rule: Conventional ordnance = self-damaging blasts. From Thunderbolt arrows to Concealed Explosives, all primary and secondary launchers, even Kulstar clusters, obey this rule. It was consistent. Logical.

 

Put back the selfdamaging clusters. It's just not as fun or as Grineer any more.

[(PSN)shadowraith_666]

yet quanta (has both explosive secondary and use combustion), other continuous primary weapons that use the combustion mod and simulor (vortex detonation) have explosive effects but no self-damage.

[TheLexiConArtist]

45 minutes ago, (PS4)shadowwraith_666 said:

yet quanta (has both explosive secondary and use combustion), other continuous primary weapons that use the combustion mod and simulor (vortex detonation) have explosive effects but no self-damage.

'conventional explosive ordnance', which the Simulors and Quanta really aren't. Even if the Quantsplosion is blast, it's clearly an energy based shock-combo reaction, not a good old conventional boom.

Courtesy of the Wiki, Combustion Beam deals an "unknown damage type" instead of blast (clarification anyone?), which could also disinclude it from the 'conventional explosives' category, and it was added in Update 17, after the Tonkor already ruined life for risk/reward launcher lovers everywhere anyway.

Coincidentally, that's the same patch where Parkour 2.0 was introduced and obsoleted the Tonkor's original stupid excuse for having no self damage, the 'grenade jumping', since the parkour we have now is better in 99.999% of situations.

[Nazrethim]

I have an alternative:

Make ALL Grenade launchers, Rocket launchers and Simulors do it's damage spread across all enemies hit instead of everyone taking full damage.

[TheLexiConArtist]

8 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

I have an alternative:

Make ALL Grenade launchers, Rocket launchers and Simulors do it's damage spread across all enemies hit instead of everyone taking full damage.

If that was the case, depending on what the use case was balanced for, wouldn't that either mean launchers don't do their job (AOE weapon) so that the un-spread damage doesn't outshine single-target weapons, or they do their job in AOE and also become the best option if all that damage is concentrated onto one lone target? I don't see how this can fix anything.

[low1991]

 

17 hours ago, (PS4)shadowwraith_666 said:

remove self-damage, AI enemies don't suffer from self-damage so why should we?

I'm not sure... if AI didnt receive self-damage (point at bombard, pre-xU)

Can someone recall the times when we'r able to shoot down bombard' missile with an ignis. Did they receive self-damage? I had this feeling that they did.

ALL ALL TIME AGO, FAR BEYOND THE GALA... ops.

[Nazrethim]

9 hours ago, EDYinnit said:

If that was the case, depending on what the use case was balanced for, wouldn't that either mean launchers don't do their job (AOE weapon) so that the un-spread damage doesn't outshine single-target weapons, or they do their job in AOE and also become the best option if all that damage is concentrated onto one lone target? I don't see how this can fix anything.

Ok, what about this: damage decay depending on radius. So for instance a Simulor would deal it's regular damage on a 2m radius bubble and then decay to the point that the maximum range deals only a fraction of it's damage. Simulor series in particular having a worse fall-off than explosive weapons like Pentas, Tonkors, Zarr... to compensate for not having self/friendly damage

All these weapons (sans simulor) then would have self AND friendly damage, meaning if you are not careful you will blow up your allies. And a new "Smart Blast" uncommon mod: reduces friendly fire by 30/45/60/75%

Edited November 15, 2016 by Nazrethim

[Tizodd]

 

All explosive weapons self damage.

Or

No explosive weapons self damage.

It needs to be one or the other.

edit: My vote is for all self damaging.  Otherwise there's really no point in using single target weapons if explosive weapons have no drawback.

Edited November 15, 2016 by Tizodd

[TheLexiConArtist]

4 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Ok, what about this: damage decay depending on radius. So for instance a Simulor would deal it's regular damage on a 2m radius bubble and then decay to the point that the maximum range deals only a fraction of it's damage. Simulor series in particular having a worse fall-off than explosive weapons like Pentas, Tonkors, Zarr... to compensate for not having self/friendly damage

All these weapons (sans simulor) then would have self AND friendly damage, meaning if you are not careful you will blow up your allies. And a new "Smart Blast" uncommon mod: reduces friendly fire by 30/45/60/75%

More sensible. Damage falloff code exists in the game already anyway (see Mag's Magnetise damage-over-time, reduced at distance from epicentre).

In fact, I'm about 90% certain it used to function like this - memories back in my early days of using the Ogris and doing varying damage.

 

No on the allied damage though. Radiation procs are bad enough (especially the Sortie-modifier that makes it frequent). Enables griefing. Ever had a Radiation Sortie since the clouds were added where someone has a disagreement and wilfully stands in a cloud to proc themselves in order to drop the other party? I have.

[Nazrethim]

Just now, EDYinnit said:

More sensible. Damage falloff code exists in the game already anyway (see Mag's Magnetise damage-over-time, reduced at distance from epicentre).

In fact, I'm about 90% certain it used to function like this - memories back in my early days of using the Ogris and doing varying damage.

In Conclave, all explosives and simulor already have fall off. Arsenal listed damage only has 1m radius, then it falls off to about 6m radius where you pretty much don't deal damage.

Just now, EDYinnit said:

No on the allied damage though. Radiation procs are bad enough (especially the Sortie-modifier that makes it frequent). Enables griefing. Ever had a Radiation Sortie since the clouds were added where someone has a disagreement and wilfully stands in a cloud to proc themselves in order to drop the other party? I have.

Well, I DID like Friendly Fire nightmare mode because it encouraged not going World on Ember, Miramulor, or any other AoE centric build and gave me an excuse to sumarily execute anyone who did that on the spot as soon as they started with their AoE bullsh*T where allies were standing. Then I rushed to revive them and gave them a stern look and a sermon, then shoot them down again because they were inconsiderate d*Cks who STILL refused to not kill their allies with their AoEs. People need to git gud and stop relying on these for everything.

If anything, the default friendly fire could be only 50% of the damage, reduced to 12.5% with 'Smart Blast'

[painterman]

I think you are too salty about this, not that is not justified, but not that necesary

The tonkor is made with "no" self dmg because of a reason: roket jumping, its part of its mechanic, its a fundamental part of the weapon itself. Maybe its underutilized, or complete useless vs bullet-jumping, but is there.

The simulor is more like a special weapon, it dosnt follow "normal" weapon guidelines, same as, for example, torid. This weapons fire a projectile, that does something special, like tearing the continun space-time by creating mini singularitis, by the logic that it should have self dmg, it could also have obliterating capabilitis over all mather, much like boobens vortex, but it dosnt because it would be stupid. PS: SS has a enormous radious of efect, with self dmg you couldnt fire it.

There are other ways to balance it: for instance, nerfing the dmg it deals if it fuses with a clone like 80% to not incentivate mirage spam, or nerfing the dmg overall.

On the subject to the zarr : its fine, wastn really need to have reduced dmg on cluster, but is nice. The main explotion will kill you, and 3-4 cluster splotions also will. 

9 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Well, I DID like Friendly Fire nightmare

Also this, it was fun, and more challenging and engagin that other debuffs, it stoped the rein of terror of miragemulor, but well, wat is done is done.

Sorry for my english :P

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

you think DE really care about game balance? two words: riven mods. i admire your commitment, EDY...

[Nazrethim]

1 minute ago, painterman said:

I think you are too salty about this, not that is not justified, but not that necesary

I'm actually neutral on all this. I seek balance, I don't want those weapons to be useless, but something needs to be done to them to make them less prevalent. DE is aware of this by giving Riven mods with better effects to weaker weapons, but it's not enough.

1 minute ago, painterman said:

The tonkor is made with "no" self dmg because of a reason: roket jumping, its part of its mechanic, its a fundamental part of the weapon itself. Maybe its underutilized, or complete useless vs bullet-jumping, but is there.

It's a so useful feature that I didn't even know it existed. Tonkor needs then it's damage reduced to be below the other grenade launchers that do have self damage then. A trade off, you deal less damage, but you don't blow yourself into tiny bits.

1 minute ago, painterman said:

The simulor is more like a special weapon, it dosnt follow "normal" weapon guidelines, same as, for example, torid. This weapons fire a projectile, that does something special, like tearing the continun space-time by creating mini singularitis, by the logic that it should have self dmg, it could also have obliterating capabilitis over all mather, much like boobens vortex, but it dosnt because it would be stupid. PS: SS has a enormous radious of efect, with self dmg you couldnt fire it.

Could be changed to fire a "projectile" that creates the singularity on the surface it makes contact with.

1 minute ago, painterman said:

There are other ways to balance it: for instance, nerfing the dmg it deals if it fuses with a clone like 80% to not incentivate mirage spam, or nerfing the dmg overall.

Or making Mirage simulor orbs don't fuse with the clones orbs, that way a Mirage would need to fire the weapon as much as any other warframe to get the max effect. Or, if the projectile idea I suggested above is used, to make Mirage clones outright don't create singularities, dealing only projectile damage.

1 minute ago, painterman said:

Also this, it was fun, and more challenging and engagin that other debuffs, it stoped the rein of terror of miragemulor, but well, wat is done is done.

It didn't stop it, players showed up with those anyway, even knowing they would blow themselves and their allies up, the mode just showed how broken it is and gave other players a tool to deal with them (shooting them down before they could do harm).

1 minute ago, painterman said:

Sorry for my english :P

Your english is good.

[TheLexiConArtist]

3 minutes ago, painterman said:

• I think you are too salty about this, not that is not justified, but not that necesary
• The tonkor is made with "no" self dmg because of a reason: roket jumping, its part of its mechanic, its a fundamental part of the weapon itself. Maybe its underutilized, or complete useless vs bullet-jumping, but is there.
• The simulor is more like a special weapon, it dosnt follow "normal" weapon guidelines, same as, for example, torid. This weapons fire a projectile, that does something special, like tearing the continun space-time by creating mini singularitis, by the logic that it should have self dmg, it could also have obliterating capabilitis over all mather, much like boobens vortex, but it dosnt because it would be stupid. PS: SS has a enormous radious of efect, with self dmg you couldnt fire it.
• There are other ways to balance it: for instance, nerfing the dmg it deals if it fuses with a clone like 80% to not incentivate mirage spam, or nerfing the dmg overall.
• On the subject to the zarr : its fine, wastn really need to have reduced dmg on cluster, but is nice. The main explotion will kill you, and 3-4 cluster splotions also will.

• It is necessary, just look at what happens as a result of these outliers and power creep as a whole: All those issues getting oneshot happen because enemy scaling is absurd because that's what is necessary to try to pose some sort of challenge instead of being wiped out before anything ever looses a shot. It's necessary because DE can't release new weapons without them already being overshadowed or outright fodder in comparison, unless they reinforce or even add to the needless power creep (which makes the first point happen all over again, worse.)
• The Tonkor was a mistake, and the grenade jumping is an excuse. In the 56-page thread debating fixing the damned thing, we've been over this and every other conceivable argument. Add an alt-fire that detonates to deal no damage to friend or foe, but knocks down enemies and causes players to grenade jump. Regular fire now has self-damage. There's your useless mechanic preserved while adding the due risk factor.
• Already said the SySim can't have self-damage and needs different rebalancing.
• ^
• Obviously, agree on the Zarr having been fine before. The risk of blowing myself up is part of why I'd use an explosive weapon. Mistakes are something to laugh about, while making skilful successes all the sweeter.