The Great Level Scaling Fallacy

[Foxheart]

As enemies improve, skills and weapons seem to be falling prey to increasing amounts of armor. At high levels, this is incredibly noticeable. While this might seem like a great gameplay mechanic, it causes quite a lot of trouble in terms of balance, as well as level scaling in general.

 

Ever wondered why World on Fire doesn't seem to hit Ancients in wave 15+ Xini so well anymore? Or why Crush doesn't seem to be doing a lot of damage? Avalanche? Saryn and excalibur certainly don't seem to have that same problem.

 

Or why vulkar is considered one of the poorer sniper rifles unable to compare against the snipetron (full armor piercing) and lanka (against corpus)?

 

How about Kunai and Despair, along with the Acrid being considered as some of the greatest secondary weapons in the game? (Armor piercing)

And finally, dual ethers and their popularity for auto attacking, as well as why charge attacks are constantly favored over normal attacks despite the beautiful animations.

 

Importantly, this thread is based off general experience (a little of it), seeing things in combat and playtime, as well as hearsay during mechanics discussions. I may be factually wrong, but please don't assault me over that.

 

The root of all these problems lie within enemy armor. Armor is what makes these particular options more useful in end game (and almost always in general). Notably, all of the above mentioned current trends all have enemy armor as the same root cause. Firstly, enemies already get a fixed reduction based on the part hit. That part is understandable and should remain. However, as enemies level up, they gain increased armors which make skills and weapons that don't penetrate armor less and less favorable.

 

Which makes most aoe ultimates not Saryn's increasingly less useful in defenses. Or weapons that don't penetrate armor. The numbers on the spreadsheets all make them look viable, but those aren't reduced by enemy armor.

 

This also leads to a problematic scaling problem. Will all new weapons need to have armor penetrating powers? With three pistols at this strength, how can a new pistol be released that isn't just A) levelled and put aside, B) built and put aside, C) Become the new King of the Hill when compared to the current juggernauts?

 

Or warframes?

 

Instead of increasing armor, why not just bump the healths of enemies by an equally scaled amount so we don't trivialize content...along with skills and weapons that can't ignore armor? It will buff melee auto attacks. Buff some of the poorer scaling ultimates that can't really kill. It won't affect the current strong items in any way. So far it looks like a perfect fix.

[Phoenix86]

Buffing HP instead of armor will only let you see "bigger numbers on screen" and with more weapons... but that's about it imho...

 

that being said i agree with you something must be changed and i +1'ed you :)

[BoompigXD]

Instead of giving them more HP why not let the enemies Mod themselves and their weapons?

[TheGambler_BR]

One thing I do like about the armor system, is that it further showcases the faction's weaknesses. Grinner and AP/AI, Infected and slashing/incendiary, corpus and cold/shock.

 

However, something that was not done properly when scaling in warframe, is that in addition to increasing a class's armor, you also increase health and damage dealt, and also spawn more often. So you have more enemies, that also hit harder and can take more of a beating. There is little breathing room, so to speak.

 

I'll give an example here. In Ragnarok (everyone played this, right?) enemies also have elemental weaknesses. The further you progress, the stronger your enemies get - but you get stronger too (this progression in warframe is made exclusively through mods - a little too random, but tolerable). However, elements come in various "levels", going as high as level 4. The higher the level, the higher the resistance to its specific element - but the higher the bonus damage for its weakness. So a fire1 monster would take 25% fire damage, but take 150% water damage, and a fire4 would take  -50% fire damage (being healed), but take 200% water damage.

 

This is what the game is missing in regards to armor. By scaling armor, you should scale weaknesses too. So focusing on a specific element brings benefits, and outfitting yourself to the mission you'll face makes sense.

 

In short warframe endgame needs: mobs with higher armor, but higher weakness too. Powerful, elemental-specific weapons (we do have some already, but more must be done).

Edited July 2, 2013 by TheGambler_BR

[Mak_Gohae]

The higher the level of the enemy the more you need to work as a group.

This is pretty much standard practice with games.

[Keetsune]

Difference in Kind win.

[MetalGerbil]

the bigger problem is difficulty in general. boltor is considered the best wep by most. yet when you use it you see just how terrible it is at range. you need to be right on things to have it do its thing. that range is suppose to mean something. but it does not in a game where you can just stand in somethings face and nuke it. there is little threat of death.

so things like range and general flexibility fall to the ever important DPS. things like armor are suppose to make you work together as a team. but who cares when you can stand two feet from something and kill it with weps that are suppose to carry limited range as a weakness.

alot of things will balance out once range priority actually becomes meaningful. armor ignore comes with a hefty price. one players will pay time and again when in actual play it means so very little.

of course all of that only applies to endless defense. a mode that has become the be-all end-all of this game. which in my book is the saddest thing of all. for the rest of the game none of those considerations are as critical. every wep is viable. even void 3 has better feel and flow than fighting bloated health bars and ridiculous armor values.

[Xoxile]

I'll give an example here. In Ragnarok (everyone played this, right?) enemies also have elemental weaknesses. The further you progress, the stronger your enemies get - but you get stronger too (this progression in warframe is made exclusively through mods - a little too random, but tolerable). However, elements come in various "levels", going as high as level 4. The higher the level, the higher the resistance to its specific element - but the higher the bonus damage for its weakness. So a fire1 monster would take 25% fire damage, but take 150% water damage, and a fire4 would take  -50% fire damage (being healed), but take 200% water damage.

Something like this would be good to get people away from just stacking every elemental mod in the game, and encourage thinking about something different. But I don't think it would fit too well in a game like Warframe.

[TheGambler_BR]

Something like this would be good to get people away from just stacking every elemental mod in the game, and encourage thinking about something different. But I don't think it would fit too well in a game like Warframe.

 

It already partially is, though. Infested ancients used to be immune to electricity, mobs have clear elemental weaknesses...

The only thing that would change is that enemies get progressively weaker to their weakness. I'm not suggesting anyone gets HEALED by your damage, that would be far too frustrating. But simply increasing the damage they take from their respective weaknesses the higher leveled they are, just enough so that you can justify having a focused build.

[Keetsune]

Also there should be system like Elites have in Diablo;

 

Heavies:

1-20 lvl: cap of 1 skill(tier1) that mob can have

20-40lvl: cap of 2 skills(tier1 + tier2) that mob can have

40-70lvl: cap of 3 skills(tier3 + 2 random[tier1,tier2]) that mob can have

70+: cap of 4 skills(tier4 + 3 random[tier1,tier2,tier3])  that mob can have.

 

Medium:

1-20 lvl: cap of 1 skill(tier1) that mob can have

20-40lvl: cap of 2 skills(tier1 + tier2) that mob can have

40-70lvl: cap of 2 skills(2 random[tier1,tier2,tier3]) that mob can have

70+: cap of 2 skills(2 random[tier1,tier2,tier3,tier4])  that mob can have.

 

Light:

1-20 lvl: cap of 1 skill(tier1) that mob can have

20-40lvl: cap of 1 skills(1 random[tier1,tier2]) that mob can have

40+: cap of 1 skills(1 random[tier1,tier2,tier3]) that mob can have

[Althix]

Foxheart the problem is, that ED is not designed for such abuses like 50+ waves runs.

 

When i saw that some players made it to wave 150 (i guess) i thought "hey i saw that already, in ME3". In ME3 players invented some challenges for them self in the game. Like fastest platinum runs, solos etc. Which is in fact just a symptom for lack of content in the game.

 

I don't like ED, i find it dull and boring. Which is why i play MD for 90% of time. You have place to maneuver, you shoot a lot of mobs, you can utilize wallruns and shoot stuff while wallrunning. MD is action.

T3 exterminate with level 187 mobs feels and plays better than ED. Again because there is action. There is goal you need to reach. Playing ED i am watching a movie on second sreeen.

 

As i see it, problem is not armor value or resistance. Problem is how ED designed. You can switch armor for health but what will it change in the end?

 

Last event. Defenses for artifacts. Fixed amount of waves. Great idea. But make it random. Make it challenge. With the option to continue to defend in you need to grind some xp.

 

High level mobs should be a challenge. This is why they are high level mobs.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Althix

[Mickey1779]

The ever increasing armor scaling is the exact reason why you only see certain warframes in high level endless defense.

 

At the highest levels ultimates mean nothing and mobs become bullet sponges, the only way to get further is to use abilities that ignore said armour.

 

That is why you typically only see Energy Siphon and all other Artifacts are considered garbage.

 

Squad comp becomes almost standard.

 

Frost - Snow Globe (Corpus and Grineer)

Vauban - Bastille (Infested)

Nyx - Chaos (have the mobs kill each other at the highest levels)

Banshee - Sonar (create weak spots on all mobs)

Saryn - Venom (poison damage bypasses armour - http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Damage:_Poison)

Trinity - Energy Vampire (used with Vauban since Bastille is 75 energy ability - may no longer be needed with revamped Streamline)

 

Most high level Endless Defense runs consist of three of these frames and the fourth frame is an extra DPS frame Nyx (Corpus / Grineer) or Saryn (Infested)

 

No other Warframe brings anything to the table when armour gets ludicrous.  Even Ember's fire damage abilities against Infected will get trivialized by insanely high armour values.

 

Morale of story - If you enjoy playing one of these six Warframes have fun.  If you like playing any of the other Warframes, you will have nothing challenging to do until this system is changed.

 

Something like this would be good to get people away from just stacking every elemental mod in the game, and encourage thinking about something different. But I don't think it would fit too well in a game like Warframe.

 

Yes and no, the min maxers will adjust their loadout to compensate.  The lazy will stack every element, so what if one elemental heals for 25% when two other are dealing normal damage and the last is doing 200% damage, it is still an overall damage increase.

[Foxheart]

Eh. Just a notice. A 75% armor 1000 hp mob is the same as a 4000 hp mob. The difference is that you need kunai/boltor/charge attacks/saryn ult to kill the first easily where other weapons and other frames ults dont even leave a dent. The second, a much wider variety of options is available, don't you think? :P

 

It's not about the elemental affinities and resistances. That stuff doesn't beat armor. Ember's world on fire ain't got any damage against level 50+ ancients already, and that's common in wave 10-15 xini at least.

 

Switching armor for health makes more weapons viable. Every weapon viable. Rather than a few weapons of choice, a few frames of choice. How many people love their kunai and despair because it arpens and does a lot more damage than other weapons? Kraken has a bigger clip and a better fire rate than kunai (2 shots, same attack speed). It also does 1/3 the damage of kunai in pluto cause of armor.

 

I'll stick to my favorite guns. But I'd love to see armor be replaced by thick health so I don't eventually have to switch instead.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Foxheart

[Tsukinoki]

@Foxheart

What a lot of people think is that by removing armor everything is going to magically become easier and better!

The problem?

If you cut down on armor, in order to avoid making this game even easier than it already is, you're going to have to buff health by a large enough amount to account for that.

All that means?

People will be seeing bigger numbers for a lot of guns, YET the enemies will take the same amount of time to die! Why doesn't any realize this?

If you add enough HP to the mobs to make up for the lack of armor you basically make enemies bullet sponges with HP instead of armor. They'll still take the same amount of time to kill.

Sure, some weapons and powers will start dealing more damage, but if it currently takes, just a random number, 5 crushes to kill a level 180 mob, it'll still take 5 crushes to kill a level 180 mob because they had to bounce its HP up a lot to compensate for it.

And then you're making some powers that are currently instant kills and such, such as Saryn's Miasma as well as some current weapons, actually take LONGER to kill the enemy.

By just reducing armor and increasing health you aren't doing anything to make the mobs easier to kill.

All you're going to end up doing is make larger numbers pop up.

[Foxheart]

...And you make more weps viable.

[Foxheart]

It's the scaling that's at fault, mind. I'm sure grineer can still afford armor. And then bolt weapons will do better against them. Armor scaling is invalidating several warframe skills and many weapons at the moment. Even elementally favorable warframe skills. Which is mighty fine and all if you play a few weapons only and a few frames belonging to that current list of stronger weapons for late game.

 

Anyway, I've said my piece. Not adding any more.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Foxheart

[TheGambler_BR]

Eh. Just a notice. A 75% armor 1000 hp mob is the same as a 4000 hp mob. The difference is that you need kunai/boltor/charge attacks/saryn ult to kill the first easily where other weapons and other frames ults dont even leave a dent. The second, a much wider variety of options is available, don't you think? :P

 

It's not about the elemental affinities and resistances. That stuff doesn't beat armor. Ember's world on fire ain't got any damage against level 50+ ancients already, and that's common in wave 10-15 xini at least.

 

Switching armor for health makes more weapons viable. Every weapon viable. Rather than a few weapons of choice, a few frames of choice. How many people love their kunai and despair because it arpens and does a lot more damage than other weapons? Kraken has a bigger clip and a better fire rate than kunai (2 shots, same attack speed). It also does 1/3 the damage of kunai in pluto cause of armor.

 

I'll stick to my favorite guns. But I'd love to see armor be replaced by thick health so I don't eventually have to switch instead.

 

Dropping armor entirely will harm a LOT of weapons that have it as a main attribute. I'm all up for reducing armor and increasing health to compensate, but dropping entirely does the game no good too.

[Tsukinoki]

@Foxheart

The weapons will still have the same amount of use.

Why?

If the kraken fully modded takes say 13 shots to kill something now, it'll probably take more, shots to kill the same thing with your changes.

And the weapon that ignores armor/has armor piercing? It will simply take more shots to kill something.

How does that increase usefulness?

If the TTK(Time To Kill) goes up that means your survivability goes down.

And all this will do is make the TTK go up for most weapons AND abilities, which will just lower survivability across the board.

If you go up against level 180 enemies and they are suddenly surviving 2 or 3 times as long you just made everything a lot more tedious and annoying.

And people will still prefer the despair over the kraken.

Why?

Grineer suffer extra damage to its total base damage, meaning it'll still beat the kraken out completely. Same with corpus headshots.

This wont make any more weapons that viable, it will end up making some weapons less viable. Their damage will still be the same, or in some cases lower, relative to their health pools that it is now.

This will make killing large rooms of enemies take longer.

And on defense maps that is a huge hit to survivability of the pod.

If the grineer napalm takes 1.5 to 2 times longer to kill it can deal a massive ammount of extra damage to the pod. Or think if a scorch surives twice as long and at a close enough range to BBQ your frame.

If all of the enemies are taking longer to kill it'll mean that ED will be even more of a slog at the higher levels than it currently is and will just make it harder with really no pay off.

By dropping armor and bouncing up health to compensate you're going to end up creating enemies who are bigger bullet sponges than they are now to all weapons, not just ones that lack AP mods or base AP damage.

Having bigger numbers pop up doesnt really mean much if you're doing the same relative amount of damage.

In your example that you edited:

A 1000 health mob with 75% armor.

You can take that out with AP/Armor ignore weapons fairly quickly, ignorring all other elements.

Guns that dont have AP/Armor ignore base damage will need AP mods and elemental damage mods to take it down as fast.

Now compare that to a mob with 0 armor 4000 health.

You can take that down with any weapon, true, but it'll take the same amount of time, if not longer, to kill because you still deal the same relative amount of damage.

And because it takes longer to kill it can deal more damage.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[Xylia]

All Armor Does is make non-AP weapons useless.

 

What they NEED to do, is make Armor Piercing Damage do something like Armor Ignore instead.

 

Instead of Armor Piercing Damage being an "Elemental Damage", make it so that Armor Piercing Damage act like this:

 

OLD:

 

+50% Armor Piercing Damage

 

NEW:

 

Ignores 50% of Armor (but doesn't add extra damage).

 

Now, obviously, sticking this mod on a weapon that already ignores armor is entirely useless, but that's the whole point. That way, non-AP weapons might actually be a little more useful against things that have armor. For example, Corpus take 0 damage to the head unless its armor piercing damage or ignore armor.

 

A non-armor ignore weapon (say, a Braton) with this mod would do 50% damage to a corpus's head with this mod equipped.

 

Now, yeah, this would REQUIRE you to put Armor Piercing/Ignore Mods on all non-AI weapons, but isn't that what we already do anyways?

[Mickey1779]

Dropping armor entirely will harm a LOT of weapons that have it as a main attribute. I'm all up for reducing armor and increasing health to compensate, but dropping entirely does the game no good too.

 

Agreed, that is why they need to find some other way of increasing difficulty as mob levels increase.  Even if they scaled both health and armour together but at a slower pace this exact same situation will occur, albeit at a slightly higher armour level.

 

You cannot have a game where the endgame only has a few viable characters and weapons.

 

If the current situation continues Warframe will die end of story.  As I stated in my previous post, only 6 warframes and as others stated, a handful of weapons are viable with the current armour scaling system.  Any other warframe in high level Endless Defense is a full carry as they bring no abilities to combat the ever increasing armour and non-AP weapons are reduced to uselessness.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Mickey1779

[catastrophy]

All Armor Does is make non-AP weapons useless.

 

What they NEED to do, is make Armor Piercing Damage do something like Armor Ignore instead.

 

Instead of Armor Piercing Damage being an "Elemental Damage", make it so that Armor Piercing Damage act like this:

 

OLD:

 

+50% Armor Piercing Damage

 

NEW:

 

Ignores 50% of Armor (but doesn't add extra damage).

 

Now, obviously, sticking this mod on a weapon that already ignores armor is entirely useless, but that's the whole point. That way, non-AP weapons might actually be a little more useful against things that have armor. For example, Corpus take 0 damage to the head unless its armor piercing damage or ignore armor.

 

A non-armor ignore weapon (say, a Braton) with this mod would do 50% damage to a corpus's head with this mod equipped.

 

Now, yeah, this would REQUIRE you to put Armor Piercing/Ignore Mods on all non-AI weapons, but isn't that what we already do anyways?

That's how it should be.