Damage 3.0: The Great Squish, The Great Nerf, and why DE is afraid to move forward

[DrBorris]

Is the entirety of this post assumptions? Yes, but it is assumptions with some groundings. First and foremost, let’s put together what we know about Damage 3.0…

 

1. Remove “Mandatory” mods.

 

Huh, that’s it, but that one statement says A LOT about how the rework should flesh out to bring that premise to fruition. In order for there to be choice and style in modding, individual mods should not be able to have too large of an effect on your “power.”

How the hell are you supposed to balance a game where a veteran player (modded Soma Prime) deals 21097% more damage per second than a new player (unmodded MK1-Braton). Of course there needs to be some power progression, but in Warframe you regularly play missions that you played day 1 (The star chart is supposed to be a living system, not complete-n-forget).

Sure, a certain delta in power is maintainable, maybe (maybe) 100% more powerful (this could be exceeded with calculating elemental resistances in) with a full build, but once you get theoretical builds that can surpass that margin mods will start becoming so mandatory that you are causing a major impact on your performance. In a perfect world a person who mods for max DPS and a person who mods for handling should end up doing similar amounts of damage in a mission (similar, not exact). If someone told me that I would deal 20% less damage to enemies but I could mod my gun in a way that felt good to me, I would gladly take the drop in DPS. But this is my opinion, yours may vary, thus the diversity in builds starts to come up.

 

Okay, so we have a given that our delta in power will not have any massive scaling, the obvious side effect would be doing the same to our enemies. This is the first area where DE will start to really piss of large portions of the community. In order for DE to make meaningful difficulty and balance in a system where the power progression of the player is less significant, they have to pick a base TTK for players and enemies. And you can be certain a lot of people will not be happy no matter where DE goes with this. Some people want to one shot everything, some people want only a head-shot from a sniper to one shot an enemy.

 

You already see this behavior everywhere, “everyone is entitled to their own opinion,” “let people play how they want to play,” “If you don’t like it don’t use it.” No, just… no. This is not Deus Ex, in that game each of the playstyles are balanced, saying that someone should have to gimp themselves for a challenge is not how you design a game. DE must pick a “feel” (TTK) and stick with it, leaving a massive delta is a false sense of decision because at the end of the game it is a game where the goal is winning. If everything is supposed to be a one shot, the game needs to be balanced around that. If the game is supposed to require extreme precision, everything needs to be balanced around that (these are extreme cases, don’t hurt me).

Oh, and before you say “Warframe is supposed to be easy,” heh… na. Ever heard of power creep? Go watch some closed beta videos of Warframe, it is pretty much the same gameplay style as now (but less refined) but harder (due to higher TTK of enemies). I for some reason doubt that power creep is something DE planned (more something they were coerced into doing).

 

This is, as I call it, The Great Squish. Both the power of the player and the power of the enemy will be squished into a much smaller delta.

 

The Great Squish goes by another name though, the Great Nerf.

 

Why you say? Well, let’s explain with pictures

Spoiler

 

This is my crude picture of the difference of power in our enemy and us. This is obviously not to scale.

 

Notice the degree of the slants for “Easy” and “Hard”. Right now we can make that slant pretty extreme in any direction (A positive slope is hard while a negative slope is easy), either enemies are insanely OP (broken enemy scaling) or they are insanely easy (veteran weapons versus low level mobs). Everything is very extreme. Of course there is a way to play “balanced” where you meet a reasonable power difference with your enemy, but that balance point is relative to how you want the game to be played, as discussed earlier.

And here is what the Great Squish does, it brings everything into a much smaller range, meaning you can’t be as OP or as UP. This means that the people who are accustomed to the extreme negative slope will feel a nerf, but in contrast the people who are more accustomed to a positive slope will feel a buff. It is really just a mass standardization, and with any standardization the extremes die.

 

 

Sure, The Great Squish will be just as much a buff as a nerf, but where do you think the majority of the community will place their opinion? Honestly, this is not just due to the “glass half empty” syndrome, Damage 3.0 will probably serve as a nerf to the average player. Let’s be honest here, at what difficulty do most of us play? Do you only take your high end weapons to high end fights? Only Sorties really bring us close to matching our DPS with their EHP, everything star chart is overkill.

 

That’s right, easy mode. Why are snipers useless? Because everything in this dies so insanely fast that there is no point for precision. If DE is going to go through the effort of overhauling damage, it’d be safe to say they will do so in a way where the mechanics of the game will be more prevalent.

 

So here is my conclusion, DE is very, very (very) reluctant to do anything. Far too many of the community are content and any whisper of a nerf throws them in a frenzy. Just look at SotR, this was (unfortunately IMO) a relatively minor change to a lot of Warframe game mechanics. Sure, the way you get Prime stuff now is different, but it did not really do anything to unrest the base of Warframe, it is just a new wrapper for the Prime grind. If DE dare touch the unstable foundation Warframe the amount of uproar that will ensue because people don’t like to consider any sort of nerf (no matter what the justification is) will probably cause enough of an exodus that there will be a major impact on revenue… so DE just won’t do it. IF DE dare touch the power of any weapon in a negative way people will say: “I put time into that, how dare you make my past time spent worthless” or “It’s PvE, balance doesn’t matter” or “Let me play exactly how I want to play” etcetera.

Let us just look at The Vacuum Within. Sure, it was a nerf, and we are not here to talk about it (as it has been reverted), the point is that a nerf of an entirely quality of life item caused such a massive uproar in the community that, given DE did not revert, there would have probably been a noticeable profit loss. Just imagine if DE nerfed something that had a direct impact on our in-game performance.

*Saltyness incoming* Because even though people in general agree damage is fudged up, change is bad.

 

I guess the option remains that DE maybe just do a mass rebalance of certain weapons, tweak some scaling here and there, and overall improve the current state of damage, but no matter how you sugarcoat Damage 2.0 it will still have the broken scaling (as discussed earlier). Something is better than nothing though, right?

 

I can already see the “You are stretching too far” posts already, but am I? DE is obviously scared of Damage 3.0, they themselves compared to cliff jumping. Before you cast this off as an unfounded rant, come up with a reason why it is not the case. Yeah, I could be wrong, but tell me why I am wrong not just that I am.

 

TL;DR

• TTK on both our and our enemy’s sides will be squished
• This will be a nerf to much of the community
• A (considerable enough) portion of the community will “rage quit”
• Thus, DE does not want to jump off the cliff -or- Damage 3.0 will be half-@ssed to protect the community’s ego.

 

So… speaking directly to the community here, open your mind. Don’t run like a chicken with your head cut off every time you see a nerf, make sure to look at the whole picture. If you are here, chances are you enjoy Warframe and want it to be as good as it can. We have to trust DE, yes they will make mistakes as have they have time and again, but there are some places where we have to let them design their game. Complaining about money-grabs is different from complaining about core systems, only the most tin-foil hatted of us would think DE would jeopardize core gameplay to make money, so don’t jump off the deep end right away when it comes to gameplay changes.

Maybe, just maybe, we can give DE a bit of breathing room with the new year when it comes to damage and power in general in order to (hopefully) get a reworked system that fixes some of Warframe’s underlying issues.

[Tuxie]

Maybe it'll be the best that damage 3.0 never gets here then.

[SenorClipClop]

Just to make your post a little stronger, do you mind comparing your ideas in-post with cited information DE has given us on Damage 3.0? I ask because I'm still really confused about what the update would imply and I haven't seen anything that says DE has confirmed anything.

[Doxorn]

When I started playing the most powerful weapon was Soma Prime which just came out. I would say it was pretty balanced, but then (Synoid) Simulor / Tonkor / Galatine prime / Tigris Prime came and made me a god. Before that I felt more immersed into the game. I didn't even had pure damage mods maxed. The enemies actually took some shots to die.

Now what? I am a god. I cannot be killed and I only need to swing my Galatine prime and shoot a cone of fire with my Ignis or just look at a grineer and massmurder happens in a fraction of a second. I got spoiled.

Nowadays playing Warframe feels like running around and screaming DIE! DIE! DIE! while shooting around the point where you see enemies on your map and watching they vanish from existence one by one. Don't even look at the screen. Just watching the corridors on the minimap and where I see red I turn there and shoot and I will hit something without even trying.

Edit: I really want cancer pure damage mods to be removed from the game and the number squeezing. This is getting very out of hand.

Edited December 25, 2016 by Doxorn

[Syln]

actually i'd love to see that coming :/ 

Don't even look at the screen. Just watching the corridors on the minimap and where I see red I turn there and shoot and I will hit something without even trying. *

That's how i play when i begin to fall asleep : eyes on the map sweeping red spot with my galatine :3

 

Edited December 25, 2016 by Syln

[Dawn11715]

Personly I would like to have both, be godlike wrecking machine and having some challenge.

I think the solution would be to introduce powerfull, large and interesting units to each faction, that give us some diversity in between the endless waves of quickly dying minions.

Im thinking of something like the Wraiths in Halo. They dont need to be tanks but as the Wraiths they should be powerfull and support different ways of engagement. Also steve mentioned that its planed to implement some larger tiles to the game.

Wouldnt this be the perfect oportunity to introduce some enemy vehicles? just imagine fighting the corpus with them having one jackal, two hyenas and a Raptor in the air (everything lvl 30). This would be difficult to handle, even for a strong Tenno, and it would be totaly badass t beat them^^

[Synpai]

I have a rebuttal...

Snipers aren't useless because of the lack of need for precision. It's due to the lack of REWARD for precision. 

Nullifier bubbles, enemy scaling, enemy quantity, and poor sniper balancing make snipers a poor choice in weaponry.

(Seriously there are pistols stronger and more effective than the snipers)

 

Devil May Cry is what we should be aiming for. You feel like a God, but you still need tactic and variation.

Edited December 25, 2016 by Synpai

[Sziklamester]

This will never come in that form as the playerbase imagine. DE with their recent things and additions show us clearly how they think they will going to solve the problems. Primed mods, nightmare mods, augment trashes, unbalanced crap and demigod mods, mandatory mods and useless utilities show their mod system is completely krap and need a drastical change also on the enemy scaling till reach a level for example say 100. After that the hard tries can go and enjoy their punishement while others can enjoy the bearable level of competition.

The whole problem is begin with this game is in a half way on a skill based game which played by hardcores and on the verge where unplayable and not even fun. This game when first released meant to be a hard game where the harder levels and low gear with some minor extra mods mean the difference. Now the gear and mods play instead you and you just need to use in the right time and done.

 

As casual I like the medium to high levels but never going to harder levels because my builds are pretty limits me to the mid high levels. It can be challenge if they add some interesting mechanic and not idiot hordeshot rapid spawn elements. 

This game should be equal fun for casuals, new players, veterans, hardcores but need separated levels. The devs need also deciding what they want to do with the game because the halfbaked solutions and the shiny contents without good mechanics and gameplay will slowly kill the game.

[DrBorris]

18 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

Just to make your post a little stronger, do you mind comparing your ideas in-post with cited information DE has given us on Damage 3.0? I ask because I'm still really confused about what the update would imply and I haven't seen anything that says DE has confirmed anything.

Really, they haven't said much. The whole "Damage 3.0" train really got started running quite a few Devstreams ago (Not sure exactly which, but it's been awhile) when [DE]Scott talked about reworking Multi-shot to consume ammo and how he wanted "mandatory mods" to be less... mandatory. Besides that we haven't gotten much, which is understandable because quite a few people got quite upset when they heard they might be nerfed. There was a lot of complaining about how "DE doesn't understand their own game" and people for some reason assumed there would be no other rebalances to go with it (even though he explicitly said that there would be a lot of number-tweaking to go with the multi-shot change). I assume DE does not want to say anything until they have a solid idea as vague ideas have lead to a lot of doom-saying in the past. Other than that the most we have gotten is "We're thinking about it".

 

20 minutes ago, Tuxie said:

Maybe it'll be the best that damage 3.0 never gets here then.

Depends on what you think is "best"

 

9 minutes ago, Dawn11715 said:

Personly I would like to have both, be godlike wrecking machine and having some challenge.

I think the solution would be to introduce powerfull, large and interesting units to each faction, that give us some diversity in between the endless waves of quickly dying minions.

Im thinking of something like the Wraiths in Halo. They dont need to be tanks but as the Wraiths they should be powerfull and support different ways of engagement. Also steve mentioned that its planed to implement some larger tiles to the game.

Wouldnt this be the perfect oportunity to introduce some enemy vehicles? just imagine fighting the corpus with them having one jackal, two hyenas and a Raptor in the air (everything lvl 30). This would be difficult to handle, even for a strong Tenno, and it would be totaly badass t beat them^^

Of course, we are warrior-gods even in terms of lore, but the degree it is at now is uncontrollable and hurting the game as a whole. It all comes to where DE finds the base TTK of an enemy and the base TTK of us to be and balancing around that.

I personally think that Index and Rathuum enemies should become common spawn (but have their physical model size increased to make their presence better on the battlefield) as a true "elite" unit. However, this is a nerf to our effect on the battlefield, and nerfs are currently viewed in a very, very bad light. This is how I think Warframe should be balanced, a lot of trash mobs (with a more standard TTK) and elite mobs. Then maybe even more regular mini-boss spawns. But again, this is a nerf to how Warframe is currently played.

 

7 minutes ago, Synpai said:

I have a rebuttal...

Snipers aren't useless because of the lack of need for precision. It's due to the lack of REWARD for precision. 

Nullifier bubbles, enemy scaling, enemy quantity, and poor sniper balancing make snipers a poor choice in weaponry.

Well, if DE makes precision rewarding they would have to make not having precision be less... rewarding, aka nerf. And as I just commented above, elite spawns would make precise, low RoF weapons viable.

 

3 minutes ago, Sziklamester said:

This will never come in that form as the playerbase imagine. DE with their recent things and additions show us clearly how they think they will going to solve the problems. Primed mods, nightmare mods, augment trashes, unbalanced crap and demigod mods, mandatory mods and useless utilities show their mod system is completely krap and need a drastical change also on the enemy scaling till reach a level for example say 100. After that the hard tries can go and enjoy their punishement while others can enjoy the bearable level of competition.

The whole problem is begin with this game is in a half way on a skill based game which played by hardcores and on the verge where unplayable and not even fun. This game when first released meant to be a hard game where the harder levels and low gear with some minor extra mods mean the difference. Now the gear and mods play instead you and you just need to use in the right time and done.

 

As casual I like the medium to high levels but never going to harder levels because my builds are pretty limits me to the mid high levels. It can be challenge if they add some interesting mechanic and not idiot hordeshot rapid spawn elements. 

This game should be equal fun for casuals, new players, veterans, hardcores but need separated levels. The devs need also deciding what they want to do with the game because the halfbaked solutions and the shiny contents without good mechanics and gameplay will slowly kill the game.

Yeah, and you know why we are getting half-baked solutions? Because DE is starting to become afraid of us (leaving), and while to an extent that is good (as to make sure they don't do something too stupid) it has also stifled reworks. What we have now is Damage 2.1, and we have that because of what I discussed in the OP.

[Cyriann]

Well... Personally I like my actual playstyle. 

Yes it consists of blasting evry ennemy crossing my sight into microscopic parts with a Tigris, but no I wouldn't consider a change to how damage works and especially how ennemies scale compared to us to naturally be a "nerf".

As long as playstyles can be preserved, and they can be, there is a room for change.

So, TTK, why a TTK ? Honestly that's a notion I have always found biased to a point that it sometimes doesn't make sense (look at some of Titanfall 2 weapons TTK you'll understand what I mean) and that is a concept that would mean Hell for DE sinceit would mean to rework EACH AND EVERY single weapon for EACH AND EVERY ennemy of the game and subsequent additions to the game. 

The amount of work it would imply is enormous on the long run considering how many weapons we have and that are produced during each year that a TTK idea is pretty much to for get if we want to have all the weapons to conserve their own flavours.

[Synpai]

4 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

Well, if DE makes precision rewarding they would have to make not having precision be less... rewarding, aka nerf. And as I just commented above, elite spawns would make precise, low RoF weapons viable.

Not necessarily. They don't have to kick weapons into the dirt because they're lifting up another. Snipers could become viable with simple changes:

• Greater headshot multipliers
• AOE headshots and innate punch through
• Reveal holes in nullifier bubbles

[EmptyDevil]

OP's post is very good. It is pretty sad that some people are so afraid of change and cling to familiarity, or their power trip to stroke their ego, before even consider seeing a more polished game. I honestly think some people don't care for buffs or nerfs as long as it doesn't touch their crutch flavor of the month, at that time.

I look forward to see a more engaging game.

18 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

Just to make your post a little stronger, do you mind comparing your ideas in-post with cited information DE has given us on Damage 3.0? I ask because I'm still really confused about what the update would imply and I haven't seen anything that says DE has confirmed anything.

 

DE on Damage 3.0

Spoiler

 

 

Other Tidbits: - Damage 3.0 and Dojos are serious conversations that will be happening next year.

 

This is just a small bit of what DE said on it.

[Dawn11715]

5 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

 

Of course, we are warrior-gods even in terms of lore, but the degree it is at now is uncontrollable and hurting the game as a whole. It all comes to where DE finds the base TTK of an enemy and the base TTK of us to be and balancing around that.

I personally think that Index and Rathuum enemies should become common spawn (but have their physical model size increased to make their presence better on the battlefield) as a true "elite" unit. However, this is a nerf to our effect on the battlefield, and nerfs are currently viewed in a very, very bad light. This is how I think Warframe should be balanced, a lot of trash mobs (with a more standard TTK) and elite mobs. Then maybe even more regular mini-boss spawns. But again, this is a nerf to how Warframe is currently played.

I can only agree on this, But I think the introduction of new mini-boss/elite enemys would be less "offensive" as a direkt nerv.

About the damage mods: I wouldnt like to see multishot and serration removed, but rather having them adjusted.

Seraton, could just be made additive for elemental damage, instead of being a multiplicator and Multishot should just consume aditional ammo (like it was meant to be).

 

[Tzarl]

I wonder if just reducing damage mods would work, alongside enemy rescaling. I figure there's that argument that meta seeking people will always find the most optimal damage builds, but some people might be more willing to trade 30% extra base damage for 35% reload speed rather than having to give up a 90% damage mod

[Smilomaniac]

There are some fundamental issues with Warframe in general that need to be adressed in conjuction with a stat-squish.

1. Mastering weapons & warframes and using forma
This takes ages if you do it as intended, in no small part due to the ridiculous system of having to rely on others to do it for you (or spy missions as I do it). You're either going to waste mass amounts of time using an underpowered weapon or using the "best" meta leveling spot.
The stat squish means this will be harder to do, effectively making the game way, way less fun for most people. I won't deny that it will also be more rewarding however, as you have to dedicate yourself to making actual choices, but this is unfortunately a niche viewpoint as well as severely limiting because you'll still be spending all your time with very few setups, with no incentive to use anything but "the best" in every situation.

2. Enemy design
The heavily overdesigned Corpus and constantly knock-down'ing Grineer would be a frustrating mess to play against. As flawed as things are right now, having the game throwing mass amounts of enemies against you works pretty well, giving you the occasional mini-challenge to deal with (nullifiers and bombards being prime examples) on high level play. Earlier missions have their enemy numbers cut drastically, but if you're running around with the intended weapons and mods, then it's an average challenge as well.
In my opinion, things are pretty okay actually, with the dozen or so combo's being way above the rest of our weapon pool.

3. "Mandatory" mods
They're not mandatory. They are more rewarding to use than most other ones (multishot), but they're also all relatively easy to get. By removing multi shot, you're also removing the additional fun effects they grant you (more status, or making an instant combine with the simulor). Don't get me wrong, I know the simulor is an eye sore at the moment but removing choices is a step backwards, even if the game has some issues with it.

---

My solution would be the following:

1. Add two more mod slots to all weapons. There, I said it, I want even more powerful weapons and even more mod combinations that might do some insane and crazy things. Hell, add four of them.

2. Add a system ala rifts from diablo and keystones from world of warcraft - endlessly scaling missions with appropriate rewards in the form of cosmetics and prime mods for all currently existing kinds.

3. Add 200, or more, new mods with completely new effects.

I have no doubt that it sounds completely idiotic, but the point is to introduce more choices and a mode that at some point becomes unbeatable, practically giving us endless content. Yes, I know, it trivializes current content, but the current content is also stale and ridden with issues as it is.

Throwing caution to the wind and letting players make their own fun, is what will bring new life into the game. Balance is highly overrated, it's tedious, it's limiting and it's a pain in the &#! for everyone involved. You can't have fun in a perfectly balanced game, because at that point you're not playing anymore, you're just witnessing "gameplay as intended" which is not suitable for any multiplayer experiences, except the purist ones suitable for competitive e-sports (you might as well play chess or checkers at that point).
This is a risky design philosophy that lives and breathes solely on the playerbase's ability to create their own fun in how they combine gameplay elements, in a constantly changing environment, but personally I find that way more fun.

As an analogy, it'd be like playing Magic the Gathering with all cards every made, allowing for completely OP builds to exist, but simultaneously just as many counter-builds. While we're not strictly playing against eachother here, there's no reason that enemies can't do the same in these "rifts" or endlessly scaling missions. On the opposite spectrum you have "Hearthstone" where people continuously use the same meta decks over and over, having a balanced but predictable and devastatingly boring gameplay.

And yeah, I get that it trivializes current gameplay completely, unless you under-gear yourself to have fun instead of mindlessly blasting through everything. Which is why I already press the "randomize" button for alerts and invasions.

Basically my point is if you're going to rile things up, you might as well go for complete chaos. We could also just, y'know, stay the course.
If anything, the squish sounds more like developer arrogance because people aren't playing the "correct" way with the toys they made, which is what Blizzard is constantly doing - It's not without merit, but it's a long road of anger and misery that mostly only manages to piss people off.

[Ryouhi]

I'm not sure if Dmg3.0 will ever come, seeing as we got Rivens now.
People have invested insane amounts of plat or kuva (time spent farming) to get their Damage/Multishot/Crit Mods, how is DE gonna go about changing these mods?

If you're going to remove mandatory/damage mods, you can't leave those stats on Rivens either.

I feel like Rivens could be a sign of Damage 3.0 being either out of the question or put veeery far at the backburner.

 

I'd personally very much appreciate if weapons were much more normalized in their viability (without the need for Rivens).
Without my current Damage/Multishot Riven for my Supra, it wouldn't even tickle Sortie enemies, while you have weapons like the tonkor, zarr, simulor and tigris which can clear entire rooms with a few shots.

I'd rather customize my weapons to focus on different utility stats and perhaps MINOR damage modifiers than having 2 different main build routes (crit or status), which seldom leave any room for such utility mods and even if they did, you could still do better adding another damage mod.

Aside from the Rivens, another huge problem would be having to rebalance every single weapon and warframe in the game to match the newly set Endgame content and as you probably know, there's *a lot* of those. Which would take a lot of time and ressources:
It would be a healthy change for the game overall, but DE is probably going the safe route of "don't fix what's not (too) broken" and instead invest their time in entirely new content, as they always do.

I personally don't think people would complain about "nerfs", if it meant a more balanced and more challenging game.
There's lots of threads asking for balance changes, but those saying "it's PvE y u nerf" and garbage like that seem more like the vocal minority too me, people seem more open towards a more challenging game as far as i have seen anyway.

 

Well, in short, i'd highly welcome Damage 3.0 and think most of the community does as well.
However, since the addition of Riven mods providing damage/multishot/crit/Elementals-stats, i don't know if DE is even concerned with the thought currently, since this will be a hard one to reverse.

[Kronxito]

I agree with OP.

The game needs a better balance, even if there are serious nerfs (and buffs).

I have about 900 hours or more here. It doesnt matter if DE changes the game mechanics. It will be fun to try something new with my favourite frames.

Edited December 26, 2016 by ArionLightning

[DrBorris]

1 hour ago, Cyriann said:

Well... Personally I like my actual playstyle. 

Yes it consists of blasting evry ennemy crossing my sight into microscopic parts with a Tigris, but no I wouldn't consider a change to how damage works and especially how ennemies scale compared to us to naturally be a "nerf".

As long as playstyles can be preserved, and they can be, there is a room for change.

So, TTK, why a TTK ? Honestly that's a notion I have always found biased to a point that it sometimes doesn't make sense (look at some of Titanfall 2 weapons TTK you'll understand what I mean) and that is a concept that would mean Hell for DE sinceit would mean to rework EACH AND EVERY single weapon for EACH AND EVERY ennemy of the game and subsequent additions to the game. 

The amount of work it would imply is enormous on the long run considering how many weapons we have and that are produced during each year that a TTK idea is pretty much to for get if we want to have all the weapons to conserve their own flavours.

YOU like your playstyle, of course you do, and here in lies the problem. YOU CAN'T PRESERVE EVERYONE'S PLAYSTYLE. You can't have tactical play and S. Simulor in the same game, a decision has to be made. Just to let you know, by you saying "It needs to stay like this" you are inherently saying that the way other people want to play is "wrong". Now, I am not saying that your vision is the wrong one, maybe DE will decide it is right, but if they do the whole game should be balanced around that way of play.

As shown with the pictures, to make a "balanced" system there needs to be a Great Squish, and if there is a Great Squish people WILL be discriminated against. Maybe it is you, maybe it is your buddy, maybe it is me, but not everyone will be happy IF DE does a Damage 3.0. This is why Damage 2.1 is becoming the unfortunate reality.

By "base" TTK I don't mean every enemy would have the same time to kill and every weapon would be perfectly balanced, I am not that stupid. think man... think. By base TTK I mean "should the enemy be instantly deleted" "should this enemy get a few shots off at me" "should I have to sit in cover and fire pot-shots at the enemy". These are not numbers, but rather a "feel" for the game. And even on our side too, how many enemies shooting at us should it take for us to die? 5? 10? 100? Nothing rock solid, but rather a theme to go with.

I am very tired of people assuming the worst of a statement, did you even think about what I said? Of course your interpretation is ridiculous, did it ever cross your mind that maybe your interpretation was not how I intended the statement? I find it is useful to assume the people I am talking to are somewhat competent...

 

1 hour ago, Synpai said:

Not necessarily. They don't have to kick weapons into the dirt because they're lifting up another. Snipers could become viable with simple changes:

• Greater headshot multipliers
• AOE headshots and innate punch through
• Reveal holes in nullifier bubbles

Why one-shot head-shot when my -insert weapon here- already kills the faster when I just wave my cursor across the screen? Cool, Snipers make a hole in Nullifier bubbles, arguably one of the most broken enemies in the game and one that doesn't have a variant for Grineer or Corpus...

Sure, those changes would make Snipers more viable, but it won't make them more worthwhile when compared to other meta weapons.

 

1 hour ago, EmptyDevil said:

OP's post is very good. It is pretty sad that some people are so afraid of change and cling to familiarity, or their power trip to stroke their ego, before even consider seeing a more polished game. I honestly think some people don't care for buffs or nerfs as long as it doesn't touch their crutch flavor of the month, at that time.

I look forward to see a more engaging game.

 

DE on Damage 3.0

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Other Tidbits: - Damage 3.0 and Dojos are serious conversations that will be happening next year.

 

This is just a small bit of what DE said on it.

Thank you for linking that stuff.

 

1 hour ago, Dawn11715 said:

I can only agree on this, But I think the introduction of new mini-boss/elite enemys would be less "offensive" as a direkt nerv.

About the damage mods: I wouldnt like to see multishot and serration removed, but rather having them adjusted.

Seraton, could just be made additive for elemental damage, instead of being a multiplicator and Multishot should just consume aditional ammo (like it was meant to be).

 

But it is. Right now I can walk in a room and everything is dead. If mini-boss enemies are added that won't be the case. Just read that guy's post a few above here, for that person being a full on god of death is what makes Warframe, Warframe (for them). While elites may not be a "nerf" for you, it will be a nerf for others.

 

5 minutes ago, Ryouhi said:

I'm not sure if Dmg3.0 will ever come, seeing as we got Rivens now.
People have invested insane amounts of plat or kuva (time spent farming) to get their Damage/Multishot/Crit Mods, how is DE gonna go about changing these mods?

If you're going to remove mandatory/damage mods, you can't leave those stats on Rivens either.

I feel like Rivens could be a sign of Damage 3.0 being either out of the question or put veeery far at the backburner.

 

I'd personally very much appreciate if weapons were much more normalized in their viability (without the need for Rivens).
Without my current Damage/Multishot Riven for my Supra, it wouldn't even tickle Sortie enemies, while you have weapons like the tonkor, zarr, simulor and tigris which can clear entire rooms with a few shots.

I'd rather customize my weapons to focus on different utility stats and perhaps MINOR damage modifiers than having 2 different main build routes (crit or status), which seldom leave any room for such utility mods and even if they did, you could still do better adding another damage mod.

Aside from the Rivens, another huge problem would be having to rebalance every single weapon and warframe in the game to match the newly set Endgame content and as you probably know, there's *a lot* of those. Which would take a lot of time and ressources:
It would be a healthy change for the game overall, but DE is probably going the safe route of "don't fix what's not (too) broken" and instead invest their time in entirely new content, as they always do.

I personally don't think people would complain about "nerfs", if it meant a more balanced and more challenging game.
There's lots of threads asking for balance changes, but those saying "it's PvE y u nerf" and garbage like that seem more like the vocal minority too me, people seem more open towards a more challenging game as far as i have seen anyway.

 

Well, in short, i'd highly welcome Damage 3.0 and think most of the community does as well.
However, since the addition of Riven mods providing damage/multishot/crit/Elementals-stats, i don't know if DE is even concerned with the thought currently, since this will be a hard one to reverse.

This is what I wish for too, and I agree that Rivens are a sign in another direction. Why DE introduced the epitome of a "mandatory mod" I will never know.

Rivens may have been the final nail in the coffin...

Edited December 26, 2016 by DrBorris

[Dawn11715]

17 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

YOU like your playstyle, of course you do, and here in lies the problem. YOU CAN'T PRESERVE EVERYONE'S PLAYSTYLE. You can't have tactical play and S. Simulor in the same game, a decision has to be made. Just to let you know, by yopu saying "It needs to stay like this" you are inherently saying that the way other people want to play is "wrong". Now, I am not saying that your vision is the wrong with, maybe DE will decide it is right, but if they do the whole game should be balanced around that way of play.

As shown with the pictures, to make a "balanced" system there needs to be a Great Squish, and if there is a Great Squish people WILL be discriminated against. Maybe it is you, maybe it is your buddy, maybe it is me, but not everyone will be happy IF DE does a Damage 3.0. This is why Damage 2.1 is becoming the unfortunate reality.

By "base" TTK I don't mean every enemy would have the same time to kill and every weapon would be perfectly balanced, I am not that stupid. think man... think. By base TTK I mean "should the enemy be instantly deleted" "should this enemy get a few shots off at me" "should I have to sit in cover and fire pot-shots at the enemy". These are not numbers, but rather a "feel" for the game. And even on our side too, how many enemies shooting at us should it take for us to die? 5? 10? 100? Nothing rock solid, but rather a theme to go with.

I am very tired of people assuming the worst of a statement, did you even think about what I said? Of course your interpretation is ridiculous, did it ever cross your mind that maybe your interpretation was not how I intended the statement? I find it is useful to assume the people I am talking to are somewhat competent...

 

Why one-shot head-shot when my -insert weapon here- already kills the faster when I just wave my cursor across the screen? Cool, Snipers make a hole in Nullifier bubbles, arguably one of the most broken enemies in the game and one that doesn't have a variant for Grineer or Corpus...

Sure, those changes would make Snipers more viable, but it won't make them more worthwhile when compared to other meta weapons.

 

Thank you for linking that stuff.

 

But it is. Right now I can walk in a room and everything is dead. If mini-boss enemies are added that won't be the case. Just read that guy's post a few above here, for that person being a full on god of death is what makes Warframe, Warframe (for them). While elites may not be a "nerf" for you, it will be a nerf for others.

 

This is what I wish for too, and I agree that Rivens are a sign in another direction. Why DE introduced the epitome of a "mandatory mod" I will never know.

Rivens may have been the final nail in the coffin...

Rivens would be a good way to balance guns to the endgame level, if the difference between riven disposition would be large enough.

All in all I dont think closing the damage gap would be such a huge thing:

Half all the elemental damage multipiers, or make them remove base damage, make serration additive and half that damage two, half crit damage mods, make multishot use ammo ( of cause enemy scaling needs a nerv in asimilar fasion) and Finaly: REMOVE the mod card limit  

Why? because their is no way of balancing mods right now. The points only tell u how much Forma u need to max a gun, so in the end every mod cost the same, their are no small, or large mods, and thats the true problem. If I had the choice between 2 or 3 utility mods, instead of 1 dmg mod, It would be actually worth thinking about.

Edited December 26, 2016 by Dawn11715

[DrBorris]

7 minutes ago, Dawn11715 said:

Rivens would be a good way to balance guns to the endgame level, if the difference between riven disposition would be large enough.

All in all I dont think closing the damage gap would be such a huge thing:

Half all the elemental damage multipiers, or make them remove base damage, make serration additive and half that damage two, half crit damage mods, make multishot use ammo ( of cause enemy scaling needs a nerv in asimilar fasion) and Finaly: REMOVE the mod card limit  

Why? because their is no way of balancing mods right now. The points only tell u how much Forma u need to max a gun, so in the end every mod cost the same, their are no small, or large mods, and thats the true problem. If I had the choice between 2 or 3 utility mods, instead of 1 dmg mod, It would be actually worth thinking about.

Maybe Rivens could work, but there would need to be a hell of a nerf to them (and all other weapon mods).

Yes, you can balance mods. Of course there will always be a "Most DPS build", but if that build and this other build that reduces recoil only deals say, 15% less DPS, I would be quick to drop the DPS and get that recoil buff. This is where making elemental mods conversion mods, nerfing the blatant buff mods, and doing a bit of evening out of the weapons could allow for build diversity. Slot limits are what makes modding interesting, rather than a progression system it is a "build" system. And in a game where the developer wants you to play forever, progression can never last forever, thus "builds" become a better way of modifying weapons.

[Sirfol]

i like ur post op it's well tought and i agree.

I see this all thing of dmg 3.0 too...traditional, i mean warframe proved to people that the tradition is not the only answer.

Here is what i think. We are looking to a game with a 300+ weapons all with different mechanics, fire rate, form of shooting, range etc. All this form created diversity but also a fundamental problem, "i have 300+ weapons but all of those do only one thing, damage", this created another problem, how can i create a defense agaist all this forms of "damage"? wih the only value that can stand chance agaist it, "armor". And that's it. this is the "things there are between me and my enemy".

How to solve this? i don't really know, i tought it a little and i have a some sort of idea.

"add things between damage and armor".

"balance the game not on damage, but on it's objective value"

Now i'll try to break it up with the little english capability i posses.

We start with the enemy dmg do to us. Let's say the dmg they give us is 1000. this 1000 can oneshoot everything, but when the enemy is 1-10 this 1000 is, 1000 X 0.1=100, for 10-20 1000 X 0.12, for 20-30 1000 X 0.14 and so on until we come to 90-100 1000 X 0.28 =280 dmg, pretty good as far as scaling. Different enemies will have different 0.X values around they're characteristics.

For damage we do ourselves, it's pretty tough, because like u said there are players who want to be god, and those who want challange, i can only think in a two layer solution: First make enemies don't have only armor but a...let's call it "plasma shield" that scales with they're level, and have the same characteristichs of the damage->player but inverted.

This plasma shield will fuction like this player output dmg= T1, if enemy level is 0-10 PS=0.98. T1( let's say 10'000) X PS (0-10,0.95) =9500.

now let's say PS scale like this : 0-10= 0.95 (0.95 when the enemy is level 10), 10-20 (0.90 when enemy is level 20). 90-100 (0.50 when...well u get it). The PS scaling it stops a 0.30 and don't go lower. But the normal stats of the mob scales normally (health and basic armor agaist element).

I dont know, i tried xD.

[Mortarion]

Eh, don't know if they're afraid. I've been around since beginning of CB, and every time they released a X Y.0 update, the feedback was usually very good. The reason for that, was because every X Y.0 update brought massive improvements to the game. Take Mods 2.0, before that, all mods were randomized like the new Riven mods. There was no consistency, and mods were usually limited in usefulness to the ones that gave + damage, + multishot. With 2.0 and the introduction of the mod cards, consistency rose and quality of life improved. Instead of hoping for a mod to drop with the right stats, you just had to find them and invest in them.

The same could be said with Damage 2.0. Before it was just simple damage. Either your gun ignored armor, i.e. early Boltor and its popularity with some veteran players, or it didn't. Damage 2.0 completely changed all that with the different physical damage types and the addition of elemental types. Granted, 3.0 probably won't be a huge change like 2.0 was, but it will be different enough. Instead of a nerf, it's probably going to be a complete overhaul with the skeleton of 2.0. Player's are going to be too busy figuring out the new mechanics, than complaining.

[Danjal777]

The foundation of Warframe is set, to change it would uproot the game.  It would become something else, if they were to this, it would be easier to just make a new game.  So the massive hurdle DE has to make is how to accomplish a meaningful change using the blocks they have already in place.  So they are stuck with these mods, what could they do to change the system without completely invalidating the investment players have made.  

What I would do is:

-add a damage value to every mod. This means that you could use your damage mods, sure, and get a huge boost in damage, but a reload speed mod still improves damage, thus using maximum mod space will keep your weapons competitive.

-eliminate crit chance.  Every enemy has weak points, shooting that spot is your crit chance.  Headshots are special however as they are not only critical hits, but bypass defenses.

-place sockets that limits the type of mod you can equip (ammunition, body, mechanics, targeting) Each weapon has predetermined mod slots, you can't put a heat damage mod in a body slot, but you can in an ammo slot.  You can use a forma to add +1 slot to each part of the weapon.  Some weapons you will be able to put a ton of elements  on, some you won't.  For example, the Grakata would have something like two body slots, two targeting slots, one ammunition slot, and three mechanics slots.  The body generally deals with the handling of the weapon, swap speed, reload, stability, that sort of thing.  The ammunition handles what is being shot out of the weapon, so your elements, status, and raw damage mods.  Targeting deals with spread, critical damage, zoom, etc.  Mechanics involve fire rate, recoil, and special mods for the weapon.  Remember every mod adds damage, so even though ammunition is a huge source of damage, it's not the only way to get damage on the weapon. 

-add special value to every weapon (heat sword builds additional heat damage for every active fire proc)(Braton has a high powered round that can be fired when it reloads)(sicarus gains a counter for every consecutive hit that increases headshot damage) not just the basic mechanics that have been implemented recently, but a complete new unique ability that makes the weapon feel special and may alter your decision on what weapon to take.

-rebalance the damage types.  Every proc should be something useful and relatively equivalent.  Gas and slash procs are powerful, fire and impact...Not so much.  So the proc should be great affected by what it hits.  Heat proc vs shields- heats up the shield by turning it red, the enemy inside will be cooked alive within his shielding.  Heat proc vs alloy- causes armor to heat up until glowing red, the enemy will drop what they are doing and frantically remove their armor.  Heat proc vs flesh- the same as now, but can stack and adds 20% for each stacked proc.  

-prevent one shot kills on players.  You should have a shield gate and a health gate (and an energy gate if using quick thinking) that prevents you from outright dying.

-enemies should work in intelligent teams that apply benefits similar to how ancient healers create damage reduction...but thought out.  A squad of grineer Lancers spawn , they seek to create a formation of a wedge to patrol keeping 5m intervals, o e member of the team will be upgraded to sergeant, he applys a health gate to all members and allows for special tactics in a tile (like falling back to a hallway to set up an ambush).  If there are five or more in a squad one will be upgraded to medic, he will add a halfway health gate to allies, apply a passive heal, and rush to fallen squadmates to revive them.  Characters (like napalms and heavy gunners) will join squads and override the sergeant's commands (but his health gate will still function) and will apply their own special tactics. (Gunners will set up a firing line in front of her, forcing the Lancers to act as shields).  Some pawn units will contribute in their own way, butchers will hang back, but charge tenno that get close to the squad, shield lancers will form a wall in front of the squad and place themselves inbetween enemies and allies.  Headshots will bypass the health gates, explosive will only cause headshot damage within 1m of the source and only if the head is the first part of the hitbox that is affected.  This means you can snipe leadership to weaken squads.  It will also make weapons like the tonkor still do massive damage but not wipe out squads in one shot.  This part is the most crucial as currently enemies just run around with minor ai direction.  The corpus should rely heavily on their proxies, with crewmen focusing on buffing them.  Infested should group up and then rush in waves, seeking out ancients before blindly attacking.

These are how I would go about it.

 

 

Edited December 26, 2016 by Danjal777

[(PSN)CL_Poloboyzz93]

  I think there's 1 very clear problem.... we wouldn't mind bullet spongey enemies as long as THEY aren't 1 shotting us, and by bullet spongey I mean spongey, but not unnecessarily spongey...4 players burst damaging a level 200 - 300 enemy shouldn't take as long as it does,  especially since spending just about 2hrs in a void survival you'll face level 300+ enemies. It's all about DPS and seeing those nice numbers pay off even against high levels, and they gave us a good foundation, but sh*tty arcade musuo style enemies that continously scale to untouchable levels with their armor and damage, 1shot you,you have no chance with ANY frame unreasonably fast not even because you can't kill, but because you're 1 shotted with a 5forma build which is considered an "Endgame build" ..As stated above, a measly 1hr 30min - 2hrs will pit you against level 250-350.. Why did you leave defense, survival, interception endless? Because in some way you want us to venture and push ourselves to the limit obviously right? And endless presents the most hope for a valid endgame as of now..Just saying. So you should adjust your enemies scaling and damage..

  I'll tell you, you're totally going about Warframes endgame in the wrong way... Sortie "endgame" enemies max out at level 100, which doesnt make ANY sense considering level 100 is nowhere NEAR the max enemy cap, hell.. Beyond level 100, looks like you just typed in some cheap algorithm and set that to how enemies scale, it's lazy n therefore no point in endless , why is it here then? Tbh..You'll probably face a level 150 in a survival within your first month playing..Get 1 shot and see how broken it is...  Fix your system so that we can (With an optimized endgame build) actually survive against super high levels, yet still kill them, don't be lazy, this community loves the game and supports it to no end.. Don't give us a game thats endgame caps at 100 (Or as some people say, no endgame) when we can endlessly run up enemy levels and grind them out with our hard earned endgame builds for rewards and the accolade of seeing how far we can actually get without relying on invis cheese.. 

Edited December 26, 2016 by (PS4)Poloboyzz93

[SolarDwagon]

Your arguments make sense, but I am beginning to think that DE are using the promise of balance as an imaginary carrot, given that they keep adding things (like Rivens) that will make the transfer to damage 3.0 even harder than it is right now. DE could be suffering from some very bad internal communication, or terrible foresight (which is a problem in itself), but I'm beginning to lean towards Damage 3.0 not being a reality.