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

[BornWithTeeth]

30 minutes ago, Lakais said:

But since DMG3.0 would be such a game-changing alteration, we NEED to discuss this for the year to come. If for no other reason then for the knowledge, and thus understanding, followed by acceptance to hit the community and sink in. "Things are going to change." If for no other reason then for this portion of the playerbase who WANT things to change to be heard. They have every right to voice their opinions. 

I can see why people get upset over things like these when mentioned. But truth be told this is DE's child. And as much as we influence it's development with our feedback and ideas, it is up to DE to do what they think is right and best for their baby from their point of view. They KNOW they can't make everyone happy. They KNOW about the massive sh*t-storm that awaits them regardless of how masterfully they execute these changes. The entire thing could be a marvel of programming, fit to be put up into a museum for generations to come as pinnacle of code. And there would still be a horde of players in the forums, raving murder. 

And DE shouldn't put manpower into rebalancing less-used weapons and frames before the baselines mechanic changes have been worked out. Because doing so means that they'd need to go over these items AGAIN. You're not going to bother cleaning up that stain in the carpet if you're going to replace the whole damn thing next week. 

This is entirely correct, but please do look at the link I posted. It's an interview with Sheldon, and it reveals that DE know very well that they cannot now implement Damage 3.0. DE know they've f***ed up, that every Riven Mod and Primed Pressure Point is a nail in the coffin of Damage 3.0.

[Schregger]

I used this analogy in the past when talking about damage 3.0, but Ill use it again. 

Damage 3.0 is like road work. 

Warframe is a road, used by many to get from point A to B, its not a major road, but its not a back road, its a decent road that makes commuting from A to B easy. 

Veteran and Newbie players are commuters on said road, with the veterans being the people that have used the road so much, they have everything planned out to incorporate that road, as they know it will take them only "X number of minutes" to reach point B if they take that road. Newbie players are commuters that found the road and like the drive/like the time saved/whatever. reason for using the road.

The problem, is that roads ware, and start to accumulate potholes, and these potholes need to be patched. But eventually, the road is so full of potholes and patchwork, whoever maintains the roads will have to actually take a step back and go, "Dang... we got to fix this road..." and there is only one way to fix such a road.

Tear the whole thing up and relay the asphalt. This troubles everyone that uses the road. It slows it down, and trows off everyone's plans. But its necessary because, with a new layer of asphalt, the road is now smooth and level, giving drivers a better driving experience while on it.

Like said above, Damage 3.0 is a completely rework of a core part of Warframe, and there will be players that dont like that. But its something that needs to be done, not for veteran players, but for the new players and future players that may join warframe. A harsh re-balancing to be sure, but the advantages of it should easily outweigh the growing pains that will come from it. Sometimes, foundations need to be relaid for the good of the building...

 

...huh, talked about road and building construction in a post about a videogame... thats kinda weird, thinking about it.

[Nocam]

Just my thoughts, seeing as I didn't read past OP:

What if, instead of the Mandatory mods on weapons, such as Serration, Hornet Strike, and Pressure Point...weapons got more powerful in damage as they went up? So a Level one Paris does 100 total damage, but by the time it's level 30, without mods, it's doing 10k damage? (Please note, this is just an example because I'm too laszy to crunch numbers)

That'd what I expected when I first started playing the game. That ranking on weapons meant the damage and such went up. I feel that'd be a better solution.

[SenorClipClop]

22 hours ago, EmptyDevil said:

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

The info in Devstream 80 is Steve talking about why we don't have Damage 3.0 yet, and the rest is all ideas and suggestions (the Twitter post is an idea and tailored with a poll to gather player opinion). Nothing here has confirmed that anything is beyond the brainstorming phase for Damage 3.0 . We don't really know anything.

If this is just a small bit, what else do you have?

[BornWithTeeth]

14 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

The info in Devstream 80 is Steve talking about why we don't have Damage 3.0 yet, and the rest is all ideas and suggestions (the Twitter post is an idea and tailored with a poll to gather player opinion). Nothing here has confirmed that anything is beyond the brainstorming phase for Damage 3.0 . We don't really know anything.

If this is just a small bit, what else do you have?

I do urge people to look at that interview I posted. It is an actual interview with Sheldon where he admits that Damage 3.0 is something which is going to be incredibly difficult to implement because of existing systems, that with the benefit of hindsight they would not have allowed those systems to become entrenched, and that in 2017, they're going to be 'thinking' about Damage 3.0 for a long time before they in any kind of position to even talk about specific changes.

 

Please, take a look. It is not just a video, it is a full text transcription, you can read it in less than two minutes.

 

http://wccftech.com/talking-warframe-digital-extremes/

 

 

You wanted more information. Here it is.

 

Digital Extremes know that they are not going to able to implement Damage 3.0 any time soon, as in, it may be another year before we see anything, and they know that it is because of systems which they have allowed to become entrenched.

[Foefaller]

My dream(s) for Damage 3.0:

1) reduced Delta. While the OP thinks this will have to come at a massive nerf, I think you could do wonders by greatly increasing the starting power and difficulty that the game starts off at. I know a lot of people who rarely play outside of sorties and the occasional alert because the rest of the game has become so easy as to lose much of it's fun. In fact, I wonder how far you could get by not have a level scale at all, and instead just increase the number and variety of enemies you face. 

2) "Meta" DPS builds still leave room for 2-4 extra mods. While I think "No Mandatory Mods" is more of an ideal to strive for, rather than an achievable goal (at least going from the state of the game now to that in a single iteration) I think it's possible to change how mods (particularly elemental mods) work so that even with Riven mods taken into account, you are going to only have 4-6 mods before diminishing returns or something similar makes add any more damage/crit/ele/multishot/etc mod no longer worthwhile, giving the player the chance to add a couple mods to tweak the weapon to suit their own preference, like reducing zoom, or one of those self-reload when holstered mods like Eject Magazine that most people only get through Conclave.

3.) Enemy Armor scaling and CP. This probably doesn't require Damage 3.0, but it's absolutely an issue with how the game currently works that should be address. The best way to counter enemy armor should not be 100% passive, Full Stop. IMO armor scaling isn't quite as big of an issue that people say it is, but it is part of the problem Damage 3.0 is suppose to solve, getting rid of the extremes that currently exist, and best of all, it's something you don't need to completely reword mods well, you rework *one* mod) to solve.

[DrBorris]

Thank you all for keeping the discussion so level headed, I wrote this post up right after The Vacuum Within but was skeptical to post it because of fear that I would be trampled and nothing would actually be, ya know, discussed. 

It is good to see that we can still hold civilized discussions on volatile subjects. 

[SenorClipClop]

4 hours ago, BornWithTeeth said:

You wanted more information. Here it is.

Thank-you. This is what I was looking for.

As I figured (and for good reason), Damage 3.0 is still a long way and a lot of thinking and testing away from a concrete anything. No sense for people to get doom-y at this point in time.

[Ailissa]

14 hours ago, EmptyDevil said:

I strongly dislike seeing this reason being brought up as a defense against balancing the game. I've even gotten warnings or deleted posts for ranting in an extremely blunt way, directed at no one in particular, detailing how this logic isn't a valid reason to keep absurdly broken things in place. We would still be powerful if a wide number of things were reined in.

Here's the issue with your post....

 

I don't care what you dislike.

 

Other peoples issues are not my concern. I play games for my own entertainment, no one else's. Your likes and dislikes are not my problem. They can change anything they want but if I don't find it fun I won't stick around. The general rule of the internet is "you are never the only one" so other people would walk away too.

 

They have only just introduced Riven mods so any damage changes won't happen for a while yet. When they do i'll see how things go and then decide if it's still fun or not.

 

My point of view isn't going to change simply because you dislike it. I don't have an insanely OP build. I can't solo mobs over level 40 for instance. Reign it in any more and it just wouldn't be worth me bothering so I just wouldn't bother.

 

[EmptyDevil]

1 minute ago, Ailissa said:

Here's the issue with your post....

 

I don't care what you dislike.

 

Other peoples issues are not my concern. I play games for my own entertainment, no one else's. Your likes and dislikes are not my problem. They can change anything they want but if I don't find it fun I won't stick around. The general rule of the internet is "you are never the only one" so other people would walk away too.

 

They have only just introduced Riven mods so any damage changes won't happen for a while yet. When they do i'll see how things go and then decide if it's still fun or not.

 

My point of view isn't going to change simply because you dislike it. I don't have an insanely OP build. I can't solo mobs over level 40 for instance. Reign it in any more and it just wouldn't be worth me bothering so I just wouldn't bother.

 

Never said you had to care. Never wanted you to care. Don't care that you don't care.

My post is more or less telling you that your view is merely an opinion, and that it has faulty logic in why Warframe shouldn't be balanced.

[Lakais]

13 hours ago, BornWithTeeth said:

This is entirely correct, but please do look at the link I posted. It's an interview with Sheldon, and it reveals that DE know very well that they cannot now implement Damage 3.0. DE know they've f***ed up, that every Riven Mod and Primed Pressure Point is a nail in the coffin of Damage 3.0.

Yeah I read the link and it was very informative. Thank you for that. And I agree. But I think the whole riven and prime mod situation is basically them doing SOMETHING for the community to show that they are putting content in. Not that I agree with this particular path.

One, rather half-backed idea to balance rivens is to essentially leave them as-is, with the exception of their point cost, basically making them a very harsh tradeoff thing where a single mod could demand up to 30 points of mod energy without synergy. That way they don't need to do anything wild with the mods themselves, the cost-benefit concept and player's own tastes will see to that. In a way this is an approach that can be taken with all pure +dmg mods, though I wouldn't do that as it'd be an ineffective bandaid as they are with set values that can somewhat easily be tweaked.

Rivens are a bit tricky to balance since they are somewhat randomly generated, though of course there are rules to those stat bonuses and can be toned down. All other mods can be predictably tweaked. The problem with Rivens and future changes is not how they will be later, it's what to do with the existing ones. 

EDIT: And of course there's the precedent of "relic mods". I believe there are a few still circulating. Some weird mods that got released through a mistake and a handful of players have them. Essentially argument can be made to keep the existing mods in inventories as is. This approach wouldn't really work since EVERYONE have these mods. This approach would only work with specialty mods anyway. 

Edited December 27, 2016 by Lakais

[BornWithTeeth]

1 hour ago, Ailissa said:

 

My point of view isn't going to change simply because you dislike it. I don't have an insanely OP build. I can't solo mobs over level 40 for instance. Reign it in any more and it just wouldn't be worth me bothering so I just wouldn't bother.

 

That is a little atypical, though. By contrast, I have multiple builds (i.e. multiple different 'frames, with enough different weapons to have a unique loadout on each 'frame, using a couple of different Focus trees) which, when I am using them, make it so that I almost cannot tell the difference between level 30 mobs and level 60 mobs.

 

If you use Potatoes and Forma to tinker with your weapons and Warframes, it is casually easy to take a build which is just about capable of clearing the inner planets and turn it into a build which can destroy almost any mission in the game. Simply flattening the power curve (i.e. 'reducing the delta') would be better than what we have now.

[Ailissa]

5 hours ago, BornWithTeeth said:

That is a little atypical, though. By contrast, I have multiple builds (i.e. multiple different 'frames, with enough different weapons to have a unique loadout on each 'frame, using a couple of different Focus trees) which, when I am using them, make it so that I almost cannot tell the difference between level 30 mobs and level 60 mobs.

 

If you use Potatoes and Forma to tinker with your weapons and Warframes, it is casually easy to take a build which is just about capable of clearing the inner planets and turn it into a build which can destroy almost any mission in the game. Simply flattening the power curve (i.e. 'reducing the delta') would be better than what we have now.

I have forma and potatoes on all my frames and weapons.

 

What I don't have are all the mods. I don't have any primed mods, very few nightmare mods and hardly any mods from the rooms that need a dragon key.

[BornWithTeeth]

5 minutes ago, Ailissa said:

I have forma and potatoes on all my frames and weapons.

 

What I don't have are all the mods. I don't have any primed mods, very few nightmare mods and hardly any mods from the rooms that need a dragon key.

That is fair enough, but I do want to point out what I perceive as a slight problem in your argument here.

 

You have said that you don't want Warframe to be challenging, and that if it becomes challenging you will leave. You have also said that you don't have any Primed mods, very few Nightmare mods, vanishingly few Corrupt Mods, I'm guessing you might not have Drift mods either.

 

Do you trade with Syndicates at all? Even without Primed mods, a multi-shot Augment Hek, Forma'ed to fit all necessary mods, is an excellent weapon for fighting high level Grineer anywhere on the star map. See also Rakta Cernos and Sancti Tigris, Vaykor Marelok.

 

Did you take part in the hunt for the Acolytes? Even if you didn't, Blood Rush can be acquired from Lua Spy vaults, and melee combo counter mods can still be acquired. Drifting Contact is a Nightmare mod, but if you don't want to do that, Relentless Combination can drop on the star map and will serve a similar purpose if you put it on a Slash weapon with decent Status chance. Combo meter crit builds and Status modifiers make melee very powerful.

Do you do Sortie missions? Have you gotten any Lenses? If you have Lenses for Zenurik and Naramon, then you can potentially unlock some of the most powerful abilities in the game.

 

I'm not even gonna mention Rivens other than to express my disgust at their implementation. Rivens Are Bad. There. Done.

 

 

What I'm getting at here is that if your position is that the game should not pose any challenge, even to a person who does not use any of the things I have described above (Primed Mods, Nightmare Mods, Corrupt Mods, Syndicate Augments and Weapons, Melee critical attack suites, Focus powers), what you are effectively arguing is that all of those things should serve no purpose. That they should not be needed to access any missions in the game, that they should never be necessary to survive in any environment of the game*. 

 

That would be find of a shame, don't you think? It would be nice to have a real reason to put together strong builds. The closest thing we ever had to an 'endgame' was Endless Void, and Endless Void was terrible, it was completely boring and cheesy. When Sentients came out, I was happy! They were some of the most interesting enemies the game could offer, and fighting them required putting together a good build and also having the tactics required to apply it without getting killed.

 

Basically....I can't agree with your argument because what you are effectively saying is that any kind of higher level enhancement in Warframe should serve no purpose, that there should be no endgame which powerful builds are required for, but also that the damage system should never be reworked to emphasise personal skill, strategy, and playstyle, which is what people tend to mean when they say they want mandatory mods removed. They want more flexibility of build and personal tactics, as opposed to just stacking those damage numbers as high as possible.

 

*_{Also, I could argue that they don't have much of a purpose as it is! They are not, strictly speaking, necessary for the whole starchart. The regular solar system can be cleared without any of those things if you put a few Forma on your loadout and are willing to play co-op and sweat a little. I cleared the star map long before Second Dream, playing solo like 80% of the time, long before I had any Primed mods, using one or two Nightmare mods. The Tonbo and Sobek, on Ember Prime and Rhino, destroyed every obstacle in my path, although I will admit to cheerfully using the Steel Meridian Augment for the shotgun. So good.}

[ArbitUHM]

39 minutes ago, Ailissa said:

I have forma and potatoes on all my frames and weapons.

 

What I don't have are all the mods. I don't have any primed mods, very few nightmare mods and hardly any mods from the rooms that need a dragon key.

The mods from rooms that need a dragon key (i.e. corrupted mods) are what makes your Warframes OP. Seriously, you can just spam the hell out of your 'ultimate' powers without a care for energy costs. They are, more than anything, what turns the game from a fairly tactical and challenging shooter into the crowd control spamfest that is "high level" play.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled complaining about 5k mutagen Hema and Riven mods. ;)

[BornWithTeeth]

2 minutes ago, ArbitUHM said:

The mods from rooms that need a dragon key (i.e. corrupted mods) are what makes your Warframes OP. Seriously, you can just spam the hell out of your 'ultimate' powers without a care for energy costs. They are, more than anything, what turns the game from a fairly tactical and challenging shooter into the crowd control spamfest that is "high level" play.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled complaining about 5k mutagen Hema and Riven mods. ;)

Well, you're not wrong, but I'd argue that you're not perfectly right either. I don't use Corrupted Mods on my 'frame builds, I don't really like them...but I do use Primed Continuity and Primed Flow.

 

So, I don't use Corrupted Mods to min max for Efficiency and Power Strength, but I do get some extra Duration and energy reserves. I can still solo Sortie missions.

[magusat999]

There is certainly something wrong with the damage system in Warframe - but "The Great Squish" is not the solution. That system further alienates high level players. I don't see how making everything basically the same difficulty helps Warfare players in any sense of the word. It has a straight arrow, but it is not "Balanced".

Balance would mean there are progressively harder missions as the player advances and is able to handle them. Right now the system is broken in that a player who is not ready can be "taxied" to a higher level area. Areas should be complete and total lock-out until you have earned the right to be there.

A higher level player gets to go to easier missions because they have been through those missions before and have earned it. There should always be a reward for progression, and that is one of them. There is a benefit to that for the newer player - the veteran can hold their hand. It also creates incentive for the new player - I remember when I was new and I would see someone with a frame I never saw before, massacring everything - it made me want to grind and get like them. having everyone always fighting at the same difficulty makes you feel like you have never accomplished anything, leads to frustration and boredom. The higher level player going to easy areas is already penalized in less xp, less resources, useless drops - THAT is the "difficulty" in that respect. Harder content is not the only type of "difficulty" in the game.

Its also very hard to balance a game that there is no end to. Theoretically, Warframe has no ending, it just scales up, and up and up as you continue to play (particularly in endless missions). Just as one can argue that weapons can be too powerful for easy content, another argument can be raised about having the ability to play the content in it's entirty. In that respect, we are gimped because scaling stops with us and continues with the enemies. This was supposed to stop at level 60 (?) at about U8 / U9 - but someone decided to reverse on that and let the enemies scale out of control. Our Warframes were doubled to meet that new enemy level - but then they allowed the enemies to keep going up. (Initially players were complaining that the enemies were way too high a level, but that level was capped - so now it is infinitely worse). The solution that DE doesn't seem to want to implement is to either cap the enemies levels or introduce an ending to the game (or it's respective missions). that way they have a standard to go by. Right now they don't know what to do - because there are people who want to and can fight level 400 enemies, and others who struggle with level 40 enemies. Missions start with level 20 enemies and if you stay long enough you can be fighting level 200 enemies - there are all kinds of issues with this game and it can be solved by locking missions down. All this "Balancing" and nerfing is only making people leave the game. They need to make a beginning and an end to each mission. Survival maximum waves. Defense the same. Mostly the endless missions need not to be endless anymore. Or they can make endless missions, but in those missions players should be able to scale up endlessly.

I'm not saying those are perfect solutions, just saying that there is more to this than power creep. There are serious flaws with the game itself and everything done so far is not helping, neither will "balancing".

[Omnimorph]

I think getting rid of the damage mods would be a terrible idea, absolutely terrible, and DE must not under any circumstances listen to people who are asking for it.

It's arguable that the mod system needs a bit of tweaking, but in and of itself, it's a brilliant system, and being able to level up your damage in the early to mid game (and having to choose whether to put endo into tank/spank/utility) is one of the things that builds anticipation and a sense of progress in those levels.

That said, I understand that it's a frustration to players who have smelt all the roses.  But I think that problem should be solved by a player being able to "fuse" a single full copy of the relevant damage mod (Serration, Hornet Strike, Pressure Point) to a weapon, to free up a slot.

[Navarc]

So now that DE has decided Damage 3.0 won't be about damage in general or innate damage in weaponry but about making invulnerable enemies, that they backed out of what they had described Damage 3.0 to be for us - what do you think? I know I'm just disappointed and don't see myself playing daily since there's not much to look forwards to, especially not with how rivens ended up letting us use the mods they're composed of (2 serrations didn't solve the problem, apparently!), have randomized stats & don't ever guarantee an upgrade. 

[Tesseract7777]

Why you nekros a three month old thread? 

[ShadowStalker]

2 minutes ago, Tesseract7777 said:

Why you nekros a three month old thread? 

whats wrong with that?

Edited June 10, 2017 by ShadowStalker

[heskaroid]

Community suggestions of reworking the enemy scaling and stuff sounded better than would DE try to do imo

wait is this a nekro'd thread???

Edited June 10, 2017 by heskaroid

[Air-mage]

On 12/25/2016 at 11:38 PM, 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.

(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.

sincerely: EVEN A @(*()$ GUNBLADE IS A BETTER SNIPER THAN A SNIPER RIFLE IN THIS GAME

[VentiGlondi]

DE was too slow to even consider those changes.

They should have implemented them long ago, but in reality they only started discussing them months after the playerbase got used to this kind of gameplay.