I'm Really Disappointed in the Decision to Keep Mandatory Mods

[DiabolusUrsus]

4 hours ago, Azrael said:

A weapon with 0% crit chance is also not random. This is like saying "a weapon that does 3000 damage is better than one that does 2786 damage, because 3000 is a nice round number." You're correct that 100% crit chance is better than 20%, but the "level of randomness" isn't really the point. You're ascribing a false reason for crit builds being good. Crit builds are good because they do more damage, not because they are more reliable.

And a weapon with 0% crit chance will never be modded for crit. If you're not willing to actually engage the point I'm making, I'm not going to waste my time responding to your "counter-points."

4 hours ago, Azrael said:

First of all, ranking up those mods is a form of progression in this game. Forget MR, that barely matters at all, the real progression is getting weapons, frames, and mods, putting formas on those weapons and frames, and ranking up those mods. But removing serration and hornet strike you are short-cutting a lot of progression for new players.

But let's ignore that, and suppose we DO remove them. How do we do it? There are a couple of clear options, and they all stink.

No, let's not, because you don't get to make an argument and then prevent me from responding to it. Especially when it's a bad argument. Removal of effectively "mandatory" mods has no bearing whatsoever on the resources that go into ranking mods. If you're looking at grindy mod fusion as a form of engaging progression, there's no reason 10-rank or Legendary mods have to cease to exist under the new system.

4 hours ago, Azrael said:

1) remove them and leave the mod slot, baking that damage boost into the weapon. This is a huge powercreep, equivalent to simply adding a mod slot to every weapon and giving every new player a maxed serration/hornetstrike. Players will immediately find a new mod to always put in that slot, and will then start complaining about how there's no new diversity really because they basically just have one extra mod slot. And do we really need another huge buff? We do too much damage as it is!

No, it's not huge power-creep because you're shoe-horning my suggestion into "the next damage mod will fit into place." I mention Serration, Hornet Strike, et al. because they are the worst offenders, but any mod that purely adds benefit should be adjusted. It's the whole "drawbacks" thing. So while players won't have to worry about dealing sufficient levels of damage, they'll still need to think carefully about how they want to use those mod slots.

4 hours ago, Azrael said:

2) same as above, but lose the mod slot as well. Now we've accomplished nothing at all, except to give everyone a free maxed serration/hornetstrike and no option to remove it. Other than that there are no differences at all. In fact there is less variety because we don't have the option to gain a mod slot by removing serration.

Why on earth would they remove a mod slot? Nobody is asking them to do that. It would be entirely counter-productive. Don't make up horrible ideas on your own and then attribute them to the opposition.

4 hours ago, Azrael said:

3) same as either 1 or 2, but instead of baking that damage into the weapon we leave it out and nerf enemies instead. It's still exactly the same, we either get a massive buff (if we keep the mod slot), or get no new variety at all (if we don't keep it). We've still accomplished nothing.

You're going in circles here.

4 hours ago, Azrael said:

4) throw everything about the game away, and start from scratch. Rework all mods, enemy scaling, the combat system (including status, weakpoints, and crit), and player progression. In other words, make Warframe 2 and throw away the old warframe that's currently making them a bunch of money.

You're making the assumption that a Warframe 2 would fail to also make them money, and drastic change isn't quite as horrible as you're making it out to be. Refer to: Damage 2.0, Melee 2.0, Movement 2.0, and Warframe's continued fondness of "massive overhauls" instead of the more rational graduated but frequent changes that facilitate the best game balance.

This also wouldn't be an entirely bad idea. It would at least give them a chance to standardize their mechanics so that you don't have odd changes in the ruleset between say, launchers, non-explosive projectile weapons, and hit-scan weapons. Melee weapons could also use a serious overhaul when it comes to distribution of power. But that's a story for another time.

4 hours ago, Azrael said:

So which one do you want DE to do? Would you like them to accomplish nothing except for removing progression, for no reason? Would you like them to abandon warframe and make a new game? Or can you manage to deal with the fact that doing enough damage will usually (but not always) require a base damage mod?

If you think there's a better option, then please explain. Just make sure it's actually a good solution that provides answers to all of the above issues. otherwise it's going to be hard to take seriously.

While I'm sure you'd like me to pigeonhole myself into the set of rigged options you've laid out for me, I think I'll go with option E:

• Keep Serration et al. in the game but modify their stats to be less no-brainer good.
• Keep the mod slot because when there aren't any mods that just add raw damage for no real drawback, it's not as big of a deal.
• Ensure weapons have enough base damage to deal with max starchart enemies and a grace stretch into some endless scaling... but not too far because it's not supposed to be balanced anyway.
• Ensure weapons have varied amounts of recoil, a sensible damage progression with a consistent MR rating, and reasonable-but-not-excessive ammunition supply.
• Shrink any applicable damage bonuses to the point that they are useful but other options are still plenty attractive.
• Increase the availability of other mechanic-altering mods in the vein of Adhesive Blast, Kinetic Ricochet, and the like.
• Remember that a definitive overhaul is an unrealistic goal. Sweeping changes might make for a nice jumping-off point, but it will take some time to tweak the mechanics into the best fit.

This thread is not about "fix all of Warframe's problems and make everything perfect in one fell swoop." It's about changing progression to be consistent and accessible while increasing the degree of customization made possible by mods and thereby making experimenting with different setups more worthwhile. That's as far as it goes. Are there other problems to solve? Yes, absolutely.

[Zedasfogueiras]

Since they added Primed pressure point it was clear... 

Edited January 11, 2017 by ninjadeboxers

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

On 1/7/2017 at 1:01 PM, DiabolusUrsus said:

Warframe is an action game, where whether a shot misses, hits, or hits a vital spot (crits) should be entirely in the control of the player. There's no need for an extra layer of randomness.

I love this, and 100% agree.

With a system like this I could actually see it opening up a whole new set-up for mods that don't depend purely on damage increase mods and remove some RNG. It will also add more necessity for skill in this game instead of just RNG and AoE.

Make enemies have more vital spots like the head with different effects on the opponent in addition to "critical damage" with varying critical multipliers depending where it was hit. This would be the only way to get crits.

        -Headshots obviously receive the highest critical damage multiplier, but could also lower enemy accuracy for a duration if they survive the shot. 

        -Shots to arms might disable the use of weapons that require that particular arm for a while.

        -Shots to legs would cause staggering, and the enemy would only be able to move at a walking speed.

 With mechanics like this you would start being able to slot it appropriately to preference for certain affects.

        -Mod to add bonus duration and additional slow potency to leg shots.

        -Mod to increase duration of disabled weapons from arm shots.

        - A classic, a mod that will increase Vital Spot crit multiplier in general. (Still requires you to actually hit those spots to obtain a critical)

I would imagine this would have to work differently for AoE weapons to avoid making them more broken. I'm guessing it could only allow for minor or no Vital Spot bonuses.

This system would also be usable with regards to Status Effect procs, but I haven't thought that one through yet, so I'll have to leave that one to you guys.

[PatternistSlave]

On 1/7/2017 at 5:13 PM, DiabolusUrsus said:

On 1/7/2017 at 5:04 PM, LuckyCharm said:

Why not simply remove/change how energy is accumulated for warframes (zenurik,ev, etc) so gunplay is actually meaningful to start with since you can no longer spam abilities to keep things cc'd and work from there. 

Also give us some damage conversion mods please eg. slash > puncture sort of thing

Yes please.

This was the start of the conversation which basically amounts to, "I don't like using abilities, nerf those." unless you were only talking about the "damage conversion mods" part.

[LuckyCharm]

1 hour ago, PatternistSlave said:

This was the start of the conversation which basically amounts to, "I don't like using abilities, nerf those." unless you were only talking about the "damage conversion mods" part.

Im guessing you are a person who enjoys using the old ash, regularly plays soundquake banshee and ember. Has a permainvis loki and enjoys playing nidus to spam that 1 key. 

You dont need to nerf any abilities if people are forced to learn when to use them to most effect because they wont always have energy to use it every 3s. If anything they could make abilities even more damaging because of limited use

[Unholyrequiem]

To put it simply, 

Here are the mandatory mods for rifles everyone is familiar with are familiar with:

Heavy Calibre

Serration

Split chamber

2 element mods

`What do these have in common? Well it's simple, they can be placed on every single weapon because there is almost never any justifiable reason not to take them as they do only one thing and that's increase your damage. Why wouldn't you just slap damage on your weapon? To not to do is just shooting yourself in the foot (Pun intended). The issue with mandatory mods is that after those 5 mods you only 3 mods to work with to optimize your weapon and do very little to encourage customization or unique builds. 

 

Some may say it's good to optimize towards a weapon's strengths and that's absolutely true however these mods encompass literally weapon's strength that you might as well just have 3 slots on your weapon when you mod. 

Edited January 11, 2017 by Unholyrequiem

[Azrael]

17 minutes ago, Unholyrequiem said:

What do these have in common? Well it's simple, they can be placed on every single weapon because there is almost never any justifiable reason not to take them as they do only one thing and that's increase your damage.

Incorrect. Heavy cal is a bad choice on many weapons, and split chamber is typically left off of simulor builds.

[Latiac]

I think all elementals should have a bonus damage to ALL enemies, however certain ones should have bigger bonuses against the right type fo enemy.

 

It just feels odd to bring a CORROSIVE based weapon and have the enemy RESIST Corrosion, How?

 

[Naqel]

14 hours ago, ninjadeboxers said:

Since they added Primed pressure point it was clear... 

Primed mods were a mistake.

Then again, very few additions made over the last year were good ideas that didn't hinder DE's ability to correct other flaws.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Naqel

[PatternistSlave]

2 hours ago, LuckyCharm said:

Im guessing you are a person who enjoys using the old ash, regularly plays soundquake banshee and ember. Has a permainvis loki and enjoys playing nidus to spam that 1 key. 

You dont need to nerf any abilities if people are forced to learn when to use them to most effect because they wont always have energy to use it every 3s. If anything they could make abilities even more damaging because of limited use

I'm guessing you are a person who can't handle more than one button so only use your gun.  Me?  I'd like to use all a frames abilities and for them to deal actual damage.  (You one of those noobs who thought Ash's 4 did damage?)  Is there "limited use" on the Soma Prime?  Cause last I checked that did pretty significant damage.

[Zedasfogueiras]

56 minutes ago, Naqel said:

Primed mods were a mistake.

Then again, very few additions made over the last year were good ideas that didn't hinder DE's ability to correct other flaws.

they could add them appart since primed damage mods or normal mods are used on every weapon of this game there is no need for them to occupy

[DiabolusUrsus]

17 minutes ago, PatternistSlave said:

I'm guessing you are a person who can't handle more than one button so only use your gun.  Me?  I'd like to use all a frames abilities and for them to deal actual damage.  (You one of those noobs who thought Ash's 4 did damage?)  Is there "limited use" on the Soma Prime?  Cause last I checked that did pretty significant damage.

And if you bothered to ask about my perspective instead of making wild assumptions off of two words of general agreement you might learn that I actually favor an energy system that encourages synergistic casting in addition to providing players with additional options for energy generation.

I can appreciate the power afforded by Zenurik, but I'm not so blinded by the awesome that I can see it hurts the game as a whole. Zenurik and its ilk are why DE is justified in pumping out Nullifier-style cheesy enemies that aren't exactly fun to fight against.

The difference between abilities and guns is that guns can't effectively prevent an enemy from fighting back at all. Even the more ridiculous combos (e.g. Mirage-ulor) rely on abilities to some extent to facilitate constant death.

Nerfing our energy economy to the point that we can't simply mash 3 or 4 to keep every enemy completely incapacitated doesn't mean that a Warframe can only rely on its guns to survive. You're grossly exaggerating the consequences of the proposition.

I like abilities. I still think that our ability to cast them with reckless abandon needs to be nerfed... and when they are properly moderated we can actually start making them more powerful so they feel more unique and special to use. At that point all abilities should ideally be useful, instead of some being God tier and others falling by the wayside and rarely used.

Please stop fabricating a perspective, attributing it to me, and then arguing against that perspective because it's easier to shoot down. It's irksome.

[DiabolusUrsus]

15 hours ago, ninjadeboxers said:

Since they added Primed pressure point it was clear... 

By they, you mean "Sheldon, without permission from the others, added Primed Pressure Point on his own and this was generally hailed as a mistake." Unfortunately, the damage was done and the ordeal of sorting out how to potentially undo the damage was swept under the rug to be dealt with never.

[PatternistSlave]

11 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

And if you bothered to ask about my perspective instead of making wild assumptions off of two words of general agreement you might learn that I actually favor an energy system that encourages synergistic casting in addition to providing players with additional options for energy generation.

I can appreciate the power afforded by Zenurik, but I'm not so blinded by the awesome that I can see it hurts the game as a whole. Zenurik and its ilk are why DE is justified in pumping out Nullifier-style cheesy enemies that aren't exactly fun to fight against.

The difference between abilities and guns is that guns can't effectively prevent an enemy from fighting back at all. Even the more ridiculous combos (e.g. Mirage-ulor) rely on abilities to some extent to facilitate constant death.

Nerfing our energy economy to the point that we can't simply mash 3 or 4 to keep every enemy completely incapacitated doesn't mean that a Warframe can only rely on its guns to survive. You're grossly exaggerating the consequences of the proposition.

I like abilities. I still think that our ability to cast them with reckless abandon needs to be nerfed... and when they are properly moderated we can actually start making them more powerful so they feel more unique and special to use. At that point all abilities should ideally be useful, instead of some being God tier and others falling by the wayside and rarely used.

Please stop fabricating a perspective, attributing it to me, and then arguing against that perspective because it's easier to shoot down. It's irksome.

You like the Vey Hek boss fight do you?  Cause that's what you're asking for.  That game is trash and I wouldn't play it.  I didn't need to ask anything.  You made it quite clear.  Everything you said boils down to "I don't want to use abilities so much.".  You want this to be even more of a shooter than it already is and it's quite a bit of one.  There are very few frames with abilities that deal significant damage for example.

[LuckyCharm]

2 hours ago, PatternistSlave said:

You like the Vey Hek boss fight do you?  Cause that's what you're asking for.  That game is trash and I wouldn't play it.  I didn't need to ask anything.  You made it quite clear.  Everything you said boils down to "I don't want to use abilities so much.".  You want this to be even more of a shooter than it already is and it's quite a bit of one.  There are very few frames with abilities that deal significant damage for example.

Its a shooter yes. But when was the last time you ever felt "oh this might kill me i need to find cover" rather than blindly pressing an ability button and nullifying all threat to yourself? Im guessing the only times have been corpus sorties since theyre the only faction most skills get blocked by. 

You dont need significant damage on abilities to feel like there is no challenge to you for the entire starchart and most sorties, cc is enough since when they arent shooting at you all you're playing is a shooting gallery mixed with a vending machine. 

Just btw.. i can keep an entire area permenantly cc'd as vauban, titania, nyx, mirage, exalibur, ember,volt.. the list goes on while just using zenurik. 

And yes im one of those people that think ashes old ult did damage. Because it ignored all armor with slash procs and works with combo counter which you could get into the 1000's with the right mods. You could easily 1 hit kill all grineer in the "increased armor" Sorties with it which is the highest level enemies i ever cared to fight because i dont feel staying 2 hours in a mission to be challenged is worth my time.

[DiabolusUrsus]

4 hours ago, PatternistSlave said:

You like the Vey Hek boss fight do you?  Cause that's what you're asking for.  That game is trash and I wouldn't play it.  I didn't need to ask anything.  You made it quite clear.  Everything you said boils down to "I don't want to use abilities so much.".  You want this to be even more of a shooter than it already is and it's quite a bit of one.  There are very few frames with abilities that deal significant damage for example.

Wat.

Is making dramatic jumps in logic the only thing you can do?

Relying less on constant, unbroken CC does not mean relying solely on gunplay. If anything I'd rather see a healthy mix of tactics - abilities, guns, and melee - or specialization, should one desire... 

Against enemies that have the chance to fight back, and therefore MUST BE FAIR in their mechanics.

No more cheesing cheese with more cheese.

Because what you're telling me is that you find beating up on enemies left suspended helpless in the air or clutching their blinded eyes in agony - enemies that do nothing but sit there and die - is more compelling to you than tackling foes that are a constant but manageable threat.

That's all I'm saying. The enemies should be able to fight back. But in exchange, they shouldn't get quite such BS mechanics for attacking us.

Vay Hek actually qualifies as one of my least favorite boss fights, simply because of the cheesy invulnerability phasing and annoying constant energy drain. I'm not saying "NEVER USE ABILITIES." I'm saying "Use abilities within reason instead of constant map-wide CC." Is that distinction really that hard to draw?

My current favorite boss fights include Tyl Regor and the Hyena Pack.

[ZeroWolfe]

(I'm going to apologize in advance for not reading the whole thread at this point and I'm aware what follows may have already been mentioned)

So why don't they add advancement with level to weapons as well (similar to how warframes gain base health/sheilds/skills) and once they are level 30 they receive two extra mod slots (for a total of 10; max capacity will need to be upped as well for this; or maybe they get one at 15 and one at 30). These slots would not be forma-able as they would disappear with each forma placed on the weapon. This would give you the extra slots to have your "mandatory" mods and still have a more complete feeling build. Weapon rank ups would also add damage/status/crit chance/crit damage/etc. (of course crit stuff would be excluded for weapons like the Panthera).

Another thought is why don't primaries and secondaries get some sort of "attachment" that affects the use of the weapon? (I mean Warframes get Auras and melees get Stances)

[PatternistSlave]

2 hours ago, LuckyCharm said:

Its a shooter yes. But when was the last time you ever felt "oh this might kill me i need to find cover" rather than blindly pressing an ability button and nullifying all threat to yourself? Im guessing the only times have been corpus sorties since theyre the only faction most skills get blocked by. 

You dont need significant damage on abilities to feel like there is no challenge to you for the entire starchart and most sorties, cc is enough since when they arent shooting at you all you're playing is a shooting gallery mixed with a vending machine. 

Just btw.. i can keep an entire area permenantly cc'd as vauban, titania, nyx, mirage, exalibur, ember,volt.. the list goes on while just using zenurik. 

And yes im one of those people that think ashes old ult did damage. Because it ignored all armor with slash procs and works with combo counter which you could get into the 1000's with the right mods. You could easily 1 hit kill all grineer in the "increased armor" Sorties with it which is the highest level enemies i ever cared to fight because i dont feel staying 2 hours in a mission to be challenged is worth my time.

Ash's 4 was trash damage only fit for killing trash.  Who is stopping you from using Oberon?  Having garbage abilities and running around only using your gun?  If that's fun for you have at it.  For that matter aren't there like a million different games where you play a Space Marine running around shooting everything?  I'll break the suspense though.  In those you're just a massive bullet sponge instead of using CC.  It's still a "shooting gallery".

 

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Wat.

Is making dramatic jumps in logic the only thing you can do?

Relying less on constant, unbroken CC does not mean relying solely on gunplay. If anything I'd rather see a healthy mix of tactics - abilities, guns, and melee - or specialization, should one desire... 

Against enemies that have the chance to fight back, and therefore MUST BE FAIR in their mechanics.

No more cheesing cheese with more cheese.

Because what you're telling me is that you find beating up on enemies left suspended helpless in the air or clutching their blinded eyes in agony - enemies that do nothing but sit there and die - is more compelling to you than tackling foes that are a constant but manageable threat.

That's all I'm saying. The enemies should be able to fight back. But in exchange, they shouldn't get quite such BS mechanics for attacking us.

Vay Hek actually qualifies as one of my least favorite boss fights, simply because of the cheesy invulnerability phasing and annoying constant energy drain. I'm not saying "NEVER USE ABILITIES." I'm saying "Use abilities within reason instead of constant map-wide CC." Is that distinction really that hard to draw?

My current favorite boss fights include Tyl Regor and the Hyena Pack.

Grab Oberon.  Go to any low level mission.  That's the game you're talking about.  "BS mechanics"?  As in shooting you?  The enemies that stop you from using your abilities and force you to use the guns you're such a fan of?  That's "BS mechanics"?  What difference does it make if the enemies do it and thus can be avoided or if someone on the forums decided to regulate how often I could use my abilities?  See.  What I don't get.  You can have this game you want already.  Don't use Zenurik you think it's so good.  (I don't use Naramon.)  Don't use Fleeting Expertise.  Why is the game you want is only possible by taking things away from other players?  Why is your only option for improving the game removing features and playstyles?

[Zedasfogueiras]

12 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

By they, you mean "Sheldon, without permission from the others, added Primed Pressure Point on his own and this was generally hailed as a mistake." Unfortunately, the damage was done and the ordeal of sorting out how to potentially undo the damage was swept under the rug to be dealt with never.

they should add pure damage mods like a "mastery" or something for that class of weapons and prime pressure point could be a primed "mastery" this way we would get our mod slot for personal preference and the mastery would affect all the weapons without being equiped

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

17 hours ago, LuckyCharm said:

You dont need to nerf any abilities if people are forced to learn when to use them to most effect because they wont always have energy to use it every 3s. If anything they could make abilities even more damaging because of limited use

This actually gives me an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how well it would play out in the game (of course I'm disregarding community opinion entirely).

If they gave each power it's own cooldown before reuse it would make people more strategic in how they use it. It's also a common technique in almost every MMO. 

Based on how powerful an ability is they would be able to put higher cooldowns to control it's use, which would still benefit from your thought that they could actually increase the strength of many powers to improve them.

[Phaenur]

10 hours ago, PatternistSlave said:

Grab Oberon.  Go to any low level mission.  That's the game you're talking about.  "BS mechanics"?  As in shooting you?  The enemies that stop you from using your abilities and force you to use the guns you're such a fan of?  That's "BS mechanics"?  What difference does it make if the enemies do it and thus can be avoided or if someone on the forums decided to regulate how often I could use my abilities?

Because with our powers reined in - could be through cooldowns, adjusted effects, a new energy system, or even something as simple as making Energy Vampire less hilariously broken (though Efficiency might need a lower cap too) - we could actually use those abilities to their fullest more often, and enemies who deny them entirely could be made a rare threat that deliberately breaks up the flow of play instead of a constant spawn that floods the map and denies us everything, as Nullifiers currently do.  For example, look at those other Corpus denial units, the Comba and Scramba, who have a short-ranged disorientation aura and lock down specific sorts of powers rather than everything at once, who spawn semi-rarely and have the durability and damage to be a threat on their own but not so much defense or a novelty barrier that also locks precision weapons out of the game, and who honestly look that style of derpy-cool that only the Corpus can pull off.  Or, keeping with the Corpus, Hyena is a chaotic boss fight because of how agile the critters are, but they have a frightening mix of firepower and control of their own, requiring evasion and target selection to remove the most threatening auras first (something that can't be done with Eximi, who spawn nonstop and look just like their mooks except maybe for size, or with Nullifiers, who...well, just spawn nonstop period).

It would undeniably take a lot of effort, but it's nowhere near the level of sacrifice you're making it out to be if it were to happen.  In fact, and I think a few others in the thread have mentioned this, both proc effects and many abilities could stand to see a power, range, or alternate utility buff if spammability was brought under control.  And again, by making powers even better yet less nonstop, we could dramatically reduce the spawns on things like nullifiers or even replace them entirely with the better-looking and more dangerous denial units (who already have far slower spawns), meaning the appearance of a denial unit becomes a reason for mild alarm and gives you several options to respond.  And it gives DE several options for more interesting denial (dispel with range limits and cooldown as opposed to what Stalker and such have, dispel on friendlies to purge procs or CC, pure CC immunity on a single target, ability type lockdowns that deny certain types of skills but not others, Energy Leech and Mag eximi who trigger their drains on damage rather than simply being a "screw you" aura).

All of those ideas are already in the game to begin with, but we don't see them because Nullifiers are so easy and guarantee a few things will survive our stunlock, and limiting our ability to simply make the game irrelevant through stun, blind, and full heal spam would let DE tweak the frustrating mechanics to be a lot more interactive because the enemies behind them wouldn't have to worry about being switched off the second they hit line of sight and then killed at our leisure.  Meanwhile, regular enemies - lancers, crewmen, MOAs, all those sorts of mooks - would still die en masse to gunfire, swordplay, or powers.  They'd mostly just be a threat if they took tricky positions or managed to form up in large enough numbers to make up for mediocre damage and accuracy...positioning and numbers they could probably get if players take too long dealing with disruption units!

Stepping away from powers for a bit, I have some different feelings on mandatory weapon mods.  I can't help but notice that melee damage modifiers are a lot lower than what guns get, while melee weapons themselves are only rarely that much stronger than individual bullets.  Considering how dangerous it is to try going sword alone, or even to dive into the middle of a midlevel squad instead of staying back and Radial Blinding or perma-Cloaking or Mind Controlling or whatever you packed, I feel like it ought to be rewarded with...something.  Unfortunately, melee is actually a bigger victim of mandatory mods than ranged - at least with ranged weapons you're pretty much just modding for damage, multishot, crit if relevant, elements, and reload reduction if there are slots left, in that order, regardless of what the weapon is.  With melee, you have to aggressively mod for damage because otherwise it's useless, but there are two "suggested" alternate playstyles with tons of their own mods and yet they're both useless right now.  Channeling is nothing but a damage boost that drains away from the energy pool you'd be using for much more versatile (and honestly, usually more damaging) powers.  And blocking was amazingly fun back when Melee 2.0 first hit, but after the removal of stamina it became a noobtrap.  Personally, I'd give each weapon a block value representing either how long it can keep up a block or how much damage it blocks (or two values for both), and then if you wanted you could mod your sword to be a shield (or even a lightsaber with the reflect mods...personally I'd want to tweak that to be aim-based instead of just returning all sustained damage to the original source) and use other sources for actual damage.

And now back to powers: right now Energy Siphon and efficiency are pretty much the mandatory mods for frames, unless you're doing a Corrosive Projection team build for really high levels.  Adjusting the efficiency cap and providing a much more reliable and universal way to generate energy would free up a main slot and might make aura choice a bit more personal too.  Even just giving everyone a little trickle of passive energy per second, no complex synergistic systems or skill rewards, would make E-Siphon a nice *bonus* instead of a must-pick.  And just opening up the one slot could make room for some more interesting cards, things like Equilibrium or the new movement modifiers (many of which contain a tradeoff, which is...interesting but makes them irrelevant when so many things don't).  Stuff that otherwise wouldn't see the light of day in the modern game.  Ditto for reducing the max effects of Vitality, Redirection, and Steel Fiber and instead boosting the baselines that each frame levels up to - which would also let DE customize each frame's final stats a bit more (though it might take some extra math to bring Nekros back to his 666 shield cap).  Coincidentally, raising the base survivability of most warframes would provide a nice buffer against any lower weapon damage or less instawin Trinity heals while DE gets the enemies in line.

I guess the takeaway here is that all mods will have more of a chance to compete on their merits instead of just being credit fodder or a disappointing filler for the drop table if the really strong ones are reined in (and honestly probably replaced by base stat progression rather than totally rebalanced around) or given stricter hard caps (looking at efficiency specifically here).  This opens up more avenues to make any given frame competitive in any situation, but through totally different ways.  Wrong damage type and low durability?  No problem, mod for the control powers you have left and a bunch of speed and make yourself as unhittable as possible while engaging with your favorite weapon.  Tired of being the Snow Globe generator as Frost?  Take the bare minimum so you can use it but work in some speed and out-of-globe defense so you can dive out and carpet-bomb enemies with Ice Wave (a personal favorite of mine).  All these things that aren't really viable in the current gamestate could really open up if we were just brought back in check a little, so the enemy would rely less on instagibs or nullifiers and more on the sort of horde-shooter-plus-specials system Warframe seems to be when you're levelling through the starchart the first time.

 

And because I can't resist...Oberon is out of meta, sure, mostly because Trinity is so broken.  But taken on his own?  He's an exceptionally well-designed frame for fun, engaging gameplay featuring all of his abilities, and he can take his radiation damage against any faction effectively because his abilities are focused way more on the utility effects than the raw damage.  Smite is reliable long-ranged single-target control with the likely but unreliable potential to set off a cascade of rad procs that ruins an enemy charge.  The damage pulse is a nice plus, but it'll probably one-shot common enemies at starchart levels and do significant damage to vulnerable armor types on heavier enemies.  Hallowed Ground provides the second-best counter to Grineer and Infested DoT spam (Blessing, of course, taking the crown), and again will utterly wreck a charge by proccing radiation on the frontrunners, leaving them easy meat for guns or blades.  Renewal is pretty awful even without the competition, honestly, but that's a matter of a series of tweaks and attempted buffs that backfired.  Personally, I'd boost the orbs' speed even further, slightly increase the heal frequency, let it heal shields, and make it stick on players for the entire duration instead of fading when they hit full health.  It's a heal-over-time spell attached to a "druid," why not let us use it as a HoT - which is to say, damage prevention or a quick pick-me-up after accidents and near misses?  And lastly, Reckoning's aux effect of health orbs is cute, but really its main benefit is what happens if it's modded for range (which helps all of his other powers too) - it's no Avalanche or Radial Blind, but the levitated enemies just scream "shoot me now" and then they're vulnerable to ground finishers after the slam, which isn't a universal effect among ultimates.  Not the best, but it's an excellent party trick if you're charging or if you get mobbed.  If anything, I'd like to see him get a higher baselines energy pool and a big fix to Renewal, and that's it.

So basically, playing Oberon at starchart or even middling endless levels isn't about pressing one or two keys and then either sitting back or going on a stealth finisher rampage, it's about making creative use of all four skills in their proper places   There are other frames that are similarly fun and self-synergistic - Limbo, Volt, Ivara, and Banshee stand out to me personally - without having the potential to just remove all threat from the game (unless really well-handled with Ivara and Banshee, which is challenging on its own in a way Radial Blind can't be).  And honestly?  If efficiency was slashed fairly hard (make it a choice - a low boost to efficiency with Streamline or the best efficiency at the cost of duration with Fleeting Efficiency, because it's not worth the slot and point cost to use both) and Trinity no longer made a profit off Energy Vampire, I think it would be a lot easier to spot the squeaky wheels that could be made either more fun, more interactive, or simply more powerful where needed.

[PatternistSlave]

55 minutes ago, Phaenur said:

we could actually use those abilities to their fullest more often

I'm not reading that novel.  I got to this and that's enough.  You're out of your mind.  Nerfing energy regeneration/renewal is not letting you use your abilities more.  That's using your abilities less.  Period.  End of discussion.  This isn't rocket science, guys.  Or maybe leave game design to the designers cause you apparently have no clue what you're talking about.

[DiabolusUrsus]

17 hours ago, PatternistSlave said:

Grab Oberon.  Go to any low level mission.  That's the game you're talking about.  "BS mechanics"?  As in shooting you?  The enemies that stop you from using your abilities and force you to use the guns you're such a fan of?  That's "BS mechanics"?  What difference does it make if the enemies do it and thus can be avoided or if someone on the forums decided to regulate how often I could use my abilities?  See.  What I don't get.  You can have this game you want already.  Don't use Zenurik you think it's so good.  (I don't use Naramon.)  Don't use Fleeting Expertise.  Why is the game you want is only possible by taking things away from other players?  Why is your only option for improving the game removing features and playstyles?

BS mechanics as in completely nullifying powers for no reason other than "because we can't fight back otherwise.

BS mechanics as in stacking energy drains with invisible auras to the point that you cannot maintain enough energy to cast anything but your most basic skills.

BS mechanics like complete immunity to damage in certain states.

BS mechanics like instant-kill homing attacks that are nigh impossible to avoid.

You're projecting a rabid passion for gunplay onto me the same way you're projecting the notion that I'm seeking to eliminate playstyles. Introducing more options for energy generation and making it so that CONSTANT CC is not the only viable means of staying alive in high-level content will make for a broader variety of playstyles... not less of them.

I also haven't suggested outright removing any features in their entirety. Just modifying them to be more fair to both the players and the enemies so that we might have a chance of something remotely resembling balanced and rewarding gameplay at some point in the future.

5 hours ago, PatternistSlave said:

I'm not reading that novel.  I got to this and that's enough.  You're out of your mind.  Nerfing energy regeneration/renewal is not letting you use your abilities more.  That's using your abilities less.  Period.  End of discussion.  This isn't rocket science, guys.  Or maybe leave game design to the designers cause you apparently have no clue what you're talking about.

Why am I not surprised that your only (apparent) defense is to take isolated quips completely out of context and attempt to twist them to your purposes?

Nobody said that it would let players use abilities more. That's kind of the point. It makes it so that abilities are used less. Not NEVER, as you previously suggested, but less.

The idea being that when we aren't spamming them ad infinitum and the enemies don't need to squeeze their ability to kill us into the tenth of a second they have between getting completely shut down, then enemies can be less cheesy. Less arbitrary power nullification. Less player insta-gibbing. You know, less of that stuff that feels cheap and annoying.

Hence, "we could use our abilities to their fullest more often," instead of "we can use the abilities as often as we like but they do jack S#&$ against X enemy because reasons."

Hell, casting our ults say, three times a minute instead of thirty would even justify buffing powers to be more awesome.

You're right that it's not rocket science... but what I'm suggesting here is not some crackpot amateur theory of design... it's something that has been implemented repeatedly across a broad variety of very successful and well-received games:

A balance between quantity and quality of power, tempered by the skill that goes into using said power.

Warframe powers don't really require much in the way of skill to use effectively (for the most part), so they need to be balanced out by either less power or less quantity. I think that as the Tenno's main claim to fame, powers should be kept powerful, so I'm suggesting dialing down the quantity and upping the power to compensate if it proves necessary. Regardless, that change will give enemies a chance to do basic things like move and/or attack.

[DiabolusUrsus]

19 hours ago, ZeroWolfe said:

(I'm going to apologize in advance for not reading the whole thread at this point and I'm aware what follows may have already been mentioned)

So why don't they add advancement with level to weapons as well (similar to how warframes gain base health/sheilds/skills) and once they are level 30 they receive two extra mod slots (for a total of 10; max capacity will need to be upped as well for this; or maybe they get one at 15 and one at 30). These slots would not be forma-able as they would disappear with each forma placed on the weapon. This would give you the extra slots to have your "mandatory" mods and still have a more complete feeling build. Weapon rank ups would also add damage/status/crit chance/crit damage/etc. (of course crit stuff would be excluded for weapons like the Panthera).

Another thought is why don't primaries and secondaries get some sort of "attachment" that affects the use of the weapon? (I mean Warframes get Auras and melees get Stances)

Because why only fix it halfway?

• Weapon (I want it to be clear that this thread is not only about guns) damage increases to max when it hits level 30.
• Damage+ mods including elementals are not deleted, but changed to have more reasonable effects that are worth considering but not so wonderful that you'd be seriously handicapping yourself by not using them.

Simply adding slots won't fix the problem because the meta has been in too control of the game balance for too long now. Adding more slots means players will simply stack more damage... and then complain about how the game isn't challenging enough (ignoring the fact that they're just beating up on immobile and defenseless lootbags most of the time) and DE will buff enemies to compensate... again. Sorta like what they're attempting now instead of simply addressing the root of the problem.

What's wrong with that? Well as enemy power increases to compete with the meta... it makes it more necessary to go meta in order to be viable. The re-introduction of the star map and the level reshuffling that accompanied it granted players a brief reprieve, but that's just until things get worse again.

[PatternistSlave]

10 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Less arbitrary power nullification

So give us less use of abilities so enemies that through actual interaction give us less use of our abilities don't need to exist.  This really makes any sort of sense to you?  Enemies you're interacting with is not "arbitrary".  "Arbitrary" is some guy on the forums deciding how much use of our abilities we should or shouldn't have.

10 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

what I'm suggesting here is not some crackpot amateur theory of design

What you're suggesting is "nerf energy renewal and all our problems will go away.".  Literally the only concrete idea you've put forth is "nerf energy regen" like it's a magic wand that will fix the game.  Stuff like this

10 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

A balance between quantity and quality of power, tempered by the skill that goes into using said power.

is not an idea.  You might as well say, "Oh and make game good."  You don't think game designers might try to do stuff like balance abilities without your important advice to do so?