What happens if everything ranks up infinitely?

[(PSN)mahoshonenfox]

Everyone knows that enemies in the game have stats that scale infinitely. If you stay long enough in an endless mission, you'll see enemies spawn with levels above sortie standards. I don't know the lore behind that but that could mean there are thousands of Grineer and Corpus foot soldiers out there that are way stronger than a single warframe.

What would happen if our weapons, equipment and warframes didn't stop ranking up at rank 30? Same goes for mods where there is no "max rank" cap. The credits, endo and affinity requirements would also endlessly go up but if you can meet the requirements you can continuously make your arsenal stronger.

Formas and Lenses could still be installed. One forma could make a rank 50 Vitality mod only require 25 capacity later on. Its not much on a rank 300 warframe but that's still free 25 capacity.

Of course in the game, there's no need to fight anything stronger than level 100. No mission rewards you for fighting enemies that high. Just a thought, though.

[Tyrian3k]

There would quite literally be no limit to the power a player can achieve, which is stupid if you want to give that player a challenge. Unless of course you go the way of the Nullifier and add bullS#&$ to the game that laughs in your face with invulnerability and phases to pad the gameplay.

Everyone loves to wait for Vay Hek to show his face for a split second, just to hide it again because he reached his damage cap for that phase instantly.

[Implodingbanana]

lore wise i'd say warframes are much stronger than in-game. I imagine they are kept at their current level to keep things balanced and interesting, but I imagine a single Warframe could wipe out large masses(We wiped out the Orokin Empire). not only that but i imagine the power of our enemies would depend on their weapons, armor, and tactics rather then level. same with the Tenno, depends on each individuals skill more than mods. I do want to clarify that im not dismissing mods from lore because they are clearly an important part of the story. Our power in lore is probably why we usually fight in cells of 4 or less, some exceptions would be missions like Raids that require 2 cells of 4 to merge.

[Implodingbanana]

2 minutes ago, Tyrian3k said:

There would quite literally be no limit to the power a player can achieve, which is stupid if you want to give that player a challenge. Unless of course you go the way of the Nullifier and add bullS#&$ to the game that laughs in your face with invulnerability and phases to pad the gameplay.

Everyone loves to wait for Vay Hek to show his face for a split second, just to hide it again because he reached his damage cap for that phase instantly.

I never understood the nullifier hate, they're not that hard to take out. you can go in and melee them to death. I do hope the new upcoming change cools it down though.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Implodingbanana

[Tyrian3k]

Just now, Implodingbanana said:

I never understood the nullifier hate, they're not that hard to take out. you can go in and melee them to death. 

A single Nullifier is no problem, but especially in survivals when you're overrun by a literal dozen of them and they all cover each other with their shields. Especially amazing for warframes that are extemely squishy without their buff abilities like a Blessing Trinity.

Oh yeah, and the whole ground is covered in a blue zone of death by Sapping Ospreys as well. Have fun.

 

[Alcatraz]

I only have to point out that the stats are already set and your weapons wouldn't be any better from rank 30 than they would be if there were level 300 as you're thinking. Warframes do gain bonuses for their ranks but, not weapons.

[Mastikator2]

For most players there'd be no difference, but for a few vets and power players it would raise the level of enemies required to offer a challenge. Missions with statically defined levels would be easier and endless missions would take longer until they become non-boring.

[(PSN)mahoshonenfox]

3 minutes ago, Alcatraz said:

I only have to point out that the stats are already set and your weapons wouldn't be any better from rank 30 than they would be if there were level 300 as you're thinking. Warframes do gain bonuses for their ranks but, not weapons.

In my post I mentioned mods would rank up infinitely as well. You can have a rank 325 Sybaris to give capacity to, say, a rank 115 Serration mod.

Its just a thought. There's really no need to get this strong in the game just as there's no need to fight level 300 enemies in an endless mission because players aren't rewarded for it. But enemies do exist at that level. They can even get as strong as level 9999 and at that level, your rank 30 warframe is like nothing to them.

[Irorone]

Well one thing's certain, you'd have to seperate pvp stats vs. pve stats COMPLETELY.

Other than that I don't think many would be all that happy with warframe taking on Diablo 3's paragon system by effect.

[Alcatraz]

I suppose your topic title does say "everything" so I guess that would include mods too as you said. Even though mods cap out at 10 vs warframe/weapons at 30.

I think a majority of people have fought those level 9999 enemies at one point too.

[--GOOLOO_GOOLOO_GOOLOO--]

28 minutes ago, Tyrian3k said:

A single Nullifier is no problem, but especially in survivals when you're overrun by a literal dozen of them and they all cover each other with their shields. Especially amazing for warframes that are extemely squishy without their buff abilities like a Blessing Trinity.

Oh yeah, and the whole ground is covered in a blue zone of death by Sapping Ospreys as well. Have fun.

 

sounds ez np

[TrickshotMcGee]

36 minutes ago, Tyrian3k said:

A single Nullifier is no problem, but especially in survivals when you're overrun by a literal dozen of them and they all cover each other with their shields. Especially amazing for warframes that are extemely squishy without their buff abilities like a Blessing Trinity.

Oh yeah, and the whole ground is covered in a blue zone of death by Sapping Ospreys as well. Have fun.

 

I dunno, I've never had an issue with Corpus either. You can use just about anything to kill them since the only actual tough unit is a Bursa and that's mostly a matter of having half-decent aim or CC of some sort. And Sapping Ospreys can only cover the entire floor if you sit in one spot for too long, since they don't lay down the orbs until they're near an enemy. They're only a problem if you let them become a problem. 

[FAZZWARFRAME]

if everything can be ranked up infinitely many plays would just stick with one set of gear and not branch out -> less plat sell.

Also, if I forma my rank 1000 Excalibur does it go back to rank 0? ... I don't think I'd want to re-level that far up again...

[(PSN)mahoshonenfox]

8 minutes ago, FAZZWARFRAME said:

if everything can be ranked up infinitely many plays would just stick with one set of gear and not branch out -> less plat sell.

Also, if I forma my rank 1000 Excalibur does it go back to rank 0? ... I don't think I'd want to re-level that far up again...

Hm. Maybe it shouldn't go back down to rank 0 but maybe you'd need at least to be at rank 30 to add a forma or maybe 1 forma per 30 ranks or something.

Its true, though. Your most used weapon and warframe would be the strongest ones. But most people use their strongest gear at their disposal anyway. Ever since I got the Synoid Simulor, I never needed to use another assault rifle class. The only time I needed to change primaries was when a sortie mission required me to use a shotgun or a sniper rifle.

[FAZZWARFRAME]

1 minute ago, (PS4)mahoshonenfox said:

Hm. Maybe it shouldn't go back down to rank 0 but maybe you'd need at least to be at rank 30 to add a forma or maybe 1 forma per 30 ranks or something.

Its true, though. Your most used weapon and warframe would be the strongest ones. But most people use their strongest gear at their disposal anyway. Ever since I got the Synoid Simulor, I never needed to use another assault rifle class. The only time I needed to change primaries was when a sortie mission required me to use a shotgun or a sniper rifle.

off topic, but please don't openly admit to using synoid simulor alot.  It is as bad as liking Justin Bieber / Taylor Swift around in this forum lol.

[Inarticulate]

1 hour ago, (PS4)mahoshonenfox said:

Everyone knows that enemies in the game have stats that scale infinitely.

Level 10,004 is hardly infinite.

1 hour ago, (PS4)mahoshonenfox said:

I don't know the lore behind that but that could mean there are thousands of Grineer and Corpus foot soldiers out there that are way stronger than a single warframe.

It's called "video game mechanics". Same reason why you can kill bosses over and over again for parts.

1 hour ago, (PS4)mahoshonenfox said:

What would happen if our weapons, [...] didn't stop ranking up at rank 30?

There is literally no difference between an unranked weapon and a max ranked weapon except its mod capacity.

1 hour ago, (PS4)mahoshonenfox said:

Same goes for mods where there is no "max rank" cap.

Mods have their stats per rank and maximum rank set specifically so that their maximum stats are where they are. Overextended gives a whopping 15% power range per rank, but is balanced by the fact that it has only 5 ranks and gives negative power strength. Compare that to Stretch, which gives 15% power range every 2 ranks, or Cunning Drift which gives 15% power range every 6 ranks.

Also, certain mods exist specifically because other mods can't be ranked further than they can. Why use Heavy Caliber at all when you can continue to rank up Serration? Why use Overextended when you can continue to rank up Stretch? Why bother to rank up a Primed mod at all when the regular version of the mod gives the exact same stats per rank and costs less Endo by virtue of being a lower rarity tier?

 

On top of all of this, unrestricted ranking of equipment would result in a much wider gap between new players and veteran players, as well as a wider gap between casual players and highly active players. It would become virtually impossible for newer players to catch up, and veteran players would be constantly complaining about the lack of challenge. If the developers then created content to appease the high-level players, newer players would fall even farther behind.

Among Warframes, there would also be a massive gap between Warframes suited for affinity farming (either through stealth or through Interception or Defense farming) and those that aren't. I'll use my own numbers as an example:

• My Ivara (18% usage) has 492,860,672 affinity as of making this post. Ignoring Forma (which would be virtually obsolete if mod capacity were uncapped like this), this would correspond to rank 702.
• My second highest, if you combine the non-Prime and Prime versions, is Nova (37% usage) with 64,276,268 affinity. This would correspond to rank 253.
• If you didn't catch that, my Ivara has half the total usage of my Nova and Nova Prime combined, but has over 7 times the affinity (and nearly 3 times the rank).

Finally, ranking up mods would be the most absurd thing ever (and would be a huge contributor to the haves v. have-nots situation). Every rank of a mod costs double the cost of the previous rank. Just to illustrate, I'll use Serration as an example.

• It costs a total of 20,460 Endo to rank Serration from unranked to max rank (rank 10).
• It would cost a total of 20,971,500 Endo to rank Serration from unranked to rank 20.
• It would cost a total of 21,474,836,460 Endo to rank Serration from unranked to rank 30.
• Yeah, getting rank 30 Serration costs the same as ranking 1 million copies of Serration to rank 10. Good luck.

As mentioned previously, Forma would be virtually obsolete. Why? Because weapon and Warframe rank affinity costs increase as xⁿ whereas mod rank Endo costs increase as 2^x. The latter increases so much faster than the former that at high enough ranks you'll be sure to always be able to rank up your weapon or Warframe one more time in the time it takes to rank up a mod one more time.

 

So yeah, no. Enemies scaling to absurd lengths exists as a video game mechanic. Noting that this only really occurs in endless missions, the exact design of this is meant to be a means to force players to extract when they can no longer handle the enemies.

Players scaling to absurd lengths, on the other hand, is almost universally a poor design choice.

[(PSN)mahoshonenfox]

2 hours ago, Inarticulate said:

So yeah, no. Enemies scaling to absurd lengths exists as a video game mechanic. Noting that this only really occurs in endless missions, the exact design of this is meant to be a means to force players to extract when they can no longer handle the enemies.

Players scaling to absurd lengths, on the other hand, is almost universally a poor design choice.

Interesting. If its just to force players to extract, why don't the enemies just stop spawning at level 100 or the mission automatically ends after a certain number of waves?

According to Devstream #85, DE is planning to change difficulty in the game. They want enemies to be harder not because of numerical stats but because they're "smarter" or will require more skill on behalf of the players in order to defeat. This made me curious on how they're going to achieve that.

Right now there's no reason to fight anything greater than level 100 as it yields no extra rewards but the mechanic was consciously placed there for enemies to scale that high. IMO, from a game designer's perspective, I want to leave room for future content placement if in case they require to be unlocked at an even higher level than the current. Sure new players come in all the time but old players just get older.

Just a thought, though. But yeah, since Warframe is a looter game, having unlimited ranks might discourage players from collecting everything. Why get another warframe when your rank 1000 Excalibur has a bajillion shields and can one shot anything on the star chart?

[Inarticulate]

1 minute ago, (PS4)mahoshonenfox said:

Interesting. If its just to force players to extract, why don't the enemies just stop spawning at level 100 or the mission automatically ends after a certain number of waves?

The point is to force players to extract when the players can no longer handle the enemies, not when the developers decide to kick them out.

 

Also, enemies do stop spawning after they hit the maximum level, but that's level 9,999 (plus the level bonus for Eximus enemies and assassins).

You probably missed the Gift of the Lotus alert that aired in commemoration of Tennocon 2016, which was a 5-minute Survival mission with enemies spawning initially at level 9,999. A total of 15 enemies spawned before the enemy level went over the cap, resulting in no additional enemies for the remainder of the 5 minutes.

[DanujCZ]

17 hours ago, (PS4)mahoshonenfox said:

I don't know the lore behind that

There isnt a lore reason. Its just "for sake of gameplay".

[DatDarkOne]

On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 0:08 AM, Inarticulate said:

Among Warframes, there would also be a massive gap between Warframes suited for affinity farming (either through stealth or through Interception or Defense farming) and those that aren't. I'll use my own numbers as an example:

• My Ivara (18% usage) has 492,860,672 affinity as of making this post. Ignoring Forma (which would be virtually obsolete if mod capacity were uncapped like this), this would correspond to rank 702.
• My second highest, if you combine the non-Prime and Prime versions, is Nova (37% usage) with 64,276,268 affinity. This would correspond to rank 253.
• If you didn't catch that, my Ivara has half the total usage of my Nova and Nova Prime combined, but has over 7 times the affinity (and nearly 3 times the rank).

That's a very interesting analysis.  One would think that the ones with the most usage would have the most affinity.  I like to view it as a very good example of how statistics can be misleading depending on data used. 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

when everything scales infinitely.. it might finally be balanced...

[TennoPain]

idk nothing special (ppl would be happy they dont hav to grind so much)

[ShogunGunshow]

For mods, although there'd be no hard limits, there would at least some practical ones. Like, endo and credit costs multiplying to the point where it would take weeks or months to afford one rank, and all you'd be doing is slapping another 15% on a mod that gives ~200%. A ~7.5% increase in overall damage for all that suffering. Whoop de doo.