We need a Conclave Rework!

[Krion112]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)Colloquial_Bloke said:

@Krion112

How much conclave do you play?  Auto Rifles are definitely not the most rewarding weapon typee.

"As a player of this game, I'm giving my feedback, "Why I don't like Conclave". If they don't take that information into any consideration, it's not my problem, it's their's."

That's an incredibly pompous statement.  Your opinion is the gold standard?

I haven't been playing much of Warframe at all as of late. To think back, before I dropped off, I probably played about two or three times a week or less. Mostly for study and analysis. However, that was, again, a loaded question; how much I play Conclave is not relevant to how much I know about Conclave. I can watch videos, read discussions, analyze the game-design decisions, and combine it with my own experiences. It's not just automatic weapons, it's a combination of problems. Conclave is plagued with more issues than one, but all of its issues have a common ground. And just because automatic weapons aren't the most rewarding weapon doesn't mean they're not imbalanced.

As for my statement, what I mean is it's up to DE's discretion to believe me, disagree with me, or ignore me. I'd argue that my opinion is a little more informed than the average player, because I've been quite actively putting myself towards being educated in game-design, but I also understand DE also views Warframe as much as a product as they do as a game, so they're influenced to do things that don't make sense to a game-designer.

As such, it's not intended to be pompous or high strung. My tone is more informative, not of hatred or judgement. I entirely meant whatever DE does regarding my feedback is up to them.

 

4 minutes ago, (PS4)rowansprite said:

In the end, the biggest problem with balancing weapons in Warframe, such as the Tetra, is that it would be quite literally impossible to both make weapons have unique roles AND make them balanced compared to other weapons simultaneously. That is, unless DE were to drastically reduce the number of weapons, but I don't think that's gonna happen. Warframes are more flexible in this regard since they're not as limited in what they can potentially do, so it's much easier to make a frame that's both balanced and unique to all others. Which, generally speaking, is the case, though there are some exceptions (Wukong vs Valkyr comes to mind).

Honestly though, I could completely get behind a stanima system for parkour maneuvers. I don't think I would want it as restricted as you're suggesting, but I could definitely see it being a viable option for balancing out the PvP. I definitely do NOT want a return of parkour 1.0 though, so as long as it applied to the current system as you're suggesting, it'd be fine. Urgh, coptering was awful.

Actually, no it's not. In fact, as long as everything has a unique role, but no statistical upgrades, you will have a balanced system. It's only when you try to add linear, stat upgrades where problems begin to arise, but usually they only arise if they're as out there as some Warframe mods allow. But, Weapon balance is also determined by other mechanics, such as enhanced mobility and enemy scaling, so it's a slippery slope to do anything about it.

I'm not suggesting anything like the original stamina system. The one I'm proposing only limits Bullet-Jumping, certain melee attacks such as charge attacks, spin attacks, and air attacks, and sliding. Sprinting, rolling, ordinary melee attacks, wall-hopping, and wall-latching would all still be free of the stamina resource. And then, each Warframe has their own capacity for it, so Flexible and Offense-Oriented Warframes would definitely have more stamina than others.

[Heckzu]

Balance is Conclave's biggest strong point.

Almost all weapons are effective on their own, except for gimmick weapons such as Glaxion for permanent cold procs or Sonicor for cheesy melee finishers. Projectile weapons such as the Boltor or Tetra have higher DPS than hitscan weapons. That means that if you're able to stick close enough to an enemy such that they can't dodge effectively, weapons like the Tetra can outperform more common full autos like the Soma or Bratons. Full autos are by no means predominant; not too long ago most full auto and some semi auto weapons received a magazine reduction nerf with a damage buff to compensate, bringing their STK (shots to kill) to magazine size ratio closer to that of sniper rifles and battle rifles while significantly reducing their ability to be used in a spray-and-pray manner. Nowadays players rarely use full auto primaries because they burn through ammo too quickly.

Mods only give a slight utility advantage at best, such as situational mobility or weapon swap speed, with most mods having drawbacks. The only weapons that have strong mods are weapons that underperform without those mods,  which are often situational, such as Spring-Loaded Broadhead or Double Tap.

1 hour ago, Krion112 said:

I'm not suggesting anything like the original stamina system. The one I'm proposing only limits Bullet-Jumping, certain melee attacks such as charge attacks, spin attacks, and air attacks, and sliding. Sprinting, rolling, ordinary melee attacks, wall-hopping, and wall-latching would all still be free of the stamina resource. And then, each Warframe has their own capacity for it, so Flexible and Offense-Oriented Warframes would definitely have more stamina than others.

Limiting bullet jumps wouldn't solve any issues. Any average conclave player can easily mow down a grounded target while flying through the air. Even if bullet jumps were disabled, players who know how to utilize their mobility would just use wall hopping and mid-air rolls to fly through the air almost as well as bullet jumping, while players who don't have such good control over their mobility would be nothing more than sitting ducks, creating an even greater disparity between the skilled and unskilled players.

[DoctorWild]

I'm for idea to put bullet jump as a skill with cooldown (like 6s or more) and making impossible to do rolls or sidedodge in the air, or at least making that an air-roll would make you land after it's execution, like a dive. That's because tenno are totally unpredictables when they run away or engage combat.

And I would suggest even a mod for conclave which make you start with just a standard pistol ( and your equipped melee) and you can find weapons in the maps (with limited ammo) like old unreal tournament, so new player and old player will be on the same situation.

[RazorTip]

Player-controlled Corpus vs Player-controlled Grineer. With PROPER servers for those, not this dumb Peer-to-Peer system.

That's all the PvP you need, plus it makes a lot more sense lore-wise than Tenno vs Tenno matches. That's why we have Dueling rooms in the Dojos for.

[Nazrethim]

Other than a proper melee parry mechanic and wall attacks I don't think Conclave needs much improvement really.

[Kierlak]

19 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Other than a proper melee parry mechanic and wall attacks I don't think Conclave needs much improvement really.

 

People killing you with sword attacks from 10+ meters away and around corners. NOPE, NO NEED FOR IMPROVEMENT THERE.

[(XBOX)Tylers Legend]

6 hours ago, (PS4)AllOrNothinDays said:

Conclave is a lost cause, they really need to face the reality and this isn't some blind hatred, this is coming from someone who has all the armors and a few of the cosmetics I liked. My whole experience throughout has been "meh" and they will never overcome one of the major problems/hurdles associated with conclave.

This game wasn't built from the ground up for PVP, period.

To even begin to make conclave more enjoyable, you would have to be a game grown up suited for conclave and that's not happening.

There are also too many problems that come with going from PVE to PVP, such as warframe abilities, how things change drastically compared to their PVE counterparts, same goes for weapons.

People can say how much they love the speed in conclave and that's what draws them to it but for a majority of the other players, adapting to that is both impossible and not rewarding. If I play PVE, what do I gain from being able to adapt to the PVP gameplay? Skins? That's cool and all but the time spent in conclave leaves me right where I started in PVE. I'm not gaining much in the terms of resources and there's only a few mods that can go from pvp to pve.

 

 

 

I don't agree with Conclave needing to be built from the ground up, not something you can really prove.

What will help Conclave and better everyone's experience, is what you typed toward the end of your comment (Giving feedback on what you think is wrong with Conclave.).

Maybe they can make a Conclave tutorial, for beginners give them an optional tutorial to do before Conclave. The tutorial should tell them, they will be in combat with special conditions and told what.

For people saying the movement is too fast, too much bullet jumping. Bring back stamina for Conclave, I absolutely loved stamina, it made my play more skillful.

Some people stated, they die too fast and would like to know how and how to improve. Maybe, we can have killcams. And this can help balancing of weapons and frames better.

Connection problems need a lot of work for sure, Matchmaking needs a lot of work.

PC differences causing performance advantages and disadvantages. We can maybe lock frames for everyone and influence players to play with computers more capable of running the game and warn them about issues if they do not.

I asked a thousand times too. Yes, they need to be able to earn gear and building components. They have the system too, just a few additions to it and it can be even better. They can have purchased challenges and RNG Warframe parts after completion of the challenge and give us challenges to earn resources.

Spectator mode is needed too, to watch for hacking and boosters.

All we have to do is provide feedback and think about how can we improve the game mode for everyone. Removal is not the only option and Warframe being a PvE game first doesn't mean PvP wouldn't work. Some people complain about it and compare it to other shooters too, they need to be told, "Warframe is not other shooters".

 

Quoted you, only because I liked your comment most. :) np.

 

Edited February 5, 2017 by (XB1)Tylers Legend

[Avatar_of_War]

This post is very interesting with some good posts so I will try to contribute. Before that though, those of you who invalidate the opinions of others with "You don't play enough so it's not worth listening" can sod off. You may as well said game critics can quit their job because they are not good at games and are not worth listening to. So i will list some glaring problems wit conclave and ideas how to fix it.

The whole problem with Conclave is that Warframe was built to be a PVE game, the PVP was just a tag on hence it has many imbalance issues and called it skill ceiling is really stretching it. The first thing is Warframe abilities. For example, some are powerful like Nova, Ember, Mag with good CC or Excal EB can mob the floor with any1, or Rhino Iron Skin can stop him from dying to useless skills set of Oberon, Wukong, Nekros.

Fix: Just like the quick steel, remove all abilites, use a set amount of shield, armor and hp for everyone. That will remove this issue completely.

The second thing is weapons. I know ppl gonna jump on this and I dont claim to be an expert in weapons, but you have to to admit first thing that there are completely useless guns like the brak, bronko, Hikou,... that are not effective. They have low stats, low mag and even low fire rate in some instances leaving ppl just choose a specific weapon to use in Conclave, like Lex, Akilisto, and now the new Aklex, even soma is weak in pvp.

Fix: design a set of weapons to exclusively use for Conclave. It a huge fix I know but it will ensure an even playing field for everyone, also remove the conclave mods. With that the weapons will depends on the skills of the users and they can't blame anything else if they miss, because everyone use the same weapon set. Again, Quick Steel has adress this and it can be a model for every Conclave modes or just randomly select a weapon sets for a match (no mods of course) so everyone will use the same thing. It may throw ppl off if they have st they can't use but everyone else will have the same weapons and you can use it to try new weapons as well as observe how others use it.

The last thing, and probably the biggest was the movement system. Warframe has amazing movement and I think everyone can agree on it. It tight, It looked cool, it fast and fluid. However, when applied this to pvp it has a few issue. The first thing was the speed. It is much slower than in pve and I can understand that. If you keep flying around like in pve it will be hard to hit you. The 2nd is related to maps with ledge that you can fall off. We use parkour in warframe and we know how easy it is to fall off the map, but in pvp it is an instant death, it makes you cautious and don't want to jump around too much. And lastly is the long recovery time when you don't land properly, leaving you completely open. I die mainly because of this.

Fix: remove the recovery time. It will help players move around the map much easier with no fear of death even when you landed the wrong way while maintain the current speed. It will push the game to a more fast paced and action packed environment like how the game actually is. Remove maps with pit fall or just fill them up with surface. it hard to jump around when you have to constantly avoid bullets and look for a place to land, on top of presseing the button to land properly. And the speed is fine, but it can be boost up a bit to keep it up to par with what we used to in pve so we don't have to take much time getting used to it.

Conclave I feel can be a great addition to the game, but as it is now, after so much patchs, it still retain much of its problem and DE hasn't really made much improvement on that front. I know they want to focus on doing updates now but if they still want to push conclave into our hands regardless, then it should be improved somewhat or posts like these will just keep poping up.

[(PSN)EVILFLUFFMONSTER]

They already tried making movement really slow and limiting bullet jumps in previous iterations. It didnt help at all and was actually LESS popular. The oro feature helps because it means pro players with amazing aim actually have to stop flipping about to pick up the oro, which leaves them vulnerable and allows you to predict wherabouts they might be when you respawn.

The movement is mainly what sets warframe pvp apart from other shooters, and in many cases actually helps new players escape and avoid getting shot. Yes, its harder to hit people flipping all over the place - but its also harder for them to aim at you too while they do it.

The other advantage to the movement system is that it helps close the gap with melee weapons - melee is a big part in warframe and reducing movement would simply make gunplay even more viable.

People are just too used to the pve game where I can literally stand and tank tons of damage while I shoot. You need to be of the mindset that PVP players are like facing enemies that can one-shot you, have much better AI, and move like a Jackal on 10 packets of skittles. Your cheese frame abilities dont work any more and you have virtually no mods. However, its all fair and dandy because you too can kill them just as easily.

It does need a rework, but not for the reasons you describe. One fault is that all the weapons and frames mostly are locked in the pve mode and locked behind mastery ranks that require lots of pve play DESPITE them performing completely differently in pvp and having vastly different performance. They should have the option to unlock them seperately in pvp only as a reward for playing. Already owned PVE versions should still carry to PVP though, cos nobody wants to unlock them twice.

The whole interface needs reworking - Teshin is annoying and repetitive, you cannot edit your class and weapons in the lobby, and you only start with one loadout slot. This means new players trying it out have to endure the loading screen back to the lobby, quit the lobby and endure another loading screen, change weapons in the liset, enter another loading screen to enter the lobby, then load again to start a match..only to find they are stuck for a whole match with a frame and weapons they cant switch out of which quite often are terrible (because only a few weapons are actually worth using and new players havent a clue). No wonder new players dont stick at it.

We need decent lobbies and we shouldnt have to return to the ship to change loadouts. When hosts quit a lobby it should just reassign without dumping everyone back to the liset. Plus Teshin is annoying and repetitive and repetitive and repetitive. Its almost like someone intentionally wants us to suffer..

Make its interface smooth and easy to use, reduce loading screens and balance the weapons better so that more are actually viable for use. With movement being as it is all weapons need low bullets to kill, or low time to kill respectively. Currently only certain weapons for most people are usable.

This should be done before we start talking about changing everything else.

[(XBOX)Tylers Legend]

@Avatar_of_War

Oberon is extremely good. I used him and stopped because he was so good. He has radiation proc. Confusion in team games. Anti-melee carpet. a good damaging  4 with a huge stun and an OTG stun together. He can heal his self and his teammates from I believe anywhere on the map.

Wukong is great too. You need to really use his abilities more properly admittedly than others. Like for example, if you defy, you need to make sure you die safely. You need to have good ground movement for his melee abilities.  Cloud, should be timed.

Nekroz doesn't have a useless skill set either. For one, he not a Frame you want to sit in his face, lol get soul punch into a nasty setup. He can heal himself and teammates. If I am not mistaken, he has a revive too.

 

Weapon balancing:

You are right about some weapons being less effective than others, though. There is a reason, why people prefer snipers and bows combined with great chaining abilities. I just want more data, before I posted something about it. The movement can kill certain weapons effectiveness. But, that is why we have CCs.

 

Map deaths:

I used to fall off the map a lot, but memorizing my tools help prevent this. I like to save my aim-glide and double jump for things like that. I usually will do a slide melee attack turn with aim glide then slide double jump into aim-glide slide melee attack.  Map deaths are no longers a problem, players need to move less recklessly. It is definitely a learning curve for some. You must move properly around the map and learn to shoot at the same time. Ground movement goes unnoticed too. You do not have to jump all across the map. I don't even play like that anymore, I modded my Vauban to .6 mobility for armored movement 70% of the time I am camping with traps and a Grinlock LOL so I am not playing like everyone else and if I have to move I am moving in a Gears of War fashion (lots of sprinting and rolls), of course, I can still move just like I did at my higher mobility. You just need to know the movement mechanics.

It's things like this, new players won't know how to do from the start. I think we need a tutorial mode, to show the special conditions players fight in and show them their tools used for this combat.

I think they are fine and work as hints to players to make good use of their mobility.

 

Mods and different frame stats add diversity in playstyle to the game. That is very boring and hurtful to the eyes, everyone playing the same and forced to maybe play a way they don't like. Balanced? yes. Fun? no.

 

Edited February 5, 2017 by (XB1)Tylers Legend

[Krion112]

8 hours ago, Heckzu said:

Limiting bullet jumps wouldn't solve any issues. Any average conclave player can easily mow down a grounded target while flying through the air. Even if bullet jumps were disabled, players who know how to utilize their mobility would just use wall hopping and mid-air rolls to fly through the air almost as well as bullet jumping, while players who don't have such good control over their mobility would be nothing more than sitting ducks, creating an even greater disparity between the skilled and unskilled players.

What you've presented is a strawman argument; you're assuming I'm pushing for only specifically what I've said, and not making the proper assumptions. The weapon balance has taken bullet-jump into account; it assumes that every player can freely utilize bullet-jump, so of course if we limited bullet-jump, and other similar enhanced mobility mechanics, weapon stats would need to be altered slightly as well to alter time-to-kill ratios that would be built on the premise of the standard action-genre balance matrix.

If rolling will achieve the same thing, then it would be limited by the stamina system as well. Wall-hopping would be restricted in the same ways as Sprint, and you would not be able to fire your weapon while doing it. Those problems are now solved, and imbalance in Conclave would then only be the result of statistics which could be tweaked as needed, after significant testing.

I'm sorry, but I don't see how limiting Bullet-jumping, Air Melee, Slide Melee, Charge Melee, Sliding, and Rolling won't solve any issues. I mean, you could still do all of these things, you just couldn't use them so sporadically and reliably, and obviously weapon stats would be tweaked to accommodate the new restrictions.

[Krion112]

4 hours ago, (PS4)EVILFLUFFMONSTER said:

They already tried making movement really slow and limiting bullet jumps in previous iterations. It didnt help at all and was actually LESS popular. The oro feature helps because it means pro players with amazing aim actually have to stop flipping about to pick up the oro, which leaves them vulnerable and allows you to predict wherabouts they might be when you respawn.

It was less popular because:

• They didn't rebalance the weapons accordingly; they left them balanced to assume that bullet-jumping would still be free.
• Warframes were not rebalanced accordingly either.
• They slowed down the speed of Bullet-Jump; my proposition is only affecting the ability to execute the bullet-jump, not changing how far it will take you.

You kind of have to invest in all of that all at once to get the correct effect, otherwise it will be met with overwhelming disgruntlement. However, inevitably, any change at all will be met with some disgruntlement, as players who exploited the imbalance will feel cheated, even in the PvE.

[Stormdragon]

On 5/2/2017 at 11:10 AM, Avatar_of_War said:

The whole problem with Conclave is that Warframe was built to be a PVE game, the PVP was just a tag on hence it has many imbalance issues and called it skill ceiling is really stretching it. The first thing is Warframe abilities. For example, some are powerful like Nova, Ember, Mag with good CC or Excal EB can mob the floor with any1, or Rhino Iron Skin can stop him from dying to useless skills set of Oberon, Wukong, Nekros.

Fix: Just like the quick steel, remove all abilites, use a set amount of shield, armor and hp for everyone. That will remove this issue completely.

most powers arebalanced. For example, toggled powers such as world on fire or EB can't be activated if the player has less than 100 energy even when the activation cost is lower than that. Their drain is also high enough to prevent players from sustaining them endlessly, and pickups get blocked, so there's no energy recharge while using them... yes, not even by picking up blue orbs. powers having a way reduced area of effect and duration makes them very situational, so a skilled player will take a bigger advantage of them than someone who's only used to them in pve, which also applies to the skills listed in your omment; a player can survive to Nova's MP by killing the player who used it (easier during the casting animation), trying to hide and run away until effect wears off; EB has travel time, which makes it actually easy to dodge by staying away from whoever using it; rhino's iron skin has a decay, so itwon't be there forever like in pve; oberon is a powerful frame since his first power throws radiation procs at the enemy (amazing on team based modes) hallowed ground deals heavy damage to enemies, the healing thing doesn't need much explanation, and reckoning deals heavy damage to anyone around. Wukong can survive a lot with defy, and namng nekros amongst the useless frames clearly shows the lack of experience with pvp: Soul Punch is a knockdown that has an augment to reduce the target's energy,Terrify makes enemies affected deal reduced damage, Desecrate grants a drop AND allows you to see desecrated enemies through walls for a time after their respawn, and shadows pf the dead allows you (and your team) to skip respawn timer after going down.

about the fix, turning frames into a vessel for fashionframe in the main pvp mode is basically removing warframes from warframe's pvp. In the current system all of them are blanced depending on their skill set, effective health points and mobility; where tankier frames are also way too slow and the fast frames can die to a couple of shots.

On 5/2/2017 at 11:10 AM, Avatar_of_War said:

The second thing is weapons. I know ppl gonna jump on this and I dont claim to be an expert in weapons, but you have to to admit first thing that there are completely useless guns like the brak, bronko, Hikou,... that are not effective. They have low stats, low mag and even low fire rate in some instances leaving ppl just choose a specific weapon to use in Conclave, like Lex, Akilisto, and now the new Aklex, even soma is weak in pvp.

Fix: design a set of weapons to exclusively use for Conclave. It a huge fix I know but it will ensure an even playing field for everyone, also remove the conclave mods. With that the weapons will depends on the skills of the users and they can't blame anything else if they miss, because everyone use the same weapon set. Again, Quick Steel has adress this and it can be a model for every Conclave modes or just randomly select a weapon sets for a match (no mods of course) so everyone will use the same thing. It may throw ppl off if they have st they can't use but everyone else will have the same weapons and you can use it to try new weapons as well as observe how others use it.

there is no thing such as a useless weapon, in fact, brakk and bronco are devastating if you're able to follow a target and shoot it at short range. the fact that these don't fit your playstile/skills doesn't make them useless. 

Making a new setof weapons doesn't fix anything since most of the weapons of the same type are sidegrades to each other; Soma deals less damage per shot than braton, but the latter can't keep shooting for the same time than the former. Boltor series deals higher damage than both of the previously named weapons, but it also requires that the user leads their shots in order to hit the target. I hope you can see where everything goes since the list is long.

The fix doesn't actually fix anything, instead it only removes customization and player choices to use a weapon we like and make it comfortable to each one or for different purposes. Variants have been workedd this way simply because these are more casual modes where players are stripped down of any gear and left on even ground with nothing but our skills to make a difference.

On 5/2/2017 at 11:10 AM, Avatar_of_War said:

The last thing, and probably the biggest was the movement system. Warframe has amazing movement and I think everyone can agree on it. It tight, It looked cool, it fast and fluid. However, when applied this to pvp it has a few issue. The first thing was the speed. It is much slower than in pve and I can understand that. If you keep flying around like in pve it will be hard to hit you. The 2nd is related to maps with ledge that you can fall off. We use parkour in warframe and we know how easy it is to fall off the map, but in pvp it is an instant death, it makes you cautious and don't want to jump around too much. And lastly is the long recovery time when you don't land properly, leaving you completely open. I die mainly because of this.

Fix: remove the recovery time. It will help players move around the map much easier with no fear of death even when you landed the wrong way while maintain the current speed. It will push the game to a more fast paced and action packed environment like how the game actually is. Remove maps with pit fall or just fill them up with surface. it hard to jump around when you have to constantly avoid bullets and look for a place to land, on top of presseing the button to land properly. And the speed is fine, but it can be boost up a bit to keep it up to par with what we used to in pve so we don't have to take much time getting used to it.

I agree, the movement system has been slowed down too much. (there was a time when we could go up to 1.4 mobility with light frames, currently the max obtaiable is 1.2, being 1.0 the vanilla pve mobility) and then again, faster frames die way quicker than tanky ones who in exchange move slower.

About the fix, there's no point on removing the recovery time from landing just bcause it gets you killed, you can also time your landings with a roll or slide to avoid being locked in place during that time window. Maps with pits help us to be more cautious about our mobility and plan our movements according to the map instead of making nothing but random jumps. getting a litle of location and situational awareness should be enough to prevent you from heavy landings and falling on pits.

Conclave is mostly fine. It still needs some minor tweaks and polishment, but the overall system feels great once you toss aside your ego and start learning how to perform on it. thing is, most players seem to want get into a match and wreck everyone just like they do in pve, but find themselves in a system where not moving means death, meta is a myth, energy can be scarce, and they can be outplayed by enemies, which hurts their ego and makes them label pvp as a totally unbalanced game mode (for instance, once I saw a MR23 player using miramulor in pvp. the guy ragequitted in less than 2 minutes)

Edited February 8, 2017 by -----LegioN-----
An horrible typo just died (but many still remain)

[(XBOX)The Repo Man151]

On 2/5/2017 at 2:19 AM, Krion112 said:

1. (Snip) However, that was, again, a loaded question; how much I play Conclave is not relevant to how much I know about Conclave. I can watch videos, read discussions, analyze the game-design decisions, and combine it with my own experiences.

2. It's not just automatic weapons, it's a combination of problems. Conclave is plagued with more issues than one, but all of its issues have a common ground. And just because automatic weapons aren't the most rewarding weapon doesn't mean they're not imbalanced.

As for my statement, what I mean is it's up to DE's discretion to believe me, disagree with me, or ignore me. I'd argue that my opinion is a little more informed than the average player, because I've been quite actively putting myself towards being educated in game-design, but I also understand DE also views Warframe as much as a product as they do as a game, so they're influenced to do things that don't make sense to a game-designer.

 3. As such, it's not intended to be pompous or high strung. My tone is more informative, not of hatred or judgement. I entirely meant whatever DE does regarding my feedback is up to them.

 

4. Actually, no it's not. In fact, as long as everything has a unique role, but no statistical upgrades, you will have a balanced system. It's only when you try to add linear, stat upgrades where problems begin to arise, but usually they only arise if they're as out there as some Warframe mods allow. But, Weapon balance is also determined by other mechanics, such as enhanced mobility and enemy scaling, so it's a slippery slope to do anything about it.

5. I'm not suggesting anything like the original stamina system. The one I'm proposing only limits Bullet-Jumping, certain melee attacks such as charge attacks, spin attacks, and air attacks, and sliding. Sprinting, rolling, ordinary melee attacks, wall-hopping, and wall-latching would all still be free of the stamina resource. And then, each Warframe has their own capacity for it, so Flexible and Offense-Oriented Warframes would definitely have more stamina than others.

1. Reading about Conclave is VERY different than playing it. It is impossible to understand Conclave by only reading about it. You have to both play it and read the discussions to understand it. How much you play conclave is very relevant to how much you understand conclave.

2. I have yet to see any issues with automatic weapons. Id argue that it has consistently been the single shot weapons (Daikyu, Vectis, Opticor, Latron, Rubico, and the likes) that have caused the most issues despite them actually being relatively on par with the other weapons.

Ipse dixit. Being "Educated" in Game Design has very little to do with if you are able to do it or not. Understanding the game by playing it will be more beneficial in most circumstances than just by reading about the game.

3. An opinion is not informative. It is persuasive.

4. That is not a fact at all. Unique roles do not mean you have a balanced game. Imagine if you were playing this metaphorical game. One character has a weapon that instantly kills other characters. That is unique. Now imagine the 2nd character having the same weapon, but she also has 4 stages of invulnerability to being affected by the weapon. Which character would you pick ?

5.Stamina is good idea in theory, but there needs to be serious and extensive play testing before it releases to guarantee quality.

 

[Krion112]

1 minute ago, (XB1)CFE Discord said:

1. Reading about Conclave is VERY different than playing it. It is impossible to understand Conclave by only reading about it. You have to both play it and read the discussions to understand it. How much you play conclave is very relevant to how much you understand conclave.

2. I have yet to see any issues with automatic weapons. Id argue that it has consistently been the single shot weapons (Daikyu, Vectis, Opticor, Latron, Rubico, and the likes) that have caused the most issues despite them actually being relatively on par with the other weapons.

Ipse dixit. Being "Educated" in Game Design has very little to do with if you are able to do it or not. Understanding the game by playing it will be more beneficial in most circumstances than just by reading about the game.

3. An opinion is not informative. It is persuasive.

4. That is not a fact at all. Unique roles do not mean you have a balanced game. Imagine if you were playing this metaphorical game. One character has a weapon that instantly kills other characters. That is unique. Now imagine the 2nd character having the same weapon, but she also has 4 stages of invulnerability to being affected by the weapon. Which character would you pick ?

5.Stamina is good idea in theory, but there needs to be serious and extensive play testing before it releases to guarantee quality.

 

1) No it's not. And, in case there was still any doubt, I spent a great deal of time recently playing conclave; my argument still fully stands. Plus, you also presented a strawman argument: I already said that I have played conclave, quite a bit. I just haven't really played Warframe for a couple of months, and I know for a fact Conclave has not seen any significant change in that time, and to make sure I was right on that front I just played it and I have noticed no change. I kept up to make sure that it hadn't by reading about it as well. Your assumptions are incorrect.

2) Okay, let me put it this way: the imbalance of hit-scan automatic weapons, and every other weapon imbalance for that matter, is a symptom of the imbalance caused by the ability to freely and reliably utilize bullet-jump. Bullet-jump can too easily allow a player with a flexibility weapon (ie, automatic weapons) to counter a power weapon (ie, shotguns), despite the fact that power is intended to counter flexibility. It also causes problems by allowing a player with a power weapon to counter a player with a precision weapon (ie, snipers). The same could probably also be said of precision weapons versus flexibility weapons as well, but given that it's a flexible system assisting a flexibility weapon, I can't see precision being imbalanced, but I assume players of high skill can exploit the potential imbalance.

And, if we're talking subjective here, I've not once had an issue with one-shot weapons, with the only exception being the Latron Prime, but I'd also argue that Prime weapons are imbalanced as well, but that doesn't mean they're undefeatable. You can have imbalance that isn't directly exploited. I also don't generally have an issue with hit-scan automatic weapons, or any other weapon for that matter, but that still doesn't mean these weapons aren't imbalanced.

I have already played Warframe extensively. I don't just read about the game; once again, another strawman argument. I have come to all of my conclusions by playing the game, and analyzing it as both a player and a game-designer. I know how to execute good game-design, at least in the case of action games, because I know how every mechanic works and why they are used the way they are, from strategy games to first person shooters. I don't know how you expect to prove that, when understanding something is abstract and I don't have access to Warframe's code to test my recommended changes. Hence why I'm pretty much asking DE to consider it.

3) Informing of my opinion, which is educated in game design, is informative. It's an insight into the mind of someone who both plays the game and knows how to design it. As I said, whether DE will use that information or ignore that information is up to them. However, I was saying my tone was one of informative; I'm merely expressing the information I know to form a solution (ie, informing of my opinion).

4) I mean unique in the literal sense; in an orthogonal game, all game elements will fulfill a unique role, in that no two elements will share the same precise purpose. Warframes, Weapons, Units, Archwings, and every other such element in Warframe are all balanced in an orthogonal manner, because you will never find two things of the same type that have the same role, and those unique roles counter other unique roles. The only inconsistency is variant weapons, such as primes, vandals, wraiths, and prismas, which do overlap with other weapon roles, sometimes even straight up upgrading their original.

However, the only major imbalance to Warframe is that the modding system and enhanced mobility system allow certain roles to overshadow others completely; no weapon or Warframe is truly underpowered, but rather other weapons and Warframes can come to overshadow their purpose. Most often, it's flexibility weapons, as you slap on damage, critical chance/damage, Multi-shot, and the like, and you end up with weapons that out damage Power and Precision weapons, while retaining the range and plasticity of Flexibility.

What you illustrate has no bounds on my argument, and would be considered bad game-design.

Also, because I can already predict you're going to strawman my argument here, making everything have a unique role also necessitates the proper statistical balance. A unique role is not only the result of a weapon's behavior, but of the numbers it has as well. When you change those numbers, however, using things like mods, then you can either end up with role flexibility (what Warframe was aiming to do) or imbalance (what Warframe ended up doing).

5) While I would agree that any change or implementation demands testing, the mentality of DE is that we, the player-base, are the testers. If they're going to make a change, it will it be raw and unfiltered, but I would argue as well that it would demand testing, mostly to ensure the inherent weapon balance tweaks that would need to come with it.

[(XBOX)The Repo Man151]

1 hour ago, Krion112 said:

1) No it's not. And, in case there was still any doubt, I spent a great deal of time recently playing conclave; my argument still fully stands. Plus, you also presented a strawman argument: I already said that I have played conclave, quite a bit. I just haven't really played Warframe for a couple of months, and I know for a fact Conclave has not seen any significant change in that time, and to make sure I was right on that front I just played it and I have noticed no change. I kept up to make sure that it hadn't by reading about it as well. Your assumptions are incorrect.

2) Okay, let me put it this way: the imbalance of hit-scan automatic weapons, and every other weapon imbalance for that matter, is a symptom of the imbalance caused by the ability to freely and reliably utilize bullet-jump. Bullet-jump can too easily allow a player with a flexibility weapon (ie, automatic weapons) to counter a power weapon (ie, shotguns), despite the fact that power is intended to counter flexibility. It also causes problems by allowing a player with a power weapon to counter a player with a precision weapon (ie, snipers). The same could probably also be said of precision weapons versus flexibility weapons as well, but given that it's a flexible system assisting a flexibility weapon, I can't see precision being imbalanced, but I assume players of high skill can exploit the potential imbalance.

And, if we're talking subjective here, I've not once had an issue with one-shot weapons, with the only exception being the Latron Prime, but I'd also argue that Prime weapons are imbalanced as well, but that doesn't mean they're undefeatable. You can have imbalance that isn't directly exploited. I also don't generally have an issue with hit-scan automatic weapons, or any other weapon for that matter, but that still doesn't mean these weapons aren't imbalanced.

I have already played Warframe extensively. I don't just read about the game; once again, another strawman argument. I have come to all of my conclusions by playing the game, and analyzing it as both a player and a game-designer. I know how to execute good game-design, at least in the case of action games, because I know how every mechanic works and why they are used the way they are, from strategy games to first person shooters. I don't know how you expect to prove that, when understanding something is abstract and I don't have access to Warframe's code to test my recommended changes. Hence why I'm pretty much asking DE to consider it.

3) Informing of my opinion, which is educated in game design, is informative. It's an insight into the mind of someone who both plays the game and knows how to design it. As I said, whether DE will use that information or ignore that information is up to them. However, I was saying my tone was one of informative; I'm merely expressing the information I know to form a solution (ie, informing of my opinion).

4) I mean unique in the literal sense; in an orthogonal game, all game elements will fulfill a unique role, in that no two elements will share the same precise purpose. Warframes, Weapons, Units, Archwings, and every other such element in Warframe are all balanced in an orthogonal manner, because you will never find two things of the same type that have the same role, and those unique roles counter other unique roles. The only inconsistency is variant weapons, such as primes, vandals, wraiths, and prismas, which do overlap with other weapon roles, sometimes even straight up upgrading their original.

However, the only major imbalance to Warframe is that the modding system and enhanced mobility system allow certain roles to overshadow others completely; no weapon or Warframe is truly underpowered, but rather other weapons and Warframes can come to overshadow their purpose. Most often, it's flexibility weapons, as you slap on damage, critical chance/damage, Multi-shot, and the like, and you end up with weapons that out damage Power and Precision weapons, while retaining the range and plasticity of Flexibility.

What you illustrate has no bounds on my argument, and would be considered bad game-design.

Also, because I can already predict you're going to strawman my argument here, making everything have a unique role also necessitates the proper statistical balance. A unique role is not only the result of a weapon's behavior, but of the numbers it has as well. When you change those numbers, however, using things like mods, then you can either end up with role flexibility (what Warframe was aiming to do) or imbalance (what Warframe ended up doing).

5) While I would agree that any change or implementation demands testing, the mentality of DE is that we, the player-base, are the testers. If they're going to make a change, it will it be raw and unfiltered, but I would argue as well that it would demand testing, mostly to ensure the inherent weapon balance tweaks that would need to come with it.

1. >Spent a great deal of time playing conclave recently

>haven't played warframe for a couple of months

Perhaps you should do some more warm-up matches before assuming conclave is imbalanced.

I have played every PvP game mode in Warframe (excluding lunaro) fervently since it was released for Xbox One. I've played conclave 1.0, Dojo battles, Dark Sector Battles, Conclave 2.0 all at least for over 200 hours in dojo duels and over 1500 hours in the modern conclave. My former self knows very little of conclave compared to my current self. If I didn't have at least 200 hours of experience in a game mode, I wouldn't feel qualified enough to give an accurate and well constructed opinion regarding how it works.

2. Warframe isn't halo or UT. Shotguns are not power weapons. Automatic weapon are functionally useless for many new players because keeping track over a moving target is difficult and you need sustained accuracy with those kind of weapons for them to be effective. Shotguns are effective in close quarters situations and especially powerful when combo'd with abilities like rip line or soul punch. "Precision Weapons" are often used because they just a have a really low STK or TTK. If an atomos had the range and damage of a Rubico, it would be the most powerful weapon ever seen in conclave(Excluding Martial Magnetism Kogakes RIP).

>players of high skill exploiting a potential imbalance 

Its not imbalance. A split second of a Vectis can kill someone before a split second from an automatic can. Bulletjumping is just a movement set a player needs to memorize so they can counter it. It's only powerful against people who are not accurate enough to keep up with it.

3. Being educated in game design isn't something that is universally applicable to understand all the given features of a game.

4.>Slap on Damage, critical chance/damage, Multi-shot, and the like, and you end up with weapons that out damage power and precision weapons.

Are we playing the same conclave? I would love you forever if you could show me where I can find a critical chance mod for my weapons in conclave. Maybe this is why my KD went down from 3.9 to 3.2 over the past year. Everyone has just been using better mods than I have been using.

5. People who don't have a vested interest in the betterment of conclave shouldn't be the ones doing the testing. All the people who complain about the mere existence of conclave will poison any feedback DE gets from this new proposed system.

[Krion112]

3 hours ago, (XB1)CFE Discord said:

-snip-

Wow, okay, this is ridiculous. You've pretty much just made a strawman argument against most of my response. You literally just want to antagonize me.

1) Yeah, because when I'm getting 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place just about every round, I need to warm up. I'm sorry, but your whole basis seems to suggest that I'm saying conclave is imbalanced because I'm bad at it; that's obviously not the case. I was doing just fine in conclave, and had no direct complaints with the players I was playing with or the equipment they were using. My complaint is not against the symptoms, but the actual issues.

Also, you're projecting your own mentality upon me; I don't have muscle memory issues like you may. I can stop playing a game for months or years at a time, and come back and play it at just about how well I played it before, if not better. I have a natural talent for just jumping into something and learning it quickly. As such, dropping Warframe for two months was like no time at all for me.

2) They're more closely related than you think. All action genre games, Warframe included, use the same balance matrix; each game just uses it differently. Warframe is the first game I've seen to even attempt at using the entire thing in one game, as usually most games limit it to just bits and pieces (ie, Dark Souls is designed around Flexibility, Offense weapons in Halo are always designed to be Aggressive, Quake and Unreal are designed around the Offense role, etc). This is why Warframe's mantra is "Play the way you want". Even most of Warframe's lore has been written entirely to coincide with its game-design. Even as you talk about the strengths of a shotgun, you pretty much outline the criteria of a power weapon.

Ultimately, Warframe does share all of its balance with those games, but it isn't designed around the same criteria as those games.

3) Wow, that's just blatantly incorrect for this situation. I'm educated in action genre game-design, Warframe is an action game, I'm pretty sure I know precisely how it works, with only one exception: I'm not educated in level design, but we're not talking level design issues. What you're saying is that an educated diesel mechanic wouldn't necessarily know how to fix a freight truck, even though that's precisely what his education covers.

4) Right there, I was very obviously, and very clearly referring to Warframe's base game-play. Just because you want to play ignorant does not change the fact of what I was quite obviously referring to. At this point, I can assume you only wanted to call me out on something on this point, but couldn't find anything.

To bring the point to Conclave, how roles are overshadowed there is entirely the result of enhanced mobility being completely too free and reliable. It leads to weapon imbalance, as I have already outlined, and weapon favoritism, which is only a problem if subjectively thought to be. Some mods in Conclave may also be imbalanced, but I don't have enough experience in using them to know if they shift the balance too much.

5) I want Warframe, and all of its facets, Conclave included, to be made better. My feedback is not venomous; I'm merely pointing out the flaws, and suggesting solutions, both based upon my education as a game-designer and as an experienced player. Your point here does not apply to me.

Edited February 7, 2017 by Krion112

[(XBOX)The Repo Man151]

20 hours ago, Krion112 said:

Wow, okay, this is ridiculous. You've pretty much just made a strawman argument against most of my response. You literally just want to antagonize me.

1) Yeah, because when I'm getting 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place just about every round, I need to warm up. I'm sorry, but your whole basis seems to suggest that I'm saying conclave is imbalanced because I'm bad at it; that's obviously not the case. I was doing just fine in conclave, and had no direct complaints with the players I was playing with or the equipment they were using. My complaint is not against the symptoms, but the actual issues.

Also, you're projecting your own mentality upon me; I don't have muscle memory issues like you may. I can stop playing a game for months or years at a time, and come back and play it at just about how well I played it before, if not better. I have a natural talent for just jumping into something and learning it quickly. As such, dropping Warframe for two months was like no time at all for me.

2) They're more closely related than you think. All action genre games, Warframe included, use the same balance matrix; each game just uses it differently. Warframe is the first game I've seen to even attempt at using the entire thing in one game, as usually most games limit it to just bits and pieces (ie, Dark Souls is designed around Flexibility, Offense weapons in Halo are always designed to be Aggressive, Quake and Unreal are designed around the Offense role, etc). This is why Warframe's mantra is "Play the way you want". Even most of Warframe's lore has been written entirely to coincide with its game-design. Even as you talk about the strengths of a shotgun, you pretty much outline the criteria of a power weapon.

Ultimately, Warframe does share all of its balance with those games, but it isn't designed around the same criteria as those games.

3) Wow, that's just blatantly incorrect for this situation. I'm educated in action genre game-design, Warframe is an action game, I'm pretty sure I know precisely how it works, with only one exception: I'm not educated in level design, but we're not talking level design issues. What you're saying is that an educated diesel mechanic wouldn't necessarily know how to fix a freight truck, even though that's precisely what his education covers.

4) Right there, I was very obviously, and very clearly referring to Warframe's base game-play. Just because you want to play ignorant does not change the fact of what I was quite obviously referring to. At this point, I can assume you only wanted to call me out on something on this point, but couldn't find anything.

To bring the point to Conclave, how roles are overshadowed there is entirely the result of enhanced mobility being completely too free and reliable. It leads to weapon imbalance, as I have already outlined, and weapon favoritism, which is only a problem if subjectively thought to be. Some mods in Conclave may also be imbalanced, but I don't have enough experience in using them to know if they shift the balance too much.

5) I want Warframe, and all of its facets, Conclave included, to be made better. My feedback is not venomous; I'm merely pointing out the flaws, and suggesting solutions, both based upon my education as a game-designer and as an experienced player. Your point here does not apply to me.

1. How do you get first in TA or CTC ? Getting 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in Anni isnt a great measure of how talented a person is as a player. I personally dont have any muscle memory issues. I can switch between Titanfall 2, Star Trek Online, and Warframe on a whim and do great in each. 

2. Wouldn't the Paris be more of a power weapon then shotguns ? It can kill at ranges beyond close range and it has the same damage output as the shotguns ? All of the weapons in warframe are power weapons, in their own unique ways. Some just need a little more effort to reach their potential.

3. Im arguing that a diesel mechanic does not know how to fix the International Space Station.

4. Enhanced Mobility does not cause or correlate with weapon imbalance. It, however, most definitely correlates with a vast group of players not having the mechanical skills to keep up with the people who do. Weapon favoritism only exists because high single target DPS weapons(Bows, Snipers,Shotguns, Javlok, Latrons, Sybaris, Tiberons) and AoE weapons(Penta, Castanas, Zarr) tend to be more effective at killing other players than the other groups of weapons. If a player had the mechanical skills to hit Bullet Jump animations consistently with a weapon not in the groups named above (Many players do, CFE Doc Holiday and Tylers Legend are very accurate), than those weapons would have more use. Its just a case of most players not having the practice to use these weapons effectively against the players who will will utilize mobility.

5. Im not implying you, for example, were "venemous". Im saying that a large faction of the playerbase have tantrums over a minor alert in Conclave and would like nothing better than to see Conclave as a whole removed from Warframe. These people are far too biased to give any serious feedback about these changes you are proposing.

[Salenstormwing]

Want to know the most fun I ever had in Conclave?

It was the Arena mode. No PvP. Team PvE. Rathuum, The Index, both of them are PURE fun. They are what I EXPECT from PvP. I can jump around, I can shoot badguys who are tough, I can kill them with my powers... it's the PURE Conclave experience, and it's not Conclave at all.

Conclave itself is boring and/or frustrating. Usually both, and in high quantities.

Rathuum and The Index though are amazing. It's all the intense combat of Conclave but without the bad stuff that Conclave brings.

You make an Arena version of Lunaro, it'd probably be great. Or at least better. because then you'd have a full squad on both sides of the field and not just 2v2 or 3v2 or whatever because once you lose, you have folks drop out....

Anyways, like I said, Rathuum and The Index are what Conclave SHOULD be like. What we got now, it's not very fun.

[Krion112]

37 minutes ago, (Xbox One)CFE Discord said:

-snip-

1) In the case of team annihilation, I was usually either getting the most oro or getting the most kills. I don't play Cephalon Capture, as it's too imbalanced due to the freedom of enhanced mobility.

I'm just saying, I don't have to play a game consistently to keep up my skills; for whatever reason, I can and have ignored games for long periods of time, and come back to them later with equal levels of skill. Sometimes, I even get better without playing. I guarantee, I was doing just fine in Conclave to know I'm not just nitpicking at things that countered me.

2) In game-design, a Power weapon (or, any element at all, really) is a weapon that can deal high quantities of damage or devastating effects over an area of effect at close range. A Precision weapon, which is a weapon that can deal high quantities of damage or cause devastating effects to an individual target at long range. Precision counters Power, because it out-ranges it or can otherwise attack it outside of its perceptions (ie, Tanks usually being unable to target Aircraft in RTS games, Sniper Rifles having far more range and accuracy than Shotguns, etc). And, just as explanation, a Flexibility weapon is any weapon which usually deals damage over time, and is proficient at both long range and close range; it counters Precision weapons because, for example, if you keep shooting at a Precision user, they're going to want to dodge, or in some games getting shot while in scope knocks you out of scope.

In the case of Warframe, Bows sit in between Precision and Flexibility, which means they're alright at close-range, but it's a massive self risk to do so. In fact, Bows light-counter Snipers. Of course, if you're skilled enough, you can make a Bow beat a shotgun, but like I said, you put yourself at needless risk for it.

3) That doesn't apply here, though, because I am precisely educated in designing the genre of game that encompasses games like Warframe. Don't know how I'd prove it, as I can't just make a full game right here and now, and I don't have access to Warframe's production to test changes. Although, I have predicted the functions and balance of several new implements to the game since I've become educated in game-design, so I think it's fair to say I'm on the right track.

4) You're running with the standard logical fallacy most players suffer from when talking about game-design. Mechanics are not segregated into different sections; as long as two systems interact, those two systems will have an effect on one another. Movement is not segregated from combat; it plays a heavy part into weapon, and all other element, balance, especially when considering Offense and Defense roles

Weapon Favoritism exists for one reason only: Free and Reliable Enhanced Mobility and Mods can cause the weapons of certain roles to overshadow the roles of other weapons that are not as malleable. That overshadowing can also be attributed to that the game-play itself sometimes does not play predictably enough to reward that game-play (ie, I don't ever see people use the Penta to actually set traps, they use it as a flak cannon by firing it near enemy targets and then detonating).

The majority of Warframe's balance issues all come from systems surrounding the core game-play, rather than the core game-play itself. Weapons are not under-powered; other weapons can be made to be overpowered.

If it was a matter of skill, even skillful players could properly use weapons like the Supra, Tetra, Synapse, and other similarly underused weapons, but they just can't, because of imbalance caused by free and reliable enhanced mobility (ie, immediately dodging out of the way of Supra and Tetra volleys while they're on the defensive, which is supposed to be their element).

5) Whenever I give feedback, it's because I hope DE reads my posts; I don't just argue for the sake of arguing. I make sure that if they follow the string of my posts presenting my arguments, they see the alternative. So, whether or not other people read or argue my posts is not my problem, all that I care is that my point is made for DE to see. I don't know how many of my posts get DE's attention, but I don't post to get feedback from the community, at least not generally.

[(XBOX)The Repo Man151]

2 hours ago, Krion112 said:

1) In the case of team annihilation, I was usually either getting the most oro or getting the most kills. I don't play Cephalon Capture, as it's too imbalanced due to the freedom of enhanced mobility.

I'm just saying, I don't have to play a game consistently to keep up my skills; for whatever reason, I can and have ignored games for long periods of time, and come back to them later with equal levels of skill. Sometimes, I even get better without playing. I guarantee, I was doing just fine in Conclave to know I'm not just nitpicking at things that countered me.

2) In game-design, a Power weapon (or, any element at all, really) is a weapon that can deal high quantities of damage or devastating effects over an area of effect at close range. A Precision weapon, which is a weapon that can deal high quantities of damage or cause devastating effects to an individual target at long range. Precision counters Power, because it out-ranges it or can otherwise attack it outside of its perceptions (ie, Tanks usually being unable to target Aircraft in RTS games, Sniper Rifles having far more range and accuracy than Shotguns, etc). And, just as explanation, a Flexibility weapon is any weapon which usually deals damage over time, and is proficient at both long range and close range; it counters Precision weapons because, for example, if you keep shooting at a Precision user, they're going to want to dodge, or in some games getting shot while in scope knocks you out of scope.

In the case of Warframe, Bows sit in between Precision and Flexibility, which means they're alright at close-range, but it's a massive self risk to do so. In fact, Bows light-counter Snipers. Of course, if you're skilled enough, you can make a Bow beat a shotgun, but like I said, you put yourself at needless risk for it.

3) That doesn't apply here, though, because I am precisely educated in designing the genre of game that encompasses games like Warframe. Don't know how I'd prove it, as I can't just make a full game right here and now, and I don't have access to Warframe's production to test changes. Although, I have predicted the functions and balance of several new implements to the game since I've become educated in game-design, so I think it's fair to say I'm on the right track.

4) You're running with the standard logical fallacy most players suffer from when talking about game-design. Mechanics are not segregated into different sections; as long as two systems interact, those two systems will have an effect on one another. Movement is not segregated from combat; it plays a heavy part into weapon, and all other element, balance, especially when considering Offense and Defense roles

Weapon Favoritism exists for one reason only: Free and Reliable Enhanced Mobility and Mods can cause the weapons of certain roles to overshadow the roles of other weapons that are not as malleable. That overshadowing can also be attributed to that the game-play itself sometimes does not play predictably enough to reward that game-play (ie, I don't ever see people use the Penta to actually set traps, they use it as a flak cannon by firing it near enemy targets and then detonating).

The majority of Warframe's balance issues all come from systems surrounding the core game-play, rather than the core game-play itself. Weapons are not under-powered; other weapons can be made to be overpowered.

If it was a matter of skill, even skillful players could properly use weapons like the Supra, Tetra, Synapse, and other similarly underused weapons, but they just can't, because of imbalance caused by free and reliable enhanced mobility (ie, immediately dodging out of the way of Supra and Tetra volleys while they're on the defensive, which is supposed to be their element).

5) Whenever I give feedback, it's because I hope DE reads my posts; I don't just argue for the sake of arguing. I make sure that if they follow the string of my posts presenting my arguments, they see the alternative. So, whether or not other people read or argue my posts is not my problem, all that I care is that my point is made for DE to see. I don't know how many of my posts get DE's attention, but I don't post to get feedback from the community, at least not generally.

1. Bullet Jumping is not indicative of imbalance. It just allows you to move fast. Hitting a fast moving target requires practice, I admit. I also admit that the vast majority of players who try conclave don't practice beyond their first match. Many people forget that "The Conclave is a grindstone, forever sharpening the Tenno.". People can't just get to the level of CFE Loki Charms or Lorewalker1022 by just playing a single match. It takes many hours of practice. The vast majority of the players who complain about conclave don't bother to practice like the elite conclavers do.

2. All weapons can perform all roles in conclave with the exception of shotguns and beam weapons, which are inherently short ranged weapons. The Cernos Prime absolutely devastates most shotguns in conclave with little risk to the user. No weapon counters any other weapon because you can close or take huge distances in very few seconds in conclave. Conclave is very 3 dimensional and fights tend to be reminiscent of dog fights where each player is circling around trying to get a good angle to secure the kill. If the two planes are of equal make and of equal weaponry, it will come down to the pilot and how well they utilize their plane. Thing is, some pilots tend to be better than others. If Pilot A cant get on Pilot B's tail to take her out, the loss falls on Pilot A.

3. How is this relevant? I could be good at designing games like Monopoly or Checkers, but it doesn't make me good at designing Warframe.

4. I've seen many people on Xbox One use the Penta and Tetra very effective (Not the synapse though, never seen that used in conclave). It's not the weapons. It's the players that are using them. I have no idea where you are getting this defensive/offensive notion from. The only objective is to secure oro for yourself. It doesn't require defense. You can't just slot weapons into roles in warframe because as I've said earlier, any weapon can play any role. Supra and Tetra aren't used very often because they are projectile weapons. That is not to say that they are not effective in many situations. It takes practice to use those weapons at maximum effectiveness, many players are unwilling to put in that practice.

5. It's not your post (or system for that matter, it will most certainly benefit my clan) I'm worried about. It's how your system will be viewed by the non-conclave community once it is implemented, they will seek any excuse to remove conclave from warframe. I'd rather not give them unnecessary opportunities to do so.

Edited February 7, 2017 by (XB1)CFE Discord
Changed you to people

[Heckzu]

On 2/6/2017 at 3:21 PM, Krion112 said:

I just haven't really played Warframe for a couple of months, and I know for a fact Conclave has not seen any significant change in that time,

Major changes that occurred in Conclave over the past few months:

• Melee weapons can now only use PvP exclusive stances
• Channeled ultimate abilities now require full energy to cast
• Dedicated servers have been implemented (QoL change)
• Stagger changed to immobilization
• Changes in energy regeneration and mods affecting it
• Massive assault rifle rebalance (fewer rounds, slightly more damage)

These changes have shifted the meta and how many players play.

[Krion112]

26 minutes ago, (Xbox One)CFE Discord said:

-snip-

I feel like you're just deliberately missing my points. 

1) Bullet jump is not indicative of imbalance; what is its freedom in a system designed where all roles and methods are supposed to be balanced. You can't play a Passive Power Defense role properly in a game that has a focus on Flexibility; this is why the free and reliable enhanced mobility in Warframe is a problem.

You are also becoming incessantly frustrating about continuing to suggest I am poorly practiced at Conclave; For the last time, I'm not bad at a Conclave. My skills at the game has no bearing on how well designed the game is, especially in my case because I'm far and away not bad at it. I came back to the game after two months, and was almost always on the winning end of the spectrum, and even when I lost I was fine with it. The imbalance in the system has nothing to do with my performance. Unless you're not referring to me, but given the circumstance, you seem to want to grasp at straws to break my argument.

2) Tenno Weapons can, Grineer, Corpus, Infested, and Cephalon weapons can't. And even then, Tenno weapons can only alternate between vertical balance, they can't hop across horizontal balance. And like I just said, Precision does naturally counter Power, and what did I just say about that. Bows are Precision, Shotguns are Power.

26 minutes ago, (Xbox One)CFE Discord said:

. No weapon counters any other weapon because you can close or take huge distances in very few seconds in conclave

This, right here, is the problem, why Conclave is imbalanced. The Flexibility mechanic of Bullet-jumping is too powerful because it's unrestrained, and it breaks the balance of weapons and abilities. It means players don't have to commit to the attack or defense. In its place is what people here are calling a 'high skill ceiling', but really it's just the exploitation of an imbalanced system. That doesn't mean skilled players aren't skilled, and Warframe does have a skill ceiling, but what people are calling a high-skill ceiling is just a balance issue that nobody seems to want to admit is an issue.

Here, I'll say it because no one else seems to have the guts to: Warframe is too fast for its own good. Enhanced mobility should have been built to be a system of maneuvering, not a system for more velocity.

And Warframe is not a dog-fighting game, if it were, it would be even worse in the balance department.

3) I'm educated in designing action games and Warframe is an action game. I don't see why you can't put two and two together. It's not like I'm trying to pit my action game-design up against a puzzle game.

4) And in this response I just told you the fact that certain systems are disrupting the roles so much is why all of Warframe has balance issues. All of Warframe's elements are already based upon specific role slots placed on a balance matrix sheet. Every Warframe, Weapon, Companion, Focus School, Faction, and Enemy Unit is balanced based upon a role; DE doesn't just go "Herp Derp, we need to add new gun/warframe/enemy/whatever", there's actually rules that dictate what can still be added to the game. There are limits and procedures to game-design and the implementation of mechanics.

Also, I don't know how fast or slow Warframe is on the Xbox, considering the disparity between using a controller and the keboard-&-mouse, but the Tetra and Penta don't fly on PC. I'm assuming you're talking that people are tracking other players down and 'offensively' using these weapons, but the reality is both the Penta and Tetra are defensive weapons; you let the enemy come to you. This doesn't usually work because players can too easily maneuver out of ambush situations, which occurs because the freedom of movement actually rewards not committing to an attack, which is the whole basis for the strength of the defense role.

And my education in game-design is where I'm getting those notions from, and the actual game-design agrees with me.

5) You seem to be against what I'm suggesting, so I don't see why you're worried if people will hate it or not.

 

Just now, Heckzu said:

These changes have shifted the meta and how many players play.

Since I've come back to Conclave, people are still using the same equipment as when I left, and are still playing the same way. Also, I already said before that I was keeping up to date with the changes to Conclave, even while not playing it. These changes did not shift the 'meta'. (also, the fact we say Warframe has a 'meta' should already be a massive red flag that there's imbalance). As such, I don't see your point. To me, it seems like you're trying to debase my suggestions on the premise that I did not understand what I came back to, despite two facts: One, I was doing quite fine in Conclave, and Two, I already knew what changes were made, and already knew the mode would not play any different, which it didn't.

Such an argument could be construed as an attack on my character, which is of course against the code of conduct. As well, while I did play the game fine, basing an argument off of the skill level of a player is completely a farce of an argument anyway. You don't have to be good at a game to understand its game-design.

[Heckzu]

31 minutes ago, Krion112 said:

You can't play a Passive Power Defense role properly in a game that has a focus on Flexibility

Holing yourself up in a Frost Snow Globe is a viable strategy, so long as you can eliminate the enemy before they get through both your Snow Globe and your health.

35 minutes ago, Krion112 said:

Here, I'll say it because no one else seems to have the guts to: Warframe is too fast for its own good. Enhanced mobility should have been built to be a system of maneuvering, not a system for more velocity.

And Warframe is not a dog-fighting game, if it were, it would be even worse in the balance department.

Conclave is a dog-fighting game, especially when it comes to 1v1's. In fact, the game that Conclave is most compared to in terms of mechanics is GunZ the Duel, which was well known for its 3d maneuvering dogfights with the use of both guns and swords simultaneously.

37 minutes ago, Krion112 said:

I'm educated in designing action games and Warframe is an action game

"Action games" is a very broad and vague tag used to categorize video games, as it encloses genres such as turn-based strategy, MMORPG, and FPS, who share very few differences other than the fact that they contain "action".

39 minutes ago, Krion112 said:

Tetra and Penta don't fly on PC

Actually, Phasedragon (or was it Pythadragon?) has destroyed me and many other players in the Conclave with the Penta because he knows how to aim and time the grenade's trajectories and detonations for full damage. And I've seen a few people using the Prisma Tetra in the Conclave without much issue.

42 minutes ago, Krion112 said:

Since I've come back to Conclave, people are still using the same equipment as when I left, and are still playing the same way. Also, I already said before that I was keeping up to date with the changes to Conclave, even while not playing it. These changes did not shift the 'meta'.

If you played a game now, you'd realize less players are using assault rifles as a result of the assault rifle rebalance. Almost no one uses the regular Vectis anymore because the reload animation cancelling was removed. Daikyu is also less popular now as it can no longer 1 shot high EHP warframes. Changes to melee stances and Martial Fury has made melee-only playstyles less popular. Players can no longer reliably fall back on on Nyx's Absorb or Banshee's Sound Quake as a panic button because it requires them to be at full energy to activate. There are also less Loki players now that his Disarm no longer deals health damage but instead removes energy, his stealth is now removed the instance he deals or takes damage, and his decoy can no longer wield machine pistols.

Maybe you just haven't realized it due to not enough games played to see the differences.

[Krion112]

1 minute ago, Heckzu said:

Holing yourself up in a Frost Snow Globe is a viable strategy, so long as you can eliminate the enemy before they get through both your Snow Globe and your health.

Problem is, Frost is not a Passive Power Defense Warframe; Vauban is. Frost is a Cooperative Flexibility Defense Warframe; his powers work in conjunction with other abilities and attacks, but have little effect on their own, but they are still defense oriented, in the sense that Frost deters enemies from engaging, what with that he can slow them down or even force them to engage on the wrong terms.

In fact, I'd argue the better strategy is letting the enemy into the globe and then detonating it to knock them down to make them an easier target for defense weapons like the Supra, Glaxion, Tetra, and Dera. I've never seen anyone get away with holing up in the globe and acting statically, and if I did, as Frost's weakness is close combat; as you say, if someone get's in the bubble, and you try and stay inside, you're usually easily killed.

But my argument is not about whether a player can still get kills or succeed with using a particular strategy; those things can still be carried out with enough skill and flare regardless of the state of balance. It has no bearing on if the system is balanced or not.

 

10 minutes ago, Heckzu said:

Conclave is a dog-fighting game, especially when it comes to 1v1's. In fact, the game that Conclave is most compared to in terms of mechanics is GunZ the Duel, which was well known for its 3d maneuvering dogfights with the use of both guns and swords simultaneously.

It's not supposed to be a dog-fighting game, because if it was intended to be, it would still be imbalanced. This also doesn't mean that this game you're mentioning is balanced either, it may have given into novelty over proper design as well. But I'm not one to judge without the proper information; I'll look into this game.

However, like the Dark Souls argument, taking mechanics from one game does not mean they'll be balanced in another. Warframe allows for all roles and methods to be played, the imbalance that exists is that some roles and methods can be used to overshadow others, in particular Flexibility mechanics. That's why there's an imbalance; in a game designed around the idea of playing the way you want (within the realm of game balance), you can't truly play a full Power or full Precision build and expect to do well, even against things you're supposed to be the hard counter for.

And when I say that, I mean in both Warframe's PvP and PvE.

 

15 minutes ago, Heckzu said:

"Action games" is a very broad and vague tag used to categorize video games, as it encloses genres such as turn-based strategy, MMORPG, and FPS, who share very few differences other than the fact that they contain "action".

They're more tied at the hip than you'd think. Most action games have always adhere to the same balance matrix; what parts of it they use and what systems they design based off of it are all that has differed. Based upon the design parameters, it becomes easy to predict what mechanics can be made in a game.

For example, Command and Conquer games, which are Real-Time Strategy games, use the exact same parameters of balance as Quake 2, a first person shooter.

Of course, some indie developers and modders break that code, and sometimes develop really unique things, but they're almost always fundamentally flawed when they fail to understand such systems.

And whenever a developer expands on that matrix in a way that does not consider it in the proper ways, the system develops glaring issues. And the issues in Warframe are pretty obvious, but I almost want to assume that DE is deliberately building a poor design because players have yet to appreciate their attempts at good design before (ie, when Coptering was taken away and branded as a bug, despite the fact that Coptering, like free and reliable Bullet-Jumping, breaks the game's balance).

 

26 minutes ago, Heckzu said:

Actually, Phasedragon (or was it Pythadragon?) has destroyed me and many other players in the Conclave with the Penta because he knows how to aim and time the grenade's trajectories and detonations for full damage. And I've seen a few people using the Prisma Tetra in the Conclave without much issue.

I'm talking about the now; I know there was a point where players were utilizing the Simulor and Penta in unintended ways, hence the nerfs they received. But since that time, I have yet to see one person use it at all, and even if I encounter someone using it, I guarantee you they'll be using it incorrectly, and be punished appropriately for it. 

And I wasn't talking Prisma Tetra; as far as I'm concerned, all variant weapons are imbalanced just due to being straight up upgrades to their standard forms. In my experience, I'm the only person I know who has used the Tetra in Conclave, and when I used it I did fine, but I definitely had to work harder than any other player to achieve those victories, despite majoritively going up against players utilizing equipment the Tetra was expressly designed to counter.

If at any point, a player chases you down with a Penta and Tetra, they've already lost; those weapons are Defensive.

 

34 minutes ago, Heckzu said:

If you played a game now, you'd realize less players are using assault rifles as a result of the assault rifle rebalance. Almost no one uses the regular Vectis anymore because the reload animation cancelling was removed. Daikyu is also less popular now as it can no longer 1 shot high EHP warframes. Changes to melee stances and Martial Fury has made melee-only playstyles less popular. Players can no longer reliably fall back on on Nyx's Absorb or Banshee's Sound Quake as a panic button because it requires them to be at full energy to activate. There are also less Loki players now that his Disarm no longer deals health damage but instead removes energy, his stealth is now removed the instance he deals or takes damage, and his decoy can no longer wield machine pistols.

Maybe you just haven't realized it due to not enough games played to see the differences.

At the very least, it all feels the same way as before I left; maybe I never encountered the meta before either. I still see way too many Latron Primes and Daikyus, though. Still doesn't feel very significant of a change, but I'll keep an open mind.