Mission Difficulty Options Could Eliminate the Need to Nerf Continuously

[(XBOX)C0L0N3LFK4R0UND]

I never understand the constant changes. I get it to an extent with the need for balance and regularity in game. As well as the need to fix legitimate bugs with core mechanics of frames and or weapons. However, this is primarily a PVE game. When we choose our load outs and pick our gear we know that eventually what we go against in a survival; defense, interception, excavation, or exterminate (difficulty pending) we will lose, or be forced to cut our losses and extract. In a game that scales enemy difficulty the constant need of nerfing just seems to destroy what could be incredibly fun weapons. Instead of impacting the weapons themselves can we make the missions have more options of challenge to them? Give all missions a nightmare variant. Make each level on every planet have a tiered difficulty setting when selecting the mission at launch. Easy, Moderate, Hard, to challenging like a sortie quality difficulty or a Raid like challenge for those who are real risk takers. I dislike how the planets seem to be based on limiting certain levels of play. I would love to replay earth missions as i enjoy the environment itself. It's pretty, plus it sounds like a lot of work and future plans are in mind for it. Making Earth levels more detailed with flowing water, ambiance, wildlife, waving grass etc. Why put in all that work on it if there are still no reasons for veteran players to revisit them? Making any planet have the option to fight enemies of varying difficulty setting would add reason to replay to all missions. Sadly the present setup has forced certain planets from early game content into a sort of low rank starter tutorial like levels strictly. This results in having little reason to ever revisit them. (unless on an alert, void fissure, or nightmare) With the present setup, yes if we go into these low tier missions with top ranked gear obviously it is going to seem overpowered as we easily liquefy enemies leveled 1-5 by simply looking in their general direction. That is why we generally stray towards the more challenging ones with rewards that match the risk. I believe that if efforts are made to equalize this factor with all planets to have different difficulty options to them, and rewards to match would be a start. Then it could be seen that the problem doesn't lie in the weapons themselves, but rather the lack of challenge from what missions may offer.

[(PSN)HeadHuntingPanda]

wow man you explained better than i ever could have im too hotheaded when it comes to videogames and its hard for me to explain it unlike real life business cheers to you sir for you and your intelligent proposal  :)

Edited April 10, 2017 by (PS4)HeadHuntingPanda

[NeithanDiniem]

And effectively triple the number of missions on the star chart and reduce matches available for anyone to join to a third. Major problem there.

[Synpai]

As you notice, DE tends to try hitting the ballpark of things needed in warframe, but a lot of the time they fall short. The key missing component is integration: ensuring games mechanics and design are interconnected. I.e: mastery with forma, focus, and syndicates, but we wont talk about the ever-growing termite. 

DE has tried to put said idea into play via Fissures, Kuva, and Sorties; however, the sheer randomness and limitation means that players are still not actually going back. They're just doing missions that may or may not exist on early planets. 

There may be a more localized solution that wont result in dividing the population.

I present: "Dragon Stratum" (Just an on the fly name)

These would replace dragon keys.

They would handicap players in the same way they do now; however, the difference being that there should be buffs to either, credit gain, drop rate, exp, etc for the amount of keys.

 

Here are a few examples:

Blood Stratum: Only Melee weapons affect enemies, but enemies drop extra health globes that grant players armor and health.

Gravity Stratum: Reduced player gravity, slam attack range and damage increased.

Hobbled Stratum: Sprint disabled, speed reduced, bullet jump damage and damage range increased.

Floor Warframe Stratum: Mods have no effect on your warframe, but health, shields and sprint speed are increased

Floor Primary Stratum: Weapon can only do X amount per shot and is unaffected by mods, but gets increased reload speed or magazine size.

Reinforcements Stratum: More enemies means more loots.

Eximus Stratum: Stronger enemies means better loots.

 

Clearly I have no idea how this would work in theory and they arent perfect, but the system should work such that you could play a level one mission, that plays like a Sortie 3 (a personal Hell just for you) because of the drawbacks, but you would get better rewards than your actual level 1 companion.

However this would take an immense amount of work and would still be pseudo-difficult madness. I'd personally like it, but there are many who don't and wouldn't.

[(XBOX)TheTwistedRogue]

I can get behind the stop nerfing the crap out of the guns. They should already be balanced and easily used in even late game. Like the Euphona Prime, it is a completely unique weapon to Banshee Primes release, and if it wasn't the gun itself that got nerfed it was the Riven Mods(Something that is supposed to be overpowered in my opinion because you can't really get those unless you have pretty much completed most the cinematic story missions anyway, or bought them.) I'm sure you remember the old Node system we had where it wasn't little dots on the planet but rather tiles around the planet itself. If they were to make it where we could flip the planet over in maybe a story mission after completing all the other missions and it be a high difficulty than the base ones i would be down for that because it would not only be locked for anyone who hasn't progressed far enough to get there it wouldn't be something new players feel like they have to do right away. Being that Earth is one of the first planets you unlock if i were to start up the game fresh and i didn't know anything i would be frustrated with that it would seem i have to do the mission on easy then medium then hard or nightmare just to get to the next planet. I wouldn't know i could just move on unless another player told me so. A lot of things like that seem to happen in warframe, you don't learn about it unless another person points it out to you. If we could just hit say the Left joystick (idk what it is on PC) instead of the Right which launches a Extractor. Have it flip the planet with new missions on the other side at a higher difficulty like you say with maybe another Arc wing and have it be the opposite time of day than the i would say "Normal" side. 

It would require some more detail on how to make it work but it works for the most part. If you can describe exactly how you would base level ranging and other things that might restrict people of say MR 1-4 or so from coming into a mission that is say Nightmare or Raid difficulty i'd love to read it. Restricting Mastery doesn't seem like a good way of doing it IMO i think it should be Mission progress based and if anything release an entirely new mission to flip the planet to the backside for the harder missions, that way vets with the game like us don't have to run endless to get a challenge 2 hours or more in the mission. 

[(XBOX)C0L0N3LFK4R0UND]

I could see to avoid the confusion of possibly treat it like a playthrough or prestige system. Unlocking a planet in full  would open up additional playthrough difficulty options. That or once all areas are unlocked  it would allow a new trial of a difficulty setting option. That is up for debate whether to make it per planet or more based on fully completing all locations on the star map. I'll leave that open to suggestions should anyone have further feedback.

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by (XB1)C0L0N3LFK4R0UND