Is Frame Balance a Consideration?

[malekas]

Just a question that I keep thinking about when I scroll through my frames.

 

We have 32 frames right now, with a 33rd on it's way. And the balance between these frames is laughable. There's a huge disparity between them. Some frames have 4 good usable abilities (Frost, Rhino, Nidus), while other frames only one (Hydroid, Zephyr, Titania). Some frames have enough power to rofl stomp their way through a sortie (Mesa, Loki, Octavia). While other frames can barely make it at the end of the star chart (Oberon, Ember, Mag).

 

Sure, reworks and tweaks happen. But they happen at a snails pace. First, the community has to complain about a frame for at least a year. Then, the devs will give the problem vague passing mentions for months. Finally, the devs spends months reworking abilities that maybe just needed some tweaks in their numbers. The whole process takes a couple of years, and leaves a lot of players feeling discouraged because they know any problems with the rework will take another couple of years to be addressed. Meanwhile, an area of the game that is barely scratched by a majority of players (Conclave), receives nonstop balance fixes.

 

Let's look at Volt, who got a rework almost a year ago. His kit still has problems. The amount of penalties for picking up his shield is a massive deterrent from ever wanting to do it, and the way Discharge works makes modding him almost impossible. Both of these things could be fixed with a quick hotfix. It wouldn't need a complete rework, or months of the devs playing as him to figure things out. Just a small tweak, some QOL changes. But, a lot of the community has given up ever expecting his kit to be polished.

 

I believe the frames are the core of this game. Being a badass cyber space ninja is what draws people to play. So what does that mean when the foundation of the game is shaky?

[Volinus7]

From all the time I've spent in this game with some observations... NO, simply no, balance between frames doesn't exist and the gap even gets wider when coupled with enemy mechanics.

 

[(PSN)IroncladBomber]

No. It should be, but It isn't. Some Frames don't scale at all (Hydroid), Some scale well with some weakness (Vauban), Some Just **** the Scale and have almost no weaknesses (Nidus)

[EmptyDevil]

1 hour ago, malekas said:

We have 32 frames right now, with a 33rd on it's way. And the balance between these frames is laughable. There's a huge disparity between them. Some frames have 4 good usable abilities (Frost, Rhino, Nidus), while other frames only one (Hydroid, Zephyr, Titania). Some frames have enough power to rofl stomp their way through a sortie (Mesa, Loki, Octavia). While other frames can barely make it at the end of the star chart (Oberon, Ember, Mag).

Ember and Mag definitely shouldn't be in the "can barely make it at the end of the star chart" section. My Ember build does well against level 90+ enemies, even if they are armored. Mag is a good boss/Sentient destroyer and does well in other areas too. Oberon is arguable because he is capable, but requires more effort when compared to others.

I agree that there is a disparity in frame balance, that should be addressed, but DE probably has time constraints and ETC that prevents them from acting on this quickly.

Conclave is ran by a smaller separate team, and since balance in PVP is far more critical for its enjoyment, those people work on maintaining balance aggressively. It is also easier in general to balance a PVP game.

The PVE side is different, because it has far more factors to consider. Mods, drop rates on desirables, enemies, AI, and how those things interact + intertwine with each other. Then you have a volatile playerbase with a vocal side, that can't handle the idea of balancing unless it is nothing but straight buffs(which isn't balance) to broken tier, so balancing changes are not going to happen as frequently as they could.

In an ideal setting, all frames would perform equally as good when modded or unmodded, at all levels of content, with the input of effort on the player's side. Enemies with very high damaging abilities would be well telegraphed, and enemies would have a variety of attacks.

[Nazrethim]

7 minutes ago, EmptyDevil said:

 It is also easier in general to balance a PVP game.

They can nerf op stuff without expecting backlash because even the most blatant abuser will admit X was too strong xD

The PvE team doesn't have that luxury. :P

[EmptyDevil]

2 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

They can nerf op stuff without expecting backlash because even the most blatant abuser will admit X was too strong xD

The PvE team doesn't have that luxury. :P

Definitely.

[EchoesOfRain]

Tweaks to frames definitely should happen more often, especially just number tweaks. Tweak the base range, energy consumption, power strength etc if a certain ability is underperforming. If an ability seems bugged, it should be higher priority, such as Titania's Lantern aggro not always working compared to Octavia's Roller ball guaranteed aggro. Constant small changes to improve the QoL of each frame, until they feel perfect, should have already been going on for a while.

Edited April 15, 2017 by EchoesOfRain

[Nazrethim]

There's also the fact that balancing PvE would involve more than just nerfing/buffing stuff, it would require an entire UPDATE to do so since there's a big pile to fix.

It all started with Corrupted mods, which made endless inmortal builds not only possible but relatively easy. This led to powerspam, which led to Nullifiers and Broken enemy scaling, which led to later frames and weapons be designed to counter broken enemies, which requires even more broken enemies to counter our relentless cheesefest. We are now atop a jenga tower of broken mechanics and we keep adding more and more. The 3 possible results are A)the tower collapses eventually due to poor forethought, B)it continues rising endlessly with neither DE or players caring about anymore about balance (which would probably drive away a considerable chunk of the playerbase) or C) DE decides to drop the ball and rebalance the whole game, pissing off a lot of players (mostly those fond of cheese) in the process.

[Jeoxz]

One thing, Git Gud. All frames can complete all levels of expected play.(Excluding endless survival with extreme enemies)

Hydroid and Zephyr have problems nobody can't deny that. But the other 31 are good. The problem is that we can exploit their abilities with mods. They cannot see the future on how a player might find a way to make something too powerful and then share it with the rest. DE can't plan around that, just look at Limbo, he is supposed to be a control master, and HE IS. However a 10% health damage was like ok nice bonus. Until we found that if you get a ton of enemies that nukes the whole thing with range, not strength. If the Warframes couldn't use mods balancing would be way easier, but it's not.

[(XBOX)ThermalStone]

When they make a new frame, DE need to ask the following questions:

1.  Is it fun?

2. Is it effective?

3. Does it offer something unique?

Beyond that, I don't care if it obsoletes older frames.  Those can always be reworked later if enough players care.