Critique This: Scaling Fix

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

Enemy scaling remains as a central issue to the Warframe Community and players protest the concepts of forced corrosive due to obscenely high armor values, lack of roles for a variety of weapons (snipers, marksman) and "cheese" to combat enemy attributes that lead to each engagement resulting in a duel of a one shot weapon vs a one shot weapon.

What can the developers look into in regard to addressing these concerns?

With these issues considered the proposal of a revised enemy attribute system in which:

1. Enemy Armor Scaling only applies to the actual armor of enemies therefore precision shots to unprotected clothing affects health. With this armor is represented as damage reduction.
2. Enemy Health Scales
3. Enemy damage output is capped. With the exception of Inaros, Warframe health stays within a certain realm. There's no purpose behind having enemies that can one shot when in every engagement enemies are available in great numbers. Several moderate damaged shots will also be detrimental to a Warframe rather than a single shot from a single unit.

As enemy levels rise the portion of their skin that is revealed should become less as armor is more prevalent however the opportunity to shoot a precision shot be it the eyes for example should still be available.

This method promotes precision gameplay, keeps armor in its role, and does away with the silly issues behind scaling.

Please give feedback on why or why not this would be productive.

Dark Theme Users Click Spoiler

Spoiler

Enemy scaling remains as a central issue to the Warframe Community and players protest the concepts of forced corrosive due to obscenely high armor values, lack of roles for a variety of weapons (snipers, marksman) and "cheese" to combat enemy attributes that lead to each engagement resulting in a duel of a one shot weapon vs a one shot weapon.

What can the developers look into in regard to addressing these concerns?

With these issues considered the proposal of a revised enemy attribute system in which:

1. Enemy Armor Scaling only applies to the actual armor of enemies therefore precision shots to unprotected clothing affects health. With this armor is represented as damage reduction.
2. Enemy Health Scales
3. Enemy damage output is capped. With the exception of Inaros, Warframe health stays within a certain realm. There's no purpose behind having enemies that can one shot when in every engagement enemies are available in great numbers. Several moderate damaged shots will also be detrimental to a Warframe rather than a single shot from a single unit.

As enemy levels rise the portion of their skin that is revealed should become less as armor is more prevalent however the opportunity to shoot a precision shot be it the eyes for example should still be available.

This method promotes precision gameplay, keeps armor in its role, and does away with the silly issues behind scaling.

Please give feedback on why or why not this would be productive.

 

Edited April 26, 2017 by (PS4)RenovaKunumaru

[Miser_able]

Take all my +1s.

[(PSN)A_SimpleName]

1. Please change your font color to something Dark themed user can visibly read.
2. Scaling, in general, if definitely a major issue within Warframe.
3. Although I like the damage cap idea, DE has to find another way to prevent you from staying in endless mission 4EVER before that will happen.

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

Well, one of the major problems with this system is inaccurate weapons. Launchers, shotguns, and other weapons will be out of luck when it comes to dealing some actually nice damage. To add onto that, precision weapons like bows just have to be used differently than others. Bringing a CC Warframe is typically best, like Nova, yet they're still a perfectly suitable weapon type on their own. 

As for the precision bit, this falls flat for a few reasons. Grineer, the main culprit in Armor scaling, along with (most) of the Corrupted, only reveal their face. Corrupted never actually do that at all, and Grineer only do it at lower levels or randomly. Essentially, if this change were implemented, you would have an RNG-based true damage boost against one faction that still doesn't solve the problem at all, especially for precision weapons, which will need to be even more accurate to compensate, leaving inaccurate weapons in the dust. Other Factions will still have their insane Armor boosts that we can't really compete with, even with this system, as their incredibly abrupt. Leaving random spots vulnerable is also against what the Grineer and Corrupted are, and wouldn't look right for how tanky they're meant to be. We can already completely ignore Armor as even being a thing with Corrosive Projection anyways, but making it so our weapon choice is limited by any means is a no-go. On a final note, I personally like the idea, but it's not very practical. This still wouldn't solve the problem of Armor Scaling per se, and would just be another way to simply ignore the problem altogether, while leaving us with easier to kill enemies after CP. We also have to realize that Warframe abilities that aren't precise in some way will fall off hard thanks to this change

Unfortunately, while I would love enemies to have a damage cap, such a thing can't really be implemented until we get balanced ourselves, otherwise, it'll just be too easy to survive.

Also, enemy Health already scales, unless you mean on it's own, which won't work. If Armor had a cap, that would mean Health would have to scale like Armor does to compensate. We would have to not be able to remove a certain amount of Armor, as otherwise, the enemy themselves would be far too easy kill with Warframes like Saryn or Banshee, rendering Corrosive, CP, and a lot of Augments/Abilities moot.

Edited April 26, 2017 by (XB1)Graysmog

[Trichouette]

27 minutes ago, (PS4)A_SimpleName said:

Although I like the damage cap idea, DE has to find another way to prevent you from staying in endless mission 4EVER before that will happen.

A better AI and a nerf of warframes' abilities (especially CCs) would greatly help with that particular problem

And it's not like staying forever in a mission is a problem anyway since there is NO BENEFIT from it (unless in fissure endless)

Past the C rotation it's useless to stay unless for the "challenge" (haha) and to save yourself from the mission/ship loading

Edited April 26, 2017 by Trichouette

[(PSN)A_SimpleName]

5 minutes ago, Trichouette said:

A better AI and a nerf of warframes' abilities (especially CCs) would greatly help with that particular problem

And it's not like staying forever in a mission is a problem anyway since there is NO BENEFIT from it (unless in fissure endless)

Past the C rotation it's useless to stay unless for the "challenge" (haha) and to save yourself from the mission/ship loading

I think the shift to Relics for Primed Parts hunting was the first step to balancing scaling. At least that was what I suspected. I'm hoping addressing scaling issue is still on the developer mind and they haven't forgotten about it. Not so sure since Damage 3.0 got the pink slip.

[(XBOX)Solargeo]

38 minutes ago, (PS4)A_SimpleName said:

1. Please change your font color to something Dark themed user can visibly read.
2. Scaling, in general, if definitely a major issue within Warframe.
3. Although I like the damage cap idea, DE has to find another way to prevent you from staying in endless mission 4EVER before that will happen.

i just  use default text color

[Trichouette]

24 minutes ago, (PS4)A_SimpleName said:

I think the shift to Relics for Primed Parts hunting was the first step to balancing scaling. At least that was what I suspected. I'm hoping addressing scaling issue is still on the developer mind and they haven't forgotten about it. Not so sure since Damage 3.0 got the pink slip.

Well I don't really see why they would bother with scaling.

I see why it's needed, but not why they, as devs, would bother with it.

Currently there is nothing they can do with balance because they refuse to nerf abilities and players won't tolerate abilities to be nerfed.

And without balance, the only thing that can stop frames is endless scaling.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

Just wanted to address a couple of things.

34 minutes ago, (Xbox One)Graysmog said:

Well, one of the major problems with this system is inaccurate weapons. Launchers, shotguns, and other weapons

These weapons still have the lethality of the damage they would do on an armored target currently. This system displaces the armor to particular sections while the current system spreads the armor to the entire target. Also this argument kind of ignores the advantages of these weapons in which they require much less aim and often are made to produce AoE affects. As it stands now, Besides the Drakgoon, there is no shotgun lacking in functionality against high armored targets at the moment.

 

34 minutes ago, (Xbox One)Graysmog said:

As for the precision bit, this falls flat for a few reasons. Grineer, the main culprit in Armor scaling, along with (most) of the Corrupted, only reveal their face.

This would be an opportunity for the art team to issue a revamp.

 

1 hour ago, Trichouette said:

Well I don't really see why they would bother with scaling.

 

Nobody enjoys feeling cheated and it feels like when you engage an enemy and have them 1 shot you it takes away from that.

[Hypernaut1]

Soooo......Weak points

[Kaotyke]

You know, you could have just left the text in Automatic Color so you wont need to use a "For Dark theme users".

And an idea of weakpoints was given to Eximus in a Devstream a while back. Wasnt very... well received.

But hey, if it means I can put arrows in my enemies' knees for higher damage, I'm all for it.

But there's the thing about SHIELDS...

[Beggining]

1 hour ago, Kaotyke said:

And an idea of weakpoints was given to Eximus in a Devstream a while back. Wasnt....very well received.

Because they aren't weakpoints: Eximus enemies are invincible until you hit these points, effectively making them mini Lech-Krils. Pair that with Parasitic, Toxic, and Ancient auras, and you'll see why people aren't really on board with the idea of invincible mooks.

@(PS4)RenovaKunumaru I like the idea of adding weakpoints to add viability to precision based weapons. Though, they really have to address armor scaling when a lvl 30 Grineer Lancer possess 3 times the health of a lvl 30 Crewman.

[Jeoxz]

I don't mind scaling armor.

1. Weakpoints are nice, encourage precision

2. Health already scales

3. Nah man, that's the risk factor.

[(XBOX)ThermalStone]

I'm sure your ideas are brilliant, but I can't read them on my phone.  Can you just change the font color and stop hiding them in a spoiler window like they are so secret and cool?  Why the drama?

Scaling isn't a huge problem.  There's no longer any reason to fight enemies above level 200 unless you are a masochist.  Even in the last event, it wasn't necessary to go that high to be on the leaderboard.  I think the problem has solved itself as the game has changed.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

5 minutes ago, (Xbox One)ThermalStone said:

I'm sure your ideas are brilliant, but I can't read them on my phone.  Can you just change the font color and stop hiding them in a spoiler window like they are so secret and cool?  Why the drama?

Scaling isn't a huge problem.  There's no longer any reason to fight enemies above level 200 unless you are a masochist.  Even in the last event, it wasn't necessary to go that high to be on the leaderboard.  I think the problem has solved itself as the game has changed.

I have no idea why they aren't working for you. The font color is set automatic, which is black on my screen. I changed my theme to test and it wasn't working as well so I added the spoiler before.

Edited April 27, 2017 by (PS4)RenovaKunumaru

[jfhsanseiIII]

I think it's fine up to a point but then it could become the same problem that DE had with that "random weak point on Eximus units" idea they had.  Power creep and enemy scaling are good up until a point, but it should, in my opinion, plateau at some point with the game providing challenges in other forms.  Perhaps mini bosses with special attacks, special weapons (like the Valkyr Prime video), or environmental changes (like Hive missions).  They wouldn't be game breaking or overwhelming but provide alternate forms of challenge and changes in gameplay for players.  

[WindigoTG]

2 hours ago, jfhsanseiIII said:

I think it's fine up to a point but then it could become the same problem that DE had with that "random weak point on Eximus units" idea they had.  

Two very, very different things, actually.

If I understand OP right, the idea still includes damage reduction provided by the armor, but the area on the enemy's body affected by said reduction grows bigger with the level, and you can shoot unaffected body parts for a regular damage.

On the other hand, the "random weak point on Eximus units" idea is terrible because it providea total damage negation until you shoot the "weak" points (or rather lock points), and then you have to deal with the enemy in a regular way on top of it.

 

Basically, the difference is: resistant enemies and precision shots to deal with them faster vs. invincible enemies and precision shots to deal with them at all.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

1 hour ago, WindigoTP said:

Two very, very different things, actually.

If I understand OP right, the idea still includes damage reduction provided by the armor, but the area on the enemy's body affected by said reduction grows bigger with the level, and you can shoot unaffected body parts for a regular damage.

On the other hand, the "random weak point on Eximus units" idea is terrible because it providea total damage negation until you shoot the "weak" points (or rather lock points), and then you have to deal with the enemy in a regular way on top of it.

 

Basically, the difference is: resistant enemies and precision shots to deal with them faster vs. invincible enemies and precision shots to deal with them at all.

Yes, this is what I imagined with this proposal.

[SharkPot]

1. Damage cap doesn't really matter if you are never hit, aka the standard rule for most people who do >1.5 hr survivals.

2. Weakpoint's are too easily exploitable by aoe weapons, Thus disregarding any need to aim, Why synoid simulor and Tonkor are better than every weapon out there even after their nerfs.

3. Too many enemies to combat, Thus making selecting snipers a risk in it self, Due to over the top reload speed, no punchthrough , sub par damage w/o combo counter. Reason why bows are better than Sniper( a metal slug does less damage than a flying stick cuz why tf not?)

4. By your set of proposals it would be too easy to go for infinite time survivals (not that it is impossible right now ivaracoughcoughloki-octavia-booben-nekroscoughcough).

While I understand your proposals, the enemy scaling needs to be ridiculous:

1. To match our ridiculously op gear.

2. To prevent infinite farm with a few combos. We need to some way to stop the players from going forever. While one could say reduce ls drops that affects only survivals and not others. Thus the ridiculous scaling is needed ingame.

3. Making it too easy for everyone to do it w/o any prep.

People might complain about scaling, but after doing extremely long endless missions, People who have done it know it as well: The BS Enemy Scaling is BS, but is a necessary evil one must deal with whether you like it or not.

Edited April 27, 2017 by SharkPot

[Corvid]

I just want CC to be nerfed. That would be the first step.