The survivability gap between frames is too high

[StabbyTentacles]

9 hours ago, Arezael said:

I compeleted that S3 solo as Nekros and Mesa and had no difficulty with either. 

One issue here will be your choice of Frames, Saryn and Inaros do not have 'active' Damage reduction in the same vein as Shield of Shadows or Shatter Shield. (I don't count Inaros armour boost as the same category, so that may be a point of contention - it doesn't supply anything like the DR of the abilities I mentioned, because it carries secondary benefits)

The other issue will be that you're using melee - which I personally use on Survival because of said damage mitigation - without the aforementioned DR abilities in play. 

It may not be popular, but I expect DE want people to be more deliberate in their tactics and Frame choice when it comes to Sorties. That may mean only using certain frames under ideal circumstances, so I can't really argue if people struggle to solo some of them on particular frames - that was kinda the point.

A conspicuous problem here is not the need to choose, but rather the limited choice, even under 'ideal circumstances', particular frames simply aren't viable - if (assuming,) this is the point. While some frames can do almost no wrong... (Limbo, cough.)

[Monolake]

Yeah this game is full of legal cheats that let you to never die and cheese anything. Balance never.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Monolake

[Hixlysss]

13 hours ago, -SDM-NerevarCM said:

Shield Gating will probably fix these one shots in high level missions. Maybe warframes with high shield capacity will have multiple shield gates thus increasing the survivability of frames that don't have damage reduction abilities like Saryn.

I sure hope so. I wanna be able to use my other warframes on higher end missions without having to do a cheese build just to stay alive it's not fun.

[Chewarette]

11 hours ago, Chipputer said:

So you take a frame that's basically paper, slap on a melee weapon, then try to solo a level 100+ survival with it. To nobody's surprise, you have a hard time.

What am I missing, here?

Then you totally agree that DE needs to rework Saryn's 3, if she's not at all supposed to Melee, what's the point of having a spell that buff her melee damage ??

I completely agree with the OP on this topic. That's frustrating having to give up playing Saryn or whatever squishy frame in Sorties because random OS are not fun at all. And to all of you replying that we should use a cooperative setup : Well sure, if you optimize your setup, then no problem. But then no Saryn either, you go with the beloved Nova Trinity Banshee (and the 4th depending on the mission type) and nobody ever plays the frame they want, yay fun.

Too many frames are useless (or boring to play) past a certain level cap. That's sad.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Chewarette

[--RV--D4VE-]

13 minutes ago, Chewarette said:

Then you totally agree that DE needs to rework Saryn's 3, if she's not at all supposed to Melee, what's the point of having a spell that buff her melee damage ??

I completely agree with the OP on this topic. That's frustrating having to give up playing Saryn or whatever squishy frame in Sorties because random OS are not fun at all. And to all of you replying that we should use a cooperative setup : Well sure, if you optimize your setup, then no problem. But then no Saryn either, you go with the beloved Nova Trinity Banshee (and the 4th depending on the mission type) and nobody ever plays the frame they want, yay fun.

Too many frames are useless (or boring to play) past a certain level cap. That's sad.

There is no such thing as a useless frame, just the operator sucks.

[Xzorn]

15 hours ago, DrBorris said:

I have been slowly working on a post about the stupidly high variation in TTK in Warframe, it is not even close to done but I do have this. It is the EHP of a few frames with all defensive mods and also counting their abilities (Base EHP is without any mods or abilities). 

 

 

Nekros has 62,680 eHP using Primed Vigor + Vitality.  I'm not sure this is very accurate.

Even with Primed Vigor + Vitality Mesa doesn't beat Nidus. She's also has high raw damage but raw damage will only get you so far you have to consider her status rate and inability to score head-shots. Mesa's kill rate actually comes out very near Nidus and Chroma once you get up in levels.

Trinity is prolly the 3rd Tankiest frame in the game, so I'm not sure what's going on there or Zephyr for that matter.

Mirage just RNG dies, her mitigation is rather pointless to graph.

There are too many server weaknesses to realistically consider comparison. The only frames who  have reliable eHP are Nekros, Trinity and Nidus because they gain majority of their damage reduction through a buff instead of armor and they have no direct weakness to a specific damage type. Mesa might have good eHp on paper but a single lvl 150 Napalm shot drops her, likewise any frame with armor mitigation has roughly half that against Puncture and Toxic damage.

At any rate enemy damage scaling has always been a problem in this game and the large gap in eHP for frames just makes it all that more difficult to balance.

 

[Chewarette]

20 minutes ago, --RV--D4VE- said:

There is no such thing as a useless frame, just the operator sucks.

In solo mode or not-optimized setup, there are.

Edit : Who cares anyway --

Edited May 15, 2017 by Chewarette

[Rambit23Z]

22 minutes ago, --RV--D4VE- said:

There is no such thing as a useless frame, just the operator sucks.

Maybe if every enemy fired projectiles. (Kind of like in the Void -Heavy Gunners)

You simply cannot dodge all the hitscan the Grineer puts out.

[Djego27]

Since I kind of like guessing games, why not play one.

On 15.5.2017 at 1:54 AM, Arezael said:

Where does it say that I didn't?

Well that would lead to agree or disagree with the opinion of the topic instead of mentioning that you do not have a problem with Necros or Mesa doing the same thing while ignoring the bad part of the mechanic, that is the topic at hand.

On 15.5.2017 at 1:54 AM, Arezael said:

Where do I state that this is a good game mechanic?

Most likely here:

On 14.5.2017 at 4:02 PM, Arezael said:

It may not be popular, but I expect DE want people to be more deliberate in their tactics and Frame choice when it comes to Sorties. That may mean only using certain frames under ideal circumstances, so I can't really argue if people struggle to solo some of them on particular frames - that was kinda the point.

 

On 15.5.2017 at 1:54 AM, Arezael said:

Where did I mention there being a punishment for solo? What does HP have to do with anything I have said?

 

On 14.5.2017 at 5:57 PM, Arezael said:

 

I believe the Developers are steering this game towards a more cooperative environment (see: the recent spate of Clan based events). 

To this end, you struggled with those Frames because you tried to solo. In an environment they meant for team play.

That was the point of more difficult missions, and I'm fine with it. It encourages people to work together and help cover what would otherwise be weaknesses.

Soloing them is about best compromise - as far as anyone I have ever compared high level endurance runs with.

The punishment is not for solo, it is directly related to effective EHP pools and enemy damage scaling on a lot of frames. I am also not sure what high level endurance runs have to do with a sorti, given that they are not comparable in difficulty and it is incredible uncommon to see any endurance runner ever show something interesting, since it is just cheese mode galore and fairly boring to watch and probably play as well.

On 15.5.2017 at 1:54 AM, Arezael said:

I thereafter help others do them as/when they ask, and I can assure you the reason I get asked is due to it not being a 'trivial task' for them. I know because I have asked, and they replied.

If you compare it to how the game was once, the amount of god mode, broken weapons, mechanics, frames and cheese DE throws at you I do. It comes to no big surprise that the only person that joined my infested MD yesterday was a Loki with a levelling Ignis(faceplam) and literally afk outside of running from defence target to defence target while standing around in cloak at high places being in fact afk. This did not change over the years, I remember playing L100 shogun only grenier MD on a normal frost without forma or a potato on my alt and somebody did join with a rank 0 shotgun and valkyr(got to have that god mode). I set my game to solo after that. Sorti is just as horrible as LFR is in WoW, because it does not teach people a thing about higher level game play(since they are literally afk or just cheese it all the time), is trivial with the tools at hand even solo and just full of broken mechanics by years old scaling mechanics that where never meant to produce a reasonable challenge at this levels. While you not consider Inaros as a tank, last time I used the frame for a L100 sorti to actually compare it to Ember(since I hardly play the sortis with other frames) it was incredible boring to me, given that you are not at any point in danger to die to any of the mechanics, again by bad balance, leaving me with the taste of fake challenge that is literally meant to be impossible to not get one shot killed by the same mechanics that are not even noticeable on other frames what is just stupid.

 

On 15.5.2017 at 1:54 AM, Arezael said:

This leads to one of the main points I was trying to make that apparently nobody has touched upon. I'll leave it for you to tell me what that is - since you apparently know, even though I haven't mentioned it.

It is most likely that you try to imply that we should be grateful for tools that allowing us to ignore mechanics and not insist on better balance since it would most likely remove brain dead easy mode, or I am wrong?

On 14.5.2017 at 5:57 PM, Arezael said:

Edit: one last point to clarify: yes there are 'easy' ways to progress though said content. Clearly DE struggle with balancing the game in general. If that's the point of contention, you will want to reconsider the ramifications of making the survivabilty of every frame the same, or even very close.

I do see your point, however disagree, given that 2 poorly balanced things that counter each other do not create good balance. Similar as the OP did hint that if you do the same task with Inaros or Shadow step where you basically just ignore the mechanic(like we do with so much others today as well) it only showcases how bad the basic mechanic and the counters are. I do not fear a sledgehammer nerf on tank frames, given that you would have no use for the current EHP in a working and manageable system for the majority of the frames with frames that still got more EHP. I would support any justified nerf to weapons, frames, mechanics, heck I even massively support a WoF nerf, as Ember main. It would be like me re subbing WoW, go into the Cata raids and try to re imagine all the struggle, laughs and the epic moment when you killed bosses for the first time, difficult choices who should die and life as a healer, difficult choices of what cool downs to use and save as a tank, difficult choices of how to adapt to other people play styles. All off that is gone, there are no 9 other people that play and enjoy that content every week with you, there is no struggle, no feel of progression, no feeling of getting beaten down what makes the feeling of success much more powerful in the end. You just look at barren husk of a careful crafted experience, that is now just you pressing a few buttons, getting things that are of no value to you and what you play for yourself, alone, without people that mock or encourage you to improve and dissatisfied with the experience while it was meant to be a great multi player experience, years ago. This is exactly what Waframe feels like nowadays to me, what is sad in my personal opinion.

If I was wrong, please let me know what you are all about.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Djego27

[LycanPT]

On 15/05/2017 at 9:21 AM, Xzorn said:

 

Nekros has 62,680 eHP using Primed Vigor + Vitality.  I'm not sure this is very accurate.

Even with Primed Vigor + Vitality Mesa doesn't beat Nidus. She's also has high raw damage but raw damage will only get you so far you have to consider her status rate and inability to score head-shots. Mesa's kill rate actually comes out very near Nidus and Chroma once you get up in levels.

Trinity is prolly the 3rd Tankiest frame in the game, so I'm not sure what's going on there or Zephyr for that matter.

Mirage just RNG dies, her mitigation is rather pointless to graph.

There are too many server weaknesses to realistically consider comparison. The only frames who  have reliable eHP are Nekros, Trinity and Nidus because they gain majority of their damage reduction through a buff instead of armor and they have no direct weakness to a specific damage type. Mesa might have good eHp on paper but a single lvl 150 Napalm shot drops her, likewise any frame with armor mitigation has roughly half that against Puncture and Toxic damage.

At any rate enemy damage scaling has always been a problem in this game and the large gap in eHP for frames just makes it all that more difficult to balance.

 

that graph is busted, also building accordingly to their tank skills would gives us a more realistic view. anyways trinity is prob the best tank in game, just because you can stack bless with link

[Xzorn]

12 minutes ago, LycanPT said:

that graph is busted, also building accordingly to their tank skills would gives us a more realistic view. anyways trinity is prob the best tank in game, just because you can stack bless with link

 

I believe they said they built them with max eHP in mind. Which is why I mentioned Nekros' eHP and others.

Building for max eHp isn't practical in many cases anyways. Frames like Rhino, Chroma, Nidus and Mesa, can manage it because improving their damage output somewhat improves their Defense but other frames do not get double value from improving their damage, They pick either Defense or Offense and majority of the time Defense is not a good pick.

It's actually because Trinity requires both Link and Blessing active that she ranks 3rd best tank IMO. It makes her less reliable than Nekros and Nidus who only need to manage one buff and deal with one window of vulnerability if any. She has 93.75% damage reduction from Link + Blessing up at 30k eHP, while as mentioned Nekros can do 62k and Nidus has 40k. Each of them can recovery their eHP at a formidable rate so you can't really give much weight to Blessing's healing ability.

[LycanPT]

9 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

 

I believe they said they built them with max eHP in mind. Which is why I mentioned Nekros' eHP and others.

Building for max eHp isn't practical in many cases anyways. Frames like Rhino, Chroma, Nidus and Mesa, can manage it because improving their damage output somewhat improves their Defense but other frames do not get double value from improving their damage, They pick either Defense or Offense and majority of the time Defense is not a good pick.

It's actually because Trinity requires both Link and Blessing active that she ranks 3rd best tank IMO. It makes her less reliable than Nekros and Nidus who only need to manage one buff and deal with one window of vulnerability if any. She has 93.75% damage reduction from Link + Blessing up at 30k eHP, while as mentioned Nekros can do 62k and Nidus has 40k. Each of them can recovery their eHP at a formidable rate so you can't really give much weight to Blessing's healing ability.

except it his highly ocasionally you get to have more than 7 shadows with nekros, it only works when you can summon a hyekka/drhak master or a broodmother, which is why I think the calculations are off not to mention you need to kill enemies and they need to drop HP orbs which happens more often than not but still only 25hp per globe, Nidus can only manage 90% damage reduction and his healing takes longer to kick in. Mesa can have 95% damage reduction (highest in the game)  and zephyr I believe 100% to projectiles, they both lack self sustain and they are highly vulnerable to melee. This is why I think trinity is best tank, highest damage reduction to all types+instaheal and not to mention some CC imunity thanks to link's properties

[Xzorn]

8 minutes ago, LycanPT said:

except it his highly ocasionally you get to have more than 7 shadows with nekros, it only works when you can summon a hyekka/drhak master or a broodmother, which is why I think the calculations are off not to mention you need to kill enemies and they need to drop HP orbs which happens more often than not but still only 25hp per globe, Nidus can only manage 90% damage reduction and his healing takes longer to kick in. Mesa can have 95% damage reduction (highest in the game)  and zephyr I believe 100% to projectiles, they both lack self sustain and they are highly vulnerable to melee. This is why I think trinity is best tank, highest damage reduction to all types+instaheal and not to mention some CC imunity thanks to link's properties

 

This is the Nekros build I'm referencing. You don't need more than 7 Shadows and don't forget that Equilibrium also restores HP.

Spoiler

Nidus has 97.22% Damage Reduction using Steel Fiber with Link up and heals 2,517 eHP/sec using just his Nest and passive, roughly 6% HP/sec.

I wouldn't say Mesa or Zephyr are vulnerable to melee really. A good Sentinel Sweeper build can keep melee from being a problem. It's Radial damage that kills them but yea, I wouldn't rank them as "tank" frames because of their serious vulnerabilities.

Blessing's ability to fully restore Trinity is worth something but I wouldn't give it too much value since both the frames that we're comparing her to have far superior CC and/or distraction. Nekros himself hardly gets attacked thanks to his pets but he's got Fear just in case and Nidus has his maggots and Larva. For the most part Trinity takes the full abuse of all the enemies that she's fighting. She has minor CC but nothing really worth while. Both Nekros and Nidus are also Immune to CC and Status effects like Trinity.

[LycanPT]

2 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

 

This is the Nekros build I'm referencing. You don't need more than 7 Shadows and don't forget that Equilibrium also restores HP.

  Hide contents

Nidus has 97.22% Damage Reduction using Steel Fiber with Link up and heals 2,517 eHP/sec using just his Nest and passive, roughly 6% HP/sec.

I wouldn't say Mesa or Zephyr are vulnerable to melee really. A good Sentinel Sweeper build can keep melee from being a problem. It's Radial damage that kills them but yea, I wouldn't rank them as "tank" frames because of their serious vulnerabilities.

Blessing's ability to fully restore Trinity is worth something but I wouldn't give it too much value since both the frames that we're comparing her to have far superior CC and/or distraction. Nekros himself hardly gets attacked thanks to his pets but he's got Fear just in case and Nidus has his maggots and Larva. For the most part Trinity takes the full abuse of all the enemies that she's fighting. She has minor CC but nothing really worth while. Both Nekros and Nidus are also Immune to CC and Status effects like Trinity.

As far as I know nekros is not imune to cc, yes equil also gives hp but that doesn't really matter in EHP calculations.

I forgot steel fiber into nidus, although I am not contesting his EHP value, he is for sure a durable frame, but then agian in terms of healing it doesn't compare to trinity. technically trinity has infinite EHP, just because she can renew it as casting the same abilities she needs for tanking. That insta heal is too good, just too good

[DatDarkOne]

On ‎5‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 3:05 PM, (Xbox One)RPColten said:

Here is hoping that DE can introduce a more proper aggression-drawing system that players can use to make the role of Tanks more effective.

There is the melee mod Guardian Derision that is just for this.  

 

[DrBorris]

49 minutes ago, DatDarkOne said:

There is the melee mod Guardian Derision that is just for this.  

 

So in order to tank you have to stand still and do no damage? Sounds engaging...

[(XBOX)RPColten]

31 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

So in order to tank you have to stand still and do no damage? Sounds engaging...

That is pretty much the defined role for any tank in any MMO/RPG game.

[DatDarkOne]

3 hours ago, (Xbox One)RPColten said:

That is pretty much the defined role for any tank in any MMO/RPG game.

That mod goes so well with the Ack & Brunt melee and Assimilate Nyx.  At least that the combo I use to do tanking with for groups.

Edited May 17, 2017 by DatDarkOne
correcting autocorrect

[(XBOX)RPColten]

1 hour ago, DatDarkOne said:

That mod goes so well with the Ack & Brunt melee and Assimilate Nyx.  At least that the combo I use to do tanking with for groups.

I like it also in combination with Chroma. He can absord tremendous punishment and it helps build up his Vex armour.

[-Levian-]

I agree with u to an extend. However i do think DE know there is a big gap between each frame's Survivability. and thats kinda the point they left it untouch. DE has already gaves us a large tool box. Alot of mods weapons and frames. u could use anything for any type of mission but there will always be a loadout the will do better in that certain type of mission. Saryn can be a melee/Nuker/Dpser/Support frame depending how u mod her. But alll of  this is  just about dealing damage and not surviving AND can be make up with her 2nd ability. This also promotes co op gaming to work together as a team so the mission will be alot easier. Getting 1 shot is a common thing in end game.And back then the only way to counter them was having the OLD bless trin to keep the entire squad alive. i get the Expriment here and the playstyle u choose. but instead being unhappy about how some warframes cant do some missions easily compare to others. Just play other frames that exiles in that mission type. Each frame is different fro 1 another. Which is the point to each warframe that ever come out. Having the gap reduce and re balance means. there is no point in using tanky frames anymore.

[KnightCole]

On 5/14/2017 at 9:45 AM, -SDM-NerevarCM said:

Shield Gating will probably fix these one shots in high level missions. Maybe warframes with high shield capacity will have multiple shield gates thus increasing the survivability of frames that don't have damage reduction abilities like Saryn.

Shield gating would be cool, but really, the damage of high lvl enemies just needs to come down a notch or 2.  Shield gate or not, it goes from 1 shot to 2 shot, 1 for the shield, 1 for the health....and given how tough mobs become, unless your in a meta frame that can melt crowds, you just get 2 shot.....

Doesnt quite solve the problem....helps though, would be neat to have. 

[Xzorn]

40 minutes ago, KnightCole said:

Shield gating would be cool, but really, the damage of high lvl enemies just needs to come down a notch or 2.  Shield gate or not, it goes from 1 shot to 2 shot, 1 for the shield, 1 for the health....and given how tough mobs become, unless your in a meta frame that can melt crowds, you just get 2 shot.....

Doesnt quite solve the problem....helps though, would be neat to have. 

 

I actually only see shield gating helping Chroma because of the flaws in Vex armor that allow him to get one shot by enemies before the armor buff kicks in from shield loss. It's not going to be very useful to me as an endurance runner. Like, at all. Maybe for Sorties levels it'll help a little.

I still don't see how it's supposed to improve the value of shield based HP though. From my understanding that was the original intent.

Either way it's yet again DE fixing the result of a problem instead of the problem itself. Which in this case is enemies scale into way too much damage.

...don't even get me started on T4 (Axi) damage multipliers. Might as well be +300% broken. That was a brilliant idea.

[KnightCole]

1 hour ago, Xzorn said:

 

I actually only see shield gating helping Chroma because of the flaws in Vex armor that allow him to get one shot by enemies before the armor buff kicks in from shield loss. It's not going to be very useful to me as an endurance runner. Like, at all. Maybe for Sorties levels it'll help a little.

I still don't see how it's supposed to improve the value of shield based HP though. From my understanding that was the original intent.

Either way it's yet again DE fixing the result of a problem instead of the problem itself. Which in this case is enemies scale into way too much damage.

...don't even get me started on T4 (Axi) damage multipliers. Might as well be +300% broken. That was a brilliant idea.

Yeah, the scaling in enemies is pretty bad.  At first, the enemies do like, 0 dmg, but then suddenly, around lvl 50-60, they start 1-2 shotting weaker frames.  They pretty much 3-4 shot the tougher frames, maybe 5-6 shots.  Then the enemies start becoming bullet sponges......was in a survival for like 97 minutes and even with my Rhino having Corrosion and Roar against Grineer, I wasnt doing S#&$, it was entire Soma Prime mags to not even dent single mobs....meanwhile, the Nidus I was with, lol, he was 1 shotting the world....scaling is hosed.

I also feel ARMOR should affect the shields to a degree, so the shields dont just vanish....

Edited May 17, 2017 by KnightCole

[--F--NerevarCM]

6 hours ago, KnightCole said:

Shield gating would be cool, but really, the damage of high lvl enemies just needs to come down a notch or 2.  Shield gate or not, it goes from 1 shot to 2 shot, 1 for the shield, 1 for the health....and given how tough mobs become, unless your in a meta frame that can melt crowds, you just get 2 shot.....

Doesnt quite solve the problem....helps though, would be neat to have. 

Shield gating will only make shields competitive against health. Lets say that each 250 shields will have 1 shield gate. Meaning that warframes with high shield values would have more shield gates. This would solve the issue with getting one shoted and will make shield builds worth it.

But yes, as you said, DE needs to reduce scaling or create a limit to how much the damage can increase. Shield gate will only help against some shots, but with the scale we have, if you get caught in the middle of 10 enemies with auto weapons, doesn't matter how many shield gates you have, you will be killed in one sec.

[TENNO_NOT_FOUND]

On 5/14/2017 at 9:32 AM, Rambit23Z said:

 

 

Simply put, DE needs to reign in the damage of higher level enemies so that we don't need all these 90% damage reduction abilities and perma-invis.

Either this, tweak the behavior patterns of enemy AI and spawn patterns to allow for strategic movement and room clearing, or both.