Enemy level shouldn't be preset, it should scale to the players

[SasoDuck]

Just an idea I had. The only real end-game-level content we have are kuva floods (aren't constantly available), sorties (only once per day), or staying for a long time in an endless mission. Those are the only places you'll find lvl80+ enemies, and of course everyone is always crying out for "moar endgame!"

Well, what if *everything* was end-game?

Take Skyrim for instance. It's constantly challenging (more or less) because as you improve your gear and boost your overall player level, the enemies continuously stay a step or two ahead of you. You might have a bow that one-shots things for a while, but eventually the enemy level increases so that bow now two-shots things instead, but now you find a bow that can one-shot again. Stuff like that.

Problem is, Warframe doesn't do that. After a while, the enemies on Venus become so pathetic that just looking at them will make them wilt and die.

So, solution... do what Skyrim does.

The enemies are no longer a fixed level for each mission (ie Hydron is *always* level 30-40 or whatever it is), but instead they scale based off the player(s) in the mission. I don't know what would be *exactly* the best metre to scale them off of, but maybe something like total mastery earned (so even if you don't take the tests, it still keeps your enemy multiplier relevant)?. Then it would of course scale to the lowest player in the squad, so you don't have MRs20+ coming into Earth and making the missions all lvl130 for the newbies. So essentially, the more exp you got, the higher the enemy level multiplier would be.

Example:
Earth at MR0 = base lvl (5) x 1+MR(0) = lvl5

Earth at MR10 = base lvl (5) x MR(10) = lvl50

Earth at MR20 = base lvl (5) x MR(20) = lvl100

Earth would still be the low point on the totem pole, but would provide a challenge no matter what rank you were. Maybe not that exact formula (or maybe lower the overall base enemy levels per planet), but you get the idea.

Edited September 5, 2017 by SasoDuck

[PoisonHD]

I think that could be alright if it wasn't as drastic.

But Warframe's scalig has to be fixed first.

[SasoDuck]

Right, a better formula would be better, but you get the idea.
Like, following my formula, enemies on Hydron (lvl30-40 base) would be lvl960 for me (MR24) :P So yeah, definitely less drastic heheh. And then Sortie 3 would be lvl2400... yikes.

[KirukaChan]

What this looks like to me is a reason to not bother raising one's Mastery Rank past a certain point, which kind of goes against DE's goal of doing good business. Players who want to get their mastery rank really high need lots of gear to do so, which usually means plat purchases (even just in the form of equipment slots, as most players will come across weapons they want to keep).

[PoisonHD]

7 minutes ago, KirukaChan said:

What this looks like to me is a reason to not bother raising one's Mastery Rank past a certain point, which kind of goes against DE's goal of doing good business. Players who want to get their mastery rank really high need lots of gear to do so, which usually means plat purchases (even just in the form of equipment slots, as most players will come across weapons they want to keep).

If they did this scaling, they would just have to make some stronger draws to ranking up your mastery, to justify the higher level of enemies.

Also, maybe instead of scaling per mastery level, what if it scaled up in difficulty to a certain point every 3 levels?

[YUNoJump]

The main problem I see is that there are way too many weapons of varying quality for each MR. At the moment you could probably get to the point where you can use the Tigris/Galatine Prime by levelling nothing but low-level gear, and then just grab a single endgame weapon and be ready. If enemy difficulty scales off of how far you've gone then you could very easily level your self into a corner (as you can do in Skyrim by levelling up non-combat trees). They'd have to drastically fix actual progression through MR first.

The main other thing is that sometimes people want to play simpler missions, IMO it's more fun to play at a level where you don't have to rely on stunlocking and endless status chance to survive for more than half a second, I'd rather not play the game in that state 100% of the time.

I feel like the best solution to the problem at hand is just to modify the current starchart so that there is higher level content readily available, right now there's no major difference between the early levels (at least once you sell your MK1 stuff and get some mods), and around 30-45 might as well be the same to a proficient player. Make Pluto and Sedna level 70-80 and scale the other stuff downward from there, so that Mercury/Earth retain their current levels but endgame stuff is available. 

[InDueTime-EN-]

I don't think it should be tied to MR. I would rather it was linked to the conclave rating. This was determined by your equipped mods and weapons (not sure if it still is). 

The problem with this is matchmaking. We don't want new players joining a host with a high rank and then not being able to kill anything even though they are on Earth or something. 

[SasoDuck]

42 minutes ago, YUNoJump said:

They'd have to drastically fix actual progression through MR first.

Good. They should do that anyway ;)

[SasoDuck]

36 minutes ago, InDueTime-EN- said:

I don't think it should be tied to MR. I would rather it was linked to the conclave rating. This was determined by your equipped mods and weapons (not sure if it still is). 

The problem with this is matchmaking. We don't want new players joining a host with a high rank and then not being able to kill anything even though they are on Earth or something. 

This was a reply to the Reddit mirror that I think would work out really well.

Also if you read the OP, I covered how matchmaking scaling would work.

[SasoDuck]

44 minutes ago, YUNoJump said:

The main other thing is that sometimes people want to play simpler missions, IMO it's more fun to play at a level where you don't have to rely on stunlocking and endless status chance to survive for more than half a second, I'd rather not play the game in that state 100% of the time.

Could always make it a toggle I guess.
Scaling enemy levels: OFF [ON]

[Troll_Logic]

What happens when I, an MR24, join some farming mission that has an MR3, MR1, & MR4 and they are screaming at me to leave because they are getting wiped?

[SasoDuck]

2 hours ago, SasoDuck said:

Then it would of course scale to the lowest player in the squad, so you don't have MRs20+ coming into Earth and making the missions all lvl130 for the newbies.

Do I really need to quote this for everybody that replies? If you guys would just take the time to read through the whole thing, the answers would be made apparent to you.

[Tsukinoki]

1 hour ago, InDueTime-EN- said:

I don't think it should be tied to MR. I would rather it was linked to the conclave rating. This was determined by your equipped mods and weapons (not sure if it still is). 

That would be horrible because of how stupidly nonsensical the conclave rating is.
I mean on every frame steel fibre is worth 40 conclave points, which is one of the higher values for conclave ratings for mods.  Now tell me how many frames its actually worth equipping on?
Conclave rating was useless for trying to limit power in the old Tactical Alerts and would be even more pointless in determining enemy levels.
For example, I can create a 1200 conclave rating zephyr build that is utter trash, at the same time I can run a sub 800 point build and solo and hour on Mot without Naramon cheese or maiming strike...

Nothing should ever be tied to conclave rating.

2 hours ago, SasoDuck said:

Well, what if *everything* was end-game?

So basically you want to turn all leveling into either:
A) Never actually use the equipment and instead just passively level it from ally kills
Or
B) Farm spy missions 24/7 to level up your new gear?

Because that is what would happen if everything was end-game and scaled up.

I actually like using my weapons to level them.

Further, this idea would make it unrealistic to equip anything other than meta gear.
After all with everything scaled up I would be stupid to choose gear that wasn't god-tier and would be punished.
It wouldn't be possible to have fun playing around with old weapons, or gimmicky weapons that I like but can't hack it in the end game.

Basically once you hit a certain point, just like in Skyrim, you would be forced to stick to the meta cheese to do practically anything as deciding to go non-meta, or heaven forbid level up a weapon by actually using it, would be suicidal as you wouldn't be able to do anything.

There should be some area that scales, but not all.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Tsukinoki
Fixed typo

[PoisonHD]

32 minutes ago, Troll_Logic said:

What happens when I, an MR24, join some farming mission that has an MR3, MR1, & MR4 and they are screaming at me to leave because they are getting wiped?

The post said it would scale to the lowest mastery.

[Chipputer]

Hey, you know that system Bethesda introduced in Oblivion and then somewhat carried over to Skyrim that was universally criticized for erasing the feeling of progression and giving you no good reason to ever get stronger? Yeah, let's just port that over to Warframe. What could possibly go wrong?

[o.0-]

With PoE on the horizon, maybe something like Battle Leveling could be adapted for Warframe.

[(PSN)WhattamattaU]

hmm.. so scale to the lowest MR in the level...    looks like my acct i left at MR5 (min rank to get sorties open) will make me tons of plat offering my sortie level cheesing services.

 

 

[YUNoJump]

4 hours ago, SasoDuck said:

Good. They should do that anyway ;)

Hmm good point.

[DrBorris]

If enemies scale based on how powerful you are, what then is the point in becoming more powerful? 

Also, MR does not equate to power, and it sure as hell is not a linear progression of power. If a system like the OP were implemented a "conclave rating 2.0" would probably be a better measuring stick. This way enemies would scale to your actual power and not what the game thinks your power should be. 

 

IMO the better way to fix scaling is to nerf enemy unit scaling cap out around 2x-3x base level and have the difficulty of a fight be based on the amount of enemies and elite units like Bursas, Nox, etcetera. Then of course nerf players as well, but that is a lot more complicated of a rework than I am willing to write down. 

This way it would feel more like Warframe vs Grineer than Warframe vs Lancer #137, you are fighting a scaling faction, not individually scaling enemies. 

[Troll_Logic]

4 hours ago, PoisonHD said:

The post said it would scale to the lowest mastery.

Then what good would it do?  Other than lower every advanced level mission so low level players could do them?

[Andaius]

5 hours ago, Chipputer said:

Hey, you know that system Bethesda introduced in Oblivion and then somewhat carried over to Skyrim that was universally criticized for erasing the feeling of progression and giving you no good reason to ever get stronger? Yeah, let's just port that over to Warframe. What could possibly go wrong?

What I was going to say.

1 hour ago, Troll_Logic said:

Then what good would it do?  Other than lower every advanced level mission so low level players could do them?

 

Indeed, why face those level 100 guys in the sortie when you can bring in a newbie fresh out of the cryo pod to scale everything to MR 1 levels!

Edited September 5, 2017 by Andaius

[Serdinor_Darkrose]

   If you want the game to get challenging then don't do what Skyrim does, do what Oblivion did and scale all enemies above your level constantly. Skyrim's difficulty was a joke once you reached past level 35, in Oblivion you had to achieve godly APM and button mash and run like a madman after level 30 or you were dead (like REALLY dead unless you broke the game with chameleon). In Skyrim, at level 40 you were a god already and had no reason to level up again. In Oblivion you were doomed and had to keep leveling up skills constantly. Obvious point, Skyrim's difficulty is a bad example.

   Then what is a good example? Dark Souls might come to mind, it is a challenging game, but falls in the same error since you can eventually become so strong to make all bosses trivial through leveling. It also doesn't fit Warframe since Dark Souls presents a difficulty based on battle mechanics mostly, so unless DE re-imagines the actions of every enemy in the game (and add more abilities to them based on their level) this cannot apply. Every level-based game falls into two groups unfortunately: make the late game seem too weak once you reach a certain point, or make it static (you reach a set power cap and that's it, you can never become stronger and all end-game is balanced around that). The other option is what MMOs and Card Games tend to do: release more powerful stuff with every expansion-both enemies and gear-and forget about the old stuff. Every single option sucks though and people will get bored of this eventually.

   What DE should do with Warframe, in my opinion at least, is to fix the armor/shields/hp/damage on a certain level and only add enemy mechanics from that point on. For example, level 20 is basic, from level 30 and on new enemies appear every X level and the tactics you have to follow change, at level 100 every type of enemy has capped in terms of scaling and new units besides Eximus appear (let's call them Y) and what Y do is that they either are upgraded versions of Eximus or entirely new units. They have new abilities that completely change the way you play the encounter, combinations of them may appear at the same time, basically rewards teams and players who are able to adapt to the situation. Their scaling is capped, the enemies can die, but CAN you kill them and survive their tactics thrown at you? That means new enemies, new abilities, constant additions, you get the idea it's hard and it's why developers don't bother with this option when they can toss in infinite or static scalings and call it a day. It seems though that the community doesn't like easy content (Simulor & Tonkor nerfes were for that reason exactly) and DE wants to push the game in a challenging direction.

   We'll have to wait and see what PoE has in store for us.

[(PSN)fullblast35]

this implies a total rework of matchmaking.  what happens if a mr24 drops in between 3  mr10s?