so.....how long are we going to ignore cheese mechanics?

[NightBlitz]

Just now, BlackCoMerc said:

You are not wrong.

But enemy cheese exists because of Frame cheese.

BOTH NEED TO GO.

We need a balance pass on.the entire game.

for once i agree with you. it does need to be done. the big question tho, is how? how do they go about balancing the game without alienating the player base? its a lot of work, and would likely end up taking up similar amounts of time to PoE, if not more

[BlackCoMerc]

Just now, NightBlitz said:

for once i agree with you. it does need to be done. the big question tho, is how? how do they go about balancing the game without alienating the player base? its a lot of work, and would likely end up taking up similar amounts of time to PoE, if not more

Get a small test group.

Designate a max level of enemy that we are intended to actually engage with and fight. Make them Sortie enemies and scale down from there, greatly narrowing the gap between early and late game power.

Remove pizzas and orbs.

Give each frame innate energy Regen.

Change Prime to a cone that widens but loses potency as it propagates outward.

Change Disarm to a cone that jams but does not remove weapons.

Radial Blind loses 50% Range, becomes a Cone. You're a ninja, not a wizard.

Remove blind from Mirage. The ball distracts for 5 seconds, then explodes, causing knockdown.

Change Bastille to prevent enemy ingress, but not stop bullets or suspend enemies.

Change Invisibility to a toggle with drain.

Change stomp to ripple outward, knocking down nearby enemies, stagger further out. No time suspend.

Nidus...yeah, good luck there.

Cap efficiency at 25 - 30%.

Reduce enemy spawns on most maps by 25-50%.

Remove grappling hooks, knockdown stomps, Nullifier bubbles and Comba/Scramba auras. Replace with weapons that deal damage to energy as well health, but use real projectiles.

Remove hitscan weapons from ALL enemies. Dodge tanks are real.

That might not cover everything, but it's a solid start.

[Soketsu]

How about just providing a proper endgame in order to match our power ?

[BlackCoMerc]

1 minute ago, Soketsu said:

How about just providing a proper endgame in order to match our power ?

Because it can't be done.

Challenge and Warframe powers have reached Mutually exclusive status.

Because we don't have powers. Destiny has powers. Borderlands has powers.We have meta level cheat codes with special effects.

Other games make you Batman, beating up goons with the occasional challenging boss.

Warframe made us Neo, looking for a challenge inside the Matrix.

Good luck.

[Soketsu]

We are okay on one point, warframe is not a challenging game, and will never have since we face bots.

On the other end, my point was about to level up the average ennemy we face, I begin to be tired that the balance is around the start chart, tired to see diversity and stuff be nerfed in the name of a challenge that will never come.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Soketsu

[Duduminador]

8 minutes ago, Soketsu said:

How about just providing a proper endgame in order to match our power ?

Sure, let's have lvl +200 missions that nobody plays because it's so much more practical to... not to.

[Soketsu]

Just now, Duduminador said:

Sure, let's have lvl +200 missions that nobody plays because it's so much more practical to... not to.

I understand why your are sceptical.

Think about it, why will anyone of us want to fight foes who can one shot us and we might take a while to kill.

In the old time, it was mainly the void 1.0, in order to use efficiently a key, we stay as long as we could.

Now it's more for collecting ressources for a weapon (Hem for example) in place wich still recquire some kind key or some event wich recquire to do a mission for X points in order to have clan rewards. You begin to understand my point ?

[tribal556]

bah, and when they put hard missions 80 %  of people are unable to complete it without "exploits".

and BTW there are dozens of way to exploit as a team, that s part of the game.

Don't complain because you don't know how to do without it anyway... they tried to make it challenging, and most people were unable to fullfill their role properly

[o.0-]

There is player and enemy cheese that does need to be removed and/or adjusted. What I'd like to focus on first though, is the intended design for players engaging the content. What I mean is the original conceptual elements that were intended before the endless arms race got in the way of the intended Warframe Experience.

So, to me, its the relationship of the player to the content that needs to be the foundation. And with experience with other games, I've been thinking of an idea of a floating scale system that could help (however there can still be improvements in Damage 2.0 and a few other systems too).

A possible idea is to have a floating scale where static non-scaling missions and say the first five min or waves of scaling missions could provide a more consistent experience across more of the game.

The basic idea is to have enemies and the three other players scale up to the most optimized loadout to have greater consistency in this base experience.

From use of faction damage modifiers and damage reduction and caps, there can be ways to adjust how we relate to the content as intended by the devs.

This way a player with a highly optimized loadout can join a brand new player and provide a far more consistent experience as intended by the devs, while also allowing more possibilities for improving enemies.

Imagine if the original goal was a cell/squad of Tenno fighting squads of enemies that are tougher against us, like how it felt for a newer player just starting out. not the endless spongy hordes of higher level content?

We know that the game engine can handle giving us hordes of enemies and also bump them up, so its a matter of finding the best ways to setup a floating scale for this idea.

I've been thinking of plausible examples, to give specific examples for what I mean with a floating scale and I was thinking that what Nox represents is that potential to extend the idea to the rest of Warframe. So more in spoiler:

Spoiler

The values used to scale need to consider installed mods on builds, focusing on key attributes. And we have examples of the faction damage mods that can be a conceptual basis for how such a system can be devised in Warframes' context.

Now such an idea will still need to see changes to how enemy armor increases and reduces damage, nonetheless, maybe the devs have enough metrics behind the scenes to flesh out such an idea that go beyond what I'm thinking of.

That way, progress into being able to handle harder content is still important and necessary, while also keeping other systems like Endo, Kuva and the current static mods in place (with tweaks and adjustments along the way), and allow content anywhere in the star chart to be a challenge and not harm new players still looking to figure things out. Then things like Raids, Sortie and Nightmare can be where players truly can find their endgame within this new context.

A side benefit if one decides to goof or experiment it in theory makes it tougher be a burden to the other players.

currently, from the wiki:

The Nox has a damage cap on its entire body, minus its head, which reduces incoming damage by a very large amount. Even when all of its armor is removed, your damage will only be marginally improved (for example the Dread that was doing 79 damage with full armor, does 240 damage with no armor).

So here is one example of how the idea can be expanded on, so it is a start, the main aspect to consider is how the enemy is intended to exist inside the game in relation to the gear we have access to. So we know a Nox's armor is made of Alloy and this is most vulnerable to Radiation so a weapon like the Arca Plasmor would be one of the top options to defeat a Nox.

From here the devs can state that once the Glass Helmet is breached the Plasmor has the ability to kill a Nox with two blasts of the Arca Plasmor.

And so here is where we can see floating scaling depending on how systems interrelate in the engine so that a player that has a zero forma, zero potato Arca Plasmor can kill as easily with a fully optimized Arca Plasmor a Nox with a breached Glass Helmet in two Shots in the area where the devs intend to first present the Nox as an enemy.

Meaning that in static non-endless missions whenever a Nox is found, we need to breach its Glass Helmet and be capable of dispatching it with two shots of the shotgun.

Then if the Arca Plasmor is optimized with forma and catalyst, the new loadout will be able to continue killing a breached Nox with two shots from the shotgun as it scales in endless missions to a certain point as determined by how the devs want endless to scale.

If the devs want 5 min / 5 wave runs to be the standard, then for example it would be here the scaling of the designed relationship between the shotgun and enemy scale as it currently does in endless and enemies become tougher and tougher until the player decides to Extract.

And the potential with thinking in these terms is that each enemy type can see such relationships crafted, where for example, other tough Grineer Heavies that use Alloy can see such relationships to our Gear. Where Naplams, Bombards can see creative updates like the Nox introduces and keeps them as tough gotta watch out for them enemies.

Furthermore, how enemy damage can relate to players is the next area to consider, and since Tenno are a faction the use of such could apply as well. So building from a static non-endless mission and say 5 min / 5 waves standard, here are some ideas:

The squishiest frames could possibly determine how effective certain attacks could be as a basis. When hit by a Nox or Napalm, could consider say depleting the shields and 2/3rds of the health as the standard with a direct hit as a base experience and scale from there in endless situations. In endless, direct hits eventually scale beyond the mods we have installed, eventually leading us to adapt and eventually extract.

So that way a player that invests in defensive mods in the build would still need to be mindful of a direct hit, but a player that hasn't or can't yet (like a brand new player) isn't out right penalized either, for the intended base experience that the devs want for us.

Then scaling kicks in if we want to see how far we can go in endless and eventually see enemy damage out pace our defensive mods.

I feel that between the use of damage caps, faction damage formulas and a floating scaling system, the devs can better design how enemies relate to the players, and create the intended experience in more areas regardless of how OP some of our gear has gotten.

Boss fights too can feel rewarding and the bosses themselves would be more evenly matched against a cell/squad of Tenno. So with the idea of floating leveling is to create the experience, where for example, instead of a boss dying in seconds when we can damage them, the boss can fight out for a sequence, matching the intended design of the devs regardless of the cell/squads OP gear.

So going with Mesa as another example against say the Sergeant (starting with this one, since he doesn't have special phases and is one of the early bosses), the devs could intend for this boss to handle instead of getting melted in a few seconds, the boss could say resist 45 seconds of Peacemaker fire throughout the boss battle. So Mesa would still be the fastest way to defeat this enemy, but at least we would be seeing more of challenge as the devs intended.

This way a new Mesa that has Peacemaker would anticipate this, and an optimized Mesa would still be able to experience something of a challenge too.

A mix of direct damage reduction and, like rivens faction damage reduction, can be used to scale this for the players going against the Sarge, so that the scaling works evenly between the players from how I currently understand how those calculations work.

Then his damage to us would be the next factor, so using the squishiest frame, a shot from his Lanka could deplete shields and leave us with say 1/4 health left, as he is a boss and has minions around.

And as the experience is scaled, there could be a reduction of the number of enemies in the area (since they too would be scaling), in a sense could also be his personal bodyguard, and have slightly different parameters to demonstrate their more elite status.

This sort of foundation could open new opportunities for how enemies get designed and what we need to do to defeat them outside of simply making enemies sponges for late game content.

I can see the devs be able to craft squads of enemies that can engage us as units, and it would make sense to do more work in enemy AI. The devs still have the existing tools to ramp up scale and send more units at us, as needed from there.

This can also then help the devs scale the cheese that we dish out and receive according to what was intended and then be able to give us a challenge in the various existing modes, Nightmare, Sortie, Raids and so on.

I realize it's a long post, the spoiler is more brainstorming some possible specifics to start with in order to allow the devs to recraft the intended experience with content.

Edited September 29, 2017 by SPARTAN-187.Thanatos
typo

[Epsik-kun]

I feel conflicted here. On one hand, I really enjoy spin melee playstyle. It's fast, effective, has the "oomph!" that makes each and every hit feel good, and it's very effective in regards to the gameplay as it combines powerful AoE cleaning with constant movement.

"Spamming" spins isn't mechanically easier than spamming any other combo of choice (or shooting a gun even). It even involves more thought, as because every single spin counts aiming them better, controlling your movement, selecting a proper path make an easily noticeable impact on your overall effectiveness - which is an awesome motivation to improve. It is, pretty much, the best suited for Warframe melee playstyle, it provides solutions to the vast majority of all melee problems. It's just that good.

But I can't argue against the literal fact of spin melee being leagues above literally any other option in the enemy levels ranging from 30 to 150.

If you ask me, I would rather keep it, because I can't pretend that dealing mediocre damage to single targets in a horde-based game about grind requires and involves any meaningful amount of skill and, most importantly, is an enjoyable process.

Regarding Invisibility, yeah, it being equal to immortality is plain stupid - there's no other way to word it.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Epsik-kun

[xXDeadsinxX]

Just remove maiming strike from the game, it's just an insanely broken mod that makes weapons become broken.

[Azamagon]

Yup, can agreed with a lot in here.

Just gonna delve into one of the mentioned issues here, namely the Slide Attacks.

There are multiple problems with these, but let's delve into that by first going back a bit in time:

In Melee 1.0, you had mods that either catered to "basic melee spam" (as there were just one basic combo) or to chargeattacks. Chargeattacks generally were the better option, because they hit in a wide arc and ignored armor (for the most part). Thus, if you wanted to do decent melee fighting, you did this: Hold E, Hold E, Hold E ... non-stop.

But remember, this was not only enabled due to the mods "seperating" the different attacks, but also because Chargeattacks were simply the superior attack in 99% of the cases (due to armor ignor, and back in the days EVERYTHING had armor...)

Now let's move forward to our current time and you'll see that we almost have the same degree of similar issues:

• Do we have mods seperating attacks? Yup; Maiming Strike (and Rivens having the same stat), highly promoting repeated slideattacking and nothing else, no matter the situation
• Even without Maiming Strike etc, would there be a reason to NOT slideattack? Only in very few circumstances, because:
  1) Combos are often not worthwhile enough (not enough effort -> reward ratio to most combos)
  2) Slideattacks are powerful, easily spammed, and often are very huge in attack radius

So, what needs to be done?

1. Scrap ANY mod design that caters to using the same attack over and over (this relates a bit to Ability Augments too, but that's a whole different can of worms)
2. Make sure effort -> reward ratios are done properly. Examples:
   Give each specific combo a specific niche/role, and/or make tougher combos (like pause- and hold-combos) more powerful overall. For example: The basic combo shouldn't do anything special, but should be uncomplex and easy to use (this really ought to be so for ALL stances). Then, on one particular stance, the block combo could maybe be done slower than the basic combo, but it strikes a bit harder and does it in an AoE (good when surrounded). Its holdcombo could perform a powerful and quick AoE attack, with both decent damage and some CC. Its pause combo could be amazing to quickly and effectively deal with single tough targets (by forcing finishers, or slashprocs etc). Stuff like that.
   Further, and this is also very important: Give a role to slideattacks, which ISN'T simply being a powerful 360 degree crowdkiller. How about making slideattacks into gapclosers? Say, optimally with a thrust attack animation (or could stay as AoE attacks, but preferably not), which deals more damage the further away you slid before you struck your enemy (so using it AS A GAPCLOSER is rewarded, but then when you are in the face of an enemy the combos, even the basic combo spam, would be better than spamming the slideattack)
   Same goes for chargeattacks, airattacks, channeling, blocking etc. Everything needs to have a PURPOSE.

In other words, there needs to be THOUGHT into the actual systems, and not just a rampage of "rule of cool" dictating everything that gets implemented. And the modding system DEFINITELY shouldn't cater towards singular attacks...

 

[-Bv-Qrow_the_Hokage]

1 hour ago, xXDeadsinxX said:

Just remove maiming strike from the game, it's just an insanely broken mod that makes weapons become broken.

Theres no need to remove it, just make it not stack with Blood Rush. Then it's an acually fairly balanced mod for its rarity

[nickelshark]

Stealth could use a look at. I think your proposal sounds good though. It promotes more tactical play w/o nerfing it to the curb. I also agree that spin to win needs to curb stomped.

[(XBOX)Tucker D Dawg]

keep maiming strike, get rid of slide attack and put that mechanic in a combo - so each melee stance has a slide attack BUT then

 1)its not one-button accessible (ie you have to block, uppercut, roll then BAM Slide attack or something)

2) you have to have your melee equipped to even get there as it is part of a combo attack.

Still get benefits from maiming strike, still get the occasional meta-swing, but its not spammable.

 

Edited September 29, 2017 by (XB1)Tucker D Dawg

[TheBrsrkr]

Ah, if it's isn't Balance the game thread #7290348. Three years I've been here and you get the same reasons, the same reactions and the same  arguments. 

Take this one here:

57 minutes ago, blackheartstar_pc said:

Why is it not enough that if you don't like cheese to just not use cheese?

If I had a dollar every time someone said this, I would be able to afford a PC that could run Warframe better that 15 frames a second. If I got a dollar every time I repeated the answer "because the Devstream have to balance the entire game about the most powerful and cheesiest tactic in order to not invalidate content" I'd probably afford one good enough to host a game. Words. La.

The problem is Warframe is too big and we keep eating their content alive. Back in my heyday it was the raids that were the final solution. Announced one month, took 3 months to make after that and half a week to fix until it actually worked. How long did it entertain the community? About 2 months. Thats a wasted investment of time, money and resources. By the end of the second month we were clamoring for more. Then it was focus, a way to dump more time into the game to get more powerful for sorties, the other big thing. Less than a month that lasted. Then we asked for something else. The second raid lasted an even shorter time than the first.

 

Content brings newer players to the game, and sure, they'll have raids and whatever to do once properly and cheese through every time after that, but that's still a fairly large project by DE that amounted to almost nothing. Something has to be done, but nothing can actually be done in a reasonable time frame. It would take months to balance the weapons alone. It would take months to fix all the maps to fit the new parkour in. It would take still more  time to design and implement a proper stealth system in the game, redesign AI for it and find a way to not make every non invisible frame useless while not making every invisible frame Press X to remove challenges. During these months, everything else would either be severely delayed or halted entirely. DE cannot afford this. 

[flameblastguardian]

Cant wait to speed clear poe with my 20m scoliac and volt in 2mins

[AcceptYourDeath]

Warframe has gone casual a while ago. There - i said it! 

[DatDarkOne]

On ‎9‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 7:27 AM, Twistedsparkle said:

why is it that when Im invisible I can beat the living crap out guys and they are not resisting at all? just aimlessly looking around

This is the only part of the whole post that I find somewhat funny.  Each time this little point is brought up, I imagine how people in general would react to a similar situation in real life.  Each time I imagine this (even using various behaviors throughout history) it always looks like people, soldiers, etc would behave in the same manner that the enemies in do in the game.  

For example; you and a friend walking in a building and suddenly he is knocked out by an unseen source.  There are really only a few things that happen in situations like this.  You either look around dumbfounded, try to find the location of the attack, or run.  No one without heat sensing goggles would even be able to detect someone who is invisible.  So the enemy A.I. seems to be properly simulating what would happen.  

Invisibility in the game already has various limits/checks in place.  In my honest opinion, the only way some of the people who don't like invisibility would be happy is if it was removed completely.  Because there isn't really a way to nerf it any further due to the nature of what invisibility is.  IMO the only thing that can really be done is a compromise.  A compromise of putting in enemies that can detect invisible frames.  Even an Ivara main like myself can agree to having enemies that can detect me.  We already have enemies that can disable invisibility.  

Edited September 30, 2017 by DatDarkOne

[TaylorsContraction]

3 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

This is the only part of the whole post that I find somewhat funny.  Each time this little point is brought up, I imagine how people in general would react to a similar situation in real life.  Each time I imagine this (even using various behaviors throughout history) it always looks like people, soldiers, etc would behave in the same manner that the enemies in do in the game.  

For example; you and a friend walking in a building and suddenly he is knocked out by an unseen source.  There are really only a few things that happen in situations like this.  You either look around dumbfounded, try to find the location of the attack, or run.  No one without heat sensing goggles would even be able to detect someone who is invisible.  So the enemy A.I. seems to be properly simulating what would happen...

This scenario you describe is a poor example in the following way. The enemies (aside from possibly infested) are aware that tenno have cloaking tech and use it frivolously to infiltrate their bases and ships. Should a grineer witness his comrade get split open before him without a source, he will know instantly it's a cloaked tenno. He should then respond appropriately, only currently enemies have zero response mechanisms for such scenarios, so they follow you around while you're cloaked, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

[LuckyCharm]

I dont see an issue with any of the things labled issues, since you actually have to play the game with loki and ivara, and anyone slide attacking. 

If you want to remove cheese, how about the whole stand still and spam meta that trinity fuels? Seriously. Any mission is a breeze with a trinity acting like an energiser bunny if you have aoe damage frames like banshee. 

[blackheartstar_pc]

On 9/29/2017 at 4:41 PM, TheBrsrkr said:

Ah, if it's isn't Balance the game thread #7290348. Three years I've been here and you get the same reasons, the same reactions and the same  arguments. 

Take this one here:

If I had a dollar every time someone said this, I would be able to afford a PC that could run Warframe better that 15 frames a second. If I got a dollar every time I repeated the answer "because the Devstream have to balance the entire game about the most powerful and cheesiest tactic in order to not invalidate content" I'd probably afford one good enough to host a game. Words. La.

The problem is Warframe is too big and we keep eating their content alive. Back in my heyday it was the raids that were the final solution. Announced one month, took 3 months to make after that and half a week to fix until it actually worked. How long did it entertain the community? About 2 months. Thats a wasted investment of time, money and resources. By the end of the second month we were clamoring for more. Then it was focus, a way to dump more time into the game to get more powerful for sorties, the other big thing. Less than a month that lasted. Then we asked for something else. The second raid lasted an even shorter time than the first.

 

Content brings newer players to the game, and sure, they'll have raids and whatever to do once properly and cheese through every time after that, but that's still a fairly large project by DE that amounted to almost nothing. Something has to be done, but nothing can actually be done in a reasonable time frame. It would take months to balance the weapons alone. It would take months to fix all the maps to fit the new parkour in. It would take still more  time to design and implement a proper stealth system in the game, redesign AI for it and find a way to not make every non invisible frame useless while not making every invisible frame Press X to remove challenges. During these months, everything else would either be severely delayed or halted entirely. DE cannot afford this. 

All I can say is that I disagree with all of this. The game is balanced fine and only individuals with a certain mind set will ever choose to cheese the game. Though I will say it doesn't help that a part of this community encourages cheese and speed. Those are the two factors that burn people out of this game.

[DatDarkOne]

3 hours ago, TaylorsContraction said:

This scenario you describe is a poor example in the following way. The enemies (aside from possibly infested) are aware that tenno have cloaking tech and use it frivolously to infiltrate their bases and ships. Should a grineer witness his comrade get split open before him without a source, he will know instantly it's a cloaked tenno. He should then respond appropriately, only currently enemies have zero response mechanisms for such scenarios, so they follow you around while you're cloaked, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

 

I get what you're saying.  But I haven't really seen a game yet that properly uses enemy AI in regards to stealth that doesn't leave a way open for the player in case they mess up.  The closest one was Shadows of Mordor.  

In all honesty, do you really think the community wouldn't  complain like the end of the world has come if the AI was to get better at finding and killing us?  As much as the community says they want more challenge, they complain the very second they get any forms of it.  

I myself would welcome the idea of better AI that actively hunted me down while I'm Ivara.  At the same time I don't agree with trying to nerf invisibility especially when it doesn't hinder the group or how anyone else plays.    

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

On 9/29/2017 at 7:47 AM, _Draken_ said:

I dont think this is an issue at all, at some point you realize that if bosses dont have it right now everything would end like Phorid - ezpzlmnsqzy Tigris Prime oneshot

I personally dont mind bosses like Kela, Lech Kril or Sargas Ruk

 

Back to topic, I dont think there is a chance of changing all of that without shield gating as OP mentioned the increase of survivability - I do however think that slide +e macros should be punished, i dont have anything against slide spam, but at least do it the old fashioned way and dont use macros - that does feel like cheating

On console theres no macro that i kno of. So this is just a pc thing?

[KlutzMeister]

I dunno... the cheese seems to pair well with all this whine :P

I'm sorry this game isn't hard enough for you, have you tried chalenging yourself? bring an unmodded lato to sorties, don't mod your warframes effectivly, find like minded individuals to run with, jump-rope and play at the same time... better tthan what other games do for "end game" ,release higher level content and gear and have veterans beat it in a week anyway while the newbs haVe to grind through 27 tiers of gear while the veterens twiddle thier thumbs.

I'm sorry to have to break it to you, but there are different typse of gamers, ther will always be exploits and exploiters, speedrunners ploting graphs to sAve seconds, and weekend warriors asking "how am mine for fish?".

balence sounds nice and all, but that's alot of work for little, if any, return.

you want constant balencing patches, go play something with less varibles like a hero shooter, you want endgame go play WoW... or maybe try DCUO that decided after it messed up pvp with easy burst-damage,messed up counter windows, and cutting off new blood from open world pvp... to then try to just focus on a massive rebalence and a constent stream of "end game" that just left a returning me with an underwelming game that I no longer loved and a pile of new pay walls.

I'm begginning to believe that you guys are new to th online gaming scene with these kinds of comlaints. I've seen a few games, none perfectly balenced, what we have in warframe is a fun to play power fantasy, try  to fix what's still working and you may not like the results.

yeah, I know I might come off as a fanboy, but I understand ther are problems... AI is dumb, stealth is too simple and pointless, armor scaleing is a pain... but, I'm passed that idealism of "this game would be perfect if..." and decided to just enjoy what I have and not look a gift horse in the mouth... fun gameplay, no pay walls , no loot boxes...these days this game feals like a godsend.

TL;DR: *blows raspberry*