Power Creep *and Armor Scaling* Is Destroying The Niches Of Older Weapons

[Lumireaver]

Basically the message to take away from this topic is: "Scott, after you're done making all of the Warframes playable-tier, take a look at the weapons. Maybe even take a look at the weapons sooner, if you can."

[Webly]

And it's the same story with the strun/boar when compared to the Hek and Sobek, which is incidentally a point you failed to respond to; the fact their range sucks is what keeps them from being viable (particularly at higher levels), not their raw DPS - this is especially true in the case of the Boar, since it definitely has a raw DPS advantage over the Sobek and possibly the Hek too.

 

If a new player can't expect their far more difficult to obtain weapon to perform better than their old one, what incentive do they have to even try obtaining it? None. It's a factor in the game already; there's probably quite a few players that will never bother with a shotgun or bow period.

 

Hell, we even see as much today with real weapons: Do you know why guys like me were issued M16s that dated back to the Vietnam War? Do you know why guys are still issued what is basically the same weapon? Because none of the potential alternatives offered a big enough increase in performance to justify the effort and expense of replacing it, even after nearly half a century.

 

I'll respond to the bold first.  It's a new playstyle to look forward to, perhaps one that you will prefer more.  Should the Ogris be flat out better than a Gorgon?  No, but they should be, generally speaking, equally good but by excelling and failing in certain/different aspects.

The Ignis is limited more by it's horrendous damage at the moment than anything else, though I've made a whole thread addressing the changes I'd like to see in its mechanics.  https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/59613-ignis-isnt-a-flamethrower/

 

The Boar is held back by it's ammo consumption and effective DPS.  The falloff on it is too severe and serves more as an artificial limiter on its DPS than a change to the playstyle.  I personally think shotgun "range" should be determined by the spread of the weapon.  The more spread, the less effective it becomes at further ranges.

 

I disagree with your reason for the M16 staying around, most historians and and modern political theorists cite political reasons first and foremost.  Same reason for the obviously deficient M9 coming into and staying in service, but guys like to pass off lots of personal opinions as the truth (sometimes you even hear these from superiors, which is even more confusing).  Also it's pretty tacky to shoehorn the "I was in the military" card into any subject you're debating, lots of us were in the military but we don't bring it up everytime we disagree with someone.  It has no bearing on the subject and sounds more like asking for sympathy instead of defending a point.  What MOS and first duty station?

Edited July 26, 2013 by Webly

[Dussack]

the other issue with power creep is as has been mentioned the armour increase which leaves acrid, despair and the bolt weapons as the only things that do damage (esp. since update 9)

[neKroMancer]

The same old problems of balancing armor rating and the idea of sidegrade vs upgrade.

 

Armor scaling is pretty bad and the concept of using armor as elemental should be scrapped completely. Why not using Kril's mechanic? Enemy with armor can only be damaged in a specific weakspot or shoot the armor off entirely to break it and put bullet into the flesh beneath. Armor piercing mod should allows the bullet to penetrate the armor at the cost of flat damage reduction per shot.

 

Another problem which hasn't been discussed yet is the role of shield in combat. The introduction of Elite Lancer made me think that DE didn't fully explore this feature thoroughly. They are just another line of defense, increase number that player has to decrease before killing an AI. Nothing fancy about that at all. 

- Personally, I think shield mechanic should be explored. Example- Taking Dune's Holtzman's personal shield and modify it a bit (the original repelling fast-moving projectile but allowing slower movement to go through, like blade. However, react violently to laser, creating a mini-nuclear explosion). Warframe could use some of this concept - rewrite the shield to reflect bullet but doesn't react to melee weapon would be nice. Giving much needed edge to melee weapon.

 

The second problem: Power creep. The real problem is we don't really know which direction Warframe should evolve since DE have been pretty tight-lipped about it. Are we going to play TPS Diablo in space in a year from now? Or Warframe is going to stay more shooter and less loot adventure (unlikely). I think DE have to making tiers for weapon. Either make them generic power-based tier or making a harder playstyle-based tier or a mixture of both like Mass Effect 3 MP's tier system.

 

Tier will make things easier to balance while retaining both power upgrade and sidegrade in check. Example:

 

Normal class weapon - Basic stat and serve as a beginner's weapon.

Veteran class weapon - Upgrade all stat slightly and reduce one aspect while up another by the same amount.

Marksman class weapon - Keep the basic stat from Veteran class but tweak reduction/increase to be more noticeable.

Tenno class weapon - Adding some special mechanic into the Veteran weapon at the cost of stat reduction.

 

The problem is what stat should weapon be balanced? It's hard giving straight answer to this question, really.

 

Something like that - notice that Veteran/Marksman/Tenno class are just tweaked version but not a complete upgrade, unlike the normal/veteran class difference. While the current theme of Warframe is allowing any weapon to reach endgame, I think it's also making balancing harder when someone using MK-1 Braton as a baseline to compare other weapons. Making tiers and proper use of them to balance is a better option.  

[Webly]

all the above

Yeah I definitely agree with you on it being hard to know what's the right way to go about things if we don't knwo what DE plans to do with everything else.

So I agree with you're ideas, but if Warframe stays in the current state (just expanded more), I still think there should be a way for weapons with unique playstlyes to be viable at all levels.  Or to say it differently, I think all weapons should be more or less side-grades instead of flatout being better or worse.  But this is my opinion in the current state of Warframe.

[JustDont]

A side problem of this is a terrible, TERRIBLE division between innate AP weapons and non-AP. At the moment, only selected few non-AP weapons matter in high-level runs, others basically get a cold shoulder -- there's no way my potatoed and forma'ed Bronco Prime will work better than even the "poor child" of thrown weapons -- Hikou (yep, without any serious upgrades).

[Taranis49]

I'll respond to the bold first.  It's a new playstyle to look forward to, perhaps one that you will prefer more.  Should the Ogris be flat out better than a Gorgon?  No, but they should be, generally speaking, equally good but by excelling and failing in certain/different aspects.

The Ignis is limited more by it's horrendous damage at the moment than anything else, though I've made a whole thread addressing the changes I'd like to see in its mechanics.  https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/59613-ignis-isnt-a-flamethrower/

 

The Boar is held back by it's ammo consumption and effective DPS.  The falloff on it is too severe and serves more as an artificial limiter on its DPS than a change to the playstyle.  I personally think shotgun "range" should be determined by the spread of the weapon.  The more spread, the less effective it becomes at further ranges.

 

I disagree with your reason for the M16 staying around, most historians and and modern political theorists cite political reasons first and foremost.  Same reason for the obviously deficient M9 coming into and staying in service, but guys like to pass off lots of personal opinions as the truth (sometimes you even hear these from superiors, which is even more confusing).  Also it's pretty tacky to shoehorn the "I was in the military" card into any subject you're debating, lots of us were in the military but we don't bring it up everytime we disagree with someone.  It has no bearing on the subject and sounds more like asking for sympathy instead of defending a point.  What MOS and first duty station?

 

Except that when first buying/building a weapon you can't even tell it'll have a different playstyle, all you can look at are its stats to see If it's worth obtaining.

 

And again, the Ignis is primarily hampered by its range, it could have the twice the damage of any other weapon in the game and it wouldn't be viable at higher level missions because the user will either die trying to get into range or a team member using a weapon that isn't confined to spitting-distance ranges will kill your target before you ever reach it.

 

You even tacitly admit as much with the Boar by backpeddling to "effective DPS" rather than "raw DPS"; it's the weapon's range that puts it behind the Sobek/Hek, not its raw DPS. Reducing damage falloff and increasing its spread wouldn't change that, all it'd mean is that instead of its pellets doing reduced damage they wouldn't be hitting the target. For all practical purposes, I'm not seeing a functional difference.

 

First, someone gets touchy with off-hand comments (and my MOS and such have no bearing anyway, speaking of). Second, on the M16, it's not a personal opinion: it's actually been listed as a KPP (Key Performance Parameter) every single time a potential alternative has been considered over atleast the past 10+ years; that the performance gain needs to be enough to justify the effort and expense of replacement - it's also typically the hurdle those potential alternatives fail to clear. Which is why I consider it applicable here.

Edited July 26, 2013 by Taranis49

[Webly]

Except that when first buying/building a weapon you can't even tell it'll have a different playstyle, all you can look at are its stats to see If it's worth obtaining.

 

And again, the Ignis is primarily hampered by its range, it could have the twice the damage of any other weapon in the game and it wouldn't be viable at higher level missions because the user will either die trying to get into range or a team member using a weapon that isn't confined to spitting-distance ranges will kill your target before you ever reach it.

 

You even tacitly admit as much with the Boar by backpeddling to "effective DPS" rather than "raw DPS"; it's the weapon's range that puts it behind the Sobek/Hek, not its raw DPS. Reducing damage falloff and increasing its spread wouldn't change that, all it'd mean is that instead of its pellets doing reduced damage they wouldn't be hitting the target. For all practical purposes, I'm not seeing a functional difference.

 

First, someone gets touchy with off-hand comments (and my MOS and such have no bearing anyway, speaking of). Second, on the M16, it's not a personal opinion: it's actually been listed as a KPP (Key Performance Parameter) every single time a potential alternative has been considered over atleast the past 10+ years; that the performance gain needs to be enough to justify the effort and expense of replacement - it's also typically the hurdle those potential alternatives fail to clear. Which is why I consider it applicable here.

Look I think we're starting to talk in circles here, you don't know much about any game till you've played it, but after awhile you learn what to look for.

 

I think it's apples and oranges with the Ignis-Boar comparison because they have different ammo consumption and pools.  Any weapon that runs out of damage as quickly as the Boar does to achieve that "optimal" dps isn't really doing that DPS in any sort of normal play.  If the Boar had the Ammo of the Ignis, it'd be at or above the level of the Sobek for me.  The Ignis's range is a hamper, but nothing that proper damage wouldn't fix (again, I think Ignis needs a mechanics overhaul, we're just speaking hypothetical changes right now).

 

Mentioning the M16 is applicable, but not a military career.  The same people were citing everything about the XM8 being "What America needs" and then did a three-sixty and never explained why the weapon was all of a sudden "not worth it."  If you think they found all those problems in a one month span after praising it for years then that's what you believe.  I'm more inclined to side with people studying exterior influences.

Edited July 26, 2013 by Webly

[Vanadio]

The flaw in my humble opinion is the sum of these facts:

 

1) only 4 types of damage ignore armor (poison, serrated blade, ph. impact, armor piercing)

2) only 1 of the above comes with MOD

3) there's no BIG differentiation between factions vulnerabilities/resistance (no final multipliers, I mean type of damage each faction does not count armor) 

[Taranis49]

Look I think we're starting to talk in circles here, you don't know much about any game till you've played it, but after awhile you learn what to look for.

 

I think it's apples and oranges with the Ignis-Boar comparison because they have different ammo consumption and pools.  Any weapon that runs out of damage as quickly as the Boar does to achieve that "optimal" dps isn't really doing that DPS in any sort of normal play.  If the Boar had the Ammo of the Ignis, it'd be at or above the level of the Sobek for me.  The Ignis's range is a hamper, but nothing that proper damage wouldn't fix (again, I think Ignis needs a mechanics overhaul, we're just speaking hypothetical changes right now).

 

Mentioning the M16 is applicable, but not a military career.  The same people were citing everything about the XM8 being "What America needs" and then did a three-sixty and never explained why the weapon was all of a sudden "not worth it."  If you think they found all those problems in a one month span after praising it for years then that's what you believe.  I'm more inclined to side with people studying exterior influences.

 

At Near-Mastery rank 9, I know what to look for: That's how I know the Ignis' damage/damage type isn't the primary thing holding it back. Take a look at current "end-game" content like say, T3 Void Defense - its 8m range is so short that you'd either need to let the enemies that can basically one-hit kill the pod inside the defensive cordon, or you need to leave the relative safety of the cordon to close with the level 100+ enemies in which case you're looking at either being killed by them or by the defensive lasers if your team needs to use them.

 

It could have the highest damage in the game and it wouldn't make a bit of difference in that case. That's not the only case either. I know from experience: You want to use it against ancients? It requires you to be close enough to have your shields and energy insta-drained before you can even fire, or potentially within the cloud of a toxic one. Want to use it against the Grineer Heavies? Ditto, you need to be close enough to get smacked by their ground-pound first.

 

That's what keeps it from being viable at the highest levels of play, because at that point the enemies are big enough DPS hoses you're either crippled and running for cover or dead by the time you can recover.

 

And ammunition economy is a method (and effective one) of balancing the weapons. Otherwise there'd be no real incentive not to take Dual Vipers or Afuris over say, the Aklato.

 

You're doing a lot harping on about two words in a five paragraph post, bud. Hint, out of the two of us, the one who's calling attention to it ain't me. Regardless, I'm talking about the actual testing criteria, i.e. the stuff in black in white the offered alternatives were required (and ended up failing) to do... if you want to talk conspiracies you can make a better case for the Stryker family of vehicles (which didn't meet their KPPs but were adopted anyway), but this's kinda getting off-topic.

[Vanadio]

Very interesting post, I hope to contribute positively.

 

DE added final multipliers to certain type of damage to specific body parts and factions, to mitigate the fact that all non AI damage is crap at high level. This is more than empiric speculation, but data coming from data mining. I assume this is true, if it is not the suggestion is still valid.

 

When you have a system with such a massive damage reduction against non AI damage, you are basically forced to adjust "normal" damage after armor calculations. IE infest cut in HALF armor piercing damage (nice try!) and multiply by 2 fire and by 3 serrated blade. Fire against infest would be not viable much earlier if they would not put the multiplier.

 

You basically have a huge sponge (armor) that nullifies any non AI damage, so you have to adjust with little elegance the outcome with final multipliers.

 

Proposed new point of view:

 

1) Do you want to keep this huge armor reduction? Well, _remove_ the concept of armor ignoring damage (it's insane as you pronounce it) and start writing resistance tables. Do you know why AI weapons are destined to OPness? Because that Serration type mods on AI weapons become Armor Ignoring MODS in a world where you give us only few elemental mods that are ALL affected by armor (excluded armor piercing mods). So secondaries that ignores armor have a 210% elemental armor ignore boost OMG! Despair, Acrid :(

 

2) Make each damage type a weapon comes with, a PLUS for a faction a MINUS for an other. Keep "bullettness" as damage type good across the board.

 

Corpus? Elect, Laser

Grineer? Poison, Bolt

Infest? Fire, Blade

 

Bullet? for everything

 

##################

 

Hypothetical 3 only type of damage (for semplicity, but we want lots of damage types :)

 

Type ---- Faction ---- Enemy ---- Zone ----- Faction/enemy mult -- Body part multiplier -- Final

 

??? -- Grineer --- Lancer ---- Head ----- 0,8 ----------------- 2 --------------------- 1,6

Bolt ---- Grineer --- Lancer ---- Head ----- 1,5 ----------------- 2 --------------------- 3

Electr -- Grineer --- Lancer ---- Head ----- 1 ------------------- 2 --------------------- 2,2

[...]

??? -- Infested -- Ancient --- Leg ------ 1,5 ----------------- 2,1 ------------------- 3,15

Bolt ---- Infested -- Ancient --- Leg ------ 1 ------------------- 2,1 ------------------- 2,1

Electr -- Infested -- Ancient --- Leg ------ 0,8 ----------------- 2,1 ------------------- 1,68

[...]

??? -- Corpus ---- MOA ------- Battery -- 1 ------------------- 3 --------------------- 3

Bolt ---- Corpus ---- MOA ------- Battery -- 0,8 ----------------- 3 --------------------- 2,4

Electr -- Corpus ---- MOA ------- Battery -- 1,5 ----------------- 3 --------------------- 4,5

[...]

 

And so on.

 

Now adjust HP levels to let us kill things in the time you want.

 

You have no OP damage type, you have elemental damage working like any damage, just need right tool for the job.

You will not have the best weapons for the game, but the best weapon/elemental composition choice for each given situation.

 

And I can use Lato Prime when I'll have it, in the VOID :P

 

Thx for reading!

[Vaskadar]

Thanks for the post, but what does this mean for normal damage? Armor scaling continues to mitigate normal damage until it's nearly non-existent up into the higher levels. It starts to become apparent at around levels 50-60, and is blatantly obvious at 70.

Edited July 26, 2013 by Vaskadar

[Vanadio]

"Normal" I mean non armor ignoring damage.

They could adjust the armor scaling formula to be more steep, the main thing is: at what enemy level do you want me to stop killing in a reasonable time even primed/roar/sonar enemies? Soon or later a soft cap must be, and I'm ok with this but the fact is that this cap must exist for all weapons, not only for non AI. Because you shouldn't restrict the endgame to the 25% of the weapons AND with projectile (slow bullets).

[Vaskadar]

I would have to say a soft-cap is necessary for this game. Anything higher than 50% however is limiting weapon choice and hurts the game as a whole. This past weekend event we saw enemy diversity and differentiating tactics. That is what will make a game harder without making it seem like you're just shooting for no apparent reason other than to whittle down enemy health.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Vaskadar

[fatpig84]

This is not about the weapons, it is about the armor and resistance.

 

Putting a cap on then either buffing enemies weapons, hp, greater chance to spawn special types or enemy has more abilities to use is the only way to go.

[Vaskadar]

I'd say they should start with limiting armor scaling and go from there. I do agree with ya.

[Vaskadar]

Power creep rears its ugly head again. I don't like content becoming outdated or obsolete. It kills diversity, limits options in gameplay, and forces us down the path of dominant strategies.

Starting gear should be easy to use, but with less overall payoff. That's fine, I can understand that, but weapons shouldn't be strictly better than the other.

It'll become an 'arms race' of stupid proportions, with people calling for buffs left and right for the most powerful weapons in that weapon class. Please don't follow this path, DE.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Vaskadar

[weirdee]

If DE started taking advantage of their weapon skin slot they could do upgrade far easier without eclipsing the older weapon. Some weapon are terrible and always have been(all 1 hander of all types and a few other that are just neglected or eat too much ammo) and are like the toys on the island of misfits toys.

 

I would rather DE make far less weapons but have each weapon of far higher quality. This is just my opinion, I do not need 5 different Bratons I just want one good all-purpose rifle. Same with all the melee weapon I would prefer if they would not make them useable for all content remove them outright. I can't stand to have weapons that are nothing but novelty items and my urge to discard them will not let me keep them in my weapon slots.

 

the issue with weapon skin distribution is that it only really comes up in alerts, meaning that you have to camp twitter all day just to get a chance at it, instead of it not being heavily reliant on timing, and shouldn't be a factor for upgrades to basic weaponry

[LazyKnight]

the issue with weapon skin distribution is that it only really comes up in alerts, meaning that you have to camp twitter all day just to get a chance at it, instead of it not being heavily reliant on timing, and shouldn't be a factor for upgrades to basic weaponry

They could stick parts in the void or other missions. The alerts are overused and they shouldn't use that as a means of distribution of new items. If they made upgrading something like a Bustron Prime require collection 4 BP to assemble a new skin with all parts as boss drops on a hard mission, just an example.

Edited August 22, 2013 by LazyKnight

[weirdee]

the void's actually less accessible than the alerts

[ForumSmurf]

i pose a possible solution:

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/96511-spirit-of-the-prime-weapon-design/

[OblivionNecroninja]

Armor scaling is a terrible idea, and they should scrap it in favor of giving each enemy type a flat amount of armor that doesn't scale with level.

Like the Warframes have.

[Vaskadar]

Issue is still here after all this time. Please DE, this is making me want to stop playing the game due to wasted effort with using weapons.

When's Armor 2.0 supposed to be out? I mean, the framework needs to be there. You guys will need to evaluate every weapon that you put out. Balancing shouldn't take this long.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Vaskadar

[Boxyninja]

i would have to agree cant wait for armor 2.0 so i can break out my gorgon again.

[NikolaiLev]

The fact that the game is beta has little bearing on its balance design.  It's clear DE has a very small emphasis on balance as a whole, and frankly it seems the power creep is wholly intentional.  In the short time I've played Warframe I've already seen the Soma, the Galatine, and the Vectis completely outmode older weapons, which sometimes outright get "retired" from the market.

 

This is clearly a deliberate trend to keep platinum income flowing.  There's absolutely no benefit to players to have this sort of power creep in the game, but there's a clear benefit to the developer's income to force players to grind or buy new weapons to stay competitive.

 

It's sad, but true.  Being a co-op game, they don't need to maintain even a modicum of balance like free-to-play MOBAs do.  They can have as much power creep as they want, and it's conducive to business.  Just not to balance design.  But who cares about balance?  That shiny new weapon does 300% crit damage!

Edited November 3, 2013 by NikolaiLev