Let's Talk About Mods

[Rottae]

Hello, Many of you ppl might have seen me posting randomly in different topics and in my thread https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/70401-warframe-end-game-grinding-skinners-box-and-kis/

 

Now I want to talk about mods, both the merits of mods and the cons of mods. 

Generally mods are our most distinctive levelling feature, it's what brings us health/shield/damage to any of our equipment or powers. It's what differentiate a Vet from a new player, mostly because the mods are either rare or RNG to get. Some people doesnt even see basic mods untill lvl 15+ such as redirection.

The first thing i want to mention is the variety of mods that exist and how that is really good, I like how there is so much customization hidden inside our game, you can build a poison tank character with only fire damage if you want to. The problem with this is how unbalanced mods are to eachother, many mods are distinctively more powerful then other (Antitoxin vs Redirection, guess which one trumphs out the other). This is a problem because it creates "the best" build for any given item, which makes the great customization into a min-max race. There is no reason to play without multishot if you have it, there is no reason to play without Blaze on shotguns if you have it.

This is as much of a balance issue as there  can be, there should be "best DPS build" but it should be trumphed in utility by something else, and that should be trumphed by a third option, that is countered by a fourth option and so on.

 

Another problem right now, that is both a difficulty curve problem and a mod problem. How mods scale, whenever a mod is ranked up, it is increased by 100% of the base value. This is not a problem in and out of itself, but the problem is when we had several percentage mods that affect the same stat (in reality, not theory) that make all of the end game weapons seem much or less the same if they do not posses special qualities such as Armor ignore or Serrated Blade damage. lets take a random weapon in the game and with max damage mods, max multishot and maxed out elementals, this gives us atleast 1200% increased damage on most ranged weapons. Compared to a begineers 0% that are only increased when they find their first damage mods and it won't be quadratic like the one we witnessed up there, because they only got one damage amp by then.

 

This means that the difficulty curve needs to be tweaked to players gaining mods they don't have and levelling these mods, that when they don't have em, wont be able to do.

My suggestion to the remake would be to change mods to initially give a high value (Such as a 35% multishot mod) that is then increased when you level it by a lower value (5% extra per level, up to 60% multishot for example) this would make the difference between a maxed player and a starter player atleast a little bit lower while allowing the difficulty curve be more of a curve instead of a line with a huge bump upfront that later crashes into oblivion.

 

My last topic is just that of starting players reliance on mods, a new player is much more likely to need a multishot mod, then a veteran player or any mod for that reason. Whatever gives them an edge in the start. So i suggest giving every basic mod (Redirection, Vitality, Pressure Point, Hornet Strike and Serration) to every new player and make so a player cannot have less then 1 of these mods as any time, because these mods are the definition of essential om Warframe, because levelling our weapons doesn't give any increased stats.

[eStecko]

I pretty much agree with OP and would like to add, that it's also a reason why we have level health-damage-armor-shield scaling of enemies and thats why it becomes an issue. Firefall does a great job in this regard (with exception of some bulletspongie enemies).

 

Also Extra Credits did a great video about this.

 

Edited July 24, 2013 by eStecko

[Bakercompany86]

I like the current mod system.  Although I wonder if Warframe could benefit from an equipment slot based GUI for Mods.  

 

IE.  Certain mods can only be equiped in certain slots.  Would allow/force mix/matching instead of forcing the "best build" scenario.  Or it could result in the same...not certain.

[Rottae]

Everyone should watch extra credits, and thanks for linking to that video, It's great.

I don't think we need restrictions in builds, just true variation

[Bakercompany86]

Yes, watch that video. It was fantastic and very enlightening!

 

The Devs should watch it too, if they aren't aware of that element already =)

[eStecko]

I like the current mod system.  Although I wonder if Warframe could benefit from an equipment slot based GUI for Mods.  

 

IE.  Certain mods can only be equiped in certain slots.  Would allow/force mix/matching instead of forcing the "best build" scenario.  Or it could result in the same...not certain.

In theory it could work, having slots like "damage, utility, etc" mod slots. Other solution would be to get rid of percentage mods and make a set in stone numerical modifiers per each weapon. In either case, by my opinion, it shoud be able to beat most of the ingame content with starting set, if the player is skilled enough, yet doesnt have the top tier mods/build/warframe/weapons. Some gametypes could remain the same, like endless defense and the difficulty shoud not be only numerical. Or did Warframe moved into RPG gerne some time ago?

[MeteorKing]

As far as weapons are concerned, true variation will never happen.  Certain builds will always do more damage and that will be the best thing to do.  And that's fine since weapon mods are only to make the gun itself, which is where the differences between weapons are found, stronger.

[Bakercompany86]

In theory it could work, having slots like "damage, utility, etc" mod slots. Other solution would be to get rid of percentage mods and make a set in stone numerical modifiers per each weapon. In either case, by my opinion, it shoud be able to beat most of the ingame content with starting set, if the player is skilled enough, yet doesnt have the top tier mods/build/warframe/weapons. Some gametypes could remain the same, like endless defense and the difficulty shoud not be only numerical. Or did Warframe moved into RPG gerne some time ago?

That was kind of my line of thinking.

 

You can break up the most popular mod combinations by using the slot system.  So you can't take crit and crit damage, only one or the other for that slot etc.  Would be easy to implement I believe.

[JollierThanThou]

This is as much of a balance issue as there  can be, there should be "best DPS build" but it should be trumped in utility by something else, and that should be trumped by a third option, that is countered by a fourth option and so on.

This is the big one for me. Split Chamber and Serration are pure upside and they outshine other DPS mods, including the ones with downsides. Speed Trigger needs to give a much bigger DPS boost than Split Chamber, so you have a legitimate choice between ammo economy and DPS. Thunderclap needs to have a strong enough effect that you're willing to give up damage for it. And so on.

[eStecko]

That was kind of my line of thinking.

 

You can break up the most popular mod combinations by using the slot system.  So you can't take crit and crit damage, only one or the other for that slot etc.  Would be easy to implement I believe.

Well yes, but that would also destroy the synergy of mods like those, which would require more slots, then just doing it like that. Also it would be 2nd total overhaul of the mod system. :P

 

 

Multishot pretty much gives 2x damage increase as it gives you a second bullet that does same damage with the multipliers again, therefor if you stack up all elemental damages, crit chance/damage and %damage and thats why multishot is more and more powerfull in dependance on other damage mods, making it a must.

Edited July 24, 2013 by eStecko

[11.11.11]

 

Also Extra Credits did a great video about this.

 

 

Thanks for that - an excellent way to make your point - and I even learned some new things too :D 

[Bakercompany86]

Well yes, but that would also destroy the synergy of mods like those, which would require more slots, then just doing it like that. Also it would be 2nd total overhaul of the mod system. :P

 

 

Multishot pretty much gives 2x damage increase as it gives you a second bullet that does same damage with the multipliers again, therefor if you stack up all elemental damages, crit chance/damage and %damage and thats why multishot is more and more powerfull in dependance on other damage mods, making it a must.

That might not be a bad thing.  I personally like to avoid things like the sacred Diablo III "trifecta" where people stacked crit %, crit damage, and haste which always = best build.

 

As far as the overhaul, I wasn't around for the first one.  What was it like before they changed it?  I'm not opposed to massive overhauls during beta, I encourage it if the devs think it's what will bring the best experience for us all.

[MeteorKing]

This is the big one for me. Split Chamber and Serration are pure upside and they outshine other DPS mods, including the ones with downsides. Speed Trigger needs to give a much bigger DPS boost than Split Chamber, so you have a legitimate choice between ammo economy and DPS. Thunderclap needs to have a strong enough effect that you're willing to give up damage for it. And so on.

Serration and split chamber are there to give your other mods more power.  Your speed trigger argument is fine, but the thunderclap one is not.  Stunlock is crazy powerful.

[eStecko]

That might not be a bad thing.  I personally like to avoid things like the sacred Diablo III "trifecta" where people stacked crit %, crit damage, and haste which always = best build.

 

As far as the overhaul, I wasn't around for the first one.  What was it like before they changed it?  I'm not opposed to massive overhauls during beta, I encourage it if the devs think it's what will bring the best experience for us all.

 

[Bakercompany86]

And they went AWAY from this?  Hmmm...interesting.

[MeteorKing]

And they went AWAY from this?  Hmmm...interesting.

It looks TERRIBLE and it's vastly more complicated and difficult to use than the current one.

 

Edit:  Not only that, but when it comes down to it, it's still a drag and drop system.

Edited July 24, 2013 by MeteorKing

[Yorinar]

That might not be a bad thing.  I personally like to avoid things like the sacred Diablo III "trifecta" where people stacked crit %, crit damage, and haste which always = best build.

 

As far as the overhaul, I wasn't around for the first one.  What was it like before they changed it?  I'm not opposed to massive overhauls during beta, I encourage it if the devs think it's what will bring the best experience for us all.

The original mod system had a set tree for each warframe. Abilities were unlocked by unlocking parts of the tree and ultimates were only unlockable once potatoed. Mods were much like the mods we have now except that you could unlock mod slots in your tree. A full tree was larger than the number of nodes you could unlock, so you could customize a frame by choosing which path you would take. Individual mods came in common, uncommon, and rare varieties. The percentages were random on each mod, with higher percentages being on higher rarity/level mods. This meant someone could theoretically stack 7 +25% sprint speed mods and move so fast it literally broke the game. Some mods also came with two stats.

The new mod system is much more intuitive and easier to balance, but it lacks the feeling of discovery that mods had before. After a run on Xini, going through your inventory and seeing what mods you had collected and discovering a +9.1 rifle puncture mod, etc.

[Rottae]

What meteorking said, also my friend said his braton had stupidly high amounts of ammo during that time. I played during closed beta but never got into it because i never really digged it back then

[JollierThanThou]

Serration and split chamber are there to give your other mods more power.  Your speed trigger argument is fine, but the thunderclap one is not.  Stunlock is crazy powerful.

I think there's a lot of wiggle room in Thunderclap. The hard limit on rifle stun duration is 1.46s (the reload time on a Burston with max Fast Hands). Really, though, I was looking for an example of a non-DPS mod worth equipping. Imagine a version of Thunderclap that costs 90 points to equip and stuns for 1.2 seconds. It would promote specialization in parties--say, three players built for DPS or ammo efficiency, and one built for stunlock.

[Bakercompany86]

Personally, I enjoy complicated setups for things like this.  But that is *only* a personal preference.

 

The mod system as it is, to me, seemed very plain.  Fusions are cool.  But otherwise you just get a big number to stay under, and you just plop mods into the grid. End of story.

 

I like things to have trees, and synergies, and stuff like that.  Keeps it interesting.  But again, only personal opinion.  Not necessarily better.

[Rottae]

The thing with their old system was that the numbers was statistically to high, especially when you could stack several of the same mods.

I think numbers are becoming more and more of a problem in warframe then anything else to be honest

[Yorinar]

I think numbers are becoming more and more of a problem in warframe then anything else to be honest

How so? Power creep issue or the fact that we can't really see what our builds result in? (as in, no UI for viewing what your actual sprint speed is, etc)

[Rottae]

Power creep is the first problem, that we can't see what we actually have is the second one. Both are pretty solid concerns for a game as the first one affect end game players and the second one is a problem for newer and older players alike.

[SmallPaws]

First of all, reduce or eliminate the ability mods that can drop. They serve absolutely no function other than being a lowly ranked fusion core at best. And we also get them when we create the Frame. Up the Fusion core drop rates with this removal. That will allow a player to upgrade a specific mod quickly but not enable them get the rare mods, leaving their intrinsic value untouched.

Edited July 25, 2013 by SmallPaws

[Ss3trnks2]

Agreed, ability mods need to drop about half the amount that they currently do.