Why Is Armor Ignore And Piercing Everything?

[DiabolusUrsus]

I have to laugh every time one of the min-maxers or other related subgroup of 'hardcore' players says that changing armor scaling will make the game into 'casual S#&$.' That's odd. I don't understand how it isn't casual now - all you have to do to fix the problem of armor scaling is use a weapon that ignores armor. Which is what you do. How is changing enemy mechanics so that a broader range of weapons are decently effective (not more effective than armor-ignoring weapons, just decently effective) going to make the game easier? It literally only broadens the possibilities for loadouts beyond just armor-ignoring weapons. Having every player restricted to a niche group of weapons for endgame content is boring and pointless.

This isn't about making the game easier or more difficult. This is about making it more fun. It's misguided to adopt the pretense of preferring 'hardcore' difficulty when all you are doing is bypassing the issues other players are having by simply using weapons that aren't affected by the system that is in place. Once all the weapons are on more equal footing, it will be easier to balance them into more uniquely entertaining pieces of equipment. Believe it or not, once weapons are on equal footing, it will be easier to balance the game towards a higher difficulty margin without completely screwing over newer players who don't have access to the necessary equipment yet. *Le gasp!* The proposed change might actually help you get more of what you want!

[whitejackale]

I have to laugh every time one of the min-maxers or other related subgroup of 'hardcore' players says that changing armor scaling will make the game into 'casual S#&$.' That's odd. I don't understand how it isn't casual now - all you have to do to fix the problem of armor scaling is use a weapon that ignores armor. Which is what you do. How is changing enemy mechanics so that a broader range of weapons are decently effective (not more effective than armor-ignoring weapons, just decently effective) going to make the game easier? It literally only broadens the possibilities for loadouts beyond just armor-ignoring weapons. Having every player restricted to a niche group of weapons for endgame content is boring and pointless.

This isn't about making the game easier or more difficult. This is about making it more fun. It's misguided to adopt the pretense of preferring 'hardcore' difficulty when all you are doing is bypassing the issues other players are having by simply using weapons that aren't affected by the system that is in place. Once all the weapons are on more equal footing, it will be easier to balance them into more uniquely entertaining pieces of equipment. Believe it or not, once weapons are on equal footing, it will be easier to balance the game towards a higher difficulty margin without completely screwing over newer players who don't have access to the necessary equipment yet. *Le gasp!* The proposed change might actually help you get more of what you want!

DE should make it so that armour stops scaling at a certain point in order to make each weapon have its place depending on what faction you are fighting. Different weapons should have the edge over other weapons in specific environments, but the game should never require us to use specific weapons in every endgame situation.

[whitejackale]

Read my other posts, and you would notice that I feel the current Mastery requirements are messed up, which is part of why the normal progression system all games use is not working, rather than the armor scaling screwing us.

 

Something that is as strong as Kunai should be Mastery 5, 6, or 7, instead. Paris should be around Mastery 4. Supra could be Mastery 2 or 3. Whatever.

 

Like I said in other posts, I think it is the availability of what should be late-game weapons too early in the game that has everyone scratching their heads as to how the armor scaling works.

 

We should also be getting more powerful late-game weapons similar in play styles to Braton, Latron, Grakata, etcetera that should have built in AP/AI damage to bring all the late-game firearms on par with the late-game bolt weapons.

Shuffling the mastery requirements around for different weapons depending on how they currently perform is not the solution.

 

The solution to the problem would be to fix the way in which the damage calculations are done. From what I currently know of damage calculations, armour is taken into account before all of the elemental and armour piercing damage mods. This means that our armour piercing mods come into the equation after armour mitigation(does that make any sense?), that elemental damage is mitigated by armour and then by resists, and that any weapon that is not taking armour into account with always be better as enemies level up. 

 

So the problem has nothing to do with weapon masteries, their intended use, or anything like that. It is simple damage calculations that are not being done correctly.(If the knowledge that I have about the way that combat works is correct)

[IronRushBR]

The fact is... this armor scalling thing need to change. I dont know why devs can't see this.

[Aspari]

Yeah, DE, go make warframe more closer to another casual sh`t game in endless bunch of them.

You don't know what the Hek you're talking about sir.

[GeneralArmchair]

This isn't scaling.  This is "armor ignore or go home."

[Kyte]

Shuffling the mastery requirements around for different weapons depending on how they currently perform is not the solution.

 

The solution to the problem would be to fix the way in which the damage calculations are done. From what I currently know of damage calculations, armour is taken into account before all of the elemental and armour piercing damage mods. This means that our armour piercing mods come into the equation after armour mitigation(does that make any sense?), that elemental damage is mitigated by armour and then by resists, and that any weapon that is not taking armour into account with always be better as enemies level up. 

 

So the problem has nothing to do with weapon masteries, their intended use, or anything like that. It is simple damage calculations that are not being done correctly.(If the knowledge that I have about the way that combat works is correct)

 

Hm? No, armor reduction is the last thing applied. Elemental damage comes from base damage, but is then reduced by armor.

 

[whitejackale]

Hm? No, armor reduction is the last thing applied. Elemental damage comes from base damage, but is then reduced by armor.

 

Either way, the damage will end up the same if armour is mitigating elemental damage on top of elemental resists.

[Guest]

i dont understand why armor should "scale" at all

why didnt they just equip their best armor in the first place?

I feel that it's a big waste of time dispatching, for lack of better words, naked units against us

Edited August 10, 2013 by Guest

[Kyte]

Either way, the damage will end up the same if armour is mitigating elemental damage on top of elemental resists.

Except for AP.

[theangelbelow88]

Except for AP.

Oh AP the best elemental damage, and only shotguns get to truly appreciate it.

[whitejackale]

Except for AP.

The question is, does AP ignore armour, or is it mitigated by it like the rest of elemental damage? And does it make sense for AP and other elemental damage to be mitigated by armour?

[theangelbelow88]

The question is, does AP ignore armour, or is it mitigated by it like the rest of elemental damage? And does it make sense for AP and other elemental damage to be mitigated by armour?

AP is not, only a few units reduce AP and they're typically weak and easy to kill with any weapon, and some heavily armored units even take extra damage from AP, so yeah AP is the best out of the elementals.

Edited August 10, 2013 by theangelbelow88

[whitejackale]

AP is not, only a few units reduce AP and they're typically weak and easy to kill with any weapon, and some heavily armored units even take extra damage from AP, so yeah AP is the best out of the elementals.

So all elemental damage is mitigated once by armour and once by resist, except for armour piercing, which is not mitigated by armour. From what I know about combat so far, the following needs to happen.

 

1) Armour should never affect elemental damage.

2) Armour piercing mods should only affect weapons that can not ignore armour. This would be a loss of dps for weapons that already ignore armour, but they should never have been able to use an armour piercing mod when they already pierce through armour.

Edited August 10, 2013 by whitejackale

[Lers]

Capping armor on a reasonably medium level of % would also work.

The health scaling might need some adjustments in return though.

Damage reduction is a fine idea, just dont let it cross over to the ridiculous category as it does now.

EDIT: OR just give us a dmg type converter mod already. It could be balanced pretty easy with high mod point cost and / or reduced damage after conversion.

Edited August 10, 2013 by Lers

[NetSlayer]

Here is another one of my solutions.

Any weapon that does not initially have armor piercing - Achieves Armor piercing per level until 100% armor piercing at level 30.
Any weapon initially with 100% armor piercing - Achieves Puncture per level until 0.25 puncture at level 30

Also opens up possibilities of adding further stats to weapon based on it's reccommended use, per level. Like our Warframes grow in stat per level.
For example. Grakata could have minute crit rate increase every certain level perhaps alternate it with mag size.

Essentially what should make weapons differ is the style in which the warframe player uses them. Not "pick the best weapon, in order to be able to actually deal damage".

[Davoodoo]

30% armor reductions isn't as significant as it sounds on higher waves for defense missions or for the last few waves on a void defense, when you compare it to a weapons that already deals 100% pure damage.

 

Also not everyone has Corrosive Projection.

No weapon deals 100% pure dmg. Base dmg + ap mod is maybe 1/3rd of weapon dmg potential so even for them corrosive projection is useful.

As for no everyone having corrosive projection well, they need to get it sooner or later :)

 

As for armor ignore lets look at my proposal of grineer lancer

t1(lvl 1-30) 30% dmg reduction on everything that doesnt ignore armor

t2(lvl 31-90) 50% dmg reduction on everything that doesnt ignore armor

t3(lvl 90+) 70% dmg reduction on everything that doesnt ignore armor

These values are imo reasonable scaling without removing scaling completely.

 

or 

 

Elemental mods rework:

Each elemental mod adds flat dmg increase instead of elemental dmg (+30% maxed per mod should be fine to keep current balance, wildfire etc 20%)

During mission you can switch ammo for each of elemental types equipped, rounds will deal 100% of that dmg type(ap,fire,elec,ice,standard). Same thing could be done with melee but im not sure how to call that in there, coating?? 

But it would require slight buff on bolt weapons base dmg.

Edited August 10, 2013 by Davoodoo

[BoompigXD]

I think i have a solution to this Armor Problem

 

Basically, all weapons except AI/AP weapons have "Armor Shred"

 

Armor Shred will reduce the amount of armor a target has by a percentage each time their hit.

 

For example:

My Braton takes away 1% of the enemies armor per bullet

My enemy has 100 armor

By the time i've burnt through a cilp of my Braton they're armor is about 65

 

Thoughts?