Difficulty, Balance Of Power Vs Skill, Powercreep And More

[Manly_McManface]

Great post! I definitely agree that the difficulty spikes should be much more in depth than just armor health and damage. I would love to see some new, more difficult enemy types. They have attempted this with scorpions and such, but its true, they are sooooo annoying!!! I just thought of something awesome... Instead of heavy units being bullet sponges, they should be mini Kril's with a certain weak point you have to hit before you can damage it. I really don't like bullet sponges. I love being able to kill most things in just a few shots, but I don't like an easy game, and there is a way to have both.

[NaotaZ]

There's a point where sheer numbers will crowd out depth and tactics, but I don't actually think this is Warframe's problem at the moment. It's not that the potential exists to outwit/outplay tough enemies like Heavy Gunners, but this has no payoff due to their massive health and damage; or that our Tenno have skill-based combat maneuvers which we never execute because they're less effective than basic cover shooting. Those are cases of number-based scaling taking away gameplay depth. Warframe's core gameplay isn't yet deep enough to have these problems.

 

What we have in Warframe is a situation where regardless of stats the enemies don't facilitate clever tactics or reward skill-based play to begin with. They never seriously endanger you under normal circumstances, and when they finally do you die almost immediately with little you could have done to save yourself. There's no thrill of barely hanging on in a tough situation, just as there's no thrill of using skills you've cultivated over time to sweep through enemies like a well-oiled machine, knowing that a single mistake on your part at any point would halt your rampage. Both situations pressure the player for different reasons, and both are immensely satisfying.

 

Warframe lacks pressure, and because of this fails to engage the player more often than not. Killing enemies is such a simple mechanical process that I often tune out, set my lower-level brain functions on autopilot, and clean up levels while holding a VoIP conversation without even paying attention to what I'm doing. By comparison killing enemies in Hotline Miami is literally just point and click, but it is intense, and rapidly jumps between "Oh man I can't believe I'm still alive-" and "I am awesome for doing what I just did!" It has the ceiling room for players to do really well if they can manage a challenging task, and a low enough floor that simply making it through a tough situation can be fun and satisfying in its own right.

 

For instance: a tough situation is realizing that you're out of position and the cryopod is about to die, only for you to vault a wall, fly over the heads of six corpus surrounding it, and gun them all down with expert precision as the pod stabilizes at a mere 5% HP. But outside of the earliest missions this almost never happens. In the overwhelming majority of (failed) defense missions the pod stays at 100% HP for 95% of the game, then loses all of it in under a second with no chance for you to realize what's happened. Even if you do rescue the pod from death, chances are all you did was toss a Bastile in its direction and effortlessly kill the surrounding attackers. Joy.

 

Likewise I've only ever lost an Escort mission twice, and both times I had absolutely no idea that mission failure was imminent or why. I was running down an empty hallway towards extraction and BOOM. MISSION OVER. In the hundreds of other Escorts I've done, I open the prisoner's cell and promptly forget he exists while I run off to the shuttles. It works until it doesn't, and neither occurrence is any fun.

 

There's no pressure that you might fail, and paradoxically when you do fail it's not often something you had immediate control over or realized was happening until the very moment it did. That's the crux of it.

Edited August 7, 2013 by NaotaZ

[litlit]

Because it requires you to grind, and spend more time in the game, in order to obtain the right weapon with the right amount of armor bypassing to win.

 

This is why I hate vertical progression.

 

Actually, I (and a number of other players) have empirical proof that their armor formula isn't working as intended. Not going into detail in this thread (I'll be making a thread explaining the problem later), but I've been running tests that have conclusively proven armor is broken (not just that the way scaling is set up is horrible, but in the sense that something in the code isn't working right). Now, these tests I'm talking about are all based on info from Pwnatron's spreadsheet -- however, since you can make the Grineer's armor cause them to take more than an unmodded bullet-type weapon's base damage on a non-headshots, even if all of Pwnatron's info is wrong there's still something wrong with the code.

Edited August 7, 2013 by litlir

[11.11.11]

~What we have in Warframe is a situation where regardless of stats the enemies don't facilitate clever tactics or reward skill-based play to begin with. They never seriously endanger you under normal circumstances, and when they finally do you die almost immediately with little you could have done to save yourself....................................

Both situations pressure the player for different reasons, and both are immensely satisfying.

 

~Warframe lacks pressure, and because of this fails to engage the player more often than not. Killing enemies is such a simple mechanical process that I often tune out, set my lower-level brain functions on autopilot, and clean up levels while holding a VoIP conversation without even paying attention to what I'm doing. 

 

~There's no pressure that you might fail, and paradoxically when you do fail it's not often something you had immediate control over or realized was happening until the very moment it did. That's the crux of it.

 

 

[GTG3000]

Shameless doublepost.

 

Because Extra Credits is just awesome, let's put some more of their vids here. And its something different from reading another wall of text.

 

*snip*

 

You shouldn't forget that they also LOVE to soapbox, and usually look at some issues from their own, weirdly optimistic angle in pink glasses.

 

That said, I would certainly love DE to learn what ExraCredits are saying. This game needs to challenge skill, and I completely approove of your post.

 

Of all things, I think Killing Floor would be a nice example here. In that game, there are: increacingly difficult enemies, that will pound you into floor if you're not ready (check), that also have their roles and specific behaviour, and therefore - specific strategy (check), six different classes, each with his own role (check), and a big requirement towards skill without being punishing (unless you go to hard from the get-go. Also, check). 

That game is a lot unlike Warframe, but it provides a good image of what a PvE game can be with good balance.

[11.11.11]

Of all things, I think Killing Floor would be a nice example here. In that game, there are: increacingly difficult enemies, that will pound you into floor if you're not ready (check), that also have their roles and specific behaviour, and therefore - specific strategy (check), six different classes, each with his own role (check), and a big requirement towards skill without being punishing (unless you go to hard from the get-go. Also, check). 

That game is a lot unlike Warframe, but it provides a good image of what a PvE game can be with good balance.

 

Another good example to draw from is L4D and its sequel. 

 

Completely different focus from warframe - but an older game with solely PVE enemies, and yet drastically more engaging enemy behaivour and AI. 

[Ruzu]

Pfffffrrrt

 

Learning and execution is now the same as increased damage and health without any influence in execution or learning?

 

If only you could hear yourself and the nonsense that comes out.

 

It seems I didn't make my post as clearly as I intended to make it. Learning and execution by itself is a great experience. What you are misinformed about is how much is enough. If it was all about learning hundreds of new attack patterns, you can just google every safespot and the timing for when you should go into said safespot. Where's the 'skill' in that? Please tell me. Thinking on this now, I suddenly have doubts as to whether or not Dark Souls does in fact have skill associated with it.

 

Now let's say you increased the amount of damage a boss does in general. Let's also say you incur significantly reduced damage while blocking or something. Maybe 1 or 2%. Now let's also make it so safespots aren't really safespots, they just have a high chance of dodging a move if you time it correctly. Let's say Dark Souls 2/3/etc incorporated all this. Now, when a boss is charging at you, you have to decide whether to take a small risk by going into the safespot with a low chance of getting damaged, or a huge risk by completely moving out of the way at the right time, with no chance of getting damaged. Wearing tougher armor would naturally reduce the amount of damage you take in the safespot but you would still be at risk, especially at low health. Equipping a stronger weapon would allow you to take the boss down more quickly, reducing the amount of time you have to take risks.

-----

TLDR: 

-Just- memorizing attack patterns? No skill whatsoever once you memorize all the attack patterns. Just need the right timing which -anyone- can do with enough practice in timing what to do, and when to do it

 

Memorizing attack patterns w/the addition that nowhere is safe, and there is a proportionate amount of risk for every investment made? You need to keep your wits sharp, your reflexes honed, and a sound judgement to stay alive. In this kind of situation, highly skilled players reap all the rewards, while casuals face the appropriate level of difficulty.

-----

 

What you're basically telling me is that dodging attacks that can be learned and have a safespot is called skill. I'll be honest and give Darksouls some credit. It pulls of the "skill" portion of the game perfectly the first walkthrough, and until you memorize every attack pattern in the game. Afterwards? It possess absolutely 0 challenge. Which is -why- numerical domination is such a wondrous compliment. It curbs that stale formula by telling you that you can be killed off quickly unless you continuously hone your abilities and assess the situation. You can't just run in and expect not to die, but if you -can- get in, you can unleash a world or pain if you're close enough that the abilities of the enemy are hindered to the point where they have to resort to close-ranged combat.

 

So no, I'm not talking nonsense. I just obviously didn't express my thoughts clearly enough. For that, I apologize.

 

Edit: @NaotaZ

 

I'm conflicted here. I'm not sure what the most optimal answer to this is, but here are my thoughts anyways.

 

Just the fact that you can beat Dark Souls without ever having to upgrade your character hints more towards a skill centric game rather than progression. As the other poster said, it is impossible to take on more difficult challenges without severely upgrading your stuff, hence why warframe is a pure progression game. Dark Souls does have that option, but it's possible to opt out of that route as well. So regarding that, I'm on the fence.

 

@11.11.11

 

The reason why L4D and L4D2 offer such an optimal difficulty curve imo is that the special infected come at you from out of nowhere most of the time. Not to mention that each of the special infected have truly unique abilities that require different strategies/approaches to deal with. To be honest, I think the infested faction in this game is the only perfect faction when it comes to difficulty. It's just the concept. It really works. You got trash enemies like chargers that aggressively rush you, runners that constantly stagger you, and crawlers that have poison gas cloud variants. Then you have the Ancients. The disruptor which drains your energy and forces you to be more tactical in how you spend your power, the toxic's which constantly drain your hp which does not self-generate, and the healers, which are kind of worthless right now. They should heal more and at a quicker pace so that all 3 of the Ancient's are equally as dangerous and annoying to deal with.

 

Find a disruptor annoying? You have a healer healing it and a toxic constantly draining your health.

Find a healer annoying? You have a disruptor draining you, and a toxic constantly draining your health.

Find a toxic annoying? You have a disruptor draining you, and a healer healing it.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Ruzu

[JusticeJack]

This topic is something that give me hope about constructive criticism, so i will try to add something to it.Forgive my eventually bad english (got to learn it by myself)

Most of these posts are already well thought, and there isn't much i can add,but if i am correct, i may be the first to bring this point to our attentions :

While mastery system is good in term of "making you exlpore the content", the GAME ITSELF is opposite in every possible way to this goal.
Example : I am the warlord of a very small clan,mostly of RL friend. (less then 10 members).I am not the member with the best gear,or the longest play time.
This member ,let's call him X, he is good, but in all my matches, i NEVER saw him using something wich isn't blatantly the best choice for end game.EVEN AT LOW LEVELS.
He use (mostly) Frost prime.With something like 4 damn formas on it.With boltor, Despair, orthos.
It's not the best loadout ever,i know that, but it's still a very solid ,probably one of the best combination in most situation, AND THIS is the problem that we all know and adress :
GAME VARIETY.
It's a Pve game,so we can't expect too much variety in mission type,ok, but since we have lots of different weapon,that we are encourage to try, i find hilarious that the game itself make levelling the "non-OP/amazing/perfect weapons" always nothing but PAIN and regret.
Like grakata.I love smgs, and i know some pro is gonna say "my potatoed five formad grakata is amazing", i get it,truth is to get there, you do nothing but suffer a useless weapon, while all your less inspired friend just stick and buff even more up their gears, you aren't "exploring" , you are in fact "RACING TO STOP EXPLORING", you can't wait to see the day you won't be forced (to unlock interesting weapon) to use garbage or impractical weapon, like grakata, or sicarius,or a single viper (Wich is by no mean BAD,but it's too damn worse than dual) or a single lato, or any longsword.
Hell,let's talk about PROVA then, one of the most unique melee,and not only it doesn't even have its own animation set,it really REALLY sucks in any situation past level 20. Even against corpus.
I am not saying to buff everything, i am saying for this example "make it always,or very OFTEN stun any target it shocks, wich not only make sense with the weapon, it does give it some utility : bad guy mowing down your team?Shock his &#! and run to cover,only with prova.
Another example?Burston, or hell,the ignis,wich i would LOVE to use,if it wasn't the worst damn weapon ever created in warframe!
Another one?The Sicarius.
Another one?Every long sword,every dagger.
While on the other hand,we have GREAT weapon that aren't exactly easy to level up,but funny and extremely rewarding without using 5+ forma on them.
Boar (at low level,grineer won't be impressed, but your ammo pool will.), Lex (i find it the BEST example for this. hard to really master, but AMAZING when mastered), or Kogake as melee,or glaive or kestrel,all melee with peculiar utility (armor ignore, silent, ragdoll and stuff).

So mastery in reality FORCES us player to suffer trough painfully useless guns, to the point we are in FACT inclined to explore as less as possible.
OR even worst,it forces us TO NOT use our favourite weapon in all high level.
I can't stand to see my beloved gorgon use half a clip on a single mob at level 100,when 5 throwing knives kills it with no effort.


So to make most of the guns endgame, we should give THEM A PURPOSE.
Hard?Yes,almost impossbile to do with every weapon.
That's why WARFRAMES are better designed than weapons,each of them has its own purpose.
Of course,not of all of them are equally adaptable to every situation,but we all have seen even the "worst frame for that mission" enjoying his difficult, but still funny mission.Example, ember at high level grineer, vauban when non defending, or volt in defence mission.
And to be honest, i can't understand why people had a "frame tier list", when it was only based on defence mission, where obviously not all frames are equally powerful.
Little sidestory : I got vauban 2 month ago, and after all the exageration about him being GOD TIER i found myself shocked to see how less effective he obviously is when NOT DEFENDING, yet still, i love to use him,since he is amazing when "preparing the ground" for a horde incoming,even when there is no cryopod or defence,it can really help the team to shrug off army of angry chasers.
But by that amazing tier list, LOKI is totally worst than vauban (supposedly,even at soloing,since the list was claimed to be for every kind of job, if i recall it.), spoiler alert, it's not.

Edited August 7, 2013 by JusticeJack

[Bakercompany86]

How do you define skill?

 

Obviously:

 

skill  

/skil/

 

Noun

The ability to do something well; expertise.

A particular ability.

 

 

 

But what is "skill" in Dark Souls?  Twitch ability to parry/riposte/dodge consistently?

 

 

I believe Skill in Dark Souls is a combination of things.  Learning, remembering, adapting.

 

I think it takes a great deal of skill to complete Dark Souls.  That's why so many had returned it to my store saying it was too hard.  They lacked the skill.

 

 

 

Now, the reference of skill in Warframe is different because this is a shooter.  We have to aim.  Even though in regards to shooters, this is an extremely low skill game....not only is it easy to aim, but if it's too challenging you can just grind past it...it's ridiculous for this type of game.

 

Edited August 7, 2013 by Bakercompany86

[Ruzu]

So mastery in reality FORCES us player to suffer trough painfully useless guns, to the point we are in FACT inclined to explore as less as possible.

OR even worst,it forces us TO NOT use our favourite weapon in all high level.

I can't stand to see my beloved gorgon use half a clip on a single mob at level 100,when 5 throwing knives kills it with no effort.

So to make most of the guns endgame, we should give THEM A PURPOSE.

Hard?Yes,almost impossbile to do with every weapon.

That's why WARFRAMES are better designed than weapons,each of them has its own purpose.

Of course,not of all of them are equally adaptable to every situation,but we all have seen even the "worst frame for that mission" enjoying his difficult, but still funny mission.Example, ember at high level grineer, vauban when non defending, or volt in defence mission.

And to be honest, i can't understand why people had a "frame tier list", when it was only based on defence mission, where obviously not all frames are equally powerful.

Little sidestory : I got vauban 2 month ago, and after all the exageration about him being GOD TIER i found myself shocked to see how less effective he obviously is when NOT DEFENDING, yet still, i love to use him,since he is amazing when "preparing the ground" for a horde incoming,even when there is no cryopod or defence,it can really help the team to shrug off army of angry chasers.

But by that amazing tier list, LOKI is totally worst than vauban (supposedly,even at soloing,since the list was claimed to be for every kind of job, if i recall it.), spoiler alert, it's not.

 

Thanks for your contribution to this thread. Unfortunately, there's a snippit that I strongly disagree with. You're not wrong, you're just looking at the mastery system in an unfortunately negative perspective. I just cringe whenever someone says the mastery system forces you to 'suffer' by using weapons you don't want to use. What happens if it ends up forcing you to use a weapon you thought was weak, but in reality, was stronger in actual field tests compared to other higher base damage weapons? Just some food for thought. Thanks to the mastery system, I now have a more informed perspective on how each good each and every weapon in this game is. Let me tell you, I've been thoroughly surprised, because I was able to learn that numerical stats only make up 1 part of the story. There are special properties that you must also take into account when determining the effectiveness of a gun over another. Sure, I hated some weapons, but I'm glad I was 'forced' to try it out, so I wouldn't immediately dismissed it. I was 'forced' to give it a chance before completing ignoring it.

 

I know this isn't real life, but, wouldn't you appreciate it if someone gave you a chance at a job, despite your resume looking seriously unimpressive? There's a chance that you would tell the employer that "I will absolutely shine and prove I'm a good investment if you just give me a chance!". You're given the chance and you either fail or succeed, but you still got a chance.

 

As for that 'loadout', it's outclassed by many other setups but if it works for that particular person, he should stick with it. As for "warframes" being better designed than weapons, baker said it perfectly. The frame system was designed in such a way that each frames has the potential to wield truly unique abilities. The weapons themselves, the bullet ones, are just bullets. It's kind of hard to make a metal projectile 'special' if you haven't already realized that fact, other then adjusting the ROF, recoil, spread patterns, and accuracy.

 

As for your gorgon and despair example. The only reason why despair outclasses the gorgon is because the gorgon is just a natural gun. While logic may not be fair sometimes, the despair, probably because of its pointed edge, has natural armor piercing abilities that can pierce armor. Thus, it deals more damage to armored units in general and is not affected by the high damage reduction on high level monsters that have increased armor protection. I know it's unfair that the gorgon isn't special, but, I'm not really sure what to say here. The only thing that comes to mind is that since this is a progression game, the game is mostly likely encouraging you to upgrade to higher tier weapons once you acquire the resources to afford them. You can still use 'lower' tier weapons, but they won't be nearly as effective. Whether or not this is the actual intention, I have no idea.

 

Here's the best advice anyone could ever give anyone else. Tier lists are 100% worthless. They only apply to the person creating it, and their actual ability with the frame in a real field test. What they -are- useful for, is if a certain character is consistently on the bottom of every person's list, this tells the developers a couple of things. Why is it on the bottom of the list? Is it too hard to use? It is worthless? Etc? Other then that, a tier list in my honest opinion, is to tell other people how good you are with specific frames and how you utilize them. That's all. There's a current tier list that you mentioned that lists Vauban as God-Tier. Many people disagree with that, and I personally die a lot with him compared to other frames, which proves the unreliability of a tier-list. If he was truly god-tier, it should be very hard for me to die with him, but because my playstyle with him is probably very different compared to the person who made that list, that obviously is not the case.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Ruzu

[11.11.11]

@11.11.11

 

The reason why L4D and L4D2 offer such an optimal difficulty curve imo is that the special infected come at you from out of nowhere most of the time. Not to mention that each of the special infected have truly unique abilities that require different strategies/approaches to deal with. To be honest, I think the infested faction in this game is the only perfect faction when it comes to difficulty. It's just the concept. It really works.

 

I would have to say that of all three factions - infested do certainly feel the most engaging to combat. That isn't to say that they are an engaging oponnent per-say...I still feel they rely too much on random behaivour _{think of the way hoards work in L4D, don't they just act in a more co-ordinated, beleivable, and threatening manner compared to the infested?} - and too much on stuns / knockdowns. 

 

It is entirely possible for a lower tier player to be juggled from one ancient to a leaper, and then get stunned by a bloater. So often I'll make a mistake and get into the radius of a bloater, only to be left frantically hammering keys to try and make my frame recover before the next one can go off and stun me again. So I feel that mechanic needs work. It just pushes people into the mentality of pressing 4 whenever they encounter difficulty. No point blocking or rolling, because even if you're past them when the stun deploys - you're yanked back and forced to watch the animation play out. 

 

As for their group behavior, it never feels as bad as the grineer or the corpus (probably simply because one expects zombies to be brainless husks) but that doesn't mean it couldn't do with some work. Hoards in L4D are a serious, frightening experience. They tend to spawn in at the worst of times, come at you from the rear or the side, and force you to land your shots and time your reloads. What really makes the hoards a frightening, but challenging (as opposed to patently broken) experience though, is that push-back mechanic. Being able to shove a few zombies back and make a window of opportunity for yourself, allows the game to be nerve-wracking and difficult without ever taking away the player agency. Not only does it put another tool in your aresenal, but it lets players adjust the difficulty to their own skill-level on the fly. Beginners can *@##$-slap zombies constantly until their poor gunplay begins to have an effect, and the more accurate survivors, will probably rarely use the skill. Its flexible and empowering, without simply killing everything in the room. 

 

So anyway. That's my feelings on the infested. Not as bad as the grineer or corpus. But could still do with a bit of variety. Love the vomit-crawlers though. I don't think I've ever been caught by one, but I very much appreciate the sense of variety they add. 

[JusticeJack]

your post

I like your answer, it make me thinks differently.

I get and like your optimistic view of the mastery system, and i am sure i made the impression i hate it.

My bad, i hate the game forcing you to not like some aspect of its own feature (like the mastery system) and i think that both of us are wrong and right for one thing : liking and hating a weapon is too subjective to really be considered universally accepted. You hated less weapons than me, we just have different taste, i am still really bothered to the pain of levelling some of them, effectively forcing you to go back in very low tier planets sometimes (prova, is just a prime example).

As for the frames>weapon argument, baker said it right, and i said the same thing, that giving purpose to a gun is HARD.

So my idea is to really try the easieast "classification" to give each weapon identity ,AND i think that the best example for this is the shotgun category.

Boar is for people who like risky cqc with monstrous dps BUT bad ammo efficiency and range.

Hek is for people who like to be a little more covered while having superior firepower but a WAY lower clip.

Strun is halfway there,for people who doesn't like "extreme weaponry (all based around ONE stats)"

Sobek kinda ruined it all.It should have been (like many of said) an even crazier hek, with 2 INCREDIBLY DAMAGING shots, and long reload, now it's just a ridiculous good in every situation op shotgun ,that on many,MANY levels can outshine every other shotgun.I don't like that, in fact, now sobek STEALS roles from every other shotgun (Big clip,high rate, good damage, not bad ammo efficiency).

Pistols almost is perfect (as a category). Automatic pistols have two identities : strong damage and crazy ammo burning hunger = Viper(s),weaker but with better ammo efficiency AND more ammo per clip = (A)Furis.

We have strong one shot cannons, like LEX and bronco (wich btw can still be as good as double broncos, thanks for the way faster reload) and the rare seer wich is btw way too strong.

We have burst pistol wich SHOULD be way stronger,sadly it's the sicarius, the problem is, the "advantage" from burst fire (more accuracy OR more damage) is missing. Damage is poor,and accuracy is very low.No great clip,no great ROF. NO IDENTITY (if not by the term "burst gun).

T

hen we have standard,semi automatic : lato and aklato (both very relaiable).

The armor ignoring one : Bolto.(Still better than akbolto for some roles,so not useless at all)

The dead space cosplayer one : Spectra (hope a buff for this beauty, she has similar problem as sicarius.)

Poisoning needle gun : Acrid. (too strong, still better than being useless)

Then we have the bad throwing stuff that is godly.

The real problem is the primary section.And i must disagree with the "tiering of weapons."

Especially when a secondary can hilariously be better than MOST primary any time.This is only wrong.

Gorgon is the only bullet light-machinegun in the game. It shouldn't be outshined in CC or in sustained damage by a secondary,or even by a standard automatic rifle, her role is HIGH DAMAGE,BIG CLIP,LOW ACCURACY. But oops, in later games it translate to Mediocre damage,Insufficient clip,and bad accuracy. And that's pairing it against a rifle,like said boltor or a well modded braton.

all i want,again is that weapon have their own role and identity, supra should have something better as a light machine gun than gorgon,and something worse right?It has : DAMAGE,and it has, but horrid aiming : gorgon and supra has same role,so they both have different identity (Gorgon = reliable accuracy and hitscan, Supra = Laser rambo, harder to aim,but monster damage)

When rifle with OTHER roles, are better at roles of other weapons,like sustained damage in the example, this make me sad.

The problem with weapons tiering regardless of their role is that in fact,encourage power creep, and we now have the champion of this in the damned bronco prime, which role is to &!$$ of Hek users,and bronco users togheter, it's a mary sue weapon with no real downside.

At last,i am happy to see i am not the only one constantly dying with vauban.

 

Edited August 8, 2013 by JusticeJack

[Ruzu]

@JusticeJack

 

I only say tiering because some weapons have special properties that allow them to do increased damage versus specific factions, or just in general, while other weapons don't have anything special to them. It would be broken if they included special properties on all new weapons, but they clearly don't. Only some weapons get it, while others don't. It is because of this fact that allowed me to see the weapon tiering system that's currently in place. Is it fair? I honestly don't have an answer for that.

[eStecko]

The answer would be very simple. Instead of using mastery for tiers or remaking weapons to fall into them in some way, just rebalance resource cost. Players with low mastery won't have to grind useless imaginatory number of "pride" and would be able to get stuff like clan weapons for a high amount of resources.

[eStecko]

New enemies in Phobos location.

 

Helios. This is what i've been talking about. New enemy types with interresting abilities - jetpacks - make the combat way more fun and more challenging by increasing Grineer's mobility with danger element of exploding jetpack going wild after unit dies. GOOD JOB DE!

 

Desert Skale is a great enemy that gives a unique feeling to the area, provides a player with atmosphere, that there is hostile organism, that is dangerous to its settlers on this planet. Although it alone, does not do much in terms of difficulty. Making them smaller (~30%) and spawn in bigger groups as lurkers might be better in this regard.

 

Bosses are quite easy... dual boss mechanic is nice, but since i can 3 shot Vor with my Snipetron and Kril does pretty much nothing. >.>

Edited August 16, 2013 by eStecko

[zezzame]

I am exited for the amour changes in update 10

[eStecko]

I am exited for the amour changes in update 10

 

Ah yes. As was announced in the livestream, there will be changes to how elemental and AP damage is dealt trough armor, since armor scales enemy health nearly exponentionaly. One of the things iam looking out the most in future update. Hopefully this will make bullet-type weapons viable again on higher levels.

[11.11.11]

Ah yes. As was announced in the livestream, there will be changes to how elemental and AP damage is dealt trough armor, since armor scales enemy health nearly exponentionaly. One of the things iam looking out the most in future update. Hopefully this will make bullet-type weapons viable again on higher levels.

 

Seconded.

[RaianStar]

I've seen topics around here that we're posting this video aswell, yet we're totaly out of context in what they we're talking about, so watch out for that. Correlation does not mean causation.

Did you eat the speaker in these videos? That sounds like something he would actually say!

[Nagisawa]

Can we get this stickied?  This is an EXCELLENT thread and has many, many relevent posts. 

Never played Dark Souls, but if its just memorizing enemy/boss patterns, then I'll pass. If memorizing enemy AI patterns is considered skill, I'll take bigger and bigger numbers.

Raiding in mmos is the same dreadfully boring thing. Its a big collective game of Simon Sez where the challenge is staying awake til the end. "Everyone group up" "Everyone spread out" "Dps target mob X" "Move out of fire" Lots of hardcore raiders think that this equals skill. Its the same kind of skill that assembly line work requires.

Once again, I've never played Dark Souls, so maybe it has much more interesting mechanics than simple memorization.

 

Actually, it's more placement memorization.  All the enemies spawn in the exact same location, and knowing where they are, allows you to set up and prepare.  Still there is a lot of mechanics memorization, due to telegraphs of enemy mobs.

You really need to go play Dark Souls....  it's a masterpiece.  Difficulty honed into an art form.  Pure, beautiful art.

No, it's not.  I sometimes wonder if people know what 'difficulty' really means, but then I realize not many lived through the Atari/Arcade to current gaming era.

 

Dark Souls actually the poster child for fake difficulty.

 

The problem with Dark Souls is it drops you into the middle of a situation with no clear rules as to where to go, expecting you to go where ever and learn the hard way.  Worse, it uses massive damage as an excuse for shoddy, repetitive AI.  Yes, as Extra Credit says, it plays by it's own rules and sticks with them, but it's incredibly obtuse about them, and you have to really watch, and hope you got a great memory.

 

To beat the game is to memorize locations, scenery and patterns.  Now, what it does do right is Telegraph.  It shows you what to expect after the first few deaths.  But the problem lies that dying, which is the number one way of learning the game, often puts you back a fairs ways, and makes you fight your way through the same area with fully respawned enemies.  And if you have a finger slip or a blink at the wrong time, you can die before reaching your original goal, putting you back several hours worth of work.  And it sometimes really feels like work.  But for the most part it's tedium, the game is not difficult, just tedious.  It uses death as both a punishment mechanism and a padding, making the game seem longer than it is.  Not that it's short to begin with, there's a lot of content.  I'm currently plodding my way through it.

 

Thing is though, Warframe can learn from Dark Souls, namely pattern and telegraphs.  What it can learn not to do is equate massive damage with difficulty.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Nagisawa

[Bakercompany86]

 

No, it's not.  I sometimes wonder if people know what 'difficulty' really means, but then I realize not many lived through the Atari/Arcade to current gaming era.

 

Dark Souls actually the poster child for fake difficulty.

 

Going to have to disagree on that one.

 

EDIT:  Sorry in the middle of upgrading devices at work, had to come back and finish this.

 

 

Anyway, Dark Souls to me is the poster child for ACTUAL difficulty.  Most games I've played especially shooters simply amp up enemy number and damage to create difficulty.  Gears of War for example in Insane mode where you are downed in just a couple shots.

 

Dark Souls has masterfully placed enemies, all with diverse move sets that will catch you off guard and require you to learn and adapt.  It also doesn't hold your hand at any point in the game, and pulls no punches.  They certainly didn't care for gamers who were going to be broken by the difficulty.  I remember plenty of people bring Dark Souls back to GameStop saying they just couldn't do it.  There was no other game on our shelves that did that to players.  I don't think that's a coincidence.

 

Yet I was able to get through Dark Souls.  The combat system and the weapons strike an excellent balance.  You can complete the entire game at SL 1 with your starting weapon with enough practice or sheer badassery.

 

I even played the lighter class (wanderer) and I didn't feel the damage was amped up too high simply for the sake of just having high damage.  And those monsters who did pack a wallop at least gave you a decent chance to avoid the massive strike that would crush your health bar.

 

Put simply, Dark Souls challenged the player without punishing them.  You would face defeat many times, but it was because you could have done better, or been more aware of your surroundings.  Never once did I feel like any of my deaths were cheap or undeserved.

 

EDIT EDIT:  I will say that it was possible to engage "easy mode" in Dark Souls, otherwise known as pyromancy.  I wasn't aware of how OP pyromancy was when I started, but I'm very glad that I took a Wanderer through the game instead.  I enjoyed his agility and speed in combat.

 

Regardless, even as a pyromancer Dark Souls wasn't easy.  But it wasn't because enemies had ridiculous health pools or insane damage, which to me is fake difficulty.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Bakercompany86

[eStecko]

I realize not many lived through the Atari/Arcade to current gaming era.

 

I did. But in the retrospect many games actualy we're not difficult, but punishing. Death drops, that sometimes we're secrets? Inconsistent ruleset. Traps that instantly killed you without knowing of them being there, making you dependant on memorization of the level. Enemies without telegraph moves, sometimes with super speed projectiles or attack patterns that we're unavoidable. Many of those games we're just like that and those which we're not, got its name into the hall of fame mostly, but that was a minority. As always there is less awesome games then the bad ones. I still have my N64 here with masterpieces like Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Mario Kart 64, Banjo and Kazooie and Turok. And neither of them has any fake diificulty. But many other games in this platform we're garbage with just that.

 

 

Can we get this stickied?  This is an EXCELLENT thread and has many, many relevent posts. 

 

<3

 

 

Darksouls part was already said by Baker.

 

The game throwing you in the world with "figure it out the hard way" is a design choice that falls into gray category. For DS its good, because it fits the difficult and dark tone of the game, since some extended tutorial or "how to beat" manual/beastiary would take away most of fun and sense of achievement from the game itself.

 

Personaly i have not beaten the game, because the pc port is just terrible even with hours of modding the game, so cant say much about the rest. But if many and many players treat it as a golden plate of "how to" create a difficult game and the game is even criticaly aclaimed for it in a good way, then they are most probably right.

Edited August 17, 2013 by eStecko

[KingKeif]

This thread is beautifully laid out, eStecko. I applaud you for taking the time to write this out. +1 and let's get this thread back to the top :) haha. 

Edited August 17, 2013 by KingKeif

[eStecko]

This thread is beautifully laid out, eStecko. I applaud you for taking the time to write this out. +1 and let's get this thread back to the top :) haha. 

 

Thanks. I appreciate that you like it. Now not to let my ego into my head. ;)

[Nagisawa]

 

Regardless, even as a pyromancer Dark Souls wasn't easy.  But it wasn't because enemies had ridiculous health pools or insane damage, which to me is fake difficulty.

That's just it, all the monsters in Dark Souls DO have ridiculously huge health pools and do insane damage.  Not to mention the damage over time effects are over powered.

 

Either way, like I said DS does do some good things that Warframe could and should copy.