To the Devs: On Damage 2.5, and Mentality

[(XBOX)Tucker D Dawg]

1 hour ago, ACULonSeer said:

Would my damage be massively hindered if I dumped serration for a utility mod, such as a reload or ammo mutation?

I suggest you read this: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Serration

but yes it would be.

 

[ACULonSeer]

1 minute ago, (Xbox One)Tucker D Dawg said:

I suggest you read this: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Serration

but yes it would be.

 

aw COME ON D:< 

[Dragon398765]

18 hours ago, ACULonSeer said:

Would my damage be massively hindered if I dumped serration for a utility mod, such as a reload or ammo mutation?

Depends on how well you've scaled serration, but considering at max it gives +165% damage with no downside other than mod capacity, the short answer is yes.

[Drasiel]

One thing to note: originally multishot mods did use additional ammo. Then at some point it bugged out and stopped costing extra ammo and the Devs let it be to see what it would do. Fast forward to more current times and multishot is a required mod and Devs think about putting it back to its original function, which leads to much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. Which was a reasonable reaction as enemies seem to now be balanced around always using multishot. 

[ACULonSeer]

15 minutes ago, Dragon398765 said:

Depends on how well you've scaled serration, but considering at max it gives +165% damage with no downside other than mod capacity, the short answer is yes.

I kinda thought multishot was a better version cause it buffed status chance and projectile count. Now I can fire 3 rockets at once with kulstar.

[ACULonSeer]

Just now, Drasiel said:

One thing to note: originally multishot mods did use additional ammo. Then at some point it bugged out and stopped costing extra ammo and the Devs let it be to see what it would do. Fast forward to more current times and multishot is a required mod and Devs think about putting it back to its original function, which leads to much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. Which was a reasonable reaction as enemies seem to now be balanced around always using multishot. 

So if multishot changes, so must enemies. Also I think multishot would be useless on Kohm in that case since it has bad enough ammo problems already 

[Drasiel]

16 minutes ago, ACULonSeer said:

So if multishot changes, so must enemies. Also I think multishot would be useless on Kohm in that case since it has bad enough ammo problems already 

Yes, exactly. damage has to be considered from both avenues to be properly cohesive, both damage and defense must be considered together.

Multishot was kind of a niche build for just that reason, for a lot of weapons it just bled them dry really badly. It went from being "eh don't pick that you'll run out of bullets" to "omg this is amazeballs" once ammo consumption was disabled. 

[ACULonSeer]

Just now, Drasiel said:

Yes, exactly. damage has to be considered from both avenues to be properly cohesive, both damage and defense must be considered together.

Multishot was kind of a niche build for just that reason, for a lot of weapons it just bled them dry really badly. It went from being "eh don't pick that you'll run out of bullets" to "omg this is amazeballs" once ammo consumption was disabled. 

If I could use multishot as an alternative to damage mods like serration, I think it would increase customization greatly. Unfortunately enemies are balanced around having max serration AND multishot. I value utility over DPS, so multishot is really my kinda damage mod. I just wish I could use it how I wanted.

[Maganar]

On 12/29/2017 at 6:22 PM, Dragon398765 said:

 

Gara

These are still some pretty fresh bruises from the nerf bat, so criticism is definitely in order. The nerf was way over the top. What Gara needed was work on the area affected. What was a very good ability with a bit too much unilateral power became a way to extend another ability, and nothing more. The castle became a shanty. It seems to me that the nerf was very hasty, and the bat was used to say "Stop using things in ways we didn't design!" I love Warframe and DE, but rushed work has never been the best work in this game, and what was a fun frame now sits in my roster waiting for her time to shine again. And my roster tends to collect dust, which leads into the next piece

 

I agree with everything you say here on all the other portions, but I just wanted to bring up something about Gara (even though I know the Damage 2.5 discussion is going to dominate this topic).  Frankly, Gara would be just fine right now even after their nerfs if it weren't for the insanity that is Nullifiers shattering her TERRAIN on CONTACT.  That's not an ability or power effect or whatever DE wants to call it once the channel is complete - that's playermade terrain at that point.  A Nullifier doesn't obliterate Frost's Snowglobe on contact, nor does it remove a status effect applied through a warframe ability on contact - it shouldn't remove her terrain on contact either.  A Nullifier has no right shattering it, and certainly not by merely touching it.  It also makes Gara experience wildly different levels of effectiveness between Grineer and Corpus enemies, as Corpus just negate her ultimate (that is one of the biggest appeals of her kit) whereas the Grineer not ONLY don't have an answer to it, they are weak against her primary damage type on her main damage ability (since 1 does Puncture).  She's sort of become like a counter-Grineer warframe that just gets trolled by Nullifiers if she dares to fight the Corpus, and no warframe should have such insane power swings depending on which faction they face.  Factions that a warframe is better suited to face?  Yes, that's fine.  But massive power swings based on faction?  No, silly.

As for the rest of what you've said, I have nothing to add or contest.  DE has made a great game, but it's gotten to its current greatness through an unnecessary amount of bumpy hills that could have been avoided with more prudence and less nerf bats slams and hasty reactions.

[OvisCaedo]

17 minutes ago, Maganar said:

 A Nullifier doesn't obliterate Frost's Snowglobe on contact,

yes it does, actually. They used to not, but they were changed to start doing that ages ago.

[(XBOX)Avant Solace]

I think what we've learned here is that this issues revolves less around individual instances of balance, but rather an issue with the fundamental leveling of the game. As I stated in a previous post, the difference between levels 1 and 30 is tiny compared to levels 30 and 60. Because of the steep leveling curve, players must resort to relying less on base stats and more on what modifiers they can squeeze out of it. Weapons with low crit chance and status chance, despite potentially having high base damage, fall off the meta as enemies level 50 and up will gladly absorb that damage.

Should DE lower the curve on leveling it would likely make a more stable ground for bringing weapons in line with each other. Having Multishot cost extra ammo isn't so bad when its no longer a "mandatory" mod. Stuffing a weapon with critical multipliers isn't a huge priority when its base damage still has a good time-to-kill. As it stands, weapon variety is at the mercy of end-game enemies, and as such all buffs and nerfs are judged on that spectrum. Kind of a shame really. Only the greatest Crit and Status fiends get any love in the game now.

[Tyrian3k]

 

On 30.12.2017 at 12:22 AM, Dragon398765 said:

Hunter's Munitions accomplishes the goal of making far more weapons viable, on it's own.

On 30.12.2017 at 12:22 AM, Dragon398765 said:

The goal being to Diversify the Viability of Weapon Damage Types.

Yes, would be nice if we could diversify the viability of weapon damage types instead of slapping the universally viable slash proc into the form of Hunter's Munitions and call it a day. Hunter's Munitions is nothing but a band aid mod for the problem of armor scaling. I don't think it needs to be removed or anything, but it's not a proper solution for any problem.

 

Armor makes most damage types deal but a tiny fraction of their actual damage at high levels, so of course the damage types that completely bypass it come out on top, namely slash procs. In that regard, *nothing* has changed since Damage 1.0. All our modding goes into getting around armor somehow, be it by bypassing it or stripping it away.

If armor was less of a factor, players wouldn't need to use slash procs to deal any damage in the first place and the playing field would be way more level than it could ever become by changing puncture and impact procs.

The thing is that armor scaling is unneccesary and actually detrimental to the balance between unarmored and armored enemies because it makes armored enemies scale up faster than unarmored enemies. That's why, when you pit one scorch against 19 ancient healers in the Simulacrum, the scorch loses the fight very consistently at level 1 but easily kills all 19 ancient healers when at level 150 because he barely takes any damage any more due to the insane damage reduction his armor provides.

At this point it seems like the guys at DE try to do the same thing slash procs do in regards to armor...

[taiiat]

On 12/29/2017 at 6:22 PM, Dragon398765 said:

Again we see the mentality at work. Slash is going to be nerfed to a fraction of its power in many cases, without fixing the problem. Impact and puncture are becoming glorified versions of their former selves, which is still pretty mediocre. In other words, nerf slash so the other two become viable by default. The goal being to Diversify the Viability of Weapon Damage Types.

Nerfing slash in the proposed manner kills Hunter's Munitions on any weapon that isn't already very powerful, which is a nerf to diversity as a whole.

there literally can't be diversity so long as Slash bypasses the entirely of Damage 2.0. Impact and Puncture would need to provide stacking Damage Bonuses upwards of +1000% Damage to compete with Slash Status.

Hunter Munitions literally reinforces the strongest things to be stronger. Crit Slash is already the best, Hunter Munitions just creates more of that. that isn't diversity, that is homogenization.
we wouldn't have a 'highly diverse game' if everything had lots of Crits and applied lots of Slash Status. we'd have the least diversity ever seen before. because everything is the same.

 

 

if you want diversity as you say, you should take not a step, but a few leaps backwards and realize you complain about problems but then hail the same problems as the solution.
which makes basically all of the chastising of the proposed Damage Changes completely hypocritical. yes, what is changing won't solve the problem. but that's because the problem is Slash Status, fundamentally. once upon a time it was fine, but now Crits, Status, and Crit mechanics/bonuses are everyhere so limited availability of the strongest things isn't the limiting factor to balance it anymore. since there's no limiting factor, then Slash Status is just inappropriate itself.

other issues such as Armor being steeper than warranted are valid but no matter what Crit Slash still beats everything, Armored or not.

Edited January 1, 2018 by taiiat

[Death_Master_Shadow]

В 30.12.2017 в 02:32, ACULonSeer сказал:

I believe they postponed D2.5 because they realized how terrible their balance ideas were

Sorry to disappoint you but i believe they postponed for another reason.

Every big update brings some tons of bugs including even bugs that can crash the game and need to be fixed ASAP.

And they want to have holiday time to rest instead of running around and fixing all the big bugs and then some smaller ones.

I fully agree with them that they should have some rest time and enjoy holidays, yeah they are a good team but still they are people with own life so they should have time for it .