There will be no balance in warframe, ever.

[Fallen_Echo]

Now before i start this will be not about what is OP and what is mastery fodder and such, i want to talk about the reasons why i think that there wont be any balance in warframe and why its not a bad thing.

In my opinion warframe is an rpg with a standard (but a bit messed up) progression system.

Weapons come and go but each have something more to bring in the game, each and every single one of them is tied to a mastery level to illustrate how good a weapon is. Altought this is as far from the truth as far it can get.

Mastery ranks are supposed to show people the "level" of a player but thanks to the games other questionable design choices it became irrelevant. Moreover the weapons tied to mastery ranks in most cases dont make any sense as we have meta gear with low mr and trash fodder gear with high mr. Not gonna put in actual examples as it may trigger some people as everything is based on opinions.

This is how our gear setup currently looks:

The fact that by each update we could get a weapon what is better than the current ones is what gives the development cash. Powercreep as people say but i like to refer to it as upgraded equipment. Adding progression is the easiest way to make the money flow as people will buy new weapons constantly as they need to replace their old ones.

Just as in a traditional rpg as you level up your old items become trash while the new ones are getting better and better. Not just the powercreep effet but DE's adamant sledgehammer style nerfs are helping keeping up this nice pyramid shape where only the base gets wider and wider but the "problem" is still there.

Many people will going to point out that X is unbalanced where in reality it might be just a next level equipment. IF DE would flesh out the mastery rank system and actually illustrate what level ranges X is supposed to fight than maybe we have less complaints about balancing.

If the matchup system would automatically adjust the starting levels of the enemies to what the groups weapons avaragely can handle we would have much less problems, but i doth think that ever going to happen.

Its entirely up to DE to finally come up and make the statement that Y will not get buffed ever because they never wanted to see people fighting with it after saturn and X stays that powerful because they intented it to be a sortie 3 weapon.

What do you think? Is warframe unbalanced because its built on the old rpg mentality where new levels bring better equipment or is there another reason i dont see?

[FashionFrame]

I don't care much for what's balanced or not, as long as it doesn't ruin other people's experience of the game

[Trichouette]

On 1/6/2018 at 6:48 PM, Fallen_Echo said:

What do you think?

What I think is that warframe won't ever be balanced, but the absence of balance in weapons and other gears is less of an issue compared to the absence of balance in the frames and enemies.

While an OP weapon will rarely trivialize the game (unless for the few nerfed one like simulor / telos boltace), the insane stats and abilities some warframes have really ruin parts of the game.

And at the same time the enemies' stats being completely messed up due to weird scaling make the balance of the game even weirder...

 

I would prefer warframe to be harder and less "lol i'll spam that key and it'll do the trick" but that won't happen.

[Noble_One]

tbh there doesnt need that much of it as the game is sole purpose is pve with a dab of pvp. all pve content can be cleared with any weapon or frame given the skill.

[(PSN)SkinlessGorgon]

Destiny 2 has the most balanced weapon set in a FPS ever, and y'know what?  The game is B O R I N G !!!!!

Balance is buying  Ferrarri then trying to drive it 300 miles on half a tank of gas.  As long as they balance the PvP and PvE separately then not having balance is a very good thing.

[Fallen_Echo]

9 minutes ago, FashionFrame said:

I don't care much for what's balanced or not, as long as it doesn't ruin other people's experience of the game

But thats the problem if they are using a progression system then it unavoidable to not ruin someones experience.

Its the same as going back to low level areas in an mmo and nuking entire fields of monsters while the others who might wanna farm there cant do anything.

The only way to avoid that is to level up content to your capatibilities.

[Fallen_Echo]

Just now, (PS4)SkinlessGorgon said:

Destiny 2 has the most balanced weapon set in a FPS ever, and y'know what?  The game is B O R I N G !!!!!

Balance is buying  Ferrarri then trying to drive it 300 miles on half a tank of gas.  As long as they balance the PvP and PvE separately then not having balance is a very good thing.

I even said it in my post that i agree that no balance is what makes this game interesting.

[FashionFrame]

Just now, Fallen_Echo said:

But thats the problem if they are using a progression system then it unavoidable to not ruin someones experience.

Its the same as going back to low level areas in an mmo and nuking entire fields of monsters while the others who might wanna farm there cant do anything.

The only way to avoid that is to level up content to your capatibilities.

I guess I can rephrase, if it ruins most player's experiences. I get that there will always be someone unhappy with something, but if it's majority of players, then it's a problem. Example: Old Ash Bladestorm. Where you couldn't attack the enemies he targets and made the game boring for players that wanted to get kills.

[Fallen_Echo]

2 minutes ago, FashionFrame said:

I guess I can rephrase, if it ruins most player's experiences. I get that there will always be someone unhappy with something, but if it's majority of players, then it's a problem. Example: Old Ash Bladestorm. Where you couldn't attack the enemies he targets and made the game boring for players that wanted to get kills.

I guess i can agree with that one thought if we truely go with that mentality we should remove all aoe weapons since they are capatable of removing everything before anybody else can do anything. For example 6 forma ignis on earth.

[WhiteCr0w]

18 minutes ago, Fallen_Echo said:

Is warframe unbalanced because its built on the old rpg mentality where new levels bring better equipment or is there another reason i dont see?

I think it's far simpler than that.

I think DE are highly creative people, and love designing and conceptualizing weapons and bringing them to life. It's a bit abstract, there is no rigorous tier or level system aside from some weapons having the arbitrary MR requirement, to establish exclusivity. Some weapons will naturally be "better" than others, but with the advent of Primed Mods and Rivens, that notion is largely irrelevant, and has been for some time. They gave us the tools to take weapons as far out as we choose to.

[Ryim_Drykeon]

I've found that with the right modding, a person can make almost any weapon viable in Warframe. They might not one-shot level 100's, but they work.

The "problem" (if you want to call it that) is with the players wanting that "meta". With THE weapon being .0001% better than the next one down. Min/max will always happen in any video game. Which is why I like Warframe. The constant updates and changes (read "nerfs/buffs"), mean the min/maxers are alwys chasing the dragon to get the next big thing. Gives them something to work for, heh.

Me, personally, I like a compromise. I want a weapon loadout that is going to work, of course, but I also want looks and function that work with my style and gameplay. I usually run with Hek (though been using Corinth a lot lately), Akmagnus (which causes a lot of meta players to look down their noses at me), and Nami Skyla Prime. I like shotties. I love how they look, how they hit, etc. Would I do more damage if I took another primary? Maybe, but I'm having fun. Which is why I like Akmagnus. Hits hard enough to one-shot anything under level 50 and the reload animation is still one of my favorites.

But I digress.

I wish we could abolish this false mentality that MR means "how well you play". Mastery Rank is NOT an indication of gameplay level. I'm not taking anything away from those that are high MR, as it is a challenge, and some of them are a bugger to figure out. however, a player can be downright lethal without needing to be high MR, and a high MR might not be that good at actual gameplay in missions/sorties. MR is just a system used to unlock content, and has very little to do with how "experience" a player is.

Which is the main reason DE hasn't gotten "scaling" in Warframe. How do you "scale" the enemy when you have no system for gauging the "power" of the player? All that can be done is to chuck a certain mob level for each area. To scale higher, means a new/different area. An expert player is going to be bored, because the areas will be made with the "average" player in mind. Same with the weapons. To some, that weapon may be awesome, to the meta players, it might be trash. That's because the players are on a whole different level of skill.

[FashionFrame]

Just now, Fallen_Echo said:

I guess i can agree with that one thought if we truely go with that mentality we should remove all aoe weapons since they are capatable of removing everything before anybody else can do anything. For example 6 forma ignis on earth.

but that's on a low level map. Majority of players would be the high levels too. Another example would be synoid Simulor Mirage. That was an insane OP aoe weapon that needed something done because it nuked at high level.

[Chipputer]

5 minutes ago, Ryim_Drykeon said:

Akmagnus (which causes a lot of meta players to look down their noses at me)

That doesn't make any sense, though. The Akmagnus are very well balanced secondaries that have the capability to pull into the hybrid crit/status setup that is so useful toward end game.

Edited January 6, 2018 by Chipputer
typo

[Unbetold]

The style of progression that Warframe has is one I find very lacking lately, and over saturated with rage titles that have many of the same limited/sticky controls that made most hard retro games hard. Warframe offers a fairly challenging skill based system that doesn't over-state much as far as game breaking tools go, ignoring stupidly high levels of armor and damage that make enemies more annoying than threatening. I don't think the MR system is (at this point) supposed to show your skill/strength in the game as much as it's supposed to basically show "Hey, this person might know what they're talking about better than that MR 3 guy saying that impact damage is trash." which even that can be wrong. There's a lot of situational and personal preferences that too many people forget/ignore. I know I've even caught myself going "F*** it, Tigris Prime. I just don't care right now." and up talking slash damage without giving any thought to the other types because if the minor rework needed. The only balancing I think the game needs at this point is less likely to get one shot unless you're playing a tank (some lube would be nice for the bombards and napalms), and a less drastic scaling on armor in mid level (40-60) fights. There comes a point where turning a corner and being greeted by a surprise corrupted bombard with 99.9999999% damage reduction and the ability to rip through almost 1500 EHP before you can blink becomes unreasonable. Like coming across six such bombards in one room because of the spawn mechanics. :D

[Jago47]

I just say look at the Stubba and Viper / Cestra.
This is Powercreep (yeah Stubba is MR 4 locked and the others not, but the stats up are huge),
but i think its like a progression system of some sorts.

I agree we have some weapons with low MR and high potential and the other way around,
but for me it seems that newer weapons in gerneral are getting stronger and old weapons MR arent considerd or revisited.

[Volinus7]

It's a jenga tower not a pyramid. 

[Lakais]

2 hours ago, Volinus7 said:

It's a jenga tower not a pyramid. 

I always saw the whole thing like one of those games with the sticks piled up but going backwards. 

[Kalec]

There will be no balance in PvE/P games, ever.

[zehne]

As someone who's slew of weapons used at any point in time have Riven dispositions from 3-5 I'd say that there is no pyramid.  Because of how Riven disposition works I can tell you that I use 0 meta weapons.  Even then I have a few weapons I like to pull out occasionally that would be labeled 'fodder tier' (and use them on sorties).

So yeah, not so much a pyramid so much as a tower maybe.  Also to note there is no way to really balance the game with the combinations that can be applied.  For example if things were to get really super high level you'd simply bring a Banshee + CC + Trin.  Or you'd just equip a dagger with CL and builds with force executes.

Basically no matter what the game throws at us at this point there will be a combo that could trivialize it.