Idea for Self Damage

[Epicmonk117b]

As many of you probably already know, self damage in Warframe is MASSIVE on explosive weapons, especially on ones like the Zarr, Kulstar, and Lenz (my personal favorite explosive weapon).  However, I have come up with a couple of ideas for ways this can be reduced without eliminating the risk.  I have been mulling these ideas around in my head, but when the YouTuber MCGamerCZ brought up the fact that his Kulstar can kill his Inaros (with over 6000 health) in 1-2 shots, I decided to share one of them in the comments section of the video.  My early response was very positive, so I decided to bring it here so that more people can see it. 

My idea is to make the self damage of an explosive weapon be unaffected by mods.  This way, it would still be a danger to the super squishy frames like Mag and Loki, but not quite able to OHKO the beefcake frames like Rhino and Valkyr.

[(PSN)AtomicEyekon]

I personally prefer the self damage on the pre Nerfed tonkor

[Kayll]

I think its fine the way it is,just don't shoot your feet and you're golden.

Generally one of the main disadvantage of area of effect weapons in most games is that they have self damage and it is lethal to the user if they aren't careful.

 

[Epicmonk117b]

23 hours ago, (PS4)AtomicEyekon said:

I personally prefer the self damage on the pre Nerfed tonkor

Well of course everyone would rather have explosive weapons that do no self-damage.  However, I don't think that's entirely balanced, which is why I posted this idea - it allows explosive weapons to still threaten their users, but not be able to insta-down a full power strength Rhino in Iron Skin.

[Epicmonk117b]

19 hours ago, Kayll said:

I think its fine the way it is,just don't shoot your feet and you're golden.

Generally one of the main disadvantage of area of effect weapons in most games is that they have self damage and it is lethal to the user if they aren't careful.

 

The problem with self-damage in Warframe is that it's TOO lethal - I've seen my explosive weapons OKHO my full power strength Rhino in Iron Skin - so I created this idea to tone down this self-nuke "feature" of explosive weapons while still having their self damage be dangerous to the user.

[TheLexiConArtist]

16 minutes ago, Epicmonk117b said:

Well of course everyone would rather have explosive weapons that do no self-damage.

^{[citation needed]}

On 18/01/2018 at 4:11 AM, Epicmonk117b said:

My idea is to make the self damage of an explosive weapon be unaffected by mods.  This way, it would still be a danger to the super squishy frames like Mag and Loki, but not quite able to OHKO the beefcake frames like Rhino and Valkyr.

Nope. This is tantamount old-Tonkor behaviour (except it actually does still permit self-critting). Risk-reward balance as a factor of a weapon type implicitly requires the risk to increase as the reward does.

There are two potential ways to address the self-damage:

1. Increase the damage resistance ratio
   Going from currently appx. 70% self-DR to a higher value like 85% will statically lift the ceiling on how much modded extra boom it takes to murder yourself with ill-placed shots, twice as high in the example values. Naked weapons are shrugged off even more than currently, but high-output-modded and especially riven'd weapons would still probably scale to a suicidal level.
2. Squash the scaling curve of modded self-damage.
   If Serration increases outgoing damage by 165% yet only increases the self-damage by a fraction of that amount (e.g. reapply the baseline 70% reduction ratio to result in +165% outgoing damage with only +49.5% self-damage from base) then the base damage remains the same, a healthy warning that eases players into the threat, while dramatically reducing the ceiling of many-multiplied damage output to a much greater degree than simply increasing the base DR. However, it logically can't apply to multishot projectile duplications, so.. Build diversity?

[Kayll]

The simple way to address self-damage is to not aim at your feet! 

I have heard of Lenz stoping and hitting other players that are in the way and if that's true then it should be fixed,
but just completely making the self damage of strong area of effect weapons meaningless is not the way to fix it.
 

[MJ12]

On 1/18/2018 at 7:45 PM, EDYinnit said:

^{[citation needed]}

Nope. This is tantamount old-Tonkor behaviour (except it actually does still permit self-critting). Risk-reward balance as a factor of a weapon type implicitly requires the risk to increase as the reward does.

There are two potential ways to address the self-damage:

1. Increase the damage resistance ratio
   Going from currently appx. 70% self-DR to a higher value like 85% will statically lift the ceiling on how much modded extra boom it takes to murder yourself with ill-placed shots, twice as high in the example values. Naked weapons are shrugged off even more than currently, but high-output-modded and especially riven'd weapons would still probably scale to a suicidal level.
2. Squash the scaling curve of modded self-damage.
   If Serration increases outgoing damage by 165% yet only increases the self-damage by a fraction of that amount (e.g. reapply the baseline 70% reduction ratio to result in +165% outgoing damage with only +49.5% self-damage from base) then the base damage remains the same, a healthy warning that eases players into the threat, while dramatically reducing the ceiling of many-multiplied damage output to a much greater degree than simply increasing the base DR. However, it logically can't apply to multishot projectile duplications, so.. Build diversity?

"Risk-reward balancing" is a paradigm for encouraging risk-taking by players, not the be-all and end-all of all balance decisionmaking.

The entire point of "risk-reward balancing" is that you encourage players to take risks by making risky actions rewarding. Playing aggressively in XCOM2 and going for flanks, which create the risk of revealing more enemies, leads to faster kill rates on the enemies and reduces the incoming damage you take. That's risk-reward balancing in a nutshell. You encourage people to take risky actions by making those risky actions more beneficial. Another example is Vanquish, where you have a powerful melee attack that drains your dash/slowmo meter entirely (And forces a lengthy recharge cycle at which point you are slower and more vulnerable) but on the other hand works at full power no matter what the remaining meter is at (so it rewards running the edge, then doing a melee attack to cap off your dash/slowmo, rendering you more vulnerable).

The point of risk-reward balancing is not, as you and other self-damage fans have cargo culted it into being, the idea that the risk must increase as the reward does. It's that if you want players to take a risky behavior, you must commensurately incentivize it with a reward. Doom 2016 is another great example-it incentivizes constantly being in the open, killing enemies at close range where they're most dangerous, because that's your primary method of regaining health and ammunition.

Like, "risk-reward balancing" when talking about splash damage is rocket jumping-in games like TF2 or Quake, you have "risk-reward balancing" for splash damage weapons. You can use them to rocket jump, trading health and ammunition (risk) for speed (reward).

"Risk/reward" balancing is about considering how you want the game to play, then balancing elements of that game to encourage behaviors that might not be "safe" but you want to see players do, not making weapons annoying to use because they have special properties. If you actually look at the 'risk-reward' paradigm for self-damage in Warframe, you actually see that far from being a good thing for balance, weapon self-damage encourages the same degenerate hyperfarm behavior that the developers clearly don't want and people complain about.

How do you maximize the reward for using self-damage weapons? Well that's obvious. You stand on a crate. You stand still. On a crate. And fire down into the enemy hordes. So if you like splash damage weapons, you are expected to go and use one of the 'meta' frames with high DR (to absorb shots), not use your maneuverability at all (because doing so risks you accidentally dodging into your own splash radius), and fire endlessly into a chokepoint while standing still (to maximize DPS).

DE should take self damage out entirely. The game doesn't need it, many area of effect attacks already exist that don't deal self-damage, it flies in the face of encouraging players to engage enemies in close range and out in the open rather than camping corners/closets/crates, and it isn't necessary for any advanced game mechanics. If splash damage weapons are "too powerful" without self damage, then go and hit them with nerfs until their power level is more or less in line with the other weapons available in Warframe. That's proper balancing. At most, it should be a knockdown + forced proc of some sort.

[TheLexiConArtist]

53 minutes ago, MJ12 said:

 

nope

wrong

I'm not getting into this over 50 pages again.

But I will point out this:

1 hour ago, MJ12 said:

 if you want players to take a risky behavior, you must commensurately incentivize it with a reward.

DE should take self damage out entirely. If splash damage weapons are "too powerful" without self damage, then go and hit them with nerfs

Statement A: Incentivise risky behaviour with a reward.

Statement B: Remove risk from a behaviour then disincentivise the behaviour with lesser reward.

 

Also, playstyle argument. May I refer you again to my good friend ^{[citation needed]} when it comes to 'everyone wanting' no self-damage.

Some people want to watch the world burn, and don't care if they singe off an eyebrow or two in the process. Just maybe not cook themselves into a roast dinner before they can admire their handiwork. To that kind of individual, they want to feel their payload. You don't go from dropping a firecracker to dropping a nuclear warhead without thinking that maybe you should have to stand a little further back.

 

Why should you demand that option be removed (then the corresponding weapons disincentivised) instead of appropriately gauging the balance of the relationship between payload and personal risk?

"Don't like it, don't use it", as people often say in defense of imbalance. Only, in this case, because the reward is tied to a risk, it's not a brainlessly superior solution in 99% of cases so the argument isn't a fallacy.

And there are AOE weapons to use that balance their relatively greater reward against non-self-damaging risk investments. Like ammo economy. Effective range. Indirect (over-time) damage.

Ask for more of those if there aren't enough, sure. But leave the rawkit lawnchairs to the players with the brass to use them.

[MJ12]

51 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

nope

wrong

I'm not getting into this over 50 pages again.

But I will point out this:

Statement A: Incentivise risky behaviour with a reward.

Statement B: Remove risk from a behaviour then disincentivise the behaviour with lesser reward.

 

Also, playstyle argument. May I refer you again to my good friend ^{[citation needed]} when it comes to 'everyone wanting' no self-damage.

Some people want to watch the world burn, and don't care if they singe off an eyebrow or two in the process. Just maybe not cook themselves into a roast dinner before they can admire their handiwork. To that kind of individual, they want to feel their payload. You don't go from dropping a firecracker to dropping a nuclear warhead without thinking that maybe you should have to stand a little further back.

 

Why should you demand that option be removed (then the corresponding weapons disincentivised) instead of appropriately gauging the balance of the relationship between payload and personal risk?

"Don't like it, don't use it", as people often say in defense of imbalance. Only, in this case, because the reward is tied to a risk, it's not a brainlessly superior solution in 99% of cases so the argument isn't a fallacy.

And there are AOE weapons to use that balance their relatively greater reward against non-self-damaging risk investments. Like ammo economy. Effective range. Indirect (over-time) damage.

Ask for more of those if there aren't enough, sure. But leave the rawkit lawnchairs to the players with the brass to use them.

 

So I point out explicitly that "risk/reward balancing" is about incentivizing risky behavior with positive feedback, and you can't see the difference between that and disincentivizing risky behavior with negative feedback?

In one case, the risky behavior already exists and is already something players can engage in and already creates risk without the 'reward' system-the reward system is subordinate to the risk. Moving aggressively in XCOM puts you at risk of being overwhelmed and killed by the enemy. Staying in the open rather than hiding and peeking out from behind a crate in Doom 2016 means you get hit more often. The point is that if you want them to do these risky behaviors, you give them a reward to engage in these risky behaviors. Self-damage in Warframe isn't "risk/reward balancing." It's a sop to realism in a game which doesn't need it.

Unless you're saying that DE's logic in launchers was "We want people to use weapons that can end up killing themselves" and their solution, after they decided that 'suicide' was a thing they wanted players to do, was to make launchers to encourage suicide.

Fundamentally, risk/reward is not about making sure numbers are in line. It's about encouraging certain behaviors which aren't loss-minimizing by making the rewards for that behavior better. "Risk/reward" balancing is, for example, why you now get more credits for high-level missions than low-level ones. It encourages you to stay on the edge of the difficulty curve (risk) rather than farm the lowest level mission you can find endlessly, by giving you more of a reward. It's also why Saryn has her synergies now with spore/miasma/molt-you have a risk created by having to get into enemy LoS, but are rewarded by getting more damage than just miasma-spamming (whereas it would have been easier to just nerf miasma without touching anything else). Interestingly, what you might notice is that the 'risk' is something you willingly take on rather than something forced upon you.

Therefore, good 'risk-reward' balancing is something that is done by moment-to-moment decisions. Taking the risk gets you a greater reward. This is not so with self-damage. The 'risk' does not create any reward. Firing a self-damaging weapon close to you creates no 'reward' that cannot be gained by, for example, using a melee weapon (especially since melee weapons are quite powerful in Warframe, which is actual 'risk-reward' balancing: To encourage people to close in and melee rather than stay far away and snipe, melee weapons are made powerful). The Corinth is probably the only real 'risk-reward' launcher in the game. Its alt-fire puts out a very good amount of damage and a lot of area procs (it has blast by default too, so it's a CC proc) in a larger area than would be hit by the primary. But it has a relatively narrow zone of effectiveness, whereas the primary is good at all ranges. So you have the 'risk-reward' decision when you have a large mob of enemies. Do you want to safely shoot at them with the primary fire? Or do you want to risk the possibility of misjudging your shot and wasting a second for no benefit, but with the possible reward of stunning/deblitating five or six guys?

It's not pure 'risk-reward' balancing either because the Corinth primary and alt-fire both do different things, but it's much closer than "self-damage." For example, a 'risk-reward' launcher would be hypothetically if the Ogris alt-fire was a remote controlled rocket with more damage and blast radius. You create 'risk' by rendering yourself vulnerable, with a reward of a guided rocket that you can fly right into the most dangerous mob. You encourage people to render themselves temporarily vulnerable for a larger benefit.

Or if you had a hybrid weapon, an AR+Grenade Launcher, with a minimum arming distance for the GL. There's your 'risk' (you whiff a shot and waste a second if you rely on the GL) with the 'reward' (the GL has higher group DPS than the rifle component). This works because you can make moment to moment decisions, rather than just regretting your decision if you chose wrongly (good risk-reward balancing lets you lower your risk very quickly and with relatively little punishment), and you can mitigate the risk very easily (simply rely on the rifle part).

Notice that in neither example did I mention self-damage at all. That's because self-damage isn't "risk-reward" balancing.

[Kayll]

Not really sure how having more ways to dispatch enemies than other weapons qualifies as a risk..

If this is really an issue with someone then maybe DE can make a "launcher" only type mod that reduces the self damage you inflict to yourself, that way everyone is happy.
 

[LuckyCharm]

The safest way to have self damage would to actually be adding a range finder to your targeting reticle, so you can actually judge your shots rather than "it's about 6m, i'll fire now" and find out that you were infact still too close. Another option would be to show explosive radius circles kind of like MMO red carpets when using the weapons aim function.

Either of these would permit you to see if you're going to kill yourself before firing rather than reducing the self damage which is fair, considering what the weapons do. 

[MJ12]

10 minutes ago, Kayll said:

Not really sure how having more ways to dispatch enemies than other weapons qualifies as a risk..

If this is really an issue with someone then maybe DE can make a "launcher" only type mod that reduces the self damage you inflict to yourself, that way everyone is happy.
 

I pointed out exactly why alt-fire modes create "risk-reward" balancing. Because "risk-reward" balancing is about moment to moment decisions, as the acceptable level of risk for a player will pretty much constantly change from moment to moment as the game goes on and the situation changes. The point is that these hypothetical alt-fires allow you a moment-to-moment decision as to whether you want to do something that makes you more vulnerable/risks wasting time that you could be using pouring damage on (that's the "risk") to potentially achieve higher damage (that's the "reward").

At any time I use the weapon, I can willingly choose to take on more risk. At any time I choose to take on a mission, I can willingly choose to take on more risk. That's the entire point. So a "risk-reward" weapon would be like the Unreal Tournament Shock Rifle.

The Shock Combo of the Unreal Tournament shock rifle does a ludicrously high amount of damage-but doing so requires you to fire a secondary shot, then hit it with a primary shot. This means if you whiff your shock combo, you waste a significant amount of time of setup, which the other guy could be using to kill you. Furthermore, the shock rifle is quite a serviceable weapon at all ranges, with a reasonable rate of fire and decent damage. So you have the 'safe' method of using it and a 'riskier' method of using it which gets you a more potent payoff, and you can always switch between those methods freely.

What's the "risk-reward" in launchers? The dangerous way of using launchers creates no reward. You gain no benefit from not crate camping with a launcher.

"It's because you chose a weapon that's good at taking on crowds" you might say. Well, so's a properly modded Tigris P or crit shotgun, yet somehow those don't have self-damage.

 

3 minutes ago, LuckyCharm said:

The safest way to have self damage would to actually be adding a range finder to your targeting reticle, so you can actually judge your shots rather than "it's about 6m, i'll fire now" and find out that you were infact still too close. Another option would be to show explosive radius circles kind of like MMO red carpets when using the weapons aim function.

Either of these would permit you to see if you're going to kill yourself before firing rather than reducing the self damage which is fair, considering what the weapons do. 

"the self damage... is fair, considering what the weapons do"

Yes, it is so fair that I need multiple direct hits with an Ogris or a Penta to kill a lv60 enemy, but they kill me if I so much as get winged at the edge of the explosion. So. Fair. Because after all, the theoretical higher DPS of the Ogris against a bunched up horde of enemies is somewhat viable, therefore you need to have a weapon that can kill yourself instantly with it. I mean, this is ignoring that all the explosive weapons fire slow projectiles, most of them fire arcing projectiles, and all ballistic weapons can gain significant amounts of punch-through (which, unlike blast radius, also allows things like shooting through doors with no risk).

Like, if you absolutely still needed self-damage, it should be limited to the unmodded damage rating of the weapon, so it hurts (the Ogris does what, 500 damage?) but isn't instant death.

 

 

 

[LuckyCharm]

5 minutes ago, MJ12 said:

Yes, it is so fair that I need multiple direct hits with an Ogris or a Penta to kill a lv60 enemy, but they kill me if I so much as get winged at the edge of the explosion. So. Fair.

if you're given all the information before hand and still kill yourself its your own fault, if you're not told you're in range then i can't really say it's going to be fair. The damage though is definitely fair. Every other fps game if you shoot your feet with an RPG you get blown up. Grenades too. Only games where they remove the self damage on that sort of weapon are you able to do that. 

And sure.. you might need multiple hits for that, but mine still one shots me and enemies at that level. And Lenz is even stronger. You think its fair that you should take 300 damage when an enemy takes 47k damage, when at their levels they have a ton more armor than you do? 

[Kayll]

The reward of using these weapons is that you can clear entire rooms with little to no aim required, the benefit of being able to use Heavy Caliber simply cause of how the weapon functions negating the negative aspect of it.

It's too much to ask for you to not stand next to a target you are shooting point blank?
Personally I think the riven prices suggests that these strong area of affect weapons puts them more into the nerf side of the spectrum than the buff side since they clearly aren't disadvantaged enough.

Besides there is single target weapons that take multiple shots to kill a level60 target, how about we fix those instead of buffing the weapons 90% of the playerbase use on a regular basis?

[RealityMachina]

43 minutes ago, LuckyCharm said:

Every other fps game if you shoot your feet with an RPG you get blown up. Grenades too.

The games that do this don't exist in a Warframe like context though. RPGs, Grenades, and explosive weapons in general that allow self damage tend to do so generally existing in an environment where:

 

1) The explosive weaponry in question are generally superior to normal weapons if you can land shots with them. (Not true in Warframe, half of this whole debate spawns from the fact that there's not that much of a performance jump between AOE explosive weapons and normal weapons that can't harm you.)

2) Or they provide some major utility function, such as rocket jumping, that is impossible to replicate with any other method. (Not true in Warframe, because half the reason this game exists is that every player has access to a mobility system allowing access to hard to reach places, if you're competent with it)

This is seen in games like Titanfall 2 where the game's explosive projectile weapons tend to be one hit kills (or one burst kills) if aimed correctly. Correspondingly, they tend to have pretty slow projectile speeds, and will kill the user if used at close ranges, to try encouraging a certain kind of playstyle that will make the users of these weapons more vulnerable to enemy attack compared to using a hitscan weapon if there's a lack of good skill with the mobility system.

Another example would be frag grenades, and the game mechanic of being allowed to cook them before throwing: you run the risk of blowing yourself up if you misjudge how long you need to cook your grenade, but you have the potential reward of being able to land a grenade and have it explode upon near contact, mimicking the functionality of always explode on impact grenades, with the power of what's normally a timer-based grenade.

 

Meanwhile, as a counter example, Junkrat from Overwatch had his self-damage from his grenade launcher removed, because his entre kit was meant to work as a relatively close range, area denial hero.

But the self damage from his nades meant that the best way to deal with him was use one of the more HP spongey heroes and just get in close range with him, since the grenade self enemies would kill him faster than they would the tanks.

This change wasn't done to Soldier:76's rocket alt-fire nor Pharah's rocket launcher, as those heroes are designed to work in more of a mid-range context where the self-damage would act more as a reminder that they're trying to use their ability or main weapon at too close of a range.

 

 

If there is going to be self-damage on explosive projectile weapons in Warframe, it must come with some sort of major advantage for doing so (and not just like "hey this kills things faster than normal weapons in an idealized mission that generally only has spherical cows in a vacuum for enemies"), and in a way that just doesn't lead to the hyper-defensive style of play the devs have indicated they don't want players in Warframe to do. As far as I've experienced, the current self-damage implementation fails to fulfill either objective.

 

[Kayll]

In a game where the most sought after trait in a weapon is killing things faster, killing things faster is quite an advantage wouldn't you think?

If you don't want to kill yourself in close range with those weapons, you have a secondary and a melee weapon which will fill those roles perfectly while you can still keep your roomexplody boomboom and use it when the proper time arises.

 

[Ve1indian]

Instead of self damage there should be a garunteed stun that ignores knockback/knockdown immunity. Explosions wouldn't be instant death if an enemy jumps in front of you, but you'd risk dying if you're too reckless with a lot of enemies around. In addition, Warframe mods that lower the time you are knocked down or staggered would have more use if you were to use explosive weapons.

Edited January 21, 2018 by Vougue

[Epicmonk117b]

 

On 1/18/2018 at 1:45 AM, Kayll said:

just don't shoot your feet and you're golden.

 

Kayll, I don't know if you know this, but many of the explosive weapons in Warframe can still kill you even if they explode on the far side of a room.  Sure, in most games they're an instant kill if you shoot them at your feet, but in Warframe, they're far more destructive than that.  This is why the Tonkor was the only viable explosive weapon for so long - it was the only one that wouldn't kill you if you fired it.

[Kayll]

43 minutes ago, Epicmonk117b said:

 

Kayll, I don't know if you know this, but many of the explosive weapons in Warframe can still kill you even if they explode on the far side of a room.  Sure, in most games they're an instant kill if you shoot them at your feet, but in Warframe, they're far more destructive than that.  This is why the Tonkor was the only viable explosive weapon for so long - it was the only one that wouldn't kill you if you fired it.

Wow they are that strong and you want them to be even better?!?!?!

[TheLexiConArtist]

6 hours ago, Epicmonk117b said:

Kayll, I don't know if you know this, but many of the explosive weapons in Warframe can still kill you even if they explode on the far side of a room.  Sure, in most games they're an instant kill if you shoot them at your feet, but in Warframe, they're far more destructive than that.  This is why the Tonkor was the only viable explosive weapon for so long - it was the only one that wouldn't kill you if you fired it.

No, it was the only used explosive weapon because it had zero risk while still granting obscene rewards. Especially before the explosion autoheadshot was removed, because headcrits.

Plenty of people using the Lenz now, and that's still self-murdering.

You're vastly underestimating the difference between "proportional usage over a base of >100 other options" and "used to the point of near exclusivity of every other available option".

Old busted Tonkor was the latter, rivaled only by the spamulors, and we don't need either of those again.

[Epicmonk117b]

On 2/4/2018 at 10:07 PM, Kayll said:

Wow they are that strong and you want them to be even better?!?!?!

 

They're only really that strong against you.  Especially in the higher levels, the beefier units (Bombards, Techs, Ancients, etc.) are able to survive 2 or 3 direct hits from many explosive weapons, and sometimes even more (especially Bombards).  However, even the tankiest Warframes in the game with full tank builds get instagibbed by their own explosive weapons.

 

On 2/5/2018 at 3:47 AM, EDYinnit said:

No, it was the only used explosive weapon because it had zero risk while still granting obscene rewards. Especially before the explosion autoheadshot was removed, because headcrits.

 

Did you forget that it was also the only explosive weapon that didn't deal so much self-damage that it was literally unusable?

 

With the current self-damage model, using the majority of explosive weapons in Warframe is the equivalent of running up to your enemies and shouting "Allahu Ackbar!"  This idea I proposed was meant to make explosive weapons remain dangerous to their users while not seeming like they're actively plotting against them.