August 6Th: Communtiy Hot Topics

[W4RM4CHIN3]

Rebecca when can we expect Survival mode to arrive????

[TheGambler_BR]

Armor comment is somewhat of an issue, personally, and I have mixed feelings as far as it goes.

 

The current armor system makes endgame unviable with any weapon that isn't AP/AI/SB. And by endgame, I mean T3. Having to use three mods (multishot, serration, ans especially piercing hit) to do any damage at all is not what I'd call good game design, especially when your stated in your goals that you wouldn't want to have one dominant loadout in detriment of the others. In fact, that statement as of today is almost outright lying (and I hate to say that)

 

However, at lower levels, such weapons often have lower damage values than their counterparts, which mean that non-armor-ignoring weapons are stronger there.

 

That is why I have the most fun when playing midgame missions, where enemies' levels range between 25 to 45. Armor there is mostly balanced, and all weapons see an equal amount of play and viability (except the ignis - that thing is horrible, sadly).

 

I think that the game is at its most enjoyable when it's around those levels (and you too, have gear suited for that level).

[simeo77]

5) Armor (Scalability and Difficulty)

Several great posts have emerged that tackle “Armor” and its effectiveness at high levels and how this affects players options when facing high level enemies. This conversation boils down to what kind of changes will Armor undergo, if any? The answer is that Armor is currently working as intended and is unlikely to change.

 

Edited August 6, 2013 by simeo77

[Lumireaver]

I anticipated this, will try and keep the conversation alive.

 

I believe I personally wouldn't mind armor not changing if I could hear some of the justification and game-logic behind the decisions. Is there supposed to be one build to rule them all, or are we supposed to have options? How are the tools we have being designed to accommodate that intention?

 

If Grineeer needs a break from all of that hardcore 9.X work, taking a moment to explain his reasoning would be nice. (Assuming he is Sovereign Lord of game balance.)

 

I feel like there are elements in Warframe which have been implemented and then forgotten about. It seemed like armor was one of those, but maybe the crux of the mechanic is just flying over my head.

[RealityMachina]

I believe I personally wouldn't mind armor not changing if I could hear some of the justification and game-logic behind the decisions. Is there supposed to be one build to rule them all, or are we supposed to have options? How are the tools we have being designed to accommodate that intention?

 

If Grineeer needs a break from all of that hardcore 9.X work, taking a moment to explain his reasoning would be nice. (Assuming he is Sovereign Lord of game balance.)

 

I feel like there are elements in Warframe which have been implemented and then forgotten about. It seemed like armor was one of those, but maybe the crux of the mechanic is just flying over my head.

Yeah this is something that really needs to be explained for the rest of us. (...granted explaining is something warframe needs to do a lot more in general, but my complaints about the current UI concerning equipment, weapons, warframes etc is a different topic)

 

I mean, now I'm looking at this:

and trying to figure out how do I come to a conclusion in which the end result of that is a good idea.

[[DE]Rebecca]

Yeah this is something that really needs to be explained for the rest of us. (...granted explaining is something warframe needs to do a lot more in general, but my complaints about the current UI concerning equipment, weapons, warframes etc is a different topic)

 

I mean, now I'm looking at this:

and trying to figure out how do I come to a conclusion in which the end result of that is a good idea.

X Axis = Enemy Level, correct?

[RealityMachina]

X Axis = Enemy Level, correct?

Yes.

[MJ12]

YEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

 

Only Mak would claim that a change which is objectively bad for the game is fantastic.

 

I want to ask, if armor is supposed to scale and make enemies at high levels effectively invulnerable to any non-armor ignoring damage, why is it that the majority of non-shotgun weapons are not armor ignore, thus making them effectively useless against endgame content? This is especially bad for pistols, which have the weakest armor-piercing damage modification (tops out at 30%) and the most ranged armor-ignore options (Kunai, Despair, Hikou, Bolto, Akbolto), thus creating the most visible imbalance.

 

Shotguns get a pass (*a* pass, and this is very borderline) because they top off at +150% armor piercing damage with Acc. Blast + Flechette, meaning that they deal more AP damage than normal damage with endgame mods.

Edited August 6, 2013 by MJ12

[FlanShark]

I'm continually disappointed that glaring technical problems are never mentioned in these posts.

The movement especially is riddled with problems both dependent and independent of one's ping.

UI still has so, so many glaring problems and every update just makes it feel more and more form-over-function.

I won't go on because it'll get whiny, but those two issues are incredibly frustrating every single time I fire this game up. I bought founder's in january because I thought this game had a huge amount of promise. I still think it does, but the longer fundamental stuff like this is left to rot on the sidelines, the closer I get to giving up.

Edited August 6, 2013 by FlanShark

[Cpl_Facehugger]

Several great posts have emerged that tackle “Armor” and its effectiveness at high levels and how this affects players options when facing high level enemies. This conversation boils down to what kind of changes will Armor undergo, if any? The answer is that Armor is currently working as intended and is unlikely to change.

I must echo the sentiments provided by others in this thread. The armor system as it stands is extremely problematic from a game balance standpoint, because it means that any gun that doesn't have AP is approaching worthlessness in high level planets, much less T3 or high wave defense.

But more than that, the way the armor scales means that things like fire mods potentially end up useless against infested, while AP is the only thing that can actually damage them at all, even though they're highly resistant to it. From a plausibility standpoint it's a bit irritating, but from a game balance standpoint it's utterly toxic - suddenly there's no reason to bring non-AP elemental mods except cold for the slow effect unless you're playing in low level systems, since you'll only be adding one or two extra damage at best.

It basically means that variety decreases as you go up in level, and that is very unsatisfying. We start out with a few options but the promise of more to hook us. Then we peak around level 40 or so, at which point enemy armor scales upwards so much that AP/AI weapons start to pull ahead. By level 80 they're pretty much no brainers, meaning that there's very little reason to bring anything else unless it's an Ogris for AOE.

I don't think the problem is with the way the armor system calculates damage, it's with the way it scales endlessly with no cap. Either that, or it's how weakpoints like heads scale up to.

[Egg_Chen]

I'm torn on the armor issue.

 

On one hand I see that at Lv 60-70+ many weapons lose effectiveness.

However, you cannot balance the whole game for those sort of levels.

 

Does the (late)game not need to reach a point where the challenge is spectacular, or we would just reach wave 1,000 and die of DVT or malnutrition?

[Xylia]

So....

 

If I'm reading this right, the Developers think it is OK that non-Armor Ignore weapons being useless in the game's latest content is OK?

 

Do I get that right?

 

Weapons that do low damage but have high rate of fire is supposed to be useless past Level 40 or so?

 

We can look at a lot of weapons -- Vipers, Furis, Grakata, and other weapons like them and see that hardly anybody uses these in Eris, Pluto, Void 3, etc unless it is on Infested.

 

They just don't do enough damage to anything that has armor.

 

So... we could leave armor as is, and give everything armor ignore (at least then ALL weapons might be viable), or we could tweak something else.

 

Either way, having so many guns being so ineffective is kinda meh.

 

Why even have these guns when they're no good against anything later in the game?

 

You JUST released the Vasto.

 

Guess what? It is already useless against many of the game's enemies. The recoil is too high to consistently aim for the head, which makes it a poor weapon to use against Grineer of any decently high level, the recoil is too high to make it useful against Ospreys and the lack of armor ignore makes it so you can't shoot Corpus in the head, so you're not likely to use it on Corpus either, and it only has 6 shots -- you're not using this thing against hordes of light infested, the ONE enemy in the game that would be good to fight with a non-armor ignoring weapon.

 

So.... what exactly IS the Vasto supposed to be used for, again? Why take a Vasto instead of the throwing knives?

[Cpl_Facehugger]

However, you cannot balance the whole game for those sort of levels.

Why not? The way I see it, everything is already OP in low level play anyway, so if the people want a challenge, they'll naturally migrate to higher levels.

Edit: Obviously you'd do what you can to ensure a gradual progression of difficulty, but if it comes down to balancing endgame content or balancing early game content, the endgame content should be balanced, as endgame is what keeps players playing even after they've unlocked every system.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Cpl_Facehugger

[Xylia]

Why not? The way I see it, everything is already OP in low level play anyway, so if the people want a challenge, they'll naturally migrate to higher levels.

Edit: Obviously you'd do what you can to ensure a gradual progression of difficulty, but if it comes down to balancing endgame content or balancing early game content, the endgame content should be balanced, as endgame is what keeps players playing even after they've unlocked every system.

 

 

^^

This.

 

Many other MMORPGs balance around Endgame, and leave the early-to-mid game alone.

 

And besides, Newbies are unfairly challenged in early game, Mid-level people are stuck on the newbie areas because going higher is too hard, and endgame people are limited to a certain few overpowered weapons and frames to do their endgame content.

 

And.......there's very little, if any actual progression.

 

What kills Newbies and Endgamers alike?

 

1). Armor.

2). Tenno being Glass Cannons without the right mods/frames.

3). Lack of Necessary Mods.

 

Armor looks like the easiest thing to tweak IMO. A tweak to mods, where you progress at an even steady pace as you go up the levels would be nice, but not sure how exactly you'd do that.

 

I DO know, however, handing all newbies a huge slew of crit mods when they have low crit weapons is not helping matters any whatsoever. They need Damage Mods, not Crit Mods.

[AndyChanglee]

We can look at a lot of weapons -- Vipers, Furis, Grakata, and other weapons like them and see that hardly anybody uses these in Eris, Pluto, Void 3, etc unless it is on Infested.

 

They just don't do enough damage to anything that has armor.

 

So... we could leave armor as is, and give everything armor ignore (at least then ALL weapons might be viable), or we could tweak something else.

 

Either way, having so many guns being so ineffective is kinda meh.

 

Why even have these guns when they're no good against anything later in the game?

 

You JUST released the Vasto.

 

Guess what? It is already useless against many of the game's enemies. The recoil is too high to consistently aim for the head, which makes it a poor weapon to use against Grineer of any decently high level, the recoil is too high to make it useful against Ospreys and the lack of armor ignore makes it so you can't shoot Corpus in the head, so you're not likely to use it on Corpus either, and it only has 6 shots -- you're not using this thing against hordes of light infested, the ONE enemy in the game that would be good to fight with a non-armor ignoring weapon.

 

So.... what exactly IS the Vasto supposed to be used for, again? Why take a Vasto instead of the throwing knives?

 

Hmm. Do you know about those mods that add armor pierce damage? It deals a form of damage that penetrates armor and deals 100% of its theoretical yield to things with armor. So lets talk about the Twin Vipers. 16 dmg, unmodded, pretty bad. Add a Hornet Strike, its 51.6. 1433.6 dmg per mag, ignoring armor. Now, add No Return. 430 dmg guarenteed vs. anything with the armor you dread so much. Best part about the Twin Vipers is its CRIT. you have an ADDITIONAL 482.46 dmg vs. anything with armor, and im not even going to add its base normal dmg, elemental mods, and barrel diffusion.

 

You probably have not modded them.

 

The Vasto can take on lvl30 grineer Unranked, so i'm not going to calculate its beastness after full mods (first hand experience, pls.), and I have enough skill from the burston and kraken to be cool and aim down after shooting with the Vasto. Also, if you unscope its pretty easy to handle.

 

Why not throwing knives? Because they aint my style, they have drop, they're slow, i have no boost when spin attacking, doesn't work with seeker, and real Kunais are for farming.

[JamesSergon]

They either have to remove that exponential non sense, or extend the utility of aiming at the weak points (which should be 100% armor piercing/ignore + a damage bonus/stun/bleeding) so skills players have a reason to use something else.  Still, there are other problems about mods influencing too much the power of the weapons and narrowing the effective build choices.

[Mak_Gohae]

Why not? The way I see it, everything is already OP in low level play anyway, so if the people want a challenge, they'll naturally migrate to higher levels.

Edit: Obviously you'd do what you can to ensure a gradual progression of difficulty, but if it comes down to balancing endgame content or balancing early game content, the endgame content should be balanced, as endgame is what keeps players playing even after they've unlocked every system.

 

What's endgame content?

Because all the complaining about armor seems to just revolve around high level defense missions.

Do you need to do high level defense missions to get specific loot? Nope.

High level defense missions are simply done for personal goals. The game should not be balance around people that want to be all leet on some high level defense mission. The rest of the game is fine and if there are some people that want to go at those high level defense missions.... good but that is not THE whole game. 

[Cpl_Facehugger]

What's endgame content?

For purposes of discussion, let's say Pluto and T3 void. Because the armor scaling issue is very much prevalent in those places. With T3 void being the only way to actually get certain weapon components and Pluto being a one stop shop of resources practically.

You can lump in Eris and arguably Ceres as well if you'd like.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Cpl_Facehugger

[Xylia]

Hmm. Do you know about those mods that add armor pierce damage? It deals a form of damage that penetrates armor and deals 100% of its theoretical yield to things with armor. So lets talk about the Twin Vipers. 16 dmg, unmodded, pretty bad. Add a Hornet Strike, its 51.6. 1433.6 dmg per mag, ignoring armor. Now, add No Return. 430 dmg guarenteed vs. anything with the armor you dread so much. Best part about the Twin Vipers is its CRIT. you have an ADDITIONAL 482.46 dmg vs. anything with armor, and im not even going to add its base normal dmg, elemental mods, and barrel diffusion.

 

You're assuming MAXED Hornet Strike, which takes hundreds of thousands of credits, and hundreds of mods to dump into it. That's a project that takes quite some time. An Endgamer might have that, but a newbie-to-lowbie just doesn't have those kinds of resources, and probably doesn't feel like dumping 50+ hours into a gun before it'll finally do something decent.

 

Try that with Rank0-5 Hornet Strike; the results will not be anywhere near as good.

 

And using a Vasto on Lv30 grineer unranked? Meh, Fire one shot... wait, fire another shot, wait... fire another shot, wait...

 

I'd have killed 3 Grineer to your 1 with unranked Despair at that speed.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Xylia

[Krokar]

Overall, good, but the armor comment is disconcerting.

Unless you guys have some way to dethrone endless defense as the king game type, armor ignoring equipment will continue to dominate. If you guys can improve the quality of the game when not on defense by mechanical scaling rather than pure numerical scaling, armor scaling as it currently does will become less important because AI weaponry would only dominate one game type. Right now, it technically does, but defense defines this game in its current state, so...

I'm going to use that quote to make a point...

 

~Mid to End-game in WF requires one thing...Mods.  To aquire mods, the player has to farm where the highest chance for <x> amount of mod drops will be(a.k.a. Defensive missions).  Considering that most of the player base is in a constant state of upgrading, Forma'ing(which, in-turn requires more time to re-level a frame), Fusing, and trying to perfect a Weapon loadout, that at best, might come out less than not useful against mid tier to end-game mobs; you have to consider that:

   ~~>One weapon to rule them all is not the right approach, AND given the damage output from higher tier'd mobs is in abundance(especially in a swarm), it makes the player start the road to obtaining <x> weapon because "JimmyBob007" has it and it keeps his a55 alive...

This doesn't make it ok to ask the player base without 999 other clan members to farm for weeks for mods to burn or buy a rediculous amount of Core packs for 75p or so(for like what, 3 of them??).

   ~~Warframes can be squishy, so if we are talking balance then lets talk real balance here. Lets start a discussion on it and at least get concerns and armor issues out there. If nothing else, get the Design Counsel on-board and have an open forum discussion on the topic on a <x_ player = y_skill and z_player = crazy_skill_and_resources>

[Khranitel]

Hmm. Do you know about those mods that add armor pierce damage? It deals a form of damage that penetrates armor and deals 100% of its theoretical yield to things with armor. So lets talk about the Twin Vipers. 16 dmg, unmodded, pretty bad. Add a Hornet Strike, its 51.6. 1433.6 dmg per mag, ignoring armor. Now, add No Return. 430 dmg guarenteed vs. anything with the armor you dread so much. Best part about the Twin Vipers is its CRIT. you have an ADDITIONAL 482.46 dmg vs. anything with armor, and im not even going to add its base normal dmg, elemental mods, and barrel diffusion.

 

You probably have not modded them.

Your math is... interesting, to say the least.

 

Nevertheless, take a look at graph, which was posted a few posts earlier, and find there, how many health from armor has, let's say, lvl 60 Grineer Heavy gunner. Found it? I'll help you: about 6000-7000. I think now you can make your own calculations to see, how many bullets do you need to kill that single enemy. Hint: we're talking about half of your whole ammo reserve. 

 

I'm not even talking about Ancients, they are just ridiculous.

 

Now I must ask you: did you played this game on planets beyond... I don't know, Saturn?

 

...

 

Armor scaling in this game is beyond ridiculous, and it seems obvious to everyone, except devs. And I have a feeling that soon enough those people, who already tired of trying to make it clear to DE (among with other long-lasting issues), will just start to vote with their legs. Mind that those are core players, many of them being there since closed beta times, and without them - I don't think that this game could have a bright future.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Khranitel

[RawGritz]

Sooo is "Iron Skin" going to continue to oddly features spikes? Not a fan personally and it seems inappropriate unless spiked iron skin adds to dmg output on Rhino Charge.

 

No way to make it look like aged iron with old cuts and scrapes on it? Also the idea could be better personified with sounds of bullets bouncing off metal and sparks flying off Rhino when hit.

[Xylia]

Sooo is "Iron Skin" going to continue to oddly features spikes? Not a fan personally and it seems inappropriate unless spiked iron skin adds to dmg output on Rhino Charge.

 

No way to make it look like aged iron with old cuts and scrapes on it? Also the idea could be better personified with sounds of bullets bouncing off metal and sparks flying off Rhino when hit.

 

People wanted to see their warframe's chosen color when using Iron Skin. DE had to find a way to give you an Iron Skin visual, but yet still allow the Warframe's Color to come through.

 

So they stuck metal bits all over him. *shrugs*

[CrimsonCannon]

Sooooo....we're going to keep piling on damage and armor piercing mods on top of our guns, or rely almost completely on armor-ignore weapons?

 

Not cool DE, not cool.

 

I don't really mind enemies being tougher in areas like Pluto/Sedna etc., but for the love of God, at least do something with them that gives us more options, other than "Get Boltor, max serration, slap armor piercing, repeat ad infinitum" because that is not a good gaming decision. It's not fun! Why the hell would I want to do end-tier systems, or T3 void, if all of them boil down to the exact same tactic, exact same weapons with exact same mods? This is getting not boring - but tedious and fast.

 

TL;DR version:

 

If armor works as intended, then I'm Holy Emperor of Rome. I expect my manservants and gold-plated carriage by 8 a.m.

Edited August 7, 2013 by CrimsonCannon

[Xylia]

Sooooo....we're going to keep piling on damage and armor piercing mods on top of our guns, or rely almost completely on armor-ignore weapons?

 

Not cool DE, not cool.

 

I don't really mind enemies being tougher in areas like Pluto/Sedna etc., but for the love of God, at least do something with them that gives us more options, other than "Get Boltor, max serration, slap armor piercing, repeat ad infinitum" because that is not a good gaming decision. It's not fun! Why the hell would I want to do end-tier systems, or T3 void, if all of them boil down to the exact same tactic, exact same weapons with exact same mods? This is getting not boring - but tedious and fast.

 

TL;DR version:

 

If armor works as intended, then I'm Holy Emperor of Rome. I expect my manservants and gold-plated carriage by 8 a.m.

 

Despair > Everything, friend.

 

Despair > Everything.

 

Unless you have Acrid maybe?

 

But yeah.

 

I guess they want us with Ogris/Boltor/Vandaltron, Despair/Acrid, and one of the melee weapons, does it even matter which? Kestrel maybe? all the way. Doesn't matter what you do.