The Biggest Overhaul That This Game Needs (Scaling)

[PaperAlien]

The scaling of this game needs to a lot of revision. When I first started this game, it felt so completely different from the high level defense missions that are simply a jacked up amount of enemies with jacked up stats. The difficulty of the game can also wildly vary between small differences, for example, at high levels, having an armour-ignore weapon makes everything infinitely easier. At lower levels, a small level difference is still capable of making two weapons vastly different in power, often to that point that you can just bring in a set of Kunai while you level other weapons, so you have an easy I-win button against tougher enemies that you can't be bothered chipping down with the other weapon. And of course, there's always the issue of overleveled players being capable of completely stomping through lower level missions. My personal opinion is that two main overhauls are needed to fix these issues:

 

   -Armour scaling. There's a lot of different suggestions floating around (flat-out remove armour scaling, only scale armour for specific bodyparts, making AP mods cause % armour ignore instead of adding an extra element, etc), and there's definitely more than one which I find viable. The point is that pretty much any of these alternatives is better than the current system. The current system is responsible for the exponential scaling of enemy durability, and wrecking the balance between armour-ignore weapons and other counterparts.

   -The second overhaul will probably get me a lot of flame, but my opinion (again) is that the sheer scale of the scaling in this game is makes the balance really unstable. For lack of better example, I will use Mass Effect 3's multiplayer as an example. In ME3MP, enemies at the highest difficulty have around twice the health than at the lowest difficulty (perhaps 3x, but definitely not the ridiculous amounts seen in this game) (also worthy to note that ME3MP had a similar issue with armour scaling. Low-damage-per-shot weapons suffered disproportionately, even though the increase health pools should have offered enough change already).

 

In ME3MP, most damage bonuses for weapons are in 5-10% increments, a 25% increment is considered huge. In Warframe, 25% is also a large amount, and yet at the same time can be negligible versus the astronomical 200%+ increases we get here from multishot and raw damage increases. While I will not deny that taking a Gold/Platinum (higher 2 difficulties) optimised character to Bronze (the lowest difficulty) will result in a slaughterfest, it cannot compare to the degree of overleveling apparent when a player with full potatoed weapons goes to Mercury.

Apart from allowing hugely overleveled players to rip apart enemies in lower-leveled lobbies, this also has the problem of letting people bring a second weapon into a low-level mission as a crutch, which in my opinion removes a lot of the challenge and immersion when you have the ability to simply choose to remove an enemy you don't feel like fighting. This happens because you brought a potatoed level 30 sidearm (Kunai is probably not an ideal example, because it's a crutch by default, due to overpowered stats) into a Mercury mission, where it proceeds to do over 10 times its damage to level 5 enemies.

 

I think that if the scaling of this game (this is for players AND enemies, don't get me wrong) was reduced to lower levels (Hornet Strike could max out at 90%, perhaps, and enemies at Pluto might have 5-10 times as much health/damage), it would be much more manageable to maintain challenge at all levels. It would, however, have the downside of making mods less important, which could devalue potatoes, but I still think it would give much-needed stabiltiy to the game to make balancing future content easier.

 

Thoughts?

Edited August 7, 2013 by PaperAlien

[KvotheTheArcane1]

I'd recommend some spaces, right now it just looks like a MASSIVE wall of text.

[Numot]

Also, wrong forum. But format the post so its easier to read please.

[notlamprey]

I got a lot of enjoyment out of ME3MP before I just trailed off of it for no particular reason, and the general scaling in that game felt really good.

 

The general idea you have here isn't a bad one, but I'm pretty sure that it will be an unpopular one.

 

Personally, I like being able to smash entry-level content using gear that I spent time acquiring. Right now, it feels like I can radically ramp up (or down) the overall difficulty of my game experience with essentially zero penalty. That works great for me. Sometimes I'm itching for a real white-knuckle, bladder-busting, eye-watering challenge. Other times I really just want to listen to a podcast and wade blissfully through a ball pit of corpses.

 

Some aspects of the extreme high-end play experience do suffer from diabolical math, but hopefully we can fix that without disempowering the player too much.

 

edit: this thread probably doesn't belong in the Warframe Feedback section :P

Edited August 7, 2013 by notlamprey

[PaperAlien]

I'd recommend some spaces, right now it just looks like a MASSIVE wall of text.

 

Also, wrong forum. But format the post so its easier to read please.

I... I tried.

 

Oops, wrong forum indeed. Would appreciate it if someone could move this.

 

 

 

 but I'm pretty sure that it will be an unpopular one.

Ohhh yeah.

Edited August 7, 2013 by PaperAlien

[OniDarkClown]

With the Wall-O-Text gone, My two cents.

 

I'm more or less OK with how Armor works as it is.

Then again i use multiple weapon setups on different Warframes.

like my Ember used Dule Heat swords, Gorgon and Twin Vipers.

with her its all Fire Mods and dmg dmg dmg.

 

My Loki uses the Snipetron Vandal, Lex and Dual Zoren, with all the armor and penetration I can stack on and Ice mods.

 

If I have to deal With high end armored Fungos A Loki I will go.

if it's a smattering of infested my Ember is who will fire things up.

 

Without how it currently is set up my attitude would be.

 

"a Higher level area.. PFFFT with Mod X and Mod Z the armor will melt like warm butter in the sun.  I LAUGH AT YOUR PATHETIC ARMOR, PUNY FOES!"

 

But with how it is, i am more of.

"humm this one will have some pesky armored Foes of a formidable sort.  Best To be on my game, lest I catch a Butt whooping most foul."

Edited August 7, 2013 by OniDarkClown

[KvotheTheArcane1]

I... I tried.

 

Oops, wrong forum indeed. Would appreciate it if someone could move this.

much better, and I agree, although DE does not...

 

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.

[PaperAlien]

 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.

nuuuuuuuuuu

[KvotheTheArcane1]

nuuuuuuuuuu

Yeah, well hopefully with enough talk about it DE will see that non AI/AP weapons are pretty much worthless on even just xini wave 15ish (although, that might just be my opinion but with a decent team, it's not light infested that are the problem, it's the ancients)

[Lers]

Yeah, well hopefully with enough talk about it DE will see that non AI/AP weapons are pretty much worthless on even just xini wave 15ish (although, that might just be my opinion but with a decent team, it's not light infested that are the problem, it's the ancients)

 

Yuppp. I've shed a single tear for my supercharged, multi forma'd Braton stacked with mods, when i've pumped an Ancients leg full of 5 dmg bullets on wave ~15.