Warframes and Abilities to be Nerfed

[Soketsu]

Il y a 4 heures, Checht a dit :

Here is where we fundamentally disagree. I think fun and engaging gameplay should come first, any resources gained in the process should be secondary. If grinding is the main focus of a game, what do you do after you've obtained what you grinded for? That's the reason I've quit Warframe once, due to lack of endgame challenge. I've returned following the PoE hype. I've seen posts in the General section regarding players being bored at endgame and asking for higher level missions or new game+, and pondering on quitting. If this goes on, it is hard for DE to retain players expecting challenging and engaging gameplay from Warframe (and I believe it has already been so for quite some time).

If the question that I ask myself is "How fast can I complete the mission to get resources fast?" instead of "Let's see if I can complete this mission", it is no fun in my opinion.

Also, my motivation for the suggested nerfs are also to make being able to survive to level 100+ a big deal. Currently, anybody can do that just by spamming hard CC/invisibility/invincibility.

This is a feedback forum, I am giving DE feedback on what I like and what I dislike. It is up to DE to make the optimal business decision. I understand that catering too much to my taste has a risk of isolating players enjoying mindless fun, but that is DE's decision to make, my job is just to provide feedback on what I like and dislike. For example, the following is also a perfectly valid point.

There are also players who enjoy power fantasy and mindless fun, and there is no problem with that.

I play other thing the time DE give new content (in the case I've manage to farm eveything). What do you do when you complete all "challenge" from a game ?

The problem with endgame is not only about finding  challenge, it's also from another point of view, "why should I make go for 40 round of defence when I can just relaunch and at an easier state and getting the same thing ?"  The last time I have point to go higher than lvl 200 was with defection mission event.

 

I can understant that but then why did you come back ? Why did you thing PoE will change everything you didn't like here ?

Again, not getting killed doesn't mean you will succeed in any case.

 

Yes and i see throught the year many tread leading to pointless nerf like ash, mirasimulor, banshee... nerf who didn't change anything to the game, just a waste of time for the DE who code it and the players who have to have either to change of warframe or reajusting their gear in order to get the same result.

Time who could have been spent on things who been forgotten for ages, like ships, solar rail conflicts.

It's things like this who make me come on the forum in the 1st place. The majority of time I spend on this forum is to trying to limit that, either by being sure that the change will really change things, or trying to prevent that DE waste their time. You're not the 1st to do this and on't be the last.

[MickThejaguar]

8 hours ago, Checht said:

You still need to aim with weapons, and they can only oneshot enemies up to the point where enemy level scaled up to a point (my Volt's Rubico needed ~5 headshots to kill Augmented Enemy Armor corrupted heavy gunner in my Volt gameplay). With (Fatal) Teleport + Covert Lethality, you just need to keep spamming 3 until your reticle lines up generally with an enemy, and it scales indefinitely. The more important point is that you still need to aim with weapons, which requires good player performance. Although, I'll admit that the issue with Teleport + CL isn't as big as invisibility. Without the ability to stay permanently invisible, it's not viable to spam Teleport + CL anyway.

You need to aim Ash's three as well and the amount of time it takes to go off puts it's kill potential at such a low rate that you could have easily killed a dozen more enemies in the same time span with a weapon. And I'm not sure if you've ever seen a fully forma'd Zarr or Tigris Prime but you really don't need to be close to kill with those weapons. Especially the Zarr which is hazardous to the player if used up close anyways. 

 

8 hours ago, Checht said:

I already stopped playing many frames in which the playstyle is too mindless. I already mentioned that I quit Ash in my original post and a lot of other frames which many players consider more overpowered. I stopped playing those frames early on, which is why I don't feel comfortable enough to comment much on them. Regarding whether the nerfs are necessary, I think it's subjective. If DE wants to balance the game such that level 80-100 is the suitable endgame challenge, then it is necessary. If DE wants us to be able to survive beyond the point where enemies can oneshot us with a select few frames, then the nerfs are not necessary.

No these nerfs aren't necessary. First and foremost, you forget that there are game modes with actually objectives that benefit from these abilities. If the only game mode were survival, then maybe you'd have point but there are other game modes that certain frames have an obvious edge in and it's up to the player to pick the right tool for the job. Balancing all warframes around one or two game modes would effectively make them useless in others. Ash's invisibility makes him a strong pick for spy missions where the player is better suited using a frame that won't be seen. Volt's heavy amount of CC and shield ability make him good for things like interception, and Excalibur is the basic all-around frame, although he suffers in long-term survival. These proposals only talk about the bare mininum interaction between warframes and the enemies they kill. Making Ash's invisibility useless means you might as well just pick Rhino for your Stealth missions since Ash no longer has anything unique.

 

8 hours ago, Checht said:

Stunning enemies is the optimum tactic to survive. If the priority is to "kill fast" and not "survive", then it is just a grindy game, not an engaging game.

In a defense mission, the wave ends when you kill all of the enemies. Therefore the goal of a defense mission is to kill all of the enemies so that the mission can end. You specifically chose a build that made staying alive easier but at the cost of completely the mission in the most efficient way possible. The goal of a defense mission isn't simply to survive. That's what survivals are. The goal of a defense is to defend a target from enemies by killing them all. The reason your Excalibur video is stupid is because you are literally showing the overpowered nature of a build that nobody would use because it's awful at completing the objective. How is the build you used OP when there are other builds that could complete the same mission in half of time?

[BlackThunderHawk]

Nerf my $&*^ Dumb, WTF man, this is a pve game, se dont need a Nerf, grow up nerd

[Checht]

3 hours ago, Soketsu said:

What do you do when you complete all "challenge" from a game ?

If the gameplay is fun, I'll still play the game for fun. "Challenge" isn't a thing to collect, it is an essence of fun gameplay to me. See Left 4 Dead for example.

3 hours ago, Soketsu said:

I can understant that but then why did you come back ? Why did you thing PoE will change everything you didn't like here ?

PoE seemed interesting and ambitious, which is why I came back. After exploring the new content, the same problem is resurfacing, lack of endgame difficulty. However, DE's willingness to nerf abilities and their recent frame reworks are giving me hope. I am happy that they recently nerfed Discharge's CC, and Atlas' rework did not buff him to oblivion. Petrify's CC is of reasonable size, 75 energy, 60 degree cone of 14 m radius, needs LoS, 20 s stun (much more reasonable than Radial Blind's 50 energy, 360 degree, 25 m radius, 15 s stun). These gave me hope that DE is heading towards the direction that I envision.

This video sums up my sentiment pretty nicely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxV9OvIA5aM

 

3 hours ago, MickThejaguar said:

You need to aim Ash's three as well and the amount of time it takes to go off puts it's kill potential at such a low rate that you could have easily killed a dozen more enemies in the same time span with a weapon.

"Aiming" with Ash's 3 and aiming with a gun is just not comparable. First, you do not need to be accurate to "aim" with Ash's 3. Second, "missing" with Ash's 3 doesn't consume ammo and thus have no need to consume time reloading.

3 hours ago, MickThejaguar said:

Balancing all warframes around one or two game modes would effectively make them useless in others.

Balancing frames doesn't mean make their abilities all the same.

Ash still has the ability to turn invisible with my nerf suggestion, thus he is still viable for spy. It's just instead of spamming 2 to stay permanently invisible, you only turn invisible when there are sensors or enemies nearby.

Volt is still a good pick for interception even with a cooldown on Discharge. If 30 s is too long, I can accept a 20 s cooldown.

3 hours ago, MickThejaguar said:

In a defense mission, the wave ends when you kill all of the enemies. Therefore the goal of a defense mission is to kill all of the enemies so that the mission can end. You specifically chose a build that made staying alive easier but at the cost of completely the mission in the most efficient way possible. The goal of a defense mission isn't simply to survive. That's what survivals are. The goal of a defense is to defend a target from enemies by killing them all. The reason your Excalibur video is stupid is because you are literally showing the overpowered nature of a build that nobody would use because it's awful at completing the objective. How is the build you used OP when there are other builds that could complete the same mission in half of time?

The essential condition to any mission is to survive first. If you're dead, you can't complete the mission. If I want to kill fast, I can certainly do it easily with the appropriate weapon choice. Shall I make another video on Ash staying invisible and Atterax maim spin, or Excal blind spam and Atterax maim spin to kill fast instead?

Edited March 31, 2018 by Checht

[(PSN)TertulSee]

Another thread for the Hardcore gamers. The game isn’t supposed to be that incredibly challenging. If you don’t like it, play another game or something. Adding these changes would be difficult and would change the game altogether. They might as well make a new one with what you’re suggesting. I would just suggest making harder content that players can’t just simply cheese. Eidolons aren’t that easy but I doubt that’s the hardest boss that DE can make. 

What makes Warframe so popular is because it’s a game without a means of entry. You don’t have to be a gamer reaction god or that patient of a player to play this. This game is just a way to fill some power fantasy of some players and some for a small challenge. It’s not supposed to be so brutally restricted. It’s a game that allows you to do stuff at your own pace in any way with any frame. 

Edited March 31, 2018 by (PS4)godlysparta

[MickThejaguar]

3 hours ago, Checht said:

"Aiming" with Ash's 3 and aiming with a gun is just not comparable. First, you do not need to be accurate to "aim" with Ash's 3. Second, "missing" with Ash's 3 doesn't consume ammo and thus have no need to consume time reloading.

You don't really aim with a Zarr or Zenistar either. You just shoot in the enemy's general direction.

3 hours ago, Checht said:

Balancing frames doesn't mean make their abilities all the same.

Ash still has the ability to turn invisible with my nerf suggestion, thus he is still viable for spy. It's just instead of spamming 2 to stay permanently invisible, you only turn invisible when there are sensors or enemies nearby.

Volt is still a good pick for interception even with a cooldown on Discharge. If 30 s is too long, I can accept a 20 s cooldown.

First of all let's establish a couple things. Ash's maximum duration of invis (24.48 seconds) is only as high as it is when you have every ounce of possible duration. So a person who is newer to the game who doesn't have a bunch of duration mods to put on their Ash normally would be getting a base of 8 seconds of invisibility. Your proposal (the reduction of the duration to slightly less than the amount of time needed to revive someone) would leave Ash with about 5-7 seconds of invis and then 30 seconds where he can't use the ability. Now scale this down without all of the duration mods. People in lower levels wouldn't be able to do a thing with Ash. Unless you wanted to also change the scaling and base for the ability which is just creating more work that DE really doesn't need. You're basically asking DE to rebalance the entire game for sake of creating the perfect game for you, while also aliening the large portion of fans who play warframe for it's simplistic nature. If you want a game balanced around being difficult and challenging then I suggest you go find another game to play as opposed to asking DE force Warframe into being one. Not to mention, I never said that balancing frames makes all their abilities the same. What I was that if you balance a frame around one or two times of game modes without taking into account the game mode that may be their particular niche then you'll risk ultimately make them weak in the game mode they should be strongest in. Ash and Volt shouldn't just be okay in their respective elements. They should thrive in them. 

4 hours ago, Checht said:

The essential condition to any mission is to survive first. If you're dead, you can't complete the mission. If I want to kill fast, I can certainly do it easily with the appropriate weapon choice. Shall I make another video on Ash staying invisible and Atterax maim spin, or Excal blind spam and Atterax maim spin to kill fast instead?

Well doing neither those would help your case. All you would be doing is showing me how powerful the atterax is. Not really convincing me that either of those abilities is OP. With those pitiful spawn rates you probably could've done that mission with the atterax without radial blind or invis very easily. Really my point here is that you built frames to exploit a single ability in their kit, not to make them optimal for completing the mission. Yes surviving is necessary but those frames can be built in a way that doesn't involving speccing into one ability.

[Checht]

3 minutes ago, MickThejaguar said:

You don't really aim with a Zarr or Zenistar either. You just shoot in the enemy's general direction.

I think we can drop this, if you want to say that "aiming" with Ash's 3 requires skill, all the best to you.

1 hour ago, MickThejaguar said:

First of all let's establish a couple things. Ash's maximum duration of invis (24.48 seconds) is only as high as it is when you have every ounce of possible duration. So a person who is newer to the game who doesn't have a bunch of duration mods to put on their Ash normally would be getting a base of 8 seconds of invisibility. Your proposal (the reduction of the duration to slightly less than the amount of time needed to revive someone) would leave Ash with about 5-7 seconds of invis and then 30 seconds where he can't use the ability. Now scale this down without all of the duration mods. People in lower levels wouldn't be able to do a thing with Ash. Unless you wanted to also change the scaling and base for the ability which is just creating more work that DE really doesn't need. You're basically asking DE to rebalance the entire game for sake of creating the perfect game for you, while also aliening the large portion of fans who play warframe for it's simplistic nature. If you want a game balanced around being difficult and challenging then I suggest you go find another game to play as opposed to asking DE force Warframe into being one. Not to mention, I never said that balancing frames makes all their abilities the same. What I was that if you balance a frame around one or two times of game modes without taking into account the game mode that may be their particular niche then you'll risk ultimately make them weak in the game mode they should be strongest in. Ash and Volt shouldn't just be okay in their respective elements. They should thrive in them. 

My discussion has always been in the context of endgame content. For low level content, you don't need to be permanently invisible at all. I started as Ash before there was Focus 1.0, so no invisible spamming due to poor energy regen. I don't think "People in lower levels wouldn't be able to do a thing with Ash" without spamming invisibility. I just cannot accept staying permanently invisible in Survival to be considered "thriving", it's plainly overpowered. This isn't even a low challenge, it is zero challenge, since enemies can't even see you, there is no threat at all.

1 hour ago, MickThejaguar said:

Well doing neither those would help your case. All you would be doing is showing me how powerful the atterax is. Not really convincing me that either of those abilities is OP. With those pitiful spawn rates you probably could've done that mission with the atterax without radial blind or invis very easily. Really my point here is that you built frames to exploit a single ability in their kit, not to make them optimal for completing the mission. Yes surviving is necessary but those frames can be built in a way that doesn't involving speccing into one ability.

Let me get back to the premise here. This whole thread started with the premise where if DE introduces endgame content with high difficulty, what frames or abilities will be exploited. At this endgame difficulty, it is easy for you to die, thus equipping for survivability comes first. There are many frames where you can just exploit their single ability to easily survive. Out of those, I've presented Ash and Excalibur here (Volt on the verge). At high difficulty content where there is enough risk of you dying, speccing for survivability IS the optimal build to complete the mission. Being able to survive always precedes how fast you can kill, because you can't kill if you're dead.

Atterax is an easy example to show that you don't need to spec your frame to kill fast, in order to kill fast. Weapons can do that pretty easily. I could choose Zarr too, provided that the enemies are not tanky enough yet.

[Soketsu]

Il y a 10 heures, Checht a dit :

PoE seemed interesting and ambitious, which is why I came back. After exploring the new content, the same problem is resurfacing, lack of endgame difficulty. However, DE's willingness to nerf abilities and their recent frame reworks are giving me hope. I am happy that they recently nerfed Discharge's CC, and Atlas' rework did not buff him to oblivion. Petrify's CC is of reasonable size, 75 energy, 60 degree cone of 14 m radius, needs LoS, 20 s stun (much more reasonable than Radial Blind's 50 energy, 360 degree, 25 m radius, 15 s stun). These gave me hope that DE is heading towards the direction that I envision.

If that give you hope, you gonna to be dissapointed.... like a lot.

[MickThejaguar]

3 hours ago, Checht said:

I think we can drop this, if you want to say that "aiming" with Ash's 3 requires skill, all the best to you.

I didn't say it took it skill. I'm saying there are weapons that kill more enemies with a single glance in a direction so there's no reason to nerf a single target assassination ability 

4 hours ago, Checht said:

My discussion has always been in the context of endgame content. For low level content, you don't need to be permanently invisible at all. I started as Ash before there was Focus 1.0, so no invisible spamming due to poor energy regen. I don't think "People in lower levels wouldn't be able to do a thing with Ash" without spamming invisibility. I just cannot accept staying permanently invisible in Survival to be considered "thriving", it's plainly overpowered. This isn't even a low challenge, it is zero challenge, since enemies can't even see you, there is no threat at all.

My point wasn't that a low level Ash's invis wouldn't last long enough be actually useful unless you completely changed the ability's scaling and base duration. Not to mention, Ash's base duration for his invis at rank 30 would still be higher than the amount time you are proposing. I didn't say that low level Ashes are struggling now, I'm saying that it would make his invis utterly unless you had the full duration set up to get the five seconds out of it. Also I clearly stated that Ash's preferred role was in Spy missions, I didn't say that he was meant to thrive in survival. 

4 hours ago, Checht said:

Let me get back to the premise here. This whole thread started with the premise where if DE introduces endgame content with high difficulty, what frames or abilities will be exploited. At this endgame difficulty, it is easy for you to die, thus equipping for survivability comes first. There are many frames where you can just exploit their single ability to easily survive. Out of those, I've presented Ash and Excalibur here (Volt on the verge). At high difficulty content where there is enough risk of you dying, speccing for survivability IS the optimal build to complete the mission. Being able to survive always precedes how fast you can kill, because you can't kill if you're dead.

These abilities ARE their survivability. But that doesn't mean in high level you need to completely build around them. You need them to be functional and that is all. You don't need max duration on Ash's invis because you still have other abilities that you need to be able to use. You don't need max range of Excal's blind. You can build for this if you want to but if you build for it, you can't go back and complain that the game is too easy because you chose to go for a cheap tactic build and then demand a nerf that would effect the large majority of players who don't use crap like this. If you think a max duration Ash is invisible for too then don't play max duration Ash. If you think Excal's blind trivializes the game then don't build for it. That's how build diversity works. 

5 hours ago, Checht said:

Atterax is an easy example to show that you don't need to spec your frame to kill fast, in order to kill fast. Weapons can do that pretty easily. I could choose Zarr too, provided that the enemies are not tanky enough yet.

Thank you for proving my earlier point. 

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

1)  Invisibility is not invincibility.  You can and will still get hit by stray shots providing you play in a group.  You're also not free from aruas from enemies.  and AOE damage is still a very real threat.  I can agree that invisibility is pretty strong since there are no enemies in the game that have some kind of counter to it.  Wether or not there should be a counter is a discussion for a different thread.

2)  Cooldowns do not fit the pacing of warframe.  It's a power trip simulator where you mow down hordes of enemies as best and fast as you can.  Cooldowns existed before.  People merely waited from room to room.  The developers don't want to slow gameplay down like that.  So it's never going to happen.  Sorry.

3) Just because there are frames that are the best when it comes to sorties doesn't mean they're imbalanced.  Or that there is even an issue at all.  There isn't such a thing as perfect balance.  You can never have all frames be equally useful.  Especially when so many frames cover the same roles (with a slight twist) and DE continues to push out new frames.  All frames are viable in 90% of the games content.  Most frames can even do up to sortie 2 comfortably.

4) If we're going to change the direction to be a more slower pased "tactical/skillful" game then enemies need nerfing first.  No idea how long you've been playing but there was a time where there was maybe 5 frames that you took to the void for key farming.  Because not only did most other frames suck conceptually.  But there were just not enough ways for players to obtain meaningful power.  DE finally did reworks and also gave us a lot easier access to power.  Which is why DE has also introduced new units that challenge our power.  Until enemies are actually fair warframes shouldn't be nerfed this hard.

5) Finally end game and challenge are very open ended statements because it means something different to everyone.  I don't think Warframe has ever been about meaningful challenging content.  Or one "thing" that we all flock to for end game.  Warframe to me has always been about finding interesting ways to play. How much you can bend/break the rules of the game laid in front of you.  I don't play warframe to be challenged.  I play to slay hordes with disgusting weapons and fantastical powers that would down right be horrifying if were a reality.  I think raids (rip until they come back) and eidalons are the "challenge" DE is serving up for players.  As they require a group effort.  I would be all for DE adding more things like that to satisfy people's difficulty thirst.  But base gameplay should remain the same feeling.

[Checht]

2 hours ago, MickThejaguar said:

My point wasn't that a low level Ash's invis wouldn't last long enough be actually useful unless you completely changed the ability's scaling and base duration. Not to mention, Ash's base duration for his invis at rank 30 would still be higher than the amount time you are proposing. I didn't say that low level Ashes are struggling now, I'm saying that it would make his invis utterly unless you had the full duration set up to get the five seconds out of it. Also I clearly stated that Ash's preferred role was in Spy missions, I didn't say that he was meant to thrive in survival. 

Well then the unintended consequence of invisibility is "thriving" in Survival, do you think a fix should be made then?

2 hours ago, MickThejaguar said:

These abilities ARE their survivability. But that doesn't mean in high level you need to completely build around them. You need them to be functional and that is all. You don't need max duration on Ash's invis because you still have other abilities that you need to be able to use. You don't need max range of Excal's blind. You can build for this if you want to but if you build for it, you can't go back and complain that the game is too easy because you chose to go for a cheap tactic build and then demand a nerf that would effect the large majority of players who don't use crap like this. If you think a max duration Ash is invisible for too then don't play max duration Ash. If you think Excal's blind trivializes the game then don't build for it. That's how build diversity works. 

Yep, for Ash you don't even need a top tier build for him to cheese through contents. Invisibility duration doesn't matter as long as you can spam it. This argument applies more to Excalibur, and this boils down to DE leaving the players to build for fun or build to win, i.e. "cheap tactic build". Now it just comes down to a matter of opinion. It seems that you'd prefer DE to leave it as it is, and players who want fun build for fun (although might not be optimal for high levels), and players who want to exploit cheap tactics have the freedom to do so. That's a valid opinion too. My personal opinion is that a good game design should have the optimal way to play the fun way to play, make the build-to-win built fun. As I said, I've already quit playing Ash, and am now playing Excalibur less and less. If the optimum way to win for a frame is too boring, I stop using such frame.

1 hour ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

2)  Cooldowns do not fit the pacing of warframe.  It's a power trip simulator where you mow down hordes of enemies as best and fast as you can.  Cooldowns existed before.  People merely waited from room to room.  The developers don't want to slow gameplay down like that.  So it's never going to happen.  Sorry.

I am not suggesting cooldowns for all skills, just certain skills. Some form of cooldowns already exist for some skills currently. Excal's blind (although pretty trivial since it's just 5 s), Phoenix Renewal (90 s cooldown), Covenant (technically not a cooldown, but it practically is. The crit chance mode practically functions as a cooldown for invincible mode). If the community is that allergic to cooldown timers, then the alternative is to jack up the energy consumption. The problem is some skills like Volt's Discharge is already at 100 energy consumption, which is the base energy pool (at level 0) for many frames. It'd be hard to increase it further without making Flow mandatory for all builds. Maybe a way to do it is to have it cost 100 energy for the initial cast, then drain energy for X amount of seconds after casting. If the energy is already 0 after casting, the drain timer wouldn't affect you.

2 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

4) If we're going to change the direction to be a more slower pased "tactical/skillful" game then enemies need nerfing first.  No idea how long you've been playing but there was a time where there was maybe 5 frames that you took to the void for key farming.  Because not only did most other frames suck conceptually.  But there were just not enough ways for players to obtain meaningful power.  DE finally did reworks and also gave us a lot easier access to power.  Which is why DE has also introduced new units that challenge our power.  Until enemies are actually fair warframes shouldn't be nerfed this hard.

I don't thinking nerfing would make the gameplay slower-paced. Yes, you might kill slower, but it increases the movement and gunplay paces, since you're constantly under threat without invisibility/invincibility/CC-lock. So far, hardly any new units can challenge hard CC-lock/invisibility/invincibility. The moments where we are challenged are when those units outright disable the skills, or drain energy such that the skills can't be used. These are not really countermeasures of enemies against CC-lock/invisibility/invincibility, they just disable all skills. 2 ways to go about this, either nerf overpowered frame abilities, or introduce more enemies that are CC-resistant and enemies that can detect invisibility. I'm more in the favor of just nerfing, since it'd bring balance to gameplay quicker as compared to designing and balancing new enemies.

 

2 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

5) Finally end game and challenge are very open ended statements because it means something different to everyone.  I don't think Warframe has ever been about meaningful challenging content.  Or one "thing" that we all flock to for end game.  Warframe to me has always been about finding interesting ways to play. How much you can bend/break the rules of the game laid in front of you.  I don't play warframe to be challenged.  I play to slay hordes with disgusting weapons and fantastical powers that would down right be horrifying if were a reality.  I think raids (rip until they come back) and eidalons are the "challenge" DE is serving up for players.  As they require a group effort.  I would be all for DE adding more things like that to satisfy people's difficulty thirst.  But base gameplay should remain the same feeling

Perfectly valid opinion. Just a point about Eidolon hunts though. I don't think Eidolon really succeeded as endgame challenge, since the "tactic" to defeat it is pretty mindless. It's just a rinse and repeat of Void Mode and shoot Amp. I've discussed this more on my thread on lack of endgame difficulty.

[(PSN)FutureCrusader]

Gonna just come back here one more time and say something 

NERFING NEVER HAS AND NEVER WILL MAKE THE GAME/FRAME MORE FUN OR CHALLENGING TO PLAY.

The only time something should ever be nerfed is if causes/allows the player to do things in the game with little to no input or creates a Void of fun for other players in the mission.

 

[(XBOX)ALTBOULI]

Or stop using, top tier mods/builds/weapons and challenge yourself. Dont try to ruin it for other people

[Femuru]

when 99.9% of the player base is completely against this post and he still tries to defend it lmao

[MickThejaguar]

3 hours ago, Checht said:

Yep, for Ash you don't even need a top tier build for him to cheese through contents. Invisibility duration doesn't matter as long as you can spam it. This argument applies more to Excalibur, and this boils down to DE leaving the players to build for fun or build to win, i.e. "cheap tactic build". Now it just comes down to a matter of opinion. It seems that you'd prefer DE to leave it as it is, and players who want fun build for fun (although might not be optimal for high levels), and players who want to exploit cheap tactics have the freedom to do so. That's a valid opinion too. My personal opinion is that a good game design should have the optimal way to play the fun way to play, make the build-to-win built fun. As I said, I've already quit playing Ash, and am now playing Excalibur less and less. If the optimum way to win for a frame is too boring, I stop using such frame.

You still haven't really proven that these cheap builds are optimum. They require that you also have a high level weapon of some sort if you actually want to get things done effectively and not spend 20 minutes clearing content that others could do in much less time and doing a mission in a slow but extremely safe way is not optimum. Warframe is a fast paced game so nobody is going to go for a build that slows the pace of the game just so they can be safe when there are plenty of more engaging builds that can clear high end content that don't require you to build specifically for a single cheap tactic to survive. Also I'd like to mention that you complain about Excalibur's radial blind being overpowered but in the video there a few things your favor that exaggerated how good the ability is. First of all, Excalibur's radial blind does not go through terrain. It's really good in wide open spaces with little cover for the enemies, like the plains or void tilesets, but in the tighter corridors of the grineer and corpus tilesets it's much less effective. And also the lower spawn rate of the solo mission you did means you didn't have the danger of being swarmed by more enemies entering the room once you stunned everyone. It's easy to make an ability sound overpowered if list all it's benefits without listing it's faults. Excalibur's blind is just good CC and it's really 1 of the 2 useful abilities he has. 

4 hours ago, Checht said:

I don't thinking nerfing would make the gameplay slower-paced. Yes, you might kill slower, but it increases the movement and gunplay paces, since you're constantly under threat without invisibility/invincibility/CC-lock. So far, hardly any new units can challenge hard CC-lock/invisibility/invincibility. The moments where we are challenged are when those units outright disable the skills, or drain energy such that the skills can't be used. These are not really countermeasures of enemies against CC-lock/invisibility/invincibility, they just disable all skills. 2 ways to go about this, either nerf overpowered frame abilities, or introduce more enemies that are CC-resistant and enemies that can detect invisibility. I'm more in the favor of just nerfing, since it'd bring balance to gameplay quicker as compared to designing and balancing new enemies.

It doesn't increase the pace of gunplay, it makes you more reliant on guns than warframe abilities. And to be honest increasing the amount of movement required to stay alive counteracts the increased dependence on guns because guns are better suited for when you have a movement to take time and aim, which would be never if you were so heavily reliant on jumping around to survive. Abilities that make it so the enemy can't hit you are what give you time aim and shoot in the first place. Adding endgame content would not require DE to nerf CC because if CC was such a big problem it would've already been nerfed. 

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

7 hours ago, Checht said:

Well then the unintended consequence of invisibility is "thriving" in Survival, do you think a fix should be made then?

Yep, for Ash you don't even need a top tier build for him to cheese through contents. Invisibility duration doesn't matter as long as you can spam it. This argument applies more to Excalibur, and this boils down to DE leaving the players to build for fun or build to win, i.e. "cheap tactic build". Now it just comes down to a matter of opinion. It seems that you'd prefer DE to leave it as it is, and players who want fun build for fun (although might not be optimal for high levels), and players who want to exploit cheap tactics have the freedom to do so. That's a valid opinion too. My personal opinion is that a good game design should have the optimal way to play the fun way to play, make the build-to-win built fun. As I said, I've already quit playing Ash, and am now playing Excalibur less and less. If the optimum way to win for a frame is too boring, I stop using such frame.

I am not suggesting cooldowns for all skills, just certain skills. Some form of cooldowns already exist for some skills currently. Excal's blind (although pretty trivial since it's just 5 s), Phoenix Renewal (90 s cooldown), Covenant (technically not a cooldown, but it practically is. The crit chance mode practically functions as a cooldown for invincible mode). If the community is that allergic to cooldown timers, then the alternative is to jack up the energy consumption. The problem is some skills like Volt's Discharge is already at 100 energy consumption, which is the base energy pool (at level 0) for many frames. It'd be hard to increase it further without making Flow mandatory for all builds. Maybe a way to do it is to have it cost 100 energy for the initial cast, then drain energy for X amount of seconds after casting. If the energy is already 0 after casting, the drain timer wouldn't affect you.

I don't thinking nerfing would make the gameplay slower-paced. Yes, you might kill slower, but it increases the movement and gunplay paces, since you're constantly under threat without invisibility/invincibility/CC-lock. So far, hardly any new units can challenge hard CC-lock/invisibility/invincibility. The moments where we are challenged are when those units outright disable the skills, or drain energy such that the skills can't be used. These are not really countermeasures of enemies against CC-lock/invisibility/invincibility, they just disable all skills. 2 ways to go about this, either nerf overpowered frame abilities, or introduce more enemies that are CC-resistant and enemies that can detect invisibility. I'm more in the favor of just nerfing, since it'd bring balance to gameplay quicker as compared to designing and balancing new enemies.

 

Perfectly valid opinion. Just a point about Eidolon hunts though. I don't think Eidolon really succeeded as endgame challenge, since the "tactic" to defeat it is pretty mindless. It's just a rinse and repeat of Void Mode and shoot Amp. I've discussed this more on my thread on lack of endgame difficulty.

I'm aware there are some augments that have cd's on them.  But I still don't think cd's should be applied to base abilities.  Abilities=survival in a lot of frames cases.  Energy cost is a no go considering how many units out there already drain your energy in some fashion.  Aura specific ones have very good range and very fast drain.  Plus you have units that can switch off your powers from a distance as well.  Even if neither of those things existed people would just abuse energy pads even harder.  I've liked the changes DE has gradually made because only the super tilted imbalanced builds crutch on them now.

Slowing down ability use would slow down the gameplay.  If I have to spend more time dodging bullets from basically nearly pin point accurate enemies instead of using a cc ability it's going to make progressing through a mission slower.  As I already mentioned invisibility is nothing close to invincibility.  You never clarified solo play.  So i'm under the assumption of group play.  And i've already made these points here.  Which is again.  stray bullets, aoe attacks, and auras all still effect you.  There are frames out there that require the kind of gameplay you want.  Banshee is thin as paper.  Mag with smart magnatize use can protect herself that way but other wise relies on movement.  etc.

You could do "mindless" things in raids as well.  Full trinity squad for instance.  There was a channel dedicated to running the same frame with all the spots in the raid.  and for the most part they still "cheesed" There is really no point in trying to decide what is/is not skillful in a game like warframe.  It's more about effort vs reward.  Yes excal can spam radial blind.  But his main survival is through his 4 because it gives 90% damage reduction with auto blocking.  Blind is pretty redundant with that ability.  Ash crutches on invisibility because he has no CC ability or DR ability.  Beyond that being invisible cheapens his other abilities to reasonable costs.  You're essentially asking for a blanket nerf on a frame that's job is to be good at killing without weapons.  Even if things went your way you'd just force people into using AOE weapons and make basically nearly all other types of weapons useless.

I'm going to be real with you.  I understand that you desire more difficult content.  I get that.  But that's just not what Warframe is about.  The devs like this direction.  So does the community for the most part.  You're not required to use "cheese" tactics to play the game.  So don't.  My friend has a very niche build for his volt where he doesn't really use abilities at all.  Through a combination of mods he's basically got god mode with his shields.  and whenever he takes damage to either them or his health he's also got mods on him and his kubrow to keep them up.  If you want to play that way you can.  I think you should drop your notion of "skill" and distaste for gameplay you don't enjoy.  Play solo or with friends who feel as you do to avoid the spam you dislike.  And I think you'd be better off trying to design a difficult mission type that isn't just "warframes do less and enemies hurt more" as you previously suggested.

I admire that you can stay mostly calm despite how many people don't share your view point.  But besides the fact that your suggestions don't gel with the current direction of the game they're pretty poorly thought out.  upping energy/adding cool downs doesn't change the effectiveness of the ability.  Which is the real "issue."  I'll tell you right now.  If you put ashes smoke screen on cd either people will stop playing as him.  Or they'll wait behind cover/cleared rooms.  and then use it again.  and then cover.  repeat.  Covert lethality nerf would just reinforce the same play I mentioned above.  Excal blind nerf would just force people to wait around corners for enemies to approach or they'll just hide in cover until CD is off and then bullet jump towards the enemies to blind.  and repeat.  Blind already requires LoS to work.  Soe the AOE isn't always as big as you're making it sound.  And finally your discharge nerf would just make it be used less again.  Which was already the issue. it wouldn't change the core gameplay of volt.  You don't really spam discharge to begin with.

Again.  DE doesn't want to make us less powerful.  And restrict what we can do.  Your ideas would do both things.  It's just not going to happen.

[Guest]

You can completely avoid all damage in the game simply using good strategic positioning and the innate parkour system to dodge bullets.  Everything else is just gravy.  All of those skills you've mentioned have already been nerfed numerous times to address their CC potential, to the point of it also negatively affecting their DPS potential. 

[Checht]

4 hours ago, MickThejaguar said:

You still haven't really proven that these cheap builds are optimum. They require that you also have a high level weapon of some sort if you actually want to get things done effectively and not spend 20 minutes clearing content that others could do in much less time and doing a mission in a slow but extremely safe way is not optimum. Warframe is a fast paced game so nobody is going to go for a build that slows the pace of the game just so they can be safe when there are plenty of more engaging builds that can clear high end content that don't require you to build specifically for a single cheap tactic to survive. Also I'd like to mention that you complain about Excalibur's radial blind being overpowered but in the video there a few things your favor that exaggerated how good the ability is. First of all, Excalibur's radial blind does not go through terrain. It's really good in wide open spaces with little cover for the enemies, like the plains or void tilesets, but in the tighter corridors of the grineer and corpus tilesets it's much less effective. And also the lower spawn rate of the solo mission you did means you didn't have the danger of being swarmed by more enemies entering the room once you stunned everyone. It's easy to make an ability sound overpowered if list all it's benefits without listing it's faults. Excalibur's blind is just good CC and it's really 1 of the 2 useful abilities he has. 

I think we can just agree that our idea of optimum are different. For me, easy to survive is optimum at high levels, since you can compensate for kill speed with weapons.

I don't know why everybody is making radial blind requiring LoS a big deal. Enemies within your LoS are enemies that pose immediate dangers to you, meaning you still neutralize immediate threats whenever you cast blind. If there are new enemies coming in that were not blinded beforehand, just blind again. 5 s isn't that long a cooldown. If you don't think radial blind's range and duration are excessive, just compare to Atlas' Petrify, which does pretty much the same thing, but at a higher energy cost and much smaller AoE.

 

2 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Slowing down ability use would slow down the gameplay.  If I have to spend more time dodging bullets from basically nearly pin point accurate enemies instead of using a cc ability it's going to make progressing through a mission slower.

 

4 hours ago, MickThejaguar said:

It doesn't increase the pace of gunplay, it makes you more reliant on guns than warframe abilities. And to be honest increasing the amount of movement required to stay alive counteracts the increased dependence on guns because guns are better suited for when you have a movement to take time and aim, which would be never if you were so heavily reliant on jumping around to survive. Abilities that make it so the enemy can't hit you are what give you time aim and shoot in the first place. Adding endgame content would not require DE to nerf CC because if CC was such a big problem it would've already been nerfed. 

I have to disagree. Other than scoped weapons (e.g. snipers), you do not have to stay stationary to aim and shoot. The video below is my Volt gameplay using only Speed (mostly just for reload speed). This is mainly to show that you can move fast while shooting, and how moving around helps dodging bullets and minimizing damage. This is why I got into playing Warframe in the first place, fast-paced action shooter with complex movement. I am not advocating for playing without using abilities at all, as you can see in the video, playing with only weapons can be quite monotonous, just jumping around and shoot. The main purpose of the video is to show that without hard CC-lock or permanent invisibility, fast movement and gunplay becomes essential part of gameplay.

 

2 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

You're not required to use "cheese" tactics to play the game.  So don't.  My friend has a very niche build for his volt where he doesn't really use abilities at all.  Through a combination of mods he's basically got god mode with his shields.  and whenever he takes damage to either them or his health he's also got mods on him and his kubrow to keep them up.  If you want to play that way you can.  I think you should drop your notion of "skill" and distaste for gameplay you don't enjoy.  Play solo or with friends who feel as you do to avoid the spam you dislike.  And I think you'd be better off trying to design a difficult mission type that isn't just "warframes do less and enemies hurt more" as you previously suggested.

 

4 hours ago, (XB1)ALTBOULI said:

Or stop using, top tier mods/builds/weapons and challenge yourself. Dont try to ruin it for other people

I agree, that's why I've stopped playing Ash, Loki, Wukong, Vauban etc. But just as there are players giving feedback stating why they dislike using certain frames because of useless/weak abilities and asking them to be buffed to be balanced with other frames, I am just giving feedback on why I dislike using these frames because of easy-to-exploit mechanics and asking to be nerfed to suit a reasonable endgame level. Just as there are players who like to use some frames after they are buffed, these are frames I'd like to use if they're nerfed.

 

2 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

upping energy/adding cool downs doesn't change the effectiveness of the ability.  Which is the real "issue."

Overpowered abilities are so only when they are both extremely effective, and can be spammed. If an effort to balance the abilities were to be made, we can either nerf what the ability does or reduce its "spammability". I am for reducing "spammability", but nerfing what the ability does is a viable way too. I just do not have a good idea on how to change them.

2 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

If you put ashes smoke screen on cd either people will stop playing as him.  Or they'll wait behind cover/cleared rooms.  and then use it again.  and then cover.  repeat.  Covert lethality nerf would just reinforce the same play I mentioned above.  Excal blind nerf would just force people to wait around corners for enemies to approach or they'll just hide in cover until CD is off and then bullet jump towards the enemies to blind.  and repeat.  Blind already requires LoS to work.  Soe the AOE isn't always as big as you're making it sound.  And finally your discharge nerf would just make it be used less again.  Which was already the issue. it wouldn't change the core gameplay of volt.  You don't really spam discharge to begin with.

If there's a cd on smoke screen, I'll start playing as him, and thus my feedback to DE. For Radial Blind, my suggested nerf in the original post isn't to add a CD, but reduce range and duration instead. Discharge is just on the verge on being spammable, I agree.

 

2 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Again.  DE doesn't want to make us less powerful.  And restrict what we can do.  Your ideas would do both things.  It's just not going to happen.

My idea is to reduce press [insert number] to win aspect of Warframe, and make fast-paced gunplay integral to the gameplay again. To each our own I guess.

 

2 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

I admire that you can stay mostly calm despite how many people don't share your view point. 

Of course, I don't harbor any animosity towards my fellow Tennos, engaging in thoughtful discussion is good.

[(XBOX)Angryspy101]

Haha yeah, I too believe that abilities that are actually useful are OP and should get nerfed, matter of fact, I think DE should remove all abilities in the game and turn Warframe into a generic third person shooter.

 

That's all I'm getting from this thread right now. Abilities are meant to make the game easier for you, I mean don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people that throws a tantrum everytime someone suggests a Nerf to frame abilities. Some ability Nerfs are understandable, but in this case you're just asking to Nerf abilities because they do what they're meant to.

"What's this? my survivability tool is keeping me alive? THATS SO OP PLS NERF."

[(XBOX)Artakka]

Ash- ash doesn't need a nerf, if anything he needs a buff lol. The combo you listed is the only thing he really has going for him at higher levels.

Excalibur- Egh. How often do you see an Excalibur in sortie level or higher. Cause I don't. His 4 is kind of annoying because noobs spam it. But what else do you expect.

Volt- If volt were to get another nerf, especially like the one you're calling for, you may as well kiss him goodbye. I hardly see him around as it is.

Lolol you clearly have been using the wrong frames if you think these warrant any kind of nerf.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

4 hours ago, Checht said:

I think we can just agree that our idea of optimum are different. For me, easy to survive is optimum at high levels, since you can compensate for kill speed with weapons.

I don't know why everybody is making radial blind requiring LoS a big deal. Enemies within your LoS are enemies that pose immediate dangers to you, meaning you still neutralize immediate threats whenever you cast blind. If there are new enemies coming in that were not blinded beforehand, just blind again. 5 s isn't that long a cooldown. If you don't think radial blind's range and duration are excessive, just compare to Atlas' Petrify, which does pretty much the same thing, but at a higher energy cost and much smaller AoE.

 

 

I have to disagree. Other than scoped weapons (e.g. snipers), you do not have to stay stationary to aim and shoot. The video below is my Volt gameplay using only Speed (mostly just for reload speed). This is mainly to show that you can move fast while shooting, and how moving around helps dodging bullets and minimizing damage. This is why I got into playing Warframe in the first place, fast-paced action shooter with complex movement. I am not advocating for playing without using abilities at all, as you can see in the video, playing with only weapons can be quite monotonous, just jumping around and shoot. The main purpose of the video is to show that without hard CC-lock or permanent invisibility, fast movement and gunplay becomes essential part of gameplay.

 

 

I agree, that's why I've stopped playing Ash, Loki, Wukong, Vauban etc. But just as there are players giving feedback stating why they dislike using certain frames because of useless/weak abilities and asking them to be buffed to be balanced with other frames, I am just giving feedback on why I dislike using these frames because of easy-to-exploit mechanics and asking to be nerfed to suit a reasonable endgame level. Just as there are players who like to use some frames after they are buffed, these are frames I'd like to use if they're nerfed.

 

Overpowered abilities are so only when they are both extremely effective, and can be spammed. If an effort to balance the abilities were to be made, we can either nerf what the ability does or reduce its "spammability". I am for reducing "spammability", but nerfing what the ability does is a viable way too. I just do not have a good idea on how to change them.

If there's a cd on smoke screen, I'll start playing as him, and thus my feedback to DE. For Radial Blind, my suggested nerf in the original post isn't to add a CD, but reduce range and duration instead. Discharge is just on the verge on being spammable, I agree.

 

My idea is to reduce press [insert number] to win aspect of Warframe, and make fast-paced gunplay integral to the gameplay again. To each our own I guess.

 

Of course, I don't harbor any animosity towards my fellow Tennos, engaging in thoughtful discussion is good.

I run around booty scooting and bullet jumping with weapons all the time.  I know it's 100% possible to play through standard content just fine this way.  It's when enemies get to 60+ where CC and DR really start to matter.  You're essentially implying that all people do is spam to win.  Which in your vary own footage show this isn't the case.  Spamming only becomes "a thing" when enemies are really strong.  So this video is sort of contradictory to your original statement about wanting harder content.

Not saying you can't give feedback.  Just saying your ideas on "balancing" them goes directly against what DE wants from the game.  In order for you to get a realistic shot at DE nerfing the abilities is if you made suggestions on making said abilities less effective.  Like as an example radial blind used to be stupid strong.  Now it's only alright because it requires LoS.  If you can come up with a solution like that for the "problem" abilities then maybe you'd be heard better.  The idea is to keep the pacing the same.  energy costs and cd's will have a negative effect on that.

I am curious on why you don't just play the frames The way you'd like to play.  Like excal you can ignore radial blind pretty much entirely if you have chromatic blade and a decent build.  Is it because you're trying to play as optimal as possible and you believe you must spam abilities to be optimal?  See the issue with "press number to win" isn't really applicable anymore.  If I play as say Mesa with a build centered around peace maker I have to constantly move my camera to aim the shots the longer i'm in.  And I can't stick in it forever because of it being a channeled ability.  If I play as say.  Saryn with her spore concealed build I have to move constantly using molt to regen health and occasionally recast spore.  Or say i'm playing as a very CC friendly frame like loki with irradiating disarm.  Yes i'm spamming 4 but I still have to move about to avoid melee hits.  And I still have to actually kill them.

Press 4 to win.  or equivelent applied to abilities that required little to no setup and basically nuked enemies to death.  Nothing currently exists like that.  To be honest I think you're just dumbing down frequent ability use as spam and overstating how effective it is to try and make a point about how much of a problem it is.  Ash being invisible for ever doesn't matter much because invisibility unless solo isn't a big advantage on it's own.  Sure covert lethality lets him OHK most enemies.  But it's not efficient.  Especially in a group setting.  At best it's used to rid high level rescues of wardens easily.  Sure you can spam radial blind.  But geometry gets in the way.  And you're still forced to go kill them yourself.  You'd be far better off just using his 4 and 1 in conjunction and only popping blind when you are in a pickle or need to revive someone.

 

Gunplay has never left my dude.  It's present in the entirety of the star chart.  Only in sorties are abilities spammed.  And that's entirely due to enemies being wildly unfair.  And even then some people like myself would still rather roll a tanky frame and use a gun.  One of my favorite things is to have 100kEHP on a rhino in sortie 3 and just shotgun things to death.  People spamming CC abilities is simply a means to an end.  Partially as survival for a lot of frames but also partially for efficiency sake.  This is a farm game afterall.  I could understand and be 100% right by your side if you were required to crutch on ability spam.  But you never really are.  The option to play differently exists.  And while I do find it annoying to have a sound quake banshee mash her 4 or some other frame mopping up all the kills I don't have any right to judge how they'd like to play.  I have the option to solo or play with friends of like mindedness.  Warframe has come a very long way and supports a lot of flexability and variety when it comes to gameplay.  Hardly anything these days is super intrusive when it comes to player v player interactions mid mission.  (aside from limbo really.)  Ash himself used to be really bad in this department.  and look at him now.  You hardly notice the fella.  But he's still there being a crucial member of your team.

[DjKaplis]

Total garbage post, none of those frames need a nerf.

Ash invis needs shorter duration? You must be joking or just trolling. Ash invis has the shortest duration of all stealth frames. Just what...

Those frames are good but not broken or OP (and no, i don't play them that much even, if you are creative you can be effective with many others too) and your suggested changes would instantly make them only around 20% of what they are. On scale of 10... they are about 9... 9x20%=around 2.

I also don't really play some frames (like Octavia) or weapons like Atterax because of the gwneral hype about them, how OP I think they are or because i just don't like the playstyle...but asking for nerf (without actually good reason) is just trying to ruin experience for many others who like different playstyles than you. 

 

Edit: and sry if i sound a bit harsh but this post just triggered..:D

 

Edited April 1, 2018 by DjKaplis

[reehab]

On 21/03/2018 at 9:13 PM, Checht said:

I had a fruitful discussion on my thread regarding the lack of endgame difficulty recently.
https://forums.warframe.com/topic/934547-lack-of-endgame-difficulty-causes-implications-and-suggestions/
One of the ideas is to introduce level 80-100 missions outside of Sortie 3. The general consensus in the thread regarding introducing such levels or hiking up the endgame difficulty is that players would deviate towards frames with overpowered abilities that can still cheese through such content, reducing frame diversity. This is a sign that some frame rebalancing (nerfing) needs to be done as a good game design should have well-balanced playable characters.

While I think that the priority for DE is to first introduce the level 80-100 endgame missions in order to collect warframe usage statistics and metrics to have objective evidence to buff/nerf frames, it could be an interesting topic to discuss first-hand in this thread. Listed below are some warframes and abilities that I think should be nerfed. Keep in mind that the frames included are frames that I have used enough to discuss with confidence. Those that are not included does not imply that they should not be nerfed. Without further ado, let me start with

 

Ash

Ash was my main frame when I first started playing as he looks like a badass ninja with sick abs. However, once I got used to using him, I realised how mindless it can be to play as Ash due to his abilities. This is one of the frames where I stopped playing as due to him being overpowered.

Smoke Screen

Problem: This is obvious and probably discussed many times before. Currently, there is no enemy that I am aware of that can effectively damage you once you go invisible. Enemies just attack in the general direction where they last heard your sound, and you are likely already out of the way. With Zenurik’s Energizing Dash, this is a low-cost ability and you can turn practically permanently invisible with repeated casting. This makes Ash an immortal frame with no challenge.

Nerf Suggestion: Reduce invisibility duration to slightly less than the time to revive a teammate and introduce a cooldown timer for this skill (much like abilities in MOBAs). In my opinion, 30 seconds would be an appropriate cooldown time for Ash. This would restrict this skill to mostly function as a means to get out of a sticky situation or staying undetected before launching an ambush on enemies up close. I believe this is what DE originally intended Smoke Screen to function, rather than being a permanently invisible frame that casually picks off enemies one-by-one.

(Fatal) Teleport + Covert Lethality

Problem: Makes Ash able to kill any enemy regardless of level. Paired with Smoke Screen and Fatal Teleport augment, you can get by most missions with just pressing 2 buttons – Smoke Screen -> Fatal Teleport.

Nerf Suggestion: Have Covert Lethality only work for Stealth Finishers.

Gameplay video here

 

 

Volt

Volt is my favourite frame due to the versatility of his skillset. His ability to go melee reliably with Shocking Speed, function as a sniper with (Static) Electric Shield, go run and gun with (Current) Electric Shield, and some CC abilities with Shock and Discharge makes Volt an interesting frame to play for me. However, I find that this particular skill too easy to abuse to survive endgame content

Discharge

Problem: Discharge is a large AoE, long-duration stun. In addition, with the Capacitance augment mod, it regenerates your shield and provides overshield. Thus, you are basically free from threats for some time (easily ~8 seconds with a duration mod) after casting this skill. With maxed Energizing Dash, it grants you 150 energy in 30 seconds. With Streamline equipped, you can cast 2 Discharges within the period of 30 seconds and still have surplus energy, and that is assuming you do not get energy orbs from dead enemies. This makes it easy to survive endgame content just by spamming Discharge, and overshadows interesting playstyles that the other 3 skills provide.

Nerf Suggestion: Introduce a cooldown time for Discharge of 30 seconds. It fits with this skill anyway, as you are supposed to need some time to restore your charge after “discharging”. This would require players to use Discharge smartly, to judge when to use it for maximum advantage, rather than just spamming it. If DE wants to be fancy they can introduce a “Discharged” debuff of 30 seconds after casting Discharge, which would only function to lock the Discharge skill (much like Phoenix Renewal).

Gameplay video here

 

 

Excalibur

I might be stepping over my boundary here as Excalibur is the least used frame out of the 3 presented here. However, I still find this skill to be obviously overpowered and can be spammed to easily get through endgame content

Radial Blind

Problem: From the description, Radial Blind is supposed to “blind all enemies in a small radius” and “for several seconds”. However, by “small radius” it is a range of 25 m, longer than most AoE skills, and by “several seconds” it is 15 seconds, which is even longer than Volt’s Discharge. With Energizing Dash, it is again a low-cost ability that can be spammed to immobilize enemies indefinitely.

 Nerf Suggestion: Make it fit with the description of the ability. Instead of 25 m, make it 8 m. Instead of 15 s, make it 6s. With this nerf, ranged units can still pose a threat to Excalibur. However, the survivability of Excalibur may take a great hit and maybe some buff to his health can be granted.

Gameplay video here

 

 

This concludes that list of frames and abilities that I feel qualified enough to comment on in this thread. For you to understand my perspective, I think Oberon is the perfectly balanced frame at the moment. He is level-80-100-viable, great abilities that synergizes well with team, and no spam-able skills that totally remove threats. I hope DE will balance frames with Oberon set as the standard.

You might also realize that most skills presented above are spammable due to the current energy economy provided by Energizing Dash. One might argue that nerfing energy regen will mitigate this problem. However, I foresee the outcome upon nerfing energy regen to be undesirable. Players will just save up energy for the OP skills, and the non-OP skills (e.g. Volt’s first 3 skills) will just be overshadowed again. Thus, let’s keep the discussion in this thread in terms of nerfing the skills. I think adding cooldown timer to be a good way to prevent spamming of OP skills.

Again, the list is not complete, as I feel that I am unqualified to comment on frames that may be OP but did not use extensively (I usually stop using such frames once I realize their abilities can be abused e.g. Wukong, Loki). Thus, I welcome everyone to contribute to the thread and update on the list. The context is that if endgame content with sufficient difficulty is introduced (e.g. level 80-100 missions other than Sortie 3), what frames will be over-represented, what abilities will be spammed for easy survivability? Give your reasons and nerf suggestions. Fire away!

 

Edit:

1. Posted gameplay videos to better illustrate my points.

2. Highlighted important statements for lazy readers.

 

Edit 2:

From the discussions in this thread so far, it seems that I need to do better to get my point across before being bogged down by red herrings. So, please read these guiding questions before posting.

1. Do you have any abilities that you can spam to survive level 150+ or 200+ content?

If yes, go on to the next question. If not, good for you, you must be very skilled to be able to survive at such content without resorting to spamming those skills, and I can't prove otherwise. There's no need to go on.

2. Do you think those abilities should be nerfed, so that level 80-100 is the appropriate endgame challenge?

If yes, post your nerf suggetions. If no, we just fundamentally disagree, we can start another thread in the "General" section to discuss this. But first, let me just give a few reasons why I think they should be nerfed.

i) If spamming those skills is the optimal "strategy" to survive level 150+, it is the optimal "strategy" to survive low level too to begin with. You just do not do so before you reach level 150+ because it is not fun. I want the optimal strategy and tactics in Warframe to be fun and engaging.

ii) Difficulty at level 150+ comes purely from enemies being able to oneshot you with any stray bullets, which many players complain about. Enemy damage is required to scale up to this extent for any challenge precisely due to spammable hard CC/invisibility/invincibility skills. Imagine any PVE horde action games (Left 4 Dead, Borderlands, or even Dynasty Warriors) and give your character permanent invisibility or the ability to cast radial blind (or any hard CC in general) every 5 seconds. Where would difficulty come from in this case?

iii) Balance between frames and abilities. If we were to buff other frames and abilities instead, see issues i) and ii).

Extra question: Can you read enlarged, bolded texts?

If yes, please read the enlarged, bolded texts in the original post. If not, please see an optometrist.

i GREATLY disagree with this. You pick the worst 3 frames to suggest nearfing an when these 3 frames are some of the most balance. i will say the original ash needed a rewrework or a change and as which they did and he is balance. the original excalibur need a change indefinite cause he just did not own up to his name as excalibur, and once they has reworked him he became too broken an as which they had nerf him to being balance of which he is now, and volt, the only thing that was odd about his ability is his original state was his shields (3 skill) were somehow no matter the wep you shoot throught it, it would instantly travel and hit the target aimed at, an as which they fix and rework or added bonus  (USEFUL) effect to his other ability making him viable and have more propose to missions and not just being there as this weak frame that cant too well cc or do dmg in high lvl missions. 

CONCLUSION:

there's nothing wrong with those frames as they stand, all frames are meant to be capable of soloing missions on there own (all mission types), an is which they were designed the way they are to cc lock down or do heavy dmg to kill and get out.

[YoDoge]

No.

I mean really is game too easy for you? Well try harder to make it difficult. I mean really this is not needed in my opinion. If I am not mistaken it seems that DE tries to occasionally push out content that requires some real effort. I mean Plains give me enough challenge with sorties already for now. Besides there's already nullifiers and all other high damage enemies that can take a ton of damage. I mean sure certain setups do destroy things. But if any cooldowns or so came, well it wouldn't be Warframe. You are supposed to be diverse killing machine not I shot you once with this I don't do it again just because it is more fair to my enemy allowing them to nuke me with a homing rocket that has seemingly infinite range. People use certain things because it makes life easier and they work. Certain frames get outclassed mainly because they have no way to hold damage.

Look at Ember. She was popular speedrunning frame for lower levels. Now she has a bit more damage, but has lost the thing that made her viable somewhere around "endgame" which is her range. She is back in low class of warframes who many don't use, if they think about practicality. People use Ember Prime for fashion reasons. Without her range I feel really vulnerable to damage and my damage has been shrugged of very quickly by enemies who also won't die when we get high enough. Remember she needs energy, and this new rework made her WoF energy hungrier which means Accelerant is kind of useless. Sure you can activate WoF and then use Accelerant, but the problem is. WoF is Ember's CC and damage dealer until certain point at least.

Volt is not a tough frame which means he can get shot easily. Also consider new players who flow in all the time. Volt is a starter frame and having 30s cooldown on one of his abilities that new players probably use with intentions of dealing damage rather than CC before they learn about it's amazing CC capability. They also won't have immidiate access to Capacitance augment and they won't have mods to reach magical numbers immidately either.

Ash is quite weak in terms of defense. Also he was changed so he is not in Bladestorm anymore unless player chooses to join. This basically means Ash is open to damage, if he is not in it. His invisibility is one of his main survival skills since escaping enemy sight is the best way not to get ****ed up within seconds.

Overall do not forget that there are Ancient Healers, Nullifiers and those other rollerskater Corpus enemies who will screw you over, Energy Leech Eximuses, Acient Disruptors and all that. Consider those million enviromental hazards plus that many abilities tied to warframe are dispelled if you fall to pit or something.

So absolutely no.

[MickThejaguar]

10 hours ago, Checht said:

I think we can just agree that our idea of optimum are different. For me, easy to survive is optimum at high levels, since you can compensate for kill speed with weapons.

Then you can continue to build your warframes for cheap builds and then wonder why the game is so boring. Don't blame the game for problems that you're causing when people can clearly succeed without resulting to your cheap builds.

10 hours ago, Checht said:

I don't know why everybody is making radial blind requiring LoS a big deal. Enemies within your LoS are enemies that pose immediate dangers to you, meaning you still neutralize immediate threats whenever you cast blind. If there are new enemies coming in that were not blinded beforehand, just blind again. 5 s isn't that long a cooldown. If you don't think radial blind's range and duration are excessive, just compare to Atlas' Petrify, which does pretty much the same thing, but at a higher energy cost and much smaller AoE.

Atlas's Petrify is not the same as Excalibur's blind. It has a longer base duration and so the drawback is less AOE. A more applicable comparison would be Inaros' Desiccation because it also a blind (Petrify isn't) that has less AOE and less duration, but it supplements these drawback by dealing damage and restoring Inaros' health. All CC in the game shouldn't function the exact same way, that's what creates diversity.

10 hours ago, Checht said:

I have to disagree. Other than scoped weapons (e.g. snipers), you do not have to stay stationary to aim and shoot. The video below is my Volt gameplay using only Speed (mostly just for reload speed). This is mainly to show that you can move fast while shooting, and how moving around helps dodging bullets and minimizing damage.

Doesn't this footage just show that DE doesn't need to nerf these frames in order for you to focus on gunplay? If you want to play around gunplay then find a frame that suits that particular playstyle. Not every frame needs to be played the same way.

10 hours ago, Checht said:

This is why I got into playing Warframe in the first place, fast-paced action shooter with complex movement.

I got into Warframe for the cool abilities and melee weapons. When I first started playing I rarely ever used guns and even now I prefer my melee over my other weapons. Doesn't mean I want DE to make it so that others can't enjoy their primaries and secondaries.

 

10 hours ago, Checht said:

I agree, that's why I've stopped playing Ash, Loki, Wukong, Vauban etc. But just as there are players giving feedback stating why they dislike using certain frames because of useless/weak abilities and asking them to be buffed to be balanced with other frames, I am just giving feedback on why I dislike using these frames because of easy-to-exploit mechanics and asking to be nerfed to suit a reasonable endgame level. Just as there are players who like to use some frames after they are buffed, these are frames I'd like to use if they're nerfed.

The difference between yourself and the other people you're talking about is nobody is ever going to be upset over a direct buff and usually majority of the community is in agreement when something is in need of a buff but I haven't seen a single person who agrees that any of those frames are overpowered. I have never seen any large portion of the community get upset over the buffing of a weak frame but I've seen several instances of the community being upset that a frame who didn't deserve it being nerfed. Instead of trying to ruin frames that other people enjoy try finding a frame that fits your playstyle. I've seen your profile so I know that you have even played half of them. Go play other frames and other people enjoy the ones you gave up on because you were lazy and/or uninspired to come up with a working build that didn't involve cheesing the game.

Edited April 1, 2018 by MickThejaguar
I made an oopsy.