Castana Link Trinity is an amazingly beautiful thing

[NezuHimeSama]

UPDATE:

The issue with the damage reduction appears to be related to an existing issue with damage reduction in warframe, applying to enemies and frames, where damage reduction is handled as a total value to be subtracted from the final damage. In other words, the total damage reduction is 0.45+0.4+0.25=1.1. This results in subtracting 10% additional damage, so for example if you had +10% heat or toxin damage for some reason, it would probably be reduced to 0 as well under the current system, based on the fact that this is how eximus auras, elemental enhancement, physical enhancement, disrupting and toxic ancients, and other damage reduction sources are applied.

In other words, this is a bigger problem than just link trinity, or even the bugged interaction of link trinity and Castanas.

^IMPORTANT^

Please read the opening update before responding.(シ_ _)シ

 

Not because it's so OP, but because of the number of broken elements that come together to form a cohesive bug-meta. This is like collecting Bug Frags to make a giant digital supervirus or something, seriously. It's amazing.

I mean, anyone who's seen castana link trinity and has ever played link trinity before would instantly see that there's a bug where Castana doesn't directly transmit damage, instead multiplying and transmitting the explosion it's self to the link target. That's a bug. And then, let's not forget that link's damage reduction is redundant because 0.55*0.6=0 for some reason.

How did this even happen? What math was so broken when Warframe was first created that let this combination actually function in the first place? It's a beautiful sight to see something so creative, I can't help but think this was deliberately hidden in the game as an easter egg, just waiting to be found so it could subsequently be nerfed and the community could freak out over it. Someone must be laughing this one up somewhere, I swear.

 

This is a perfect opportunity to not just fix some old bugs, though, but fix damage reduction period. At the moment, damage reduction is the stupidest, most broken, bizarre, and nonfunctional thing in the game, using damage subtraction with multiplication and limits. Broken, expensive math that doesn't scale, doesn't balance, and doesn't make sense.

As a proposal, instead of damage reduction being x*y% damage is removed from the damage number, why not have it work via a division number? The resulting damage reduction can be displayed as it currently is, for simplicity sake, but the math would work a lot better if, instead of damage *= 1-[[0.X*power str, 0].max, Y].min, it was damage /= X*power str. Shorter, simpler, easier, no need for soft caps outside of resisting 0, which would be impossible to achieve without 0% power str anyway.

So, how it would be presented to the player? Taking Trinity's [50%*Str, 0.75].min, it would instead be a base value of 2*power str. At 100% power str, this is a 50% damage reduction and would display as such. At 40% power str, this would be a 25% increase in received damage.(this is fine, honest. if it's that big of a deal, it could be 1+1*str anyway, 38.5% reduction at minimum for max rank.) At 200% power str, this would be a 75% reduction in damage.(66% for 1+1*str) At 300% str, this would be a 83.3% damage reduction.(75% for 1+1*str)

As we can see, these are all perfectly fine, acceptable, balanced numbers that do not reach anything close to 99.5% previously achievable, and could even stand to be larger and scale farther without significantly upsetting the game balance. They scale to more power str just fine, don't become imbalanced, and don't require special cases, arbitrary limitations, and minmaxing power str where "oh look I have 50% str, no point in adding more lol".

Please consider it. (シ_ _)シ

Edited May 22, 2018 by NezuHimeSama

[-QUILL_PETER-]

14 minutes ago, NezuHimeSama said:

it's self

it is self?

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

14 minutes ago, NezuHimeSama said:

Not because it's so OP, but because of the number of broken elements that come together to form a cohesive bug-meta. This is like collecting Bug Frags to make a giant digital supervirus or something, seriously. It's amazing.

I mean, anyone who's seen castana link trinity and has ever played link trinity before would instantly see that there's a bug where Castana doesn't directly transmit damage, instead multiplying and transmitting the explosion it's self to the link target. That's a bug. And then, let's not forget that link's damage reduction is redundant because 0.55*0.6=0 for some reason.

How did this even happen? What math was so broken when Warframe was first created that let this combination actually function in the first place? It's a beautiful sight to see something so creative, I can't help but think this was deliberately hidden in the game as an easter egg, just waiting to be found so it could subsequently be nerfed and the community could freak out over it. Someone must be laughing this one up somewhere, I swear.

 

This is a perfect opportunity to not just fix some old bugs, though, but fix damage reduction period. At the moment, damage reduction is the stupidest, most broken, bizarre, and nonfunctional thing in the game, using damage subtraction with multiplication and limits. Broken, expensive math that doesn't scale, doesn't balance, and doesn't make sense.

As a proposal, instead of damage reduction being x*y% damage is removed from the damage number, why not have it work via a division number? The resulting damage reduction can be displayed as it currently is, for simplicity sake, but the math would work a lot better if, instead of damage *= 1-[[0.X*power str, 0].max, Y].min, it was damage /= X*power str. Shorter, simpler, easier, no need for soft caps outside of resisting 0, which would be impossible to achieve without 0% power str anyway.

So, how it would be presented to the player? Taking Trinity's [50%*Str, 0.75].min, it would instead be a base value of 2*power str. At 100% power str, this is a 50% damage reduction and would display as such. At 40% power str, this would be a 25% increase in received damage.(this is fine, honest. if it's that big of a deal, it could be 1+1*str anyway, 38.5% reduction at minimum for max rank.) At 200% power str, this would be a 75% reduction in damage.(66% for 1+1*str) At 300% str, this would be a 83.3% damage reduction.(75% for 1+1*str)

As we can see, these are all perfectly fine, acceptable, balanced numbers that do not reach anything close to 99.5% previously achievable, and could even stand to be larger and scale farther without significantly upsetting the game balance. They scale to more power str just fine, don't become imbalanced, and don't require special cases, arbitrary limitations, and minmaxing power str where "oh look I have 50% str, no point in adding more lol".

Please consider it. (シ_ _)シ

The way link trinity works now is that you are stacking a 40% resistance on a 45% resistance or a 75% resistance on a 75% resistance, resulting in 0.6x0.5x0.25x0.25 which equals ~0.02 which equals ~98% damage resistance.

All that would be needed is to make self-damage bypass link, thus removing any chance for this synergy in the first place.

[Drasiel]

if our resistances stack this way I wonder if things like eximus do as well.

[NezuHimeSama]

5 minutes ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

The way link trinity works now is that you are stacking a 40% resistance on a 45% resistance or a 75% resistance on a 75% resistance, resulting in 0.6x0.5x0.25x0.25 which equals ~0.02 which equals ~98% damage resistance.

All that would be needed is to make self-damage bypass link, thus removing any chance for this synergy in the first place.

No it isn't. using Castanas without link up, while in the air, with just aviator and diamond skin, Castanas does 0 damage. the 75% and 75%(which stack correctly afaik) are not relevant because the damage is 0 before that point.

This also wouldn't address A: self damage link is a legitimate strategy and was never an issue and B: the interaction of Castanas and Link is such that Link transmits the blast, not the damage, as well as C : 0.55*0.6 is not 0.

Edited May 22, 2018 by NezuHimeSama

[Drasiel]

Just now, NezuHimeSama said:

No it isn't. using Castanas without link up, while in the air, with just aviator and diamond skin, Castanas does 0 damage. the 75% and 75%(which stack correctly afaik) are not relevant because the damage is 0 before that point.

This also wouldn't address A: self damage link is a legitimate strategy and was never an issue and B: the interaction of Castanas and Link is such that Link transmits the blast, not the damage, as well as C : 0.55*0.6 is not 0.

you don't seem to be mentioning the slight resistance that shields add vs radiation.

[NezuHimeSama]

1 minute ago, Drasiel said:

if our resistances stack this way I wonder if things like eximus do as well.

So far, afaik, only diamond skin and aviator stack this way, but eximus resistance absolutely does, as well as elemental or physical damage reduction, and even stack to greater than 100%. You can have eximus cause your physical damage to become 0 by reducing your elemental damage below 0%. Super broken, I really wish they would fix this already.

[NezuHimeSama]

Just now, Drasiel said:

you don't seem to be mentioning the slight resistance that shields add vs radiation.

Huh. That would actually explain everything. Good catch! That means that diamond skin and aviator add to your elemental resistance damage reduction, meaning there is definitely some very bad math going into damage reduction right now.

DE pls fix.

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

Just now, NezuHimeSama said:

No it isn't. using Castanas without link up, while in the air, with just aviator and diamond skin, Castanas does 0 damage. the 75% and 75%(which stack correctly afaik) are not relevant because the damage is 0 before that point.

This also wouldn't address A: self damage link is a legitimate strategy and was never an issue and B: the interaction of Castanas and Link is such that Link transmits the blast, not the damage, as well as 😄 0.55*0.6 is not 0.

Aviator has always been an additive damage reduction for as long as the mod has been around, AFAIK. Diamond Skin, however, is not supposed to be additive, but multiplicative with all other DR when radiation is being dealt.

So if it really is doing what you say, then yes, the mods are broken, and DE should fix that.

[Drasiel]

2 minutes ago, NezuHimeSama said:

So far, afaik, only diamond skin and aviator stack this way, but eximus resistance absolutely does, as well as elemental or physical damage reduction, and even stack to greater than 100%. You can have eximus cause your physical damage to become 0 by reducing your elemental damage below 0%. Super broken, I really wish they would fix this already.

this explains a lot. If it's fixed for us it should definitely be fixed for them too. Stacking resistances this way is just broken.

[TrinityPrime]

2 minutes ago, NezuHimeSama said:

and B: the interaction of Castanas and Link is such that Link transmits the blast, not the damage, as well as C : 0.55*0.6 is not 0.

Link doesn't transmit AoE. What you're observing is multishot and procs. Aviator stacking additively with the diamond skin or lightning rod giving radiation immunity (with shields) or electric immunity works with any frame. This should be brought in line to be consistent with all other damage resist stacking effects since the devs planned all the other damage resists to stack multiplicatively.

[NezuHimeSama]

Just now, Drasiel said:

this explains a lot. If it's fixed for us it should definitely be fixed for them too. Stacking resistances this way is just broken.

Yup, as is, in general, multiplying the value used as a damage subtraction. It's just a messy way to do things, and leads to many issues like this.

I think the damage reduction code must be ancient.

[sh00chu]

Easy fix: REMOVE SELF DAMAGE. Remove it from the game entirely. Replace it with stagger/knockdown penalties to discourage careless play with things that go boom. This would both end the abuse of mechanics like Link and Vex Armor, and make using explosive weapons less of a death sentence when using them in a team with a bad host connection or moronic pet pathing.

[NezuHimeSama]

5 minutes ago, sh00chu said:

Easy fix: REMOVE SELF DAMAGE. Remove it from the game entirely. Replace it with stagger/knockdown penalties to discourage careless play with things that go boom. This would both end the abuse of mechanics like Link and Vex Armor, and make using explosive weapons less of a death sentence when using them in a team with a bad host connection or moronic pet pathing.

But that still doesn't address the issue of 0.6*0.55*0.75 = 0, or the issue of link transmitting explosives, and also removes one of the game's core mechanics(a mechanic that is actually essential to the current meta, the removal of which would completely destroy several builds/frames in general, and is actually a fun mechanic) to "fix" one instance of a very very seriously game breaking bug that has been plaguing warframe in other areas for years.

 

PLS NO BANDAID REAL FIX WANTED

[sh00chu]

19 minutes ago, NezuHimeSama said:

But that still doesn't address the issue of 0.6*0.55*0.75 = 0, or the issue of link transmitting explosives, and also removes one of the game's core mechanics(a mechanic that is actually essential to the current meta, the removal of which would completely destroy several builds/frames in general, and is actually a fun mechanic) to "fix" one instance of a very very seriously game breaking bug that has been plaguing warframe in other areas for years.

 

PLS NO BANDAID REAL FIX WANTED

Destroying those builds is kinda the idea. I'm 99% certain that it was never intended that players should be able to abuse the self-damage mechanic in such a way that they are able to roflstomp their way through literally anything. As for destroying frames... no. Just no. There is no content in this game that ANY frame can't handle inside of the intended soft limitations that DE has put in place. Removing self damage fixes the root of the problem without DE having to balance fuzzy math and scaling for people that are either looking for a Dark Souls experience in a game that isn't Dark Souls, or players that are breaking the game in order to trivialize normal content.

I realize that there will ALWAYS be some sort of meta gaming going on, it's par for course. But you folks that are min/maxing builds and exploiting unintended mechanics are going to be sorely unhappy if you don't come to terms with the fact that this game isn't balanced with that kind of gameplay in mind, and DE has said as much on multiple occasions.

[NezuHimeSama]

14 minutes ago, sh00chu said:

Destroying those builds is kinda the idea. I'm 99% certain that it was never intended that players should be able to abuse the self-damage mechanic in such a way that they are able to roflstomp their way through literally anything. As for destroying frames... no. Just no. There is no content in this game that ANY frame can't handle inside of the intended soft limitations that DE has put in place. Removing self damage fixes the root of the problem without DE having to balance fuzzy math and scaling for people that are either looking for a Dark Souls experience in a game that isn't Dark Souls, or players that are breaking the game in order to trivialize normal content.

I realize that there will ALWAYS be some sort of meta gaming going on, it's par for course. But you folks that are min/maxing builds and exploiting unintended mechanics are going to be sorely unhappy if you don't come to terms with the fact that this game isn't balanced with that kind of gameplay in mind, and DE has said as much on multiple occasions.

I assure you DE was and is fully aware of the existence of self damage related builds. The only thing "OP" about any of them is the fact that the interaction of the already broken damage reduction mechanics used throughout the game and castana's broken interaction with link cause a minor issue. You're essentially suggesting carpetbombing as a suitable solution to a hostage situation, over an existing proposition to snipe the criminal standing out in the open on the roof with the hostage well out of harm's way, held only at gunpoint.