Warframe: F2P co-op Guyvering

It's not that clear cut. I'd like to direct you to my previous example of Akjagara. Take out damage mod and your weapon drops a tier. Putting utility mod instead of damage mod is significant nerf on itself. I believe you can lose way more than 15% of your damage. That's more than penalty on Vile Acceleration.

Average late game player has so much overwhelming power, it's hard to imagine how we could be buffed or even need any buffs without going in to absurdities (thou I could argue we already have reached absurdity level). To reach any semblance of balance, there will be needed far more nerf than buffs.

Well, they could slowly rejigger the numbers until things are simply balanced at a higher level, but that would take a massive overhaul and it would be way easier just to do a small set of nerfs.

The thing about the overwhelming power the players wield in lategame is, the enemies also wield that same power, and now that we're getting true endgame content in the form of trials, players kind of need that power. When enemies have massive amount of armour or shields and can take players down in <5 seconds of concentrated fire, being able to get rid of enemies quickly isn't just good, it's downright essential.

Oh sure, you can just say, "Don't get caught out", but what about reviving allies? Just bring Frost/Loki/Limbo? Abandon them for daring to get into a bad situation? What if you need to hack, or pick something up, or really, do any of the multitudinous things that will slow the player down for just long enough to get cut up? There's nothing wrong with a game that punishes players for making small mistakes and requires intense, precise skill, but Warframe simply isn't that game. Warframe, at it's core, is fast-paced and frenetic, and that means that enemies go away fast. High-scaling weapons Vs high-stakes enemies is simply the high-level extension of that concept.

That said: I do agree that certain mods leave players kind of complacent within their standard builds. I have noticed that, generally speaking, there's a suite of 4-6 standard mods I'll use, largely focused around damage, and anything else depends on what weaknesses the specific weapon has. I don't necessarily think the answer there are buffs, but rather a higher variety of weapons and features that could take advantage of the different mods.

Firestorm is a great example of that, actually. It's a mediocre mod on the Opticor because it has a very small splash radius to begin with, but pretty essential on Penta because it's splash damage scales based on how close the enemy is to the center, and just plain good on the Tonkor because the splash damage is flat through the radius. So while it's a very potent mod, it's used different based on the needs of the weapon.

There are a few other examples in the game like that: Weapons that definitely don't benefit from mods because of their unique mechanics. What we need, however, is weapons with unique mechanics that do benefit from lesser-used mods. For example, a one-shot rifle with a naturally low reload time. Slap a reload speed mod on that and you have a nearly no-reload rifle.

Or a weapon that deals significantly more damage to unalerted enemies. Give that a Hush and you can snipe your way through a room.

These are just ideas I'm pulling out at a whim, so they aren't good, but they serve to represent my point at the very least.

I have to disagree with our enemies possessing power comparable to ours. Sure, they take many bullets to take down and can take you down in single, but otherwise they are harmless as kittens. I have tried trials only once, when playing with you guys. I had Mag with max range (even appropriate arcane helmet) and Fracturing Crush. And I spammed it hard as hell. Then I realized Fracturing Crush doesn't prevent immobilized enemies from shooting. So I did best I could do to rectify my mistake: spam harder. This was my entire strategy, all I did - 4444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444. No thought, no involvement, no excitement. Just spam. You had to tell me - I believe multiple times - to step on the button because I was kind of asleep.

And how we lost? We didn't knew about electric traps in hijack part. Nothing about enemies themselves surpassing us. Not even close.

You can gimp yourself, you can go solo, you can play unbalanced content far above your level (wasting at least half-hour in endless or doing trials (bleh!)) and, if you try really hard, you will have fast, frantic and challenging game. But if you pull out best you got (things you worked for so hard) and use all your skills, Warframe is kind of slow paced, nonthreatening snoozfest. Sure, you may get splattered against wall by a stray shot, but any of your team mates is bound to have hard CC or be invincible/untargetable. Enemies may take few extra bullets, but why is that a problem when they are so stupid and helpless against us.

I agree that we need all the power we got to tackle enemies at levels in triple digits and even level 60 heavies can be scary if you are alone. But is this what you want from Warframe: hard to reach (in sense of time spent and/or grouping) endgame where you fight against overbloated and dumb stat sticks who are countered with most uninspired abilities I have seen in my entire gaming career.

edited 6th Sep '15 3:43:17 AM by Prany

I'll admit I wouldn't mind a more even difficulty spread across the levels, but I definitely wouldn't call it a snoozefest by any means. Even at level 30-40 enemies will still kill you dead pretty fast if you're slacking or don't have someone to cover your ass, unless you're playing someone who specifically focuses on not getting killed like Limbo, Loki or Frost. And even then there's still a lot that can screw them over.

I feel like the difference here might be in the way we play. If you're standing around spamming 4 with Mag, that's your prerogative. I don't blame you for it, it's an optimal form of gameplay. but that's the thing: It's an optimal form of gameplay. Yes, an optimal form that the game gives you, but it gives you lots of other options as well. If you're playing to it, of course the game is going to be easier. It's a flaw that the game has these optimal strategies, but if you play them and expect the game will still be difficult then that's absurd, because it means you'd never be able to do anything but the optimal strategies.

It's worth noting that when I typically play, I play with two other guys, one of whom who plays Limbo no matter what, with the exact same loadout, and one of whom who plays Loki no matter what, with typically only melee weapons or maybe a bow. And unless we're doing an especially difficult mission then I play whatever I happen to have for leveling at the time. So, it's possible the reason I find the game more challenging is because my team is 'gimping itself'.

I do agree, to a degree, that the fact that you can play your way is a fault of the game. There's definitely a problem in the balance highly favouring Hard-cc frames and situationally favouring specialist frames. At the same time, if you deck yourself out to the nines and only stand around pressing a single button, the problem is at least a little bit your fault.

And as a sidenote, I'll also add that I do like the ability to shred through enemies with ease and speed sometimes. Not all the time, but some days you just wanna feel like an unstoppable magic space ninja badass.

I hope you didn't misunderstand me - I hate 4spam and use it as little as possible (like when I get sick of manics and even that was before I learned to follow their particle trails). I wish our abilities were something more involved. On the other hand first abilities could receive some buffing.

Like Mesa's first, Ballistic Battery, scans group of enemies (dunno how, but it's not important for this example). 10% of damage dealt (just example number) is added to Mesa's damage. Extra damage is in effect only when shooting marked enemies. Team mates receive bonus damage just like Mesa making this team ability. As for Peacemaker, it works similar like Exalted Blade now - Regulators benefit from secondary weapon mods, we can run around, jump and all that shiz, but aimbot is off by default. If there is any marked enemies in sight, Peacemaker aimbots them.

Another idea I had was replacing Volt's Overload with ball lightning... thing. Volt shoots out ball lightning which goes in straight line and zaps all enemies in proximity. Proc chance is passable and damage nothing to write home about, but here is real kicker - ball can be shot and it produces extra zaps with damage based from percentage of weapons damage.

As for enemy durability, I'd like them be bit more spongier on Ceres and Pluto. One shot from dedicated marksmen weapons like bows, snipers and Opticor. And of course shotguns in closer ranges. Two to four shots from other semi-autos like Latron family, Grinlkok, Marelok, and the likes. One to three busts from automatics and, well, burst weapons. If they are any spongier, bullet houses suffer which is bad. If they are squishier (like they are now) marksmen weapon selling point of killing enemies in one shot evaporates, because even pidliest pistol can do the same. Needles to say it's not that good either.

Now if these changes would coma across, enemy TTK would increase. Enemy who is on screen for more than two seconds has time to do something. In this case we can demand DE to give enemies abilities of their own. Like elite lancers buffing regular lancers slightly and commanders buffing everyone (they are fucking commanders; time to act like that) except manics cuz those guys are bonkers. Or elite crewman setting up electric shields (like Volt's as it was pre buff, not post buff). And if enemies are relying on abilities of their own to be threat, maybe, just maybe we can get DE to relax enemy scaling post Pluto enemy levels.

Treasury ship alert. 30 minutes left. Grineer, spy, Saturn.

So, with the change to Excal's ult, is it worth a rebuild of him? he was my first frame, actually. Used him till I got Rhino XD

edited 8th Sep '15 5:28:31 PM by SpartanA118

I do see a lot of him, and I enjoyed him while I was leveling him. The fact that his ult can be scaled is also nice.

That said, I didn't try him in any real endless missions, so it's hard to say.

YES!

With the proper build and right melee weapon you can cleave your way against even lvl 60+ enemies with ease.

I did a few Void Survival at TIII and TIV with the Excal and hardly turned the ultimate off.

Exalted Blade is one of the most fun abilities in the game. It alone is worth a potato.

So apparently the next frame, known up to this moment as Brawler, is actually only fronting as a "brawler", and is actually a frame in disguise on earth earth frame in disguise and we now know his name as voted by the Design Council: Atlas.

As a fan of his visual (and overall big fan of earth elementals), I hope that this frame kicks ass.

Any link to the info on that? Sounds cool.

Also, I did some grinding on the Quanta Vandal this evening and wow did I ever misjudge that thing. When I first looked at it it felt honestly really 'meh'. The electric damage wasn't really good for much, and it felt slow and weak, so I wound up forgetting about it for a few months and building/levelling other stuff. Once I got it high enough to get a couple of mods on there, it started taking off exponentially. I wound up doing a survival mission on Cassini for the last 10 levels with it modded to do corrosive. Now granted, I got lucky with the level layout - lots and lots of hallways - but until 15 minutes pretty much everything went down with one tick of damage. Even at 20+ minutes heavies only needed a few seconds of concentrated fire. Less if I got headshots. The secondary fire has a surprisingly wide blast radius as well(Though I wish I could judge depth better with that kind of thing; Nova's ball has the same problem). I'll have to see what it's like on higher-level missions yet, but honestly from the looks of things it's a damn good weapon, especially when combined with Nova's already immense damage potential.

I just wish it didn't start so shit, because it's making me reluctant to forma it to get an optimized build. At the moment I have: Serration, Shred, Multishot, Infected Clip(substitute for whatever element), Malignant Force(substitute the same as Infected Clip), and Jolt. For the last two slots I'm planning on Convulsion and... honestly not even sure for the last slot. It's already got good reload speed and has pretty darn good ammo efficiency. More punch-through, maybe?

Unfortunately it's a Design Council SCOOP(!). Please don't call the exclusive-police on me.

What we know:

The name will be Atlas (as I said).

The powers will be:

• Power 1: Land punches on the enemy to inflict deadly combo damage.

• Power 2: Raise the earth to create a moving barrier that devastates enemies in its path.

• Power 3: Turn your enemies to stone with a single glance.

• Power 4: Summon Rock Elementals to fight by your side.

So basically the first skill turns him into the Fist of the Northern star, second skill is earth bending, third is Medusa stare, fourth is a mosh pit (you know, cause he's the rock frame? Mosh pit? Rock? What-fucking-ever).

No, kegisak, don't ask about that stuff! Marc is leaking stuff from design council and accordingly trying to lure you in the sin. Don't ask anything, turn away and have puppies◊!

So, do you happen to know Atlas' abilities?

Edit:spaceninjaed

edited 12th Sep '15 7:43:12 AM by Prany

well dang, looks like i missed some stuff in the DC forums, i have to say i'm actually glad it's an earthbender-on-esteroids frame instead of a brawler though, both because a full blown earthbender frame would be awesome and 'cus valkyr is kind of in the "brawler" area already.

i can't help but wonder just how they'll manage his powers when there's no earth around though, i mean i know all elemental frames break logic to varying degrees, but it's harder to suspend disbelief for earth/rock/ground popping up from nowhere for some reason.

It'll probably look pretty goofy. Sure, folks like Frost, Ember, Hydroid and Zephyr control elements, but those are simple elements that are already present anywhere we go: air, water in air and temperature. Earth is collection of complex chemical compounds that is not found everywhere. So in short Atlas can create matter. Since this guy also covers creation of life with his fourth, he's pretty much God (notice big letter) in Tenno guise. Of course he'll be hit with Idiot Ball and never consider to conjure explosive, radioactive or toxic matter. Nope, it's old dumb dirt all the time, every time.

Well, the majority of environments are either dirt or metal. In fact, pretty much all of them are dirt or metal. So his 'earthbending' is probably just reverse-metalbending: Break the metal down into particulates and shove them forward. Or alternatively, since the cover he makes probably disappears, he could just have the same store of earth that he pushes forward and then pulls back into himself.

And for what it's worth, you could also claim that Ember is creating matter in order to give her fire fuel. Fuel does exist in the air, yes, but likely not enough to sustain the sheer amount of fire she creates. Plus, one of her abilities literally synthesizes an accelerant. Rhino as well, secrets or synthesizes ferrite for his Iron Skin, and likely is capable of generating additional mass for the majority of his abilities.

Either way, I don't think what they do or make is necessarily the Warframe's choice. The fact that each Frame has 4 relatively narrow, costly abilities means that either they use a general form of energy that's being channeled in specific ways via the machinery of the Frame, or each frame has several biological functions. One could easily argue, if Mesa can disrupt machinery(guns), why not just destroy the Grineer's augmentations? Why doesn't Frost just freeze people's hearts? etc.

If you do take a frame's abilities as the ability to control or produce something it doesn't mean that Atlas isn't dumb for not being more flexible, of course, but it also means it's not really noteworthy because all of the frame's are kind of stupid and uncreative for the same reason. Except for Banshee. But more to the point, I don't think Atlas just randomly generates a mass of earth, or if he does he probably sticks to that because synthesizing complex chemicals ranges between too hard to do in a combat situation and impossible.

Well, here's to hope effects will be more sophisticated than lol, take dirt in ya face.

Either way it won't be as jarring as Nova, the one who should be on level of planetary annihilation.

My big hope is that range will increase the size of the cover created. That'd be a pretty decent skill I think.

And yeah, Nova isn't exactly thematically resonant... that said, when you get a group of enemies primed you can initiate an explosive chain genocide.

actually that does give me an idea on how to handle it, use the pokemon solution! (note: i'm talking about the anime, not the game, the game runs with goofy rock-out-of-nowhere)

well basically, whenever needed where there's no material for them, rocks form in one of two forms, either A) they form from tiny glowy rock particles that cluster and fuse toguether to form whatever construct you need(think aerial dust -> sand -> tiny pebbles -> bigger pebbles -> rock construct); or B) they solidify from a temporary (VERY brief) hard-light construct; combine both, add some shiny energy effects and very quick transition animations and PRESTO!, Atlas is now a tyranitar/aggron/rhyperior/whatever-tickles-your-fancy.

also i think being able to run enemies into stone might mean it can just turn stuff into rock/ground/earth, if you couple that with the aforementioned pokemon solution, it could actually work.

now regarding nova, ever noticed how her null star and anti-mater drop are transparent and look pretty darn empty?, i always thought she uses trace amounths of anti-mater, and what we see is actually some form of containment field thingies she uses so she can properly control the thing

for Mprime it could easely be explained by her using her powers to overall distabilise the matter enemies are composed of, making it so that anything that hits them increases the distabilisation until aub-atomic particles start colliding like mad and tiny amounths of anti-matter is formed, and they blow up, think of it as turning mooks into tiny tiny bullet-fueled large hadron colliders.

and well wormhole doesn't really relate to anti-matter so...

edited 13th Sep '15 12:35:53 AM by GanonDerf

Hmm, pretty good. But do you have any ideas on one, much more glaring ability? One that is so bizarre from lore standpoint, I refuse to accept it even exist in lore: Radial Disarm. Ability that makes weapons disintegrate and hurts some (but not all) infested. So if Loki can somhow make Grakata disappear from lancer's hands, how come he can't do the same with a head or at least armor? And why not make melee weapons disappear as well? And why does it damage some creatures while leaving others unharmed?

nope, radial disarm makes no sense from a lore/in-universe standpoint, oh and you forgot to mention for whatever reason it also gives everyone who got their weapon banished a baton of sorts, and if it's not a human/humanoid it instead sticks it on them somewere, for example on moa's now-non-functional weapons, or up mutalist osprey's butt.

i personaly think radial dissarm needs an overall visual rework, and some functionality tweaking, like doing something to infested that's more akin to "dissarming" instead of damaging them.

Well, it makes sense from a Lore standpoint: Loki is a dick and wants to screw around with his enemies.

Functionally it could be similar to Mesa's Lasso - it could jam the mechanics of the gun, making it functionally useless. He also has a limited capacity for spatial distortion(In fact if you're willing to call bending light distortion, then that makes up the entirety of his power).

So it's possible that he targets things to 'teleport-swap' and has to give them something, so he just gives them the least dangerous thing in his (apparently considerable) range.

Granted that would work better if they were getting like, rocks, or bits of piping, or stuff. But still, it's as good an explanation as there's likely gonna be for it: Wide spread, long-range switch teleport.

I dunno, I kinda want to see a cartoonish wall of rock manifest out of thin air to ram into a group of startled enemies.

Allright. In that case I want frame that paints door on walls. Can be used for escape while unsuspecting grineer bumps their heads against it.