The AoE meta has gone too far | Warframe

Let's discuss the AoE meta, from what it is, where it came from, to where we are now and how things can be improved.
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[@arkaradiat7227]

Main problem, or reason for picking aoe weapons over single target, is reducing actual time spent on grinding, allowing to farm unnecessarily tedious stuff faster, which got a lot more common last years, like all weapons requiring crafting parts for them, rather than having just a blueprint like before, or time-walled parts like ash components it's not because of power or QoL, but the grind itself which forces using most efficient measures such as AOEs single target weapons itself are fun, often sporting a lot higher single target damage with cool gimmicks, however are simply not as efficient as AOEs if constantly growing required grind wasn't that high, more people would like to try other weapons, because they would simply have more time for that, instead of using only most efficient ways

[@TheKengineer]

Power creep begets grind creep begets power creep. This is why I talked about the effect on game balance.

[@miel307]

I agree with the grind statement aswell. I am scared that they will nerf AOE into oblivion. But if you look at it on a grind perspective, it is actually in DE's favour to do so. It will increase grind time, therefore people might buy stuff with platinum faster. But, I bet people will return to nukeframes to counter it again....

[@theunhingedgamer3762]

it's not just everything you listed either it's also the fact most of the players are sheep who immediately jump on the bandwagon of a weapon when a youtuber says it's good and then it becomes a meta choice which then gives the illusion that "all weapons are bad and need buffs" it's the fault of the players much like a lot of other things in the game being the way they are and instead of someone just using whatever they want they stick with the herd and follow the rest of the sheep until they wanna complain about everything and then complain again when the thing they once loved using gets nerfed even though the players begged for a change

[@theunhingedgamer3762]

@@miel307 you wouldn't be wrong about people going back to nuking frames but at the same time most of the nuke builds have fallen off drastically since the status chance changes and tbh the nuke frames are only good at a certain level threshold so their power is actually quite balanced for the most part

[@davedelorean2383]

Although I get your point. It is a looter shooter and grinding is part of all looter shooters, its what makes it. The grind is fine, warframe is far less grindy than others in the same genre. There are just a few things that are ridiculously grindy. Ash Systems, necramech damaged weapon parts and a few others. But overall I dont think it should be nerfed.

[@Chiknoodle]

completely unrelated to AoE, but im glad that the tenora prime got so much screen time.. its such a nice weapon to use

[@sauce6746]

One of the most beautiful prime assault rifles its its strong as hell too

[@nicholasboes8592]

It's very fast, AND It's accurate, so I use it with primary deadhead and Harrow's covenant. Shreds on the steel path.

[@sauce6746]

@@nicholasboes8592 Argon scope will give u even more headshot crits if u want to

[@nicholasboes8592]

@@sauce6746 Damn straight I'm using Galvanized Scope

[@sauce6746]

@@nicholasboes8592 Good man

[@minelegend6557]

In the effects on group play, I would also like the raise the point that if new players run into zoom-n-boom on low level relevant content like fissures they don't get to play the game. The visual confusion and lack of engagement can lead to people quitting early on. I know if I started playing warframe now and ran a lith survival with an envoy wielding wukong I would probably have stopped playing for the day.

[@RougeShadowNinja]

Or high range equinox just existing and everything dying on spawn

[@Kravenrogue]

Thats why I solo The entire Solar System before doing any Coop

[@kwoni3337]

That's a bit dramatic. Warframe isn't a light commitment, if people are playing the game it's because they enjoy it. They're not gonna quit just because they encounter a rare aoe wukong in a survival mission lol. There are many other things that would make a new player quit the game long before they'd even consider aoe being a negative

[@helinovvv5133]

Once AOE is nerfed I’ll just use max range miasma Saryn. Vets just don’t want to waste time and that newbie will understand in time.

[@hauntedshadowslegacy2826]

Another problem with zoom-n-boom is that some players go super hard on the 'zoom' aspect, sometimes leading them to leave slower players in the dust. For some, doing public missions is a way to level up weapons, gear, and warframes faster; but affinity-share has a range limit. And if that weren't bad enough, some zoom-n-boom players get pissy over a slower player 'costing them time'. The sheer, disgusting toxicity I've seen from a handful of zoom-n-boom players legit put me off from running public missions for a good while, and I wouldn't be surprised if some new players would quit forever because of such horrid behavior. I get that everyone has a different play style, but if someone can't *enjoy* the game because they're too busy trying to optimize their resource grinding, that's a fundamental game design problem. Zoom-n-boom is not good.

[@ninjanecktie2276]

I remember first starting the game when I encountered a heavy gunner firing that thumping Gorgon, and it absolutely melted me. Weapons like that deserve to shine.

[@johnP0908]

Gorgon felt like a pea shooter, Imagine that but with Phenmor like damage, but still it requires to spool up to gain max power and speed every time you need to shoot again.

[@Nexuslex]

no

[@The_Racr1]

aye, a lot of the early game stuff isn't viable even in midgame missions

[@jimjamjoeyjoejoe]

Problem is, to fix the AOE meta, you also need to remove the reason for HAVING an AOE meta, such as having missions having tons of enemies constantly spawning in.

[@theunhingedgamer3762]

that's actually not that hard for them to do tbh so I don't see where the problem is other than a few tweaks to survival missions needing to be done

[@johnP0908]

And they should fix how o Kuva/Tenet weapons should be obtained. by actually following the MR requirement of those weapons. it's gonna be left in their foundry but they won't be able to access it until they hit that MR requirement. this promotes new players to actually work they way up the game, and unlocking said weapons as the reward.

[@ayushdeshmukh284]

Or have enough new, *rewarding,* instances that become popular for their new mechanics/resource systems in order to offset the AoE demanding instances

[@spamhere1123]

No no, what you describe is exactly backwards. The reason for having an AoE meta ISN'T because "missions having tons of enemies constantly spawning in"--that's a GOOD thing. The reason is because "we need to kill thousands of enemies to make reasonable progress on anything." Most of our progress in the game is tied to dead enemies. Resources, xp, mission completion, the works--they all require enemies to be dead yesterday, and the more there are, the faster we progress. THIS is the problem, not there being too many enemies. If all DE did was reduce spawn rates, certain grinds would become intolerable.

[@SmoothTurtle840]

@@johnP0908 Yeah I’ve always thought it was kinda BS that MR 9s can run around with literally the best guns in the game, knowing that when I was that MR the best I could get was like the normal Arca Plasmor.

[@vbun4662]

I hope they approach it like "it takes 3 hours to grind this piece of equipment, how do we keep the grind time the same while increasing mission time which is what'll happen when we nerf the AOE weapons". Increase drop rates of things a bit if it means more time spent in missions or whatever. Reduce the amount of enemies or increase the punch through or do more Laetum style things. There's a number of ways to tackle it. I think the AOE meta is incredibly bland and the speed-run nature of Warframe gets old fast so something needs to change but they have to do it the right way or we'll be seeing the community communication scaled back.

[@DaShikuXI]

Any meta is bland. If single target became meta, you'd get people saying the same thing. Meta is effective, it's not meant to be exciting.

[@SusloNick]

Theyv already made most missions into waitwalls on a timer

[@richa1d648]

i honestly dont mind them re-adding self dmg, since revenant, my main, cant die to it as long as his 2 is on anyways xD jokes aside, I switched my weapon choices when I play solo to single target ones with punch through after I completed Mr 30 and most of the stuff in the game because that feels more like "playing a game". if I'm not at this level however, I wouldve be scared af for them to nerf explosives, since thats what accelerates the grind most.

[@cheese1008]

@@richa1d648 eh anyone past mr 14 doesn’t really need to grind for everything when most guns are just mr fodder from how good aoe weapons have become. Besides gauss and Titania are still going to be very fast relic farmers

[@richa1d648]

@@cheese1008 true, but I have nothing better to do...and Mr 30 actually gives some good rewards, like riven slots, umbra forma and loadout slots, which comes in handie for me who have a load out slot for everything u ever do in the game...plus blessings for clannies...so y not xd but yeah, mr past 14 is pretty useless. don't think I'm going to go attempt to raise mr higher than 30 as well, since the next few don't seem useful either

[@alexandrevincenot6546]

It's basically impossible to keep up with life support in SP survival without an AoE weapon so yeah they"d need to rebalance most of the gamemode if they touch AoE weapons

[@ericdavid6485]

Life support has never been an issue for me. Have you tried using the occasional life support tower? They are a thing you know.

[@minhhuyphamngoc3831]

@@ericdavid6485 He's mentioning SP, everything will almost one tap you in the SP, so you either can't be see or can't be target by the enemy. I do often active life support tower in Arbitrations but with Operator and some trick under my sleeve, but I imagine that SP survival is a whole new game mode than Arbitrations

[@PetroklosZDM]

@@minhhuyphamngoc3831 Nah, a Weapon with enough Punchthrough and Operator's Void Mode to use Lifesupport Tower is plenty and safe enough to deal with Steel Path Survival. What absolutely NEEDS AoEs is Steel Path KUVA Survival if you're turning the Lifesupport Towers to Kuva Harvesters, due to their lessed Life Support return. But maybe that's how it should be. Maybe the most lucrative and ever-green farm in this game, in its "Hard Mode" which has full-Player-Squad Spawns even if Solo, should be nigh impossible to Solo while also doing the farm optimally.

[@whitemagus2000]

@@PetroklosZDM So let's say DE does nerf AoE into the ground and steel path survival does become nearly impossible to solo. The game is now less fun and even more grindy. I quit and play an actually fun game. Others will do the same and the game will die, accept for that tiny minority of people that like both high difficulty and low rewards.

[@PetroklosZDM]

@@whitemagus2000 ok bye

[@paulamblard3836]

Primed FireStorm should add a flat range bonus, like +2.6m, instead of +66%. the melee had the same problem : weapon with small AOE where bad, and range mod mad the weapon with already good range even stronger. and the solution is the same.

[@cherryrook8684]

And dont forget, LOS check almost completely killed off melee range slide attack meta

[@discipleoftzeentch8384]

rather than walls completely negating damage i feel like they should apply accelerated radial falloff. that might be a pain to implement but it stops railings and floor geometry from fucking over AOEs like what happened with khora and if you're hugging a wall a grenade goes off on the other side of i dont think you get out unscathed. reduced damage obviously, but it creates a bit more balance

[@Gripen1974]

flat radius bonus as you suggest would buff aoe weapons which have small blast radius as zhuge prime for as it is now do you barely see any diffrence with this mod on zhuge prime, only that you self stagger more often.

[@coletcyre]

I personally feel like shifting a good chunk of rewards towards completion is a far better option. AoE mains don't lose in this case, since AoE clears missions quicker anyways, while those of us who like the different approaches don't have to worry about whether or not we killed enough enemies to make it worth the time.

[@635574]

This is only attacking part of the problem, but completely ignore that clearing the map faster results in more boring group play no matter the motive to do it, aoe weapons accomplish that at any level.

[@ayushdeshmukh284]

I'd also like to add to this... Background: Steel Path is AoE mode. It's the "carnage test your limits mode" built to cater to people who used to like level cap runs by providing to them a similar experience... In a faster way where you don't need to wait hours to get to that point. Maybe removing that identity would be good, but for now let's assume that removing it isn't an option... Overall reward re-balancing, as well as additional mechanics like the optional voidplumes or angel fights, would help, but SP itself will still remain as AoE mode. Changing your build while switching from SP to regular missions would still be a barrier to the average player choice. Imagine if everyone was doing some new single-target-weapon-demanding missions (similar to eidolons) *all the time.* Just like SP weapon choices bleed into regular gameplay, these new weapon choices will also bleed into regular gameplay. That would help balance the average experience of whose joining your squad, and also agree with the design aspect of "each tool turns out good for a certain mission, so you can end up using all the tools if you do all the missions.".

[@ayushdeshmukh284]

@@635574 Boring is completely fine, as long as it's a personal choice, because all the boring farms are completely unnecessary and optional farms. The game doesn't even ask you to farm more than 5% of the content of the game, that's just the choice of a completionist, and completionists are actively choosing efficiency over fun because they want it more. If we want to increase engagement for the sake of more fulfilling gameplay, the duration of the farms will need to be reduced severely, maybe that could work idk. The *clear* problem is particularly when *you* don't get a say at all whether someone's going to clear the map and leave nothing for you to do. Additional mechanics and rewards would give people something to do, as well as hugely reduce the likelihood of a room-clearer joining your squad.

[@hauntedshadowslegacy2826]

@@ayushdeshmukh284 Thing is, when 'boring' is the main viable option, it's a problem. Over the past ten or so years, game design has degraded across the industry. Making it easy for the player to optimize the fun out of a game used to be considered a bad thing, but now it's par for the course. It's like comparing casinos in advertisements to casinos in real life; the ad shows people having a great time, but the day-to-day experiences inside casinos shows desperate people with hollow eyes hoping for that next dopamine high. If the boring farms in Warframe truly were just optional, then it wouldn't be so hard to access newer content. I've been playing for years, and I still can't access the Steel Path because my gear is too weak to solo the missions nobody runs publicly. I have to optimize in order to progress. I have to farm to reach new content. It's not fun. It's not enjoyable. It's piss-poor game design used to prop up a premium currency in a stifled digital market. I would've rather bought Warframe as a complete game without microtransactions. The problems with AoE damage are, put simply, a bold-faced example of everything wrong with the Freemium games model.

[@ayushdeshmukh284]

@@hauntedshadowslegacy2826 First of all, Warframe has some of the best monetization out there. There's absolutely no reason to engage in microtransactions unless you want completely meaningless skins or a meaningless MR number for the sake of having it, or in an unexpectedly high number of cases, if you just want to give money to devs because you've like what you've had for years. If you stick to only what you need, it takes like a month to get everything you need for free. For 'boring' to not be a main viable option, the Duration of grinds needs to go down, a lot. The games you're referencing were that way because they either didn't have nearly as much grind or didn't have to worry about nearly as much market competition. Their situations are just different. Warframe, in order to remain competitive, has had to constantly add content for a decade. Nobody can expect new players to play 10 years worth of engaging, mentally demanding content. For that reason, NEW mentally demanding and engaging content that can't be built around is a fair thing to ask for that would boost the health of the game. Especially if it provides new, more engaging, less killing-heavy methods of getting the same rewards as the other content. (Think Railjack but less barrier to entry and more "warframe.") But that's VERY different from demanding older things to change without regard for why they exist. Right now, to finish all main content in the game (aka completing AoZ quest), it takes 40 hours. Add in the side-content, (PT, ropalolyst, Eidos, etc) it's 100-200 hours. (Assuming you're an experienced player not wasting time with unnecessary things; for example, me verifying this with my alt account.) You absolutely DON'T have to farm to reach new content. Everything else is a much less relevant farm: farming MR, farming primes/plat, farming rivens, doing SP, minmaxing builds, maxing your RJ, is all kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. You do it just because you want to do it, and then it makes you want to do it more, so you do it more. If you've been feeling otherwise, you were likely given the wrong impression by someone. Just like people don't play a game they don't vibe with, they shouldn't force themselves to play content they personally don't like. Steel Path isn't just new content. It's a precise example of the optional unnecessary content, and on top of that it's designed for people who want that thing you'd call boring. Nothing you gain from SP will ever be needed outside of SP, and nothing about its content is radically new. If you don't like the farm for SP, you won't like SP, I guarantee you. It's all about the insane power progression, and if it's already not motivating for you, SP will just feel shittier, don't bother. There's no point in trying to play as a completionist if you're just breaking your head to do so. SP was only designed for people who liked doing endurance runs and push the mathematical limits of their "boring" builds, because they once found it and still find it enjoyable. SP choices are bleeding into regular gameplay, but that will naturally be countered when the new content choices also start bleeding into regular gameplay.

[@borneogoodmap208]

As an average joe in steel path it feels like a requirement to use aoe weapons in missions like survival, defense\mobile defense and interception (Not to mention how overgaurd has made cc less viable). Precious few single target weapons can keep up and I think that is the main problem.

[@junktin1750]

IM MR 27 and i cannot handle steel path because i just do not like how only few of my loadouts seem to work on it such a shame

[@montypython5521]

@@junktin1750 Use a hunter munitions viral build with a basic rhino setup and you'll change your mind. It's honestly disgusting

[@drunkenfist3084]

@@junktin1750 that just means that your loadout is made for low rank

[@beeleuazevedo8142]

@@junktin1750 just use good helminth combos and rolling guard

[@sepulcher8263]

@@montypython5521 Why Rhino? Is it for the roar ability?

[@Sniff86245]

With how AoE has creeped into the spotlight, I’m kind of upset. Not at how it’s become meta, but how it’s almost become a requirement. Most missions have a MASSIVE horde of enemies coming at you, and single target weapons, while can be powerful, may not be so useful when the one target probably can’t hurt you quick, but the 9 others are essentially leeching your health at light speed. Personal problem of mine though: I don’t have Primed Sure Footed, so most of the time is spent being staggered, which means I’m prone to being melted like cheese. I don’t want AoE to become almost worthless, not at all. I want something like the Nagantaka to be just as powerful. A simple damage buff? Maybe. Damage with punch through as an innate bonus (outside of Warframe specific bonuses)? Yes. Clear crowds with one bullet/bolt/projectile, an easy choice. Yes, a cheap one, but it’d put AoE and normal weapons on a somewhat even ground, in my eyes at least. While yes, I love my Shotgun-looking Kuva Ogris, I miss having my Boltor being a beast as well.

[@NeuralSensei]

I have a tech for those without the mods: rolling just as you release the explosive projectile will ignore the knockdown animations, there's a bit of inconsistency in air but with some practice it was realiable in simulacrum while nuking crowds right next to me with no risk of death. Will be annoying for the rolling guard users but those are typically old enough to have access to the boring cheese meta too.

[@ayushdeshmukh284]

When it comes to missions outside of Steel Path(which you might as well call max carnage AoE+Nuke mode), unless you're specifically trying to kill as many enemies as possible for resources, or trying to do very long endless missions, you will not care about the difference between AoE and single target. Both are very OP. If one's having trouble outside of SP, that's basically an issue of investing only in AoE weapons and not upgrading the single target ones. Of course the single target will feel bad if you don't invest nearly as much. That's a real symptom but from a different problem entirely: general game balance and the fact that people learn Warframe mostly online. Rebalancing AoE vs single target *DAMAGE* won't cure these particular symptoms. For that we need new reasons to use single target weapons in new settings, thereby offsetting the general game balance. SO guides won't just say "look at this single target weapon and throw it away mastery fodder" and will instead say "build AoE for this stuff and build single target for this other stuff."

[@yt_geezuz785]

​@@NeuralSensei also using Frames that can eliminate self stagger. Nezha is easy to get (Dojo) and Primed Nezha is available now. It's easier to farm than Kuva Zarr or Tenet Envoy for newer players. Rhino is easy to farm too. You don't actually need Primed Sure Footed, it's just a QoL so you can use other frames. but still, weapons line Tenet Envoy rendering my Kuva Kohm obsolete is problematic on so many levels- Game balance, power creep, game focusing on repetitive kill count, and so on. I like objective based missions and not simply killing hordes with a click of a button. I love bulldozing enemies up close with melee weapons and shotguns. Heck, I can't even get to use the headshot effects of Laetum or Knell 90% of the time because of the visual clutter and no enemies left to use it to. Are you suggesting players like me should be sidelined to playing solo ?

[@yt_geezuz785]

Use Frames that can eliminate self stagger. Nezha is easy to get (Dojo) and Primed Nezha is available now. It's easier to farm than Kuva Zarr or Tenet Envoy for newer players. Rhino is easy to farm too. You don't actually need Primed Sure Footed, it's just a QoL so you can use other frames.

[@NeuralSensei]

@@yt_geezuz785 why you posted basically same shit twice but one was short?

[@Orvixran7692]

i really love that you covered this... as a veteran myself i've been feeling punished and/or weak even for choosing my own way of playing warframe and it really is a huge pity, rebalance is crusial as you said for making warframe not only more inclusive but also way more fun. Ive been playing for 5 years now and i belive that every single one of your points was great, I really like the idea of a big rework like the focus schools one but for the weapons, amazing and really important contenet as always. Thank you soooo much for having made this video, much love

[@suzusuzujuicy]

What if the Impact status was reworked so that bullets from single target weapons ricocheted onto other enemies, at the cost of a small reduction in damage? That would fix impact being nearly useless and give single target weapons a significant increase in efficiency.

[@kevinplaysgames7825]

I like this one

[@635574]

Yeah but there are plenty strong weapons that already deal much impact, a better role is that its procs deal damage to every layer and at includes when hitting overguard

[@zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz__]

ah yes lets give impact aoe to combat the aoe meta

[@EL-LWC]

Not a very good idea honestly. Weapons with forced impact procs are already among the most powerful thanks to DEs ratherlazy implemenation of Hemmorage and Internal Bleeding. Simply turning single target weapons into aoe is commonly suggested and an extremely flawed idea and really missed the point. It completely changes the playstyle and functionality of single target weapons that they are often enjoyed for (that is killing the target because you are aiming at them, not because u are aiming near them or at a nearby enemy. We already have Amprex, Nukor etc)

[@theunhingedgamer3762]

your idea is very contradictory to the issue at hand here.. you want Impact damage to have an AOE effect when everyone wants AOE to be nerfed so I have to say your idea is bad because you're basically aiding the issue that DE wants to fix and plus Impact based weapons now deal slash procs with the help of 2 mods so adding AOE to impact procs would just cause the same issues as putting Hunter Munitions on a Bramma

[@Darthmufin]

One fix for survival by the way is making it so if enemies are killed with a single target or chaining weapon, they have a higher chance to drop life support. That equalizes the game mode.

[@theunhingedgamer3762]

or just buff melee again and leave the community to play with whatever they wish to use and ignore everyone that complains about these metas which the players themselves create

[@euric869]

Have it that headshots have a higher chance to drop life support.

[@Darthmufin]

@@theunhingedgamer3762 melee is still alright, though glaives obviously pull ahead as they are also aoe

[@kittentamer2164]

I like this suggestion, actually

[@johnP0908]

@@Darthmufin it's pretty hard to move around with a glaive since you have to charge it before detonation. I guess that keeps glaives in check at least.

[@SK-mw8vd]

Thank you for explaining that this issue isn't black/white. I don't envy the position that DE is in, but there does need to be a change. I straight up avoid playing in groups, even to the detriment of the mission, because I find myself more annoyed, blinded, and called out for not being fast enough.

[@NeuralSensei]

This is where he gets into the solutions proposed, not that he suggests doing them all at once: 13:03 Make meta aoe damage less dominant and into a sidegrade, creating balance in groups and player choice Visual aoe weapon effects should get their slider or toggle Single target weapons could get a damage buff to keep up 13:30 options for aoe drawbacks Excluding the stagger immunity effects from covering your weapon 14:02 Self damage with limits being brought back, like a static self damage value ignoring mods, this would also mean tanky frames have less of a problem with AoE 14:58 line of sight check or punch through limit for aoe 15:21 reduce primed blast radius mods stat from insane +175% in 2D area and +357% in 3D volume 16:25 Extra option of rebalancing the single target only weapon damage output so at least some beat Aoe per target in general. 16:50 balance requires that single target weapons need to stay above aoe alternatives in damage to single target 17:02 using single and aoe in the same loadout will be helped by removing some barriers for weapon swapping The stacks either pause when holstered, or merge the stack triggers conditions between the slots 18:00 craziest option remove the requirement for stacks for these upgrades. 18:23 single target-only new mods that add exclusive bonuses 19:11 last option changing reward structure to be less enemy kill centric and improve importance of objective completion so not as much of resources and xp comes from the killspeed. No single change can solve this imbalance on its own. And I am adding this: I am still the only one who notices how crazy it is we can infinitely convert ammo just laying everywhere for the overpowered lowest ammo reserve weapons and never run out.

[@KaiSoDaM]

kuva brahma and lenz were supposed to be balanced because low ammo... unless you are a new player who don´t know what is a vigilant mod and carrier XD. They should make AoE Weapons a separated weapon category with a true limited ammo pool, maybe witha cooldown... like they tried making Arch-guns.

[@mohammadsabit6097]

Reducing ammo pool just makes things annoying.

[@sosoishero]

@@mohammadsabit6097 That's the point. It make it annoying enough so it is a choice instead of an upgrade

[@slyth0196]

I think something like the cedo is as fun as an AoE, its strong, and has a secondary multi target non radial ability

[@theunhingedgamer3762]

the Cedo can easily get away with not being nerfed given it's in the same category as the Zakti,Pox,and a few other weapons sure Cedo has the effect of Condition Overload built into it but it mostly gets used as a primer for melees instead of damage dealing and even then if they nerfed the AOE on that gun it would immediately be useless the whole meta players have created in terms of AOE weapons involves weapons like the Ogris,Bramma,Lenz,Tenet Envoy,Zarr,and anything else with a massive explosion radius so weapons like the Chakkhurr and the Opticor will more than likely get ignored by any potential nerfs since those require enemies to be grouped into one confined area

[@jimjamjoeyjoejoe]

It's one of the best weapons added to the game and one of the most fun, AND one of the only gimmick weapons where the gimmick is actually really useful for wiping out a room.

[@slyth0196]

@@jimjamjoeyjoejoe i agree, only other shotgun i use is corinth, and even so i cant get it to keep up, least the grenade part, but i havent touched it since before galvanized mods were introduced

[@Wooskii1]

@@theunhingedgamer3762 Half of the status procs come from Cedo's AoE explosions! More if enemies are grouped tight together, so AoE nerf would cripple it... Unless I'm missing something about how AoE works.

[@MasterAarott]

It's interesting that you think that the Cedo's explosions on secondary are a non-radial ability

[@LightCrib2]

I'm not too into the idea of nerfing blast radius mods, as some smaller radius explosions really need the help. Perhaps if it was changed to a flat increase like melee range mods, that could be better (Maybe it could also be used to *give* single target weapons an explosion)

[@NinjaSyao]

I was thinking of just putting a cap on how big the radius can get, but I like this idea better. Would stop the big boy AoE guns from going over 10+ meters (I've played a lot of Primary Tombfinger and that thing with its 10-ish meters of range and line-of-sight still feels like a big blaster should, while giving my teammates a chance to play the mission too) and the guns with tiny AoE's like 2-3 meters can actually use the mods now and get closer to their bigger cousins in terms of effectiveness. They actually did this with Primed Reach for melees and it was a great change imo. I do think line-of-sight is required alongside this to reel in the AoE weapons.

[@CrashSable]

I just don't think the mods are a problem. Most of the big-hitter AoE weapons don't use them at all in the meta because 1) their AoE is big enough without them 2) that's a precious mod slot being taken up by something that isn't providing more damage 3) you'll probably be using some grouping ability to get everyone into a tiny radius anyway if you're committed to AoE.

[@AnymMusic]

I feel like the biggest issue is the weapons themselves. Nerf their radius bit by bit till it's in a good spot whilst upping effectiveness of single target

[@GearGrinder480]

I hope weapons like Corinth time don't get their AOE nerfed because I like the concept of how you have to remote detonate the ATL fire making it slightly less spam able

[@EL-LWC]

Shame they decided to make it generally weaker than most meta explosives with its poor crit stats and high falloff, despite being much less spammable

[@yeoldpubman]

@@EL-LWC It *should* be weaker than meta explosives, it's a supplemental mode on an already-strong weapon for when the primary mode's damage shape isn't ideal. The original Corinth also gave it some great utility in the form of launching enemies into the air, which I miss from the prime but honestly it's just another good reason to keep both guns. Even if a weapon is dedicated to AoE, meta AoE was in an unhealthy place and shouldn't be used as the target for balancing new stuff, that'd just make the problem even worse.

[@SmoothTurtle840]

Primed Sure Footed makes me wonder why self-damage was even removed to begin with.

[@scorpiowarrior7841]

Because making any aoe weapon immediately have the turn off of "you die if your miss your shot OR this has an arming distance and does a peanut of damage if not reached, which happens a lot in normal gameplay" is really really unappealing. Now if DE instead ACTUALLY BALANCED self damage and made it based on warframe health instead of THE WEAPON'S ACTUAL DAMAGE, then I'd be okay with self damage coming bac , espically if it meant only tank frames like Hildryn or rhino could really keep aoe in their loadouts.

[@kylorevren8655]

I'd like them to add an option to change all teammates effects to a color of your choice

[@dragn6970]

I think that DE might actually realize that AoE is becoming a problem- the Phenmor is a really good move in the right direction. It's got appreciable innate punchthrough, which helps it compete with AoE guns, a high fire rate, which lets you spray and pray a bit, and absolutely fantastic DPS, far and above its competitors, giving you a reason to pick it over a kuva bramma, kuva zarr, or tenet envoy.

[@shush0202]

Thing is if I like playing aoe weapons and have adjusted my builds and war frame around it. Is that a step in the wrong direction? Having the choice is to allow every one to enjoy the same thing by usually let it be full of holes that one can abuse. Forcing another meta by making those guns (I personally despise, and I’m not generalising my opinion), is not changing things. The dynamic is still the same : one rule them all. The solution is in us not in the game

[@xnAqua]

@@shush0202 This^ Even if they do nerf AOE weapons many people will still use them anyway because they cover groups of enemies across the map which single target weapons like the Phenmor just can’t do. The only real way to hit AOE in my opinion is to add new game modes that require thinking or where AOE just doesn’t help the situation

[@filanfyretracker]

Might explain why the Opticor Vandal works so well on the Zariman, Especially with a Primed Shred for even more PT it just cuts through enemies. Honestly I have caught it punching through the barrier on a guardian eximus.

[@Dalzombie]

The Phenmor is literally broken. I have a feeling it was just a test to see if a broken weapon tipped off balance by having everyone rush to get the new single-target monster, but no, the AoE meta lives on despite this admittedly overpowered gun.

[@johnP0908]

@@Dalzombie I don't think it's broken. the fact that you have to aim and headshot enemies while trying to avoid getting hit just to reap it's powerful reward while doing it over and over again is enough to call it balanced.

[@SkyEcho751]

Just switching the "Visual effect sensitivity" to being the catagories: Weapon, Warframe/Tenno, and Enemy. would probably help a bit. But yes, I believe some of the later options could help. Though I do have to say that adding "Radial Self-stagger can't be blocked" won't stop things like the Kuva Nukor, which doesn't have such downsides. Edit: Also it should only be the radial attacks that permatrigger Self-stagger, Spellbind should be able to protect from movement based self stagger at the very least.

[@635574]

Nukor is short range and not instant delete 10 enemies at a long range with endless ammo conversion. It is most limited my range and distance between enemies

[@gidelix]

But when’s the last time you have noticed a Nukor impeding your gameplay on a public mission?

[@PetroklosZDM]

@@gidelix it's very likely that we're not noticing it because there's much better choices for deleting crowds. if that is so, then it will soon just replace the AoEs if it goes unchanged. that said, I wouldn't argue that it is such a problem. for AoEs you shoot your feet and kill everything around you. you shoot at a wall and kill everything beyond it. the Nukor at least demands some aiming.

[@manicdee983]

Kuva Nukor is a great example of "balanced" AOE. It's limited by the number of targets it can hit, and you have to make choices about extra range, punch through, or flat out damage. It's a very strong weapon, but it's not Zarr/Bramma OP (why bother applying status effects with a Nukor when you can just blat the whole room out of existence with a Zarr?)

[@Quantumironturtle]

There is another option, but it requires the person making all the bright lights to pick it. By changing the energy color of your frames and weapons to be darker, you can reduce or even remove their flashbang properties. As an example, I've got my Naturuk set to a darker shade of green than the rest of my kit to reduce it's visual noise to something more tolerable. Setting it to black, meanwhile, removes it almost completely, while white makes it far far worse. Unfortunately, this requires the zoom and boomer to be both self conscious enough to realize they should turn it down, and know how to do so. If you zoom and boom, please darken your weapons and spread the word.

[@Taoscape]

I had an interesting thought watching this video: The Kuva Bramma and Zarr both do as much or more single target dps as the better single target weapons. If they had their damage divided evenly between all enemies hit, they would still be better than single target weapons. Not that that is an idea for balancing them, but just an interesting perspective.

[@maiphen4537]

But then there should also be limits on how much it would divide, otherwise damage could be too low

[@atraunam3223]

I'm personally a big fan of removing the abillity to ignore self stagger, so much of the current zoom and boom meta is people shooting at their own feet, and while self oneshotting was overly harsh (too many times a kavat or random teammate jumps infront of you last second) just staggering yourself would make a big improvment in just making pepople have to at least actually think about where they're shooting.

[@OP10thNakama]

I think lenz is one of the most balanced AoE. The detonate delay with the draw time is perfect to keep up with single target. But I think the biggest issue really is the spawn density of endless missions in sp. The sheer amount of them punishes those that choose to use single target.

[@CrashSable]

Except for Disruption. Once you get past the initial waves in Disruption, you can barely ever find two enemies stood together.

[@EL-LWC]

AoE isnt just making missions and rewards faster, easier and more efficient. there is an ever increasing amount of content there is a simultaneous need to grind (especially on a daily/weekly basis) which just keeps on increasing with each content expansion.

[@sarbe6625]

Well yeah, but tbf you're not expected to be doing all of those at once. Usually the best way to go about it is to focus on one or two of them and then move on when you've gotten everything you really need.

[@D4ffs]

I wonder if a "Clean kill" system would help. Killing an enemy with a direct hit instead of an AOE would result in 2x or 5x loot/exp from that enemy or even 10x with headshots. Maybe drop chance for stuff like argon or Reactant in fissure missions. Point being that if you dont Vaporize your enemy with a nuke there would be more loot off the body of that enemy. This way you could still nuke maps in missions where the kills/loot are not important and swap to single target when you are target farming certain things throughout the game. There would be ALOT to consider in such a change so I know it wouldn't just be as simple as I stated however this is just a random thought. Great video as usual.

[@nadhiffachri8538]

Yea, i agree with your statement with some balancing, like reducing the amount of enemy spawn, improved the enemy AI, reduce the amount of kill in exterminate mission. That could be a viable option

[@celsonjunior9376]

i thought abt affinity, maybe uncapped if using finishers while undetected but max 500 until detected if nuking rooms, good for maxing weapons and pet/weapon

[@tizodd6]

Petpeeve: That's actually a pretty interesting suggestion. You'd still have to deal with "nukers" killing targets before you can get to them in groups, but still an interesting suggestion none-the-less.

[@spamhere1123]

I like this idea, but the only problem I have with it is how much it could enable intense griefing. "Oh, you're target farming something? How about I nuke the whole map and leave nothing for you to loot? LulUluLulUlz, I love trolling randos." Yeah, I could see this happening. One thing to add to it to make this idea more appealing and less prone to griefing would be to add more enemies resistant to AoE damage and more prone to precision damage. The Nox was such a great enemy addition, and they went and nerfed it. Overguard should be strong against AoE and weak to CC or single-target damage. Things like that would mean that even if someone was trying to nuke the room to troll, the enemies that dropped the bonus loot/xp would probably still survive and need to be killed the "proper" way.

[@Zarkator]

the absolute level of diplomatic language here. "For those of us that do not like actively choosing to nerf ourselves just for choosing a different playstyle, it sucks." vs. "this weapon sucks." Additionally: I strongly disagree with your AoE nerf options Forcing self-stagger will only make the game at large more annoying, as people will not be put-off to using the weapons that work, they'll just develop more migraines dealing with effective range, which is in no way a skill-based aspect of warframe gameplay. Re-introducing unmodded or otherwise reduced self-damage will not effect the vast majority of good warframes, and even in some cases like chroma, only be a buff and make aoe weapons even better, while also making the game unnecessarily harder for lower-level players who might not have a maxed out vitality or an inaros. Line of sight checks on explosion weapons already exists to some capacity on most explosion weapons, and improving that effect on more aoe weapons would help this balance slightly, but it would not shift the meta at all, and instead just remind players of the khora nerfs and spark outrage larger than it deserves. Nerfing explosion radius is the best suggestion of them all, but directly removing or nerfing the mods that do so is not the way to do it; in fact, these mods, in addition to many others, need buffs, while the base stats of the weapons would be both easier for the devs, and less dangerous to the game balance overall to nerf instead, similar to the melee range squish a couple years ago. in terms of your single target buff options, yeah seems fine.

[@nadhiffachri8538]

I'm afraid that DE is just gonna nerf AoE to the ground and we're gonna be left with un rewarding loot and unnecessary long mission time. Let's just hope DE make the right decision

[@NotASuspicousPerson]

One way or another, AoE WILL have to be nerfed to some degree, because frankly, no ST buff is ever going to be enough, when the main problem is the AoE itself. Yes, the video did point out how not every AoE weapon is meta, but that's because weapon the damage is too low. But the meta weapon will either still be better than ST or become useless, there's just no comprise possible.

[@WafelixRox]

10 years and people are still blindly trusting DEsappointment company?? Oh gamers community, gamers community.. When you'll learn they don't give a damn about your opinions but only themselfs and their china overworld?? *sigh* this community is like none other..being fulled 24/7 and saying "thank you" everytime they're getting betrayed by their favourite devs.

[@NotASuspicousPerson]

@@WafelixRox You can get that "Company bad" BS out of here. This whole AoE meta mess started BECAUSE they listened to people bitchin and moaning about self-damage (and then the tumbling from AoE).

[@gratefuldeadmau5610]

@@NotASuspicousPerson individual weapons need nerfs not aoe in general. You could nerf aoe. And something like the bramma is now a balanced weapon but you killed acceltra or some shit

[@NotASuspicousPerson]

@@gratefuldeadmau5610 While the answer has more of a nuance so it's a mix of yes and no, I'm going to have to lean more on no. There is 1 main question, and one following that. Even if you nerf those few weapons, more powerful weapons still come out after, would it not? And following that, do you think it's feasible for them to somehow keep some rules to not make those kinds of weapons again in the future, without making carbon copies of existing weapons (any more than it already is)? By the way, I'm not accepting "It's their job" as an answer. That kind of answer just screams "I don't know and I'm not going to bother thinking about it and just assume my answer is good, and others need to make sure I'm right, regardless of whether that is actually possible or not". Also, let's not trying to discuss at such a vague level of "nerf" and think about more in detail HOW the nerf is applied. For example, I have a few ideas but to bring up one of them, it would be a threshold. At certain size AoE, it could start doing things like self-damage along with the knockback, while keeping the current stagger the same at distance / small enough AoE.

[@roseravus4908]

the point at 18:19, one about combining all buffs across all weapons and removing timers or stack decays. It gave me a great idea that ties in to the companion buff DE talked about. What if companions were the ones that gave us certain buffs. Maybe the sisters of parvos hounds gave multishot, kubrows would increase damage, kavats increase status or crits, etc. It would increase synergy and maybe even remove some of the need for "mandatory" mods allowing us to make more personalized builds

[@roseravus4908]

the more I think about this the more I like it. It would break the panzer vulpaphyla/smeeta kavat meta as well while also adding another step for new players to do to achieve the "ultimate" setup

[@gault6546]

i dont know if DE will bring self damage back, but if they do, i hope its a more "balanced" version where you dont instantly vaporise yourself every mission. maybe every AOE weapon should have its own seperate "self damage" stat that is affected by damage and elemental mods, starts off really small (like 150 damage for the bramma, at minimum falloff for example), doesn't take crits into account and has a lower status chance. revenant will probably still cheese the AOE system tho

[@Gator_Queen8188]

Yee but atleast it is a specific bonus of revenant so it wouldn't be as bad

[@gault6546]

@@Gator_Queen8188 i guess so. tho i would be fine if revy lost 1 mesmer skin charge if he takes more self damage than a certain threshold or something

[@Gator_Queen8188]

@@gault6546 yee thats pretty fair imho

[@theunhingedgamer3762]

they won't bring back self damage given now everyone is complaining they want self stagger removed but those people complaining are the ones who ignore the existence of Primed Sure Footed plus the community at large said they wanted self damage removed anyway because it had no business being in the game and tbf I personally agreed with that

[@tizodd6]

@@gault6546 Self-damage would be good, if [DE] was able to cut back on the cheese deaths. I remember getting self-deleted because a teammate jumped in front of my shot just as I was shooting. If [DE] could figure that out, I'd be all for self-damage.

[@drokus]

A quote that a friend of mine found about meta: people will always find a way to optimize the fun out of the game

[@theurbanreanimator7244]

Here early, glad youve spoken on this topic as alot of people don’t understand that balance is still important in a pve game and things can still be TOO good for the health of the game.

[@electrospaghetti8388]

I saw a different reddit post the other day that did a really great job of looking into all of these things as well, and there's a few points from there I'd like to add to the pile here, as well as a couple of my own: -The difference between single target and AoE is so massive it's not even fair to call it a handicap anymore. Not only is it enemy EHP that's scaling, it's also their damage, *as well as enemy quantity/density*. This effect is most visible on very early missions, where sometimes you'd be lucky to have 5 enemies on the same tile outside of endless, or 20 units coming at you at once on endless was probably the entire wave. So not only does single target kill slower, but there's more to kill, meaning defense objectives (as well as your own health) very quickly become almost unmanageable without a very powerful super fast single target weapon...or one AoE weapon with an alright build. E.g: my Dex Pixia Prime with a fully ranked bleed/viral build is my best (and favourite) weapon, only beaten by my Xoris, aka my one half built AoE weapon. -The enemy density problem also shows that the game is actively designing it's later levels around AoE: Even if you could oneshot everything with no hp issues, is your ammo count (and sanity!) going to last any length of time if you have to take a "one shot one, maybe 2 kills" attitude to an exterminate mission WITH 200 ENEMIES? The difference in speed and ammo economy isn't just large, it's more polarizing than a Forma! This is a very good reason why people also feel forced to use AoE, even if you ignore that you require an AoE weapon to essentially be permitted to play the game in public lobbies. -However, it's not this huge difference in time it takes to complete missions that is the root cause. The real issue is actually more visible than you'd think: diluted, duplicated loot pools and the ever slowing grind, causing player frustration and hence reliance on AoE weapons to speed up grinding massively. I'll break it down: -As there are multiple nodes that pull from the exact same loot pool, that means there is an objectively "best" place to grind that loot pool (would you rather do that one submersible Grineer T3 spy mission where you have to flood the room without getting spotted and there's no way you would know how this pain in the ass awkward room even works on your first few tries? Or would you rather jump one planet over and just run through lasers as Limbo and just use cyphers to hack all the locked doors to be in and out before the data could even have a chance to be purged?), which leads to 2 things: tediousness of repetition to obtain every item from that loot pool, with little variety in each run because it's the exact same mission every time because anything else would just make the tediousness worse, and the majority of the nodes in the star chart seeing very little activity due to there being objectively better places to be. (Sometimes can be kind of hard to believe this game isn't dead when you see "open squads: 0" everywhere, especially if you're new and haven't gotten in touch with the community) -And similarly, the loot pools are hence diluted and chances to get what you want become smaller, both by items appearing in multiple different pools, but also exactly because that pool has to encompass the significant portion of content that it's associated with. Relics are a good example of this: the objectively best places to get relics are void capture missions, which contain almost every unvaulted relic of that tier, meaning trying to get a specific rare becomes maddening from extremely high levels of repetition (2 minutes for a capture mission, including loading times, meaning that while the time may not be long, doing the same thing 15 times in half an hour has probably more of an impact on someone's sanity and attention span as doing something much longer two times in an hour), stemming both from the fact you'll probably need a relic multiple times because you won't get the part you need first try, but also because *it takes over 10 runs just to get the relic you wanted once*. -The worst part about this is that DE is also actively lowering drop chances of the things you actually want as farming gets faster in order to counteract this tediousness. E.g: Augur secrets. Not even the best ability strength mod, but maybe a good alternative if you can't get the corrupted mods (see: diluted pool, or even just newer player), or something to stack on if you're building for nothing but strength. your best bet is a 5% chance from a specific PoE bounty, on a specific rotation. Else you need to farm thumpers for a 2%, or run bounties you know have assassination targets for a 0.167% (0.5%/3 as you might not even get the right commander). So *on average - it could be worse* if you're playing at the perfect time and get consistently get assassination targets on the right rotation, it will still take you a little under 20 runs. For a mod that's mediocre at best. (Why yes this is personal salt). A second, more important example would be frames: old assassination frames like Rhino have a 22% chance for the single rarest part. Then we have Sevagoth at 10% for each part. Much more than twice as long to farm, on top of all the time gates. And in fact, even the fact that you're using the zoom and boom meta to complete the missions twice as fast, tediousness aside, isn't enough to make up for this. (I'll link the reddit post in a comment, which explains the maths of this). -So overall, AoE isn't the issue, it's the player's solution to the real issues. If the enemy count wasn't so high in later missions, they wouldn't be almost mandatory. If the loot pools were subdivided, more locations would see activity as people go there to farm one valuable thing rather than one of three possible valuable things, *and get what they want faster, with more variety and enjoyability in their gaming experience as well.* -I would just like a reason to play endless missions for rewards outside of building up an excessive amount of enemy drops or fissures, such as a *consistent* supply of a relic I actually want, and in doing so significantly cut down on the amount of capture missions I have to do to get other relics to boot. Imagine if there were only 3 nodes where you could get a selection of 3 relics, at 33% chance each, each node staggered in difficulty and location for accessibility. Long or repeat runs would actually net you several of the relic you want, and a healthy collection of the others in the process. The only thing you lose is that feeling of "oh hey I have about 40 relics of each tier just sitting around I accidentally farmed while doing other things. I guess I'll look through and pray that by sheer luck I've already got a small stash of the relic I actually want." -Nerfing AoE is the easy solution that will just cause players to find some other way to trivialise missions (probably just more ability spamming, given that's already a popular alternative). Fixing the loot tables and player experience (rather than pumping out yet more new, barely working content that will still need a lot more polish when it inevitably stops getting polish to begin work on the next new thing) is the slower, and more difficult option that will do more to indirectly buff everything else without adding yet more power creep. And who knows, while you're at it and fixing player experience, maybe you'll even find some time to improve the new player experience and counteract all that feature creep in the process!

[@yeoldpubman]

I will forever argue that the best way to balance AoE and single target is a focus on enemy design. Nox, Saxum, Bursa/Ambulas, Guardian Eximus, Nullifiers, all stand out from the crowd and demand your attention with their abilities, but ask you to tackle them in a way that AoE is broadly bad at. Unfortunately those enemies are too rare to dedicate a loadout slot to them, can usually be brute-forced by AoE or melee anyway, and we also run into the Galvanized issue where your damage suffers after swapping guns.

[@zamenis]

I think the best way to make hitscan weapons as cool as aoe weapons is to make their crosshair a triangle or rectangle and hit all the enemies within that crosshair. Like a solider 76 ult

[@jasutinborchert4418]

You could make this a corpus or Tenno weapon type. Or you simply have a small AoE like on the Catchmoon, Arca Plasmor, or Fulmin in shotgun mode that you could expand with mods

[@ravivandersalm4586]

Nah getting that clean headshot is what makes hitscan cool

[@zamenis]

@@ravivandersalm4586 thats the point, hitscan could autoheadshot whithin the reticle/crosshair

[@hazeltree7738]

@@zamenis That's not what they mean. Imagine the difference between lining up and landing a headshot yourself, and having someone grab your gun, walk it up to the enemy's head and all you have to do is pull the trigger. That's a lot less satisfying than getting the headshot yourself

[@zamenis]

@@hazeltree7738 yea i guess you re right. Then why not make all bullets explosive? As pablo said, explosion radius does not headshot anymore, but the projectile itself does. So make small caliber bullets explode, but not as hard as the high caliber ones, and make the high caliber projectiles slower/ make them react to gravity but make them hit harder.

[@markmillonas1896]

Very well done presentation. DE has consistently chosen over time to make the game more “interesting”/“challenging”/“different” mainly by adding more and harder enemies, and at a certain point it become physically (and virtually mathematically) impossible to ever succeed by killing things one at a time. And like the quip about a minute sitting on a hot stove seeming longer than a minute sitting on a bench with your sweetie, having to deliberately aim 3000 times in a mission is never going to be as much fun as not having too. Adding the buffed, more interesting Eximus units was a nod at fixing this, but they are just a little non-hoard spice sprinkled on top of the main serving of, and necessity of, slaughtering massive hoards of enemies. This is so much part of the game at the moment that it is really hard even to imagine how to change the game to “fix” it without it becoming something else. It’s is a self-created trap, and while it can be very lightly tweaked by messing with weapons a little, they can not escape that it is the GAMEPLAY ITSELF that makes one weapon better than another, not a weapon’s features in isolation. I just cleaned up my rivens to make room for more at the limit, and it was easy - there were so many for weapons that just don’t make any sense to invest in … ever. Pure endo fodder.

[@raydaal3265]

Something ironic in the aoe meta together with the helminth system, is that many frames who were barely looked at a few years ago are having decent usage/popularity in this meta

[@PetroklosZDM]

Just reinstating Self Stagger and adding LoS Restrictions would help to indirectly balance the Primed Fulmination / Firestorm Mods as well. +350% AoE Volume becomes less important when it's restircted by LoS and also turns into a double edged sword when said increased Volume also makes it much more likely to inflict accidental Self Staggers.

[@Alex-vl6yt]

Great video. These thing definitely need looking at and you have lots of greats options for how DE can do that. I would love for DE to take some time after Veilbreaker and Duviri to just go back and look at their older systems and really just see what is and what isn’t working or being utilized as much as it could be. They have added so much content over the years that I feel like it’s hard for them to look at the whole picture. I know that this is very very unrealistic just given the nature of free to play games. They need to keep pumping the updates out to keep the players engaged, but I feel like warframe would just really benefit from a break in newer content so that the older content can be reviewed and revitalized.

[@KingofGoblins1]

I dont see it. Removing aoe would means just coming back to melee builds, since the game works around killing as many enemies around as posible in as few seconds as possible. To solve the problem you would have to rebalance the game itself, making it so killing with single target weapons or skills give you the same rewards as killing multiple enemies. And that would mean changing all the game. So, remove self stagger.. makes the game a bit more annoying, adds the mod to recover oneself from falling. Also, if you play high lvl steel path you dont use aoe weapons anyway, so it just works until lvl 200 or 300 usually. Then you use a slash based weapon, usually a melee. Remove visual from aoe.. that should be an option. Line of sight would make sense, but is a nerf that doesnt solve the problem. Reduce aoe... again, makes no sense, you would rely on slash weapons that can hit several targets if you go high, so... melees. But i agree with all the buffs you mentioned for single target weapons. It would make sense that you have to have a good single target weapon to kill stronger enemies faster.

[@KingofGoblins1]

By the way, the only high lvl weapons worth are high crit, high slash % high status. Or very high damage , crit and a forced slash ( glaive prime or two handed nikanas)

[@cralo2569]

not really, i'd rather use aoe explosion weapons than boring ass melees

[@klove5974]

“rebalance the game itself…” Tell me. When has DE gone in and actually worked on the core gameplay. You know, enemy A.I., mission types, etc… You know, things that actually require WORK and them doing a tech JOB.

[@beardofpower3823]

Great video, as always you explained this and laid everything out better than anyone else I've seen talking about this. I am curious though, after hearing your potential solutions, what would be the best path in your opinion? If DE asked you to submit a select few of all these suggestions, which would you pick?

[@Thaylien]

Coming back to this a month later, I’m impressed with how many predictions came true

[@MichaelACastaneda]

I love playing with the Kuva Karak, but almost never get to kill things during high level missions or sorties in group play, because of AOE weapons. It seems like AOE is a requirement for those, rather than an option. However, AOE is definitely fun with Arbitration, because it tends to balance out at some point regardless of MR.

[@justincronkright5025]

I mentioned the Karaks to a friend when it was only the Wraith & base versions. And told him of how sharp it felt, how crisp the sound & ambience of the weapon in combat was too. He jumped right into it once he got the Wraith version finished. That was 5 or years ago now I think. New content doesn't mean completely novel/new, more & definitely not better levels of enjoyment. I miss using my rivens for it & would like to be able to use my Synapse more often.

[@MichaelACastaneda]

@@justincronkright5025 I just started playing in December, so a lot of it is new to me. I didn't even know there was a riven for it 😂 I'm gonna have to farm for it.

[@justincronkright5025]

@@MichaelACastaneda yeah the rivens are for each weapon in particular (except sometimes span a weapon series). They have different dispositions (degree/level) to their positives & negatives on a weapon. So Karak Base is higher disposition than Karak Wraith with both having higher dispositions to the Kuva Karak. When you get a riven which maybe says + Critical Chance % - the Base Karak might get +120%, the Wraith would get +89% & the Kuva would get +47% because the dispositions are so different (dispositions is based largely off of players using the weapons in missions across the whole player-base due to the weapons general stats levels. You mostly get rivens from daily sorties.

[@Nenkos]

Some additional suggestions I have: - Make headshots with any weapon always cause an AoE of damage / status procs around the target. (And give more enemies headshot hitboxes) - Blanket nerf on AoE weapon range, but have direct hits on an enemy cause a much larger explosion. This would incentivize aiming and possibly replace some damage increasing mods with projectile speed mods.

[@Ayzev]

Just making everything aoe is only further playing into the aoe power creep we've been seeing for years now, not doing anything to halt it

[@abbygrace3456]

I had no idea reduce teammate visual effects was a thing! Thank you so much!

[@BamaMophi]

I really like all of the suggested changes on both the end of weapon changes and mission changes. Another change I’d like to see that could affect weapon choice is adding back in stealth options for players. Of course we always have spy as the premiere stealth mission, but adding in stealth options to game modes that can utilize them would add back the ninja aspect of their motto: Ninja’s Play Free. An example includes for mobile defense, instead of alerting enemies when you start a console, enemies are only alerted when they see the console and they have to activate one of the security terminals to alert the rest of the map. Making it so you can stealth the entire mission if you’d like and so you are incentivized to take out only necessary targets with silent weapons or finishers. With this you wouldn’t need to nerf aoe weapons from how they work currently as weapon falloff makes it difficult to get that one shot capability on an entire group and will alert enemies even if the explosive is silenced. It also opens room for new types of specialized mods specific to stealth gameplay. I would like an upgraded version of the silence mods that adds a chance to disintegrate enemies with the equipped weapon or via headshot kill. After all, an enemy can be alerted by a corpse, but not one that’s been atomized. This approach would definitely need the change to mission rewards mentioned in the video since you would naturally receive less affinity and loot by nature of targeted kills over indiscriminate murder. Another change I’d like to see is buffing single target weapons by rewarding more precise gameplay baseline. Add a weak-point multiplier (WPM) stat that’s visible to players and make single target weapons naturally have an increased WPM with mods like Primed Chamber further increasing WPM by a percent of the weapon’s base. Most snipers already have this to an extent while they are zoomed in, but adding this as a general balance mechanic to all or most single target weapons could open up further build diversity in both gear and modding without necessarily taking anything away from snipers since they still have their combo system. Though, the sniper combo system needs to be upgraded to be far more either rewarding or lenient than the melee combo system since it’s far more difficult to pull off and often cannot hit multiple targets the way melee can. Take off the timer on sniper combo or have it paused when not currently zoomed in. Body shots reward a decent amount of combo while misses only make you lose one at a time and headshot reward you with a multiplier on top of the body shot combo.

[@crashoverride1788]

mucho texto!

[@ThePopeOfAwesomeness]

There's so many more enemies compared to what there used to be back in the day. Aoe feels like the only play style designed for the game. Single target just doesn't do it, ages back it was amazing, snipers were meta for a bit. Changing aoe opens a whole can of worms imo. The best aoe weapon is the kuva SEER and the best overall weapon is the MIGHTY SEER

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

With Warframes like Gyre and Baruuk, I would hate for enemy spawn rates to get lower IMO. . .

[@ThePopeOfAwesomeness]

@@hammerheadcorvette4 yeah that's true

[@jyak1747]

A part of this that really isn't mentioned enough is mission type. Most missions just throw a ton of enemies at you, so using AOE damage/CC is almost always the best. It's the exact same to why single target abilities are almost never used, it has just spread to weapons. In my opinion, DE needs to reduce enemy spawns in certain missions types, while making the remaining enemies harder to kill. This would be really easy to do in some of the Zariman modes, which already have those harder enemies in the thrax (ex. Void Flood and Void Cascade don't need anywhere near the amount of normal enemies if you just increase the thrax spawns somewhat). This isn't as forceful as a direct nerf but I think that single target weapons/abilities need content they shine in. Currently, they really don't have much beyond Eidolons.

[@crashoverride1788]

i always come across a hallway full of eximus 10+ all gathered buggy in the same place, it's a nightmare to face this without an AOE weapon

[@willieirsm]

A bigger thought: literally everything is so op now in warframe. I don’t even use guns anymore cuz I always preferred abilities, and back in the day I never thought I’d be able to run off just abilities like I do now.

[@Smilomaniac]

The single biggest issue is player attitude, in differebt ways. One is the player who doesn’t enjoy the game and just uses the most effective weapon. The other is the player who is obsessed with what others do and the concept of balance well beyond what’s an actual issue.

[@dax4915]

I agree with a lot of what was said in this video, except one thing: Many single target weapons are better at doing sustained single target damage on enemies than radial AoE weapons: They can hit weakspots for full damage more reliably, stack procs such as Viral or Corrosive faster and just have straight up more damage potential, due to how Gundition Overload mods work. In some cases they are deceptively more powerful, due to Gundition mods working as a multiplicative damage multiplier, instead of an additive damage multiplier. The only problem is... this is only experienced in missions where most of the sustained DPS potential isn't lost due to how fast enemies die. That's why many endurance runners, that actually fight enemies that aren't made of paper, use single target weapons - they scale better. At that point, ammo economy also starts playing a role and it is usually to the advantage of single target weapons, although some lower tier, high fire rate, high ammo capacity single target weapons, do suffer, due to the nature of ammo replenishment.

[@DivingHawker]

For me, there is no way an AoE weapon should have more DPS than single target weapons balance wise, especially in a horde shooter and if the weapon has huge AoE, simply because, with AoE, you can hit multiple targets and, therefore, output more DPS if you hits multiple targets, which is not difficult in a horde shooter. They should have their damage revisited and, in my opinion, self-damage was not so bad, at least better than running with a zoom and boom squad. In my opinion, one way to balance that would be to introduce a less "horde-like" faction to give more value to single target weapons that also reward skill like aiming for specific weak spots, preferably headshots, values stealth and other skillful ways of playing so that the gameplay feels more satisfying and rewarding. What I hate the most is that the game has been balanced around the power level of AoE meta weapons, which set the bar incredibly high for most weapons, therefore reinforcing the need to stick to the AoE meta. Back in the day, when the Ogris was pretty much the only explosive weapon, it was not a great weapon, but it had its uses, especially against infested since it worked great against hordes. Of course it was far from meta, but that was specifically to prevent people from just using explosive weapons and nothing else. About rewards, one thing I would suggest is increasing rewards from skill play : headshots, stealth takedowns, completing a mission without using abilities, completing a mission using melee only, not being spotted once, not triggering any alarm, unalerted enemy kills, collateral punchthrough kills, aerial headshot kills, aerial melee kills, dodging damage with rolls, long range kills...

[@Ayzev]

You may be onto something with the other stuff, but I feel it needs to be said that the "without abilities" and "melee only" and such ideas are terrible. Restricting options doesn't add skill expression. If anything, having less options is going to lead to more people picking a meta loadout if they can't use what they'd have more fun with and thus reduce skill expression. Unless what's being restricted is specifically the brain-dead op options, but that list will be specific and arbitrary, not something that could be neatly categorised.

[@DivingHawker]

@@Ayzev I meant optional challenges. You are not restricted for your mission, you can just choose to attempt such a challenge for more rewards. It remains a choice, not a restriction.

[@StefanLake88]

The low ammo capacity on AoE weapons didn't even get a mention. Odd that the one mechanic that makes you use your big guns sparingly in other games has so many workarounds in Warframe that people forget it's supposed to be an issue.

[@TheKengineer]

I specifically didn't include that as a solution as I don't feel it could be done in a meaningful way while keeping AoE as a legitimate playstyle option. Other games limit AoE ammo as the player is usually supposed to *not* AoE. I don't want to see that taken away from anyone in Warframe, only rebalanced so it isn't an order of magnitude better than other styles.

[@StefanLake88]

@@TheKengineer Would nerfing the ammo economy combined with adding a corrupted mod to compensate for it not be an option? That way you'd either have the AoE weapon as an occasional room clearer, or a primary use weapon that has one less damage mod and an extra debuff from the corrupted mod. Debuff + one less damage mod can get you part way towards the order of magnitude change in performance while the lower ammo availability means you'll have to pick at least some of your shots more carefully. I'll admit having one more "compulsory" mod to make a weapon work as a primary takes away customisation options, not ideal when the intent is to encourage a wider array of play styles.

[@TheRealSpaceCommander]

you cant see yourself killing them and your enemies cant see you killing them. its a guilt free win-win situation

[@Reishadowen]

Thank you for talking about this, it really does feel like it's becoming a problem. Whenever I pick a weapon now, I always feel like I'm handicapping myself if I don't pick the "nuke everything without even looking at it" option. I've always struggled to understand (in this game) the value of sniper rifles, headshots, or stealth, because every time I join a public game, it's always "ride the coat-tails of the exploding death tsunami to get XP!", regardless of mission type. (even in spy, funnily enough). Now, while I don't know how to fix this problem, and I'm not blaming DE, I do have a couple ideas/thoughts: ~Idea #1: The affinity & loot drop chance for AOE weapons is halved, while headshot kills are doubled or tripled (stacking multiplicatively with stealth kills). As long as "zoom & boom" gets significantly better/faster rewards than careful planning, aiming, & an attempt at actually being stealthy, players won't bother. ~Idea #2: Remove the ability for AOE weapons like Kuva Bramma & Ogris to equip ammo mutation mods, and give them the same ammo typo as heavy weapons. Make them "heavy artillery that can devastate an enemy squad" that has to be conserved as a valuable resource. This gives players a powerful trump card, but one that has to be used sparingly and coordinated with their team for best effect. Players will still probably cheese this through Protea's Dispensary & the Squad Ammo Restore, but those have costs of their own. In fact, balance out these weapons with arch-guns & the Air-Strike beacons. It's pretty sad when a bow & arrow is more destructive than an air strike I have to call in from my space-ship...

[@johnP0908]

OMG, I even forgot that Scimitar's landing craft ability is even a carpet bomb. lmfao. they could've at least buff that, so players can use it even more. that's why metas exist in this game, majority of stuff they created gets neglected too much.

[@brightenblack207]

The game would require a large overhaul that will never, ever come. AI is stupid so they all end up grouping up and charging at players in the open. Even a LOS change to AOE wouldn't help much. Game modes funnel enemies down halls going into small areas and there's no challenge in sitting there and killing the enemies that come. Map design would have to change. Then there's the general problem of more damage is always the best option. CC is useless. AOE damage means more enemies get damage applied to them. Easy amassing of kills. Players would need to be weaker in some way and that would make a lot of people unhappy

[@flaviobondioli6682]

If AoE turns your screen into a mess, buying a certain palette of colours give u the chance to select some colours that makes a certain source of "screen effects" almost invisible... Just setting those colours as "energy" in the customize menu

[@VultureXV]

Personally, I always consider the _old_ D&D approach to AoE where you have a damage total in the area and then a distribution of damage of that area based on how many enemies are in that area. For example, a 8d6 fireball does a huge chunk of damage to three enemies, or it does good damage to twelve enemies in that same area. There could also be AoE that just has reduced fallout range, forcing a focus on accurate launch sites with good residual damage in a larger area (like say 100% damage in a small blast, and then ~30% of that damage in a larger sphere outside of that target blast sphere. In this case you have a "blast egg" where you wanna put enemies in the yolk rather than the whites. I am also a huge fan of AoE that is solely designed to apply status effects rather than outright damage. For example, I have a 100%+ status rate and can get 20 ish stacks of heat on multiple targets in a few moments. In that case, the damage follows a sort of Guild Wars 2 style of DoT-focused gameplay where you have damage ticks for 10k, 20k or more and with a few short bursts just light em up before letting them fall. Torid is definitely supposed to be one of these guns, same with Pox. Problem is that without 100% status (or more) it's difficult to get the consistency of the damage flowing and people in this game still have not been shown the light of DoT and are still nasty burst damage heathens.

[@aeupp]

the problem with your first point is that you then again to not gain anything by picking a single target weapon, or AOE weapons are unusable. In the case where AOE weapons split damage evenly, then you either have AOE weapons be insane at single target, with the versatility to also be insane AOE. Or, AOE weapons do equivalent or worse damage to single target , but then must do pitiful damage in AOE.

[@LootyStuff]

I think the lenz was/is a very well balanced aoe weapon. Reasonable damage, a punishment for misplacing, I think if the kuva weapons were brought around to its standard, with some *slight* buffs to qol or range, they would be perfect. Right now, there is no point in using abilities, cause I can kill things quicker with my weapons, and it shouldn't be like this.

[@theunhingedgamer3762]

there's a point to using abilities if your a Banshee or Mirage main because both of them have damage boosting abilites lol

[@LootyStuff]

@@theunhingedgamer3762 talking about aoe damage abilities, obviously. Why would i stop using damage boosts?

[@635574]

The meta weapons are too unrestricted and that includes the endless ammo mutation we can easily do as long as theres a ammo box somewhere

[@dezman311]

DE created the problem, with how enemies can basically 1 shot you while having millions of health points, it’s especially difficult when you are newer to the game and don’t have the mods or weaponry to support solo play, which then forces you into a group, which rushes you through missions and know you’re in the deep end of the pool w/o supervision. It’s pretty harsh.

[@Caribeancrysis]

I think that AoE meta can be diminished by introducing more enemies that are resistant to AoE damage. We already see a mechanic in action with eidolons. If an attack hits defended body part before it hits a weakpoint, all damage is negated. So I would suggest adding the same thing to enemies who are supposed to be tough. For example, the toughest Grineer units (heavy gunner, bombard, etc.) all have alloy armor. So, let's add that eidolon property to alloy armor. Any damage to limbs is negated. Any AoE that hits limbs before it hits head/body is also negated. With this change AoE weapons will still be effective against mass of fodder enemies, but will struggle against stronger units. And if a palyer does not have a plan to deal with them, their number will keep growing. If that is not enough, an accuracy nerf can be passed for all AoE weapons, making it even harder to aim for direct hits. Some sort of direct damage will be required, but it will still be up to players to assemble the build.

[@drwhothehell]

5:52 keeping up life support is sometimes entirely impossible without using the AOE meta, which is really annoying to me because sometimes I wanna just chill and not nuke my surroundings 24/7. I wanna enjoy melee, or some of my single target guns, but with the way life support modules barely drop sometimes it’s just impossible

[@eduardojosafatfriasaguirre6385]

Hard Agree, started playing around the time this meta started. But also I have the faint feeling we are missing something on the enemy balancing. Maybe is on me, I like when killing an enemy feels meaning full but it’s hard to have that feeling when a supper monkey with a suit case flies around effortlessly

[@kylevanhook5215]

At MR30 I’m taking a break until the meta is touched up a bit. Over a thousand hours of boom and zoom has made the game quite boring, and playing solo has the same effect. Reminds me of the spam e to win times before the melee rework, hoping they can make single target weapons king of single target killing again.

[@user-su6ts9wm1h]

or stop being a crybaby? its not affecting you others use aoe

[@WafelixRox]

@@user-su6ts9wm1h exaxtly *THIS* ^

[@Lightwayzs]

The reason why it's boring to play solo is the reason why most players play with aoe weapon efficiency being fast not wasting hours grinding and get fxck by RNG

[@ner0t]

I don't know why they nerfed Khora whipclaw by requiring a LoS in the radial explosion of the ability but kept the radial explosion of AoE arsenal being able to kill ennemies through 10m walls

[@johnP0908]

LoS requirement shoul've been a thing for AoE weapons from the start.

[@Benzinilinguine]

8:22 THANK YOU. I literally saw a max rank (at the time, 26, 27?) player upon returning ~3 years ago shooting his 7/7/7 amp like Goku and I made it my mission to become that sick. That's player draw. That's player retention.

[@gameplaysh6135]

Unless you nerf AoE to the ground or reduce the enemy spawn rate by magnitudes and have them have trillions of effective health, AoE will always be better, faster and easier option. Every single shooter looter that I'm avare of AoE is the superior way of dealing with enemies and that's ok.

[@mahaok1]

I think the simplest fix for this problem (at least as a starting point) would be to add "non-AOE" to hunter munitions. I dont think the bramma doing 8 million damage per arrow in an aoe is necessarily as bad a problem as the bramma shooting several arrows due to multishot and one of them causing a slash status that now does 8 million damage 5 or more times to anything it hit, while also bypassing its armour. I think the best example of why this is a problem is when you fought the acolyte with the Envoy. You shot it one time and got two hunter munition slash procs on it effectively insta killing it. A much better example of what seems fair is right at the very end of the video where you used a fully stacked out rubico to 3 shot that acolyte. Had you put hunter munitions on it you still would have only killed the acolyte and not all the guys that were surrounding it.

[@theunhingedgamer3762]

finally someone with a brain I applaud you sir however I would change it to be "non-explosive" and not "non-AOE" on the grounds of setting it to "non AOE" would murder the beam weapons to the point where they go back to being nothing more than primers for Condition Overload but other than that your idea is very solid

[@635574]

Everything is all too unlimited on the Room Nukem Forever meta and we have the ammo convert mods breaking the economy completely.

[@MrSlinky]

Another possible fix could be to have the target hit by the projectile take full damage with the blast having damage fall off exponentially radially outward

[@junkandcrapamen]

You can also change the energy color for your AOE weapons to black or something very dark to help save your teammate's eyeballs.

[@johnP0908]

I prefer using the darkest shade of colors as possible just to see the radius of my shots. you can see it, but it won't blind you.

[@Uncreative-Name]

I love the idea of self damage coming back because of all the reasons youve listed, aoe would be a lot more of a distinguished playstyle as you would have to adjust your loadout and strategy as opposed to just picking a weapon that had some nerfs

[@jeptoungrit9000]

You mean that you might actually have to be good at a certain weapons type?

[@vik2009]

From a psychological perspective, I find that AOE produces burnout more quickly as well. The fun and challenge of mastering unique weapons and frames becomes a singular goal of chasing after the meta which new players are being socialized into. I’m sad when I look at a low MR player and I see that their most used weapons are meta ones. I know then that their new player experience has consisted mostly of playing catch-up to the exit while veterans blow through the missions for them. That cool factor you mentioned-it must wear off so quickly, I imagine. That’s mostly why I play solo now, and if I’m helping a new Tenno, I‘ll choose single target weapons and non-meta frames in order to not dominate and overshadow their experience and have some fun myself. The constant chase after the meta is not unlike Western society’s endless hustle for speed and efficiency in all things-this busyness is draining for our mental health and is ultimately unsustainable. Slowing down and enjoying other aspects of life is a proven and viable antidote, and likewise, Warframe should find ways to inject more “slow” objectives and mission types. Just one more thread in a multi-faceted problem.

[@falsepanda2981]

No. Societies definitely have their issues, largely structural. Efficiency is, itself, neither draining nor unsustainable (quite the opposite). I do agree that changing mission types is the correct approach to this issue though. I'd also note that, for at least some low MR players, AoE nuking is just far more enjoyable. This was the case for me. I was the Kuva Zarr Wukong nuking crowds into oblivion before MR 10.

[@Drebolaskan]

Same dude, I see new players zooming and booming as early as MR7. In a time where I was still exploring the foundry, experimenting all the new toys I got, and trying to figure out the modding system, most new players have no incentive to explore or use anything else but what's meta I still run my starter Excalibur despite owning most of the primes myself (including the 'meta' arsenal) and even when I group with low MR groups I'm mostly just doing a slow jog to the exit unless they get caught on a particularly tough nut which would be about the only occasion I actually bother shooting anything.

[@DaShikuXI]

We literally cannot slow down though. Every day you have like 12 different factions to level, a bunch of syndicate missions, a sortie, invasions and arbitrations. That doesn't even include farming for weapons and frames, quests and open world resource gathering. There are so many daily chores in this game, no shit we have to be as efficient as possible. If you want players to slow down, then we need less chores we have to complete in a limited time every day. Until then we need to be as meta as possible, otherwise we literally can't do our tasks within a reasonable time.

[@monkeseeaction21987]

I hardly even find the need to run aoe spam wuclone or crew mate anymore because typically in a squad I have three human operated ones.

[@Endymion0021]

I still remember the days where I used my zarr, forgot which state of fire I'm in and shot a cannon pointblank into an enemy and nuking myself and then my buddy trying to pick me up, just to go down to the after bomblet blasts. It was fun, had some drawbacks but the we still joke about those days when accidental self damage was an actual risk. That was also the time I picked up titania to not be blasted by the other bombers and have an extra single target "primary" weapon for boss/eximus combat.

[@crashoverride1788]

self damage was fun lol

[@arytisskaldaka7963]

2 ideas to help with aoe issues.. Add flak armor. Certain enemies have it and it HEAVILY reduces AOE damage done to them, Option 2. damage spread. instead of fall off, damage spread. When the aoe goes off., it does full damage to any enemies within a radius like fall off. but past that area the damage is then spread out to the others reducing the more enemies it hits outside of the initial blast radius. it would still let direct impacts do insane damage but reduce its clear potential.. im sure there are HUGe flaws with my ideas but .. figured i would throuygh my 2 sense in

[@sonohanabira9703]

AoE users are often blamed for "not playing the game as intended" while, ironically, AoE users are the most "rational" ones. The game basically screams for AoE. I used to love stradavar even before its prime release. Now, my top 5 most used weapons are either kuva or tenet weapons. They are just objectively better. Picking up single target weapons (besides only a few situations) is just self induced punishment and I don't want that in my game. DE will need to come up with at least something to negate this AoE hell they built for the longest time of their development. As much as I'd hate to see my AoE weapons getting nerfed, I also would like to see more diverse and flourishing gameplay.

[@ayushdeshmukh284]

Pretty sure nobody has ever literally blamed AoE players for not playing differently.

[@kileymae1802]

This is the best video I've seen on the topic, great video as always! I agree with much of what you said in the video. As someone who is guilty of booming and zooming, I will say I'm abit nervous of the changes to come, but I'm also excited to see the meta get shaken up abit. While aoe is very effective, it removes the peaks and valleys of more complicated combat, and even though big numbers are fun, if you're always getting those big numbers, they really don't feel all that big anymore if that makes sense. In my opinion, I would be ok with the self damage returning, but not how it was before, but like how you said in the video. I would prefer that to the self stagger. Line of sight should definitely be implemented as well. As for the primed aoe mods, I don't think they should be nerfed or removed, but they should have a trade off instead, like corrupt mods. +66 aoe radius, but minus a significant amount of damage. That way the aoe weapon could at least take on a new role as a status spreader, instead of an all in one kill everything in one shot weapon.

[@madcheshire240]

My biggest issue is when the white energy colour bramma arrow or envoy rocket lands at my feat and causes physical pain, due to my crappy eyes.

[@Mastrmyrtr9]

Here's my problem with AOE: The problem, actually, has nothing to do with AOE being too strong. Warframe is a horde shooter, your dream is to wipe through hordes and hordes instantly. To remove that is to remove a big part of the game for me. The REAL problem, is that single target weapons should be the ones doing MASSIVE single target damage, but at a lower rate. However, there's almost no enemy in the game that cares about how you're hitting it; whether it's with one super charged Rubico shot, or with a 4+ multishot Mirage cloned Bramma. And when the Rubico does "more" damage to one target at a time, but the Bramma does "less" damage to entire rooms at once, there's no reason to not take the Bramma over Rubico. There needs to be some kind of enemy mechanic that forces you to hit a precise shot on a weak point to deal full damage, and if you don't then you're dealing 99.9% less damage. If the Eximus's weren't just reworked, i'd say Eximus's could be reworked to add this mechanic, but I also don't know how much of a pain it would be to code this. If you could detect the difference between the explosive blast and the initial shot that triggered it, then you make it so only the initital shot can proc this weak point spot, while the blast radius's get the damage reduction. There's a reason why even the Nataruk is so outclassed by the Bramma/Zarr/Ogris etc. The Nataruk can't blindly fire an explosive shot into a room and kill the whole room, no matter what enemies are in it. And I can't think of one enemy in this game (that isn't a boss) that would survive an assault of Bramma/Zarr/Ogris and wouldn't survive a few Nataruk perfect shots. The mechanics of explosive weapons just need to be reworked, not have their damage cut down so much that you can only kill infested crawlers/runners. Edit: I also had to bring this up, as I feel like it matters. The meta is hardly AOE explosive weapons, the meta is STILL slash weapons. Glaive is the combo of both, and there's no surprise why Glaive Prime is the best melee in the game, pretty much hands down. It's better than most AOE Kuva primaries in reality. The only difference is that it's a tiny bit clunky to use and hard to obtain. The fact that the "optimal" way to use weapons in this game is to force them to proc one specific type of status, and then just sit there and wait for your slash proc to kill your enemy, is not good for what's supposed to be a super high paced game as Warframe.

[@jj481012]

Increase crits and add innate punch though for single target weapons maybe? It feels like a better option than nerfing aoe.

[@kyneticist]

That's just turning single-target weapons into AoE.

[@jj481012]

@@kyneticist it’s more like turning single target weapons into multi target weapons. Especially for slower firing semi auto pistols and rifles this would make them feel much more satisfying imo.

[@max784020]

You are one of my favs Warframe content creator, and one of the most insightful and helpful too. After this last patch, I'm sure I'm not returning to the game again cause 'reasons' (DE alienating the old guard). However I had to say thanks to you, your vids were so informative and useful. You really make the game experience better for players like me. Thanks a lot

[@AngryCaesCorporation]

What I personally like to do when I (very rarely) play with the Bramma is to set my energy color to black. That way, the explosion looks like a puff of smoke and no eye is bruised.

[@gratefuldeadmau5610]

I set my explosives to either pink or usually yellow. 4 with gauss to increase my shoot speed and blast the room.

[@AngryCaesCorporation]

@@gratefuldeadmau5610 I'm sure your squad mates thank you for that...

[@gratefuldeadmau5610]

@@AngryCaesCorporation sometimes I like joining earth missions and not even shooting the enemies but shoot the players so they stay safe

[@jazzWF]

it's insane that the playerbase does this so often. The reason why AOE is so overused is cause when bramma was released people complained so much about self damage that DE removed it. Same sh*t different day in the amazing warframe subreddit

[@spellswordmain]

I honestly think this entire video is pointless, and I'm sorry for saying this since I like your channel a lot and I think this is a very well made video. The fact is, modern Warframe is designed from the ground up to be a game about killing as many enemies as possible as fast as possible. Nothing in the core gameplay encourages you to go for a slow, methodical approach. From the mission design, to the enemy design, to the general lack of boss enemies, to the Warframes themselves, everything encourages you to blitz through a mission with mechanical efficiency. AoE will always be objectively better unless there's a big change in how the game is structured and how rewards are given to players, specially in regards to mission design. This is one of the main reasons I quit Warframe. There's no point in a game centered around collecting different weapons and equipment when you can't use almost anything you want without grossly hindering yourself

[@ledavibody9950]

New amalgam/galvanized mods or weapon arcanes that add a "bullet ricochet %" for pure single target weapons only (rifles snipers, maybe shotguns... no cachmoon nor nukor-like weapons) would also be a great buff for single target weapons.

[@cecilrhodes2153]

> I’d rather not imagine the game mechanics be thrown in at random and never looked at again. Welcome to Warframe Ken, Welcome to Warframe…

[@siennaistrans]

i feel like DE should reimplement self damage but it deals a percentage of your health based on distance from the center, leading to a max of about 75% of your EHP mods like sure footed should reduce that reduction to about 50% because I don't believe being able to throw a million damage at your feet and only lose 10% of your health is balanced at all.

[@BlariWF]

I had to kill 4 liches, use 5 forma and max out multiple prime mods and galvanized mods, I think my op weapon is a little bit deserved

[@sarbe6625]

Maybe some mods that give a boost to damage or other stats in exchange for reducing aoe would be interesting? That way aoe weapon builds may all of a sudden just start preferring to switch to lower AoE, without ever actually having to nerf the playstyle. It just becomes a balancing act of how bad you want aoe over single target damage.

[@technoultimategaming2999]

Narrowing the damage radius for more damage. That actually sounds like a good idea

[@alexandrevincenot6546]

Dont blame the AoE for the Furax Wraith riven dispo nerf tho, it's the disposition "balancing" policies that are completely dumb in the first place.

[@rahknosprime914]

Amazing video, Aoe definitely needs a nerf/rework, or atleast buff the single target weopons, can't belive that DE haven't down anything to it yet.

[@jimjamjoeyjoejoe]

Single target weapons, especially non-rapid fire weapons badly need buffs, many are just too slow to be effective in high level/steel path.

[@tnt8522]

I would say they shouldnt nerf anything but *buff* the other things, in this case guns that arent AOE. Because in certain missions you NEED AOE, case in point = Survival and defense.

[@deyjaacterius9610]

[DE]Scott is probably cry-laughing in his office garage, saying “I tried to tell them; it was for the health of the game”. I didn’t like self damage, but the zoom and boom meta is killing my enjoyment of multiplayer.

[@greyed]

On the matter of swapping weapons losing buffs, make it so when the weapon is stowed it gains 1 stack per X seconds. This achieves the "pause" you mentioned, but has the added benefit of weapons slow to ramp up being able to be stowed for a while. It shifts the focus entirely to maintaining the buff when in the hands of the player and treats single target and AOE weapons equally as both come out at max multiplier and just needs to be maintained through use.

[@egg-wit-tha-drip]

One of the main reasons I play the game and I think one of the main reasons everyone plays warframe is the power fantasy that is achieved through killing hundreds of enemies quickly. I know that I don't speak for anyone but myself, but I love the aoe meta. I find it awesome to walk into a room and kill everything, should I choose to. My opinion is that rather than bringing everything down to the level of single target, we should attempt to bring single target power up to that of aoe. Let's look at the kuva nukor. It's probably the best secondary weapon, even though it has no real "aoe". Why don't we make more single target weapons have a similar chain effect? The will not only make people who like the aoe meta happy, but it will broaden the options for those players, without alienating them or affecting the balance in other parts of the game

[@NotASuspicousPerson]

Kuva Nukor is literally just another AoE weapon with extra steps. It didn't solve the ST vs AoE balance problem, it just lied that it was ST while being AoE.

[@Darthmufin]

The sudden increase in talks about the "aoe meta" is a snowball effect, its a mob who dislike getting free xp from other players blowing up the maps and hate being efficient in steel path survival which requires 1 kill a second or more to keep air up without khora/nekros. I never see people actually complain someone is using an explosive in game, its always on reddit or twitter instead which screams minority.

[@anotherjhon8193]

That's exactly what I'm talking about

[@Croamias]

I think this is disingenuous. The amount of players in a game who are going to actively consider the meta is always a minority, and the part who care enough to openly voice their opinion on it is going to be an even smaller minority, and anyone who voices their opinion, good or bad, is going to put it somewhere they think someone is going to see it, which will be the forums, reddit, and twitter that's just how it's always rolled. And I think that if the current AoE meta is becoming so prevalent that current balance systems like riven dispos, which are supposed to encourage people to use out of meta weapons, are collapsing under the weight of it, it should at least be talked about.

[@Darthmufin]

@@Croamias Not necessarily, like i said nobody ever complains about AoE in game. Just like nobody actually complains nezha having increased slide, but the minority got an augment for him to remove it. The minority does have a say sometimes and i feel wanting aoe to be nerfed (which is the general conesus of these posts im talking about, not sidegrades, nerfs) is part of that. Speaking of which, nerfing aoe so its less effective just makes farming more annoying, steel path survival is annoying enough with a two shot tonkor spam as eximus take 6 or 7 grenades to kill.

[@Croamias]

@@Darthmufin that's a fair assessment then. I don't think aoe needs to be directly nerfed. More like the conditions that have made it dominant should addressed instead.

[@underatededm93]

don’t nerf aoe cause it’s always has and always will be meta it went from a sword swing, spin to win to an explosion. what we need is buffs to single target like chaining headshot that make them explode and/or you buff cold, electric, and gas so that it turns single targets into aoe. you could also make all eimus have 50-90% dr to aoe. you can’t nerf aoe cause it’s not possible at this point from how the game is we will always use the aoe option over single target that’s just how it’s always been so you need to make single target better than aoe since it requires more effort. you could also reduce the ammo more so that we have to think more

[@gault6546]

the melee meta wasnt even close to being as bad as the AOE one, because melee weapons couldnt damage through walls, celings, and kill multiple enemies up to 50m away (unless you count exodia contagion, but thats another thing). also, doubt anyone would really "think" even with further reduced ammo. magazine mods, carrier, ammo mutation, energised munitions or dispensary will still make AOE king. also, dont forget, wuclone still has infinite ammo

[@phoenixrose1995]

Turn visual effects to 0 and try doing a high lever Grenieer spy without setting of an alarm. Its impossible to tell when a laser door (ones that EMP you) are enabled in a spy mission because it makes those effects literally invisible

[@TheGameRuler]

I'm going to say now, I think one of the biggest issues I have seen in Warframe is literally the balancing act needed to try and get all options viable. Although I do believe as you go up some weapons should be better, they should be straight upgrades. Case of what I mean is the Grinner weapons vs Kuva Weapons, literally the best option they made and they could add more weapons into that rotation too. Same with Tennet weapons: But on topic: the issue at hand is that AoE weapons are just chuck full or benefits and I admit to have been using them for a while. And honestly there's one more issue that comes from this when moving to other weapon styles. And that is lack of interest. One thing I have noticed is that even if the situation doesn't call for it, players will try to doa lot of damage because they like "big numbers". So perhaps somethign could be tweeked in this regard. For instance; decrease the overall damage of AoE weapons while increasing their status procs (preserving crit rates and damage multipliers) while buffing damage output of single target weapons. That way some weapons have more specialized uses and can coexist together: AoE leaving enemies vulnerable (can still kill for obvious reasons) while Single target weapons are more efficent at eliminating and benefit more from the AoE blast from their destructive counterparts.