Yet another post about build diversity

[bitter ingot]

Build diversity has already been discusses to death in several posts and I don't want to needlessly add to the fire, but I feel like a lot of the posts only highlight the fact that there is an issue without going into details or offering a solution, so that's what I will attempt.

The problem is pretty simple, the weapon you use restrict which arcanics that scale and vise versa. Being forced to choose between which weapon and what arcanics you build for is not a compromise, it's a punishment for thinking outside the box and being creative.

The solution, weapon damage and arcanic scaling need to be independent from each other.
There's several ways this could be achieved, weapon requirements and scaling could come from the combat arts after it's rework, arcanic scaling could be worked into pact upgrades, or something else entirely. How is less important, something just needs to change because there will never be balance or build diversity if virtues is the only intractable system that scales everything in game.

[onyx silo]

+1

[light coyote]

Is it wild to say arcanics shouldn't scale?

[bitter ingot]

I feel like ability scaling is a pretty important mechanic in an arpg. But doesn't necessarily have to scale directly from a stat.
I think maybe a skill totem system that enhance or augment arcanics, similar to how support gems work in PoE2 could be interesting and allow a lot of creativity.

[light coyote]

Im of the idea that arcanics should be affected by the pact tree

Like, branch the tree into the 3 arcanics and have nodes range from passives and stat buffs to added functionalities and mechanics

[bitter ingot]

that would also be great. I can probably think of 10 different ways to separate the system and I'd be happy with any of them. Knowing DE they're probably gonna try to reinvent the wheel and we just gotta hope whatever they cook up is good.

[tender herald]

What if they just remove virtue scaling from weapons and like them behind MR? 👀

[bitter ingot]

Scaling damage from MR would put new players at a major disadvantage. Starting with a disadvantage and feeling your power grow as you level is not a and thing though.
But with the way MR works now it would only make leveling early so much worse and be super discouraging. I personally think that the mastery system needs a rework but that's a topic for another thread.

[still vapor]

i mean, the point of the new system is to actually make you choose something to prioritize when making a build, rather than being able to have a band thing that can jsut do anyhting.

now there is indeed some issue with how arccanics scale in a "competitive" way with playstyles. But honnestly, I think that instead of make them independant, which would again create the illusion of build diversity, all arcanics shold have a thing that sclases with each virtue, so that nothing gets left behind for deciding to go in any direction.

[light coyote]

that's how it was before, no? at least on paper every arcanic scaled potency from courage, area of effect from grace and duration from spirit. it's just that most weren't properly affected if at all

not disagreeing with you today, just wondering how they could do it, since a "per arcanic" basis seems to be too much work

[still vapor]

the previous system only had virtue working as power strenght, range and duration, which didn't actually matter on all abilities. What i'm suggesting is something like "on torment, courage scale the damage, spirit the healing received and grace the stagger time"

it's more complicated, but we would get pacts maybe four times a year, so it's not like it would take much time, and also, because it would be neatly compatimented, it would also be stupidly easy for devs to adress any issue that would come from the "complexity".

the system would even pair better with the prism system

[light coyote]

yep, "per arcanic"
though i purposefully worded that way to illustrate that system could work. Potency is not just damage, could also be healing, armor, speed on werewalker etc.

[light coyote]

i completely agree with this take, i too think it'd be the best approach, though they'd need to rework the arcanic UI to include an explanation of what scales with which virtue

[bitter ingot]

you don't have to choose or make compromises if you like Fellust and longswords or Elderbloom and staves.
That is why the build diversity is so bad, you either match the weapon to the arcanic or you'll be less effective. That's a punishment, not a compromise.

[bitter ingot]

you're describing the old system but with two slightly different grace and spirit modifiers. Damage should never be a direct modifier from a virtue, it didn't work with courage before, it's not working with Grace now and it won't work with courage again.

Players need agency in their choices for a game to have diversity. If you try to balance everything based on one set of stats then there is no agency, you'll just decide whatever is the highest priority (usually pact or weapon) then just live with whatever else you get

[sharp scroll]

I haven’t swapped my build once in Preludes 13 compared to every other day in P12…

[crimson crater]

Hey y'all, just some thoughts from me as I'm reading through all of this...

First things first, arcanics scaling off of virtues makes sense on paper. However, the problem here is that because of the volatile nature of arcanics, most of the time its better to pick your virtue based off your weapons and ignore arcanics completely, unless you're playing a build that relies on a specific arcanic to scale in which case you would add more to that virtue instead.

I do think there is some benefit to this, but at the same time, the biggest problem is not being able to choose which slots to place your arcanics in, and also being limited to three arcanics is a bad thing. I could understand if there were alternatively slottable arcanics to go in place of abilites and you could customize, but then we run into Tethren's Fellust being a problem (again).

A healthier solution in contrast to what we have now is to have a stat that scales all arcanics, then have a stat that scales all ranged/finesse (stealth, riposte, spectre strikes) attacks, and then have a stat that scales all melee damage. Is this ideal? No, but at least then everything is kinda able to scale (other than magick weapons but those need a serious rework in general).

Overall, I think arcanics and weapons are too far on differing sides of the spectrum and either need to have a clean break for two styles of martial (weapon based) combat as well as two styles of magick (arcanic vs voltaic) weapons. The builds should matter, but they also should be more of a "how do I feel" kind of matter. A game like this should be a little whimsical in nature, while also not losing its groundedness for melee and ranged combat (besides arrow hail, that's weird).

[light coyote]

Arcanics scaling off of virtues dont even make sense on paper!

They're borrowed abilities.
Everything from the game balance to the UI and the lore scream a path where abilities are changed, if at all, by the pact's level and only that.
Also, the way they set it for p13, at level 30 an arcanic should be worthwhile at base level, but being able to enhance it through virtues makes it so they have to balance everything as if they were at max strength, which in turn harms the baseline

[tepid orbit]

And once you max level your pact, you could kind of "Guild" it, like custom weapons in Warframe, to restart, from level 1, to level it up and get extra ability points for the tree to further increase its power.

[still vapor]

... you sir have never played an actual rpg, do you? one with class choices, stat dependant requirement? you know right now you are basicly saying that dark souls and morrowind have no player agency, right?

[latent osprey]

this is neither of those games

[bitter ingot]

Soulframe isn't a class based rpg. You're supposed to be able to play any pact with any weapon.

and Soulframe is also not a soul game despite the name

[light coyote]

i mean, both of them give you free reign over how you allocate your stats, even if that leads to suboptimal setups

but i think i get it now. What's bugging people out the most is that soulframe is stuck in the middle of the way

[still vapor]

soulframe was always gonna have it's own twist on classes. the three virtues were always based on the classic class trinity, and to be engaged with like the class triangle. And now we got prisms, who are acting as a soft classes.

[still vapor]

suboptimal is beinggentle in the case of souls games. ER let you respect if you bat a major boss, but if you play dark souls, you might just have bricked yourself if you allocate stupidly

[light coyote]

it doesn't have classes on paper, but every system in place seems to point at the existence of them. right now, instead of locking people out of options like most class system does, the game gives you the illusion of freedom by letting you equip everything to some extent, but then punishes you for not playing one of the intended ways

i think that's why we've seen so many complaints about build diversity

technically you can still play the exact same way you did back in p12, but you'll be punished for it, which feels worse than just not being able to

[still vapor]

that's mostly because the pre p13 system was actually pretty bad for actual diversity

[light coyote]

and i mean feels, because in actuality it is worse to be locked out of something, but in playing a game i feel much worse for being punished than for being locked out of something

[still vapor]

to make it simple, the way the open system worked before created an "objective best build", and thus, no reason to play anything else

that is actually bad for diversity

[light coyote]

while yes, in terms of meta everyone was pushed one way, the other non meta options were still viable even if sub optimal.

[still vapor]

but that's the thing, why use the suboptimal options when you can jsut use the meta and do the same?

[light coyote]

freedom led to optimization because this is the same community that will make a setup so nasty they can do endless runs in warframe, but it was freedom nonetheless

[light coyote]

because it was fun

i get that in multiplayer, which seems to be a bigger focus here than in warframe, if you were playing an off meta build you'd probably be a burden more than anything

[still vapor]

which we don't want, yes

[light coyote]

but in single player i had the most fun testing the weirdest setups

so i understand it was necessary for the sake of multiplayer but it came in detriment of many people's playstyles which were wacky and gimmicky and quite fun while not being practical

[still vapor]

the thing with fun is that you can still have it in the new system.

yes, right now the gear selection isn't great, which yes, can be a bummer, but i will again remind everyone that this is an alpha, and the devs aren't going to flood us with gear they might have to rework if other system change happen

and like, the only thing that's gone from the previous system is the ability to make that "objective best build". now you actually got to make a choice and build around it, make an actual build

and dealw ith the tradeoff of each of your choices

[light coyote]

respectfully, I have no hope nor intent of convincing you otherwise. you present solid arguments and, although I dont particularly agree with most of them, I still see the value in them

[still vapor]

because it's also a question of balance

[light coyote]

I came here mostly to make the point that, at a base level, this middle of the way approach is what bugging people the most

[still vapor]

letting people be able to be spam casting heavy armored tank with high dps is terrible and will only lead to terrible content

[light coyote]

agreed on the basis that multiplayer will be required in the future, but as someone who only played in singleplayer or with friends, and who only got into multiplayer to share bosses (to which broken builds made everything much faster) this was a non issue that, in addressing, changed the game in a way that made it lose its appeal to an extent

and i think that's the main thing. most people complaining about lack of diversity were the ones that either didnt care about metamancing, or were actively running away from it

[still vapor]

that's the thing, balance is also important for single player, otherwise you will get terrible boss experience.

[still vapor]

personally i see the opposite, and that's mostly because the changes removed the super meta builds (for a reason), and the people wnating them back will find the first legit looking excuse to try to pretend the old system was ok. years of being around the warframe forums let's you see those

[light coyote]

just to reiterate, i have no hope of them reverting stuff, nor do i think it would be productive at this point. i'll still be tuning in for the devstream in hopes that preludes 14 makes things appeal to me again despite the changes. i'm here just to point out why i many people have a problem with this particular approach

[bitter ingot]

In the current system your grip type locks in your strong arcanics and vise versa. You have to either match your weapon to the arcanic you want to be strong or you have to take a loss.
That is not making a compromise or game balance, it's restricting players agency to choose how to play.

I agree that a game need balance and compromises to make a fun and rewarding experience but the current system offers neither of those things.

[light coyote]

agree to disagree, i fought the arbearer in the questline in the most underleveled unoptimized setup possible due to a lack of judgement on my part and being locked out of the nightfold even after death. it was really hard but it wasn't terrible, it was actually quite fun. had that happened this preludes, due to the lack of scaling at all, i'd probably be soft locked.

[still vapor]

well, the bosses are in a rough state rn due to the alpha state of the game. my point on bosses was more aimed at a more advanced state of the game.

[still vapor]

again, have you ever played an RPG before? if you pick a caster, you usually don't get to wield a greatsword without compormise to something

[bitter ingot]

Are you completely missing the point?

Arcanics aren't classes

This isn't a class based game

[light coyote]

another point i just cannot agree with. most people defending the changes made in preludes 13 always resort to the point of "objectively best build" as if we didn't have other choices. saying everyone who defends the old system just wants their meta build back is an argument made in bad faith imo

[light coyote]

here you get to wield a greatsword and usually you'll get a skill that buffs your damage to go with it. so i dont get the option of using a greatword in a tank build. that's OP's concern

[still vapor]

Zeza... could there be something else in the game right now that you can choose that affect what weapons and armor you can equip and essentially determine a playstle? something that seem to work with playing aroudn the 3 fundamental class archetypes. i got the word on the tip of my tongue... crystal? shard? lens?

[light coyote]

like thetren's clash and bromius' song of growth would be stellar for tank builds yet they're tied to the light and ranged weapon class by virtue

[light coyote]

why are you like this?

[still vapor]

well, that's the thing, i'll bring the magic word agian, ALPHA. is the implementation of the system messy? yes, and that's why there is so many discrepancies, because it's placed there in rough shape to see if it works roughly before the devs commit to it and start the long process of rebalancing everything

[light coyote]

can you stop dismissing feedback with the word alpha? if no one brought it up because "well, its an alpha" we'd be well into full release with lots more of these cases and nothing will be done about it

[bitter ingot]

It's pretty clear that you haven't read or understood the issue I'm trying to address in this thread.

[rigid scarab]

A reminder to remain respectful of each other.

[still vapor]

no, because if a problem is completly due to the alpha status, and not a system critixized, then it's not productive to cause so much discourse around it. it's like saying a car has very poor handling when the one you got to test has flat tires.

All i'm doing is presenting the bigger picture and reminding people to not throw the baby with the bathwater

like, is there a lot of restiction on what you can use under each prisms? yes, absolutly! but that's not a problem of the prism system, it's because we don't have enough gear available

tho ther eis also a few cases of "the devs have been talking about that for months if not years, why are you surprised when they do it?"

[light coyote]

I am criticizing the systemic choice of having arcanics scale witha single virtue since, no matter how you slice it, we'll run into the same problem

[still vapor]

now that one is something i agree with. even gave some feedback about it. However, i will say things when that gets buched up with other issues that aren't really tied to that

[light coyote]

By scaling arcanic and weapons the same way you tie them to one another, that's hy design, not a byproduct of being in alpha

[still vapor]

Like, grip types being tied to a virtue. that's something the devs have always said was the plan

[latent osprey]

when

i don't remember that, and even if they said it, doesn't mean we have to accept it, if we say it's a bad change, then what we say matters

their word and decisions aren't set in stone

[crimson crater]

I think the thing I'm seeing here is that there is value in build crafting, but arcanics only scaling off their own associated virtue is bad design as it also locks your weapon choices to that virtue, or you essentially have to let your pact choice affect your build since the weapon you want to use needs to have a good arcanic in play for it to use...
Example: Playing courage Orengall right now. The only thing scaling with courage is the werewalker, and that is a HORRIBLE feeling. The goal should be that you can feel like your pact is not held back by needing to meet minimum virtue requirements for your weapons.

[light coyote]

Doesn't mean the approach is good. If they want to keep it, by all means, go ahead. But feedback about it being a bad approach is inevitable

[latent osprey]

they're not always gonna hit the mark

[bitter ingot]

At no point have I brought up prisms in this thread. I actually think prisms are really good and have a lot of potential.
I'm criticizing arcanic and weapon scaling being inherently linked because it impacts players agency when two so different and seemingly unrelated systems are linked.

There is no build crafting if you can't craft because 1 choice inherently lock everything else

[still vapor]

oh god, have i been going on like this for a while from misreading one line and thinking you were complaining about something else?

oh gosh, my bad

i just got too used to the people that complain about prisms like they ruin the game (read here, doesn't let them break it) that i missed the one time where the point is right

[light coyote]

I guess its because this one is similar to that "new virtues ruined build diversity" thread

[rigid scarab]

lol

[still vapor]

Tho i will still say that the game has a class sytem. a soft one, but still one

[light coyote]

Btw, hate doing this but
https://discord.com/channels/998758139405029478/1482952919065034767

On the topic of virtue scaling. I truly believe there are ways to make arcanic scaling off of one virtue work so long as this "scaling" have more depth to it

Cause if every point in a virtue counts, suddenly your 7 in grace becomes meaningful enough to make a tank build with a greatsword (circling back to that point lol)

[still vapor]

oh, yeah, absolutly. I feel like they will go that way once they get to actually polishing since it is the simplest sytem over having virtue scale a different aspect of each arcanics

[bitter ingot]

Yes, but the class is mostly based on your weapon type or a mix between pact and weapon type. The problem is that locking in your weapon also locks in your strong arcanics. It's not a problem if you wanna be a fighter with high damage, you just lock in Marrow's Bane and Fellust. But if you wanted to be a glass cannon mage you can't scale fellust to the same extent because of the inherent incompatibility between fellust and caster weapons

[crimson crater]

Maybe a potential way for this to be alleviated in the short term is being able to choose which arcanic is assigned to which virtue slot? Just putting an idea out there.

There does need to be a better system but that might help in the interim.

[bitter ingot]

That would work, it'd be a bandaid solution imo but it would definitely work

[light coyote]

It brings back the problem, just with grace

[crimson crater]

Going back to my example of courage Orengall (which I'm running for levelling purposes) having only werewalker really scale kinda sucks. Being able to put the summons on courage would alleviate that.

[light coyote]

You'd assign the best arcanic to grace and build around it since it'd get the grace scaling

[crimson crater]

I don't disagree, just trying to posit some short term solutions.

[light coyote]

Valid, really is, i just see this as another problem for the future when the bandaid is removed

[bitter ingot]

Virtue passives are an entirely different problem that also desperately needs to be addressed as well. I intentionally left it out of the thread because I wanted it to stick to only addressing one specific issue

[still vapor]

oh yeah, no, on this we 100% agree. even whentaking into account the whole alpha thing where they likely didn't remap pacts to fit that new system, I don't like how it clashes with the prism system

especially since that restriction might just end up limiting the way pacts can be made

[crimson crater]

As it stands we don't have a good solution, and I'd rather have the problem with grace in the short term than be locked out of the options. I'm not trying to bring virtue scalings into the discussion currently either, I'm more concerned about how arcanics and pacts interact with gameplay and a desire to lift some of the restrictions to make more variety in weapon and pact choices.

[bitter ingot]

Glad we got around to agreeing in the end 🙂

[still vapor]

that would probably cause too many moving pieces being around when designiong pacts. Having each virtue scale a different part of an ability would probably work better, since it would stay in line with things like totems, where steve stated that the goal was "not having a best build, jsut the best for you"

Like, i just want the devs to have as much control on our power as possible, because otherwise you can end with a situation where some unforeseen combo breaks your game and can't be fixed without hurting others

plus, more dev control also means better design, since they can actually design around it rather than try to satify a public that is too large

[bitter ingot]

Yeah, I made a post a week or two ago trying to address everything I thought was wrong about the virtue system and very quickly learned that it's better to only focus on one specific issue at a time. I figured addressing build diversity was the best first step

[crimson crater]

I wholeheartedly agree.

Proposing potential solutions, even if they are interim solutions, gives the devs a potential angle with which to approach the problem. Having more eyes on the objective and properly understanding the problem helps the devs devise solutions, at least that's my perspective.

[bitter ingot]

I do appreciate DE for making big sweeping changes like they did with virtues in P13, hopefully they will address the new issues it brought one by one. But I am worried that because they made so many changes and so many people blamed prisms and not the underlying problems that affect prisms that they might focus on the wrong changes

[still vapor]

focusing on individual things also allow to be more specific and not loose oneself in the whole. Kinda like the people i saw saying the prism system is complete horse manure because they had to grind for some prisms

[light coyote]

Fair enough. Its just that the overall virtue changes are so intertwined its hard to change one without breaking another

[light coyote]

Fair enough, i respect that

[still vapor]

I can reassure you that they are wise enough to parse things. biggest issue for them tho is getting enough good feedback to actually get data. Them not slapping the alpha label everywhere is causing that, as so much feedback do be people not understanding that a ton of stuff is placeholder or will be changed later. The fey pact "mastery" being the best case, where so many people think it's an emergency

[bitter ingot]

To be fair putting the dual split prisms behind R4 in factions is poopoo. Prisms are definitely something players should be able to access well before they get R4 with two different factions. Prisms are still good though just need to come from quests or something

[still vapor]

I keep saying every sentenses "it's an alpha" for a reason

[crimson crater]

I think if all the prisms were early faction unlocks it would feel a lot better.

That said, that's kinda moving away from our goal.

[still vapor]

oh absolutly, that one i'm genuinly confused on the tought process. like my best bet was to maybe test how much people would get them, or to make people test tales more without telling them to. but other than that, no clue.

[still vapor]

nuh uh. make all the basic ones available witthin only like 5 hours of starting and readily accessible. it's the soft class system of the game, it should not be grinded for

[bitter ingot]

I just think that grace affecting damage, courae affecting defence and spirit giving qol is a weird choice. They should all either have no effect outside of what they provide in terms of scaling or affect stats within the same category

[light coyote]

Agreed

Especially because it is a parity nightmare

Damage will always be the go to option in these sort of games, either all of them improve damage the same way or not at all

[still vapor]

well, grace being sneak related, courage being tank and spirit tied to casting speed, i think that works

tho yeah, grace being the best scaling attibute for damage is a problem

[bitter ingot]

100% even a band aid solution now could become a building stone to a proper fix in the future

[crimson crater]

Coming back to build diversity, I think one of the biggest issues we have is lack of meaningful options. There's an optimal weapon of every type, there's an optimal armour for every archetype, and there is no logical reason to run anything else beyond those options.

[light coyote]

Shift grace to stagger and it works i think

Because grave is about finishers more than anything, and stagger is the one mechanic that enables finishers mid combate

[bitter ingot]

Damage will always be the best option if you get the choice between damage or two other stats. I also think spirit is especially bad because you only gain the benefit of it by heavily investing in spirit so it's only a useful passive if the arcanic you want to spam happens to be spirit attuned as well

[still vapor]

yeah. Ilike the headshot and sneak attack bonus, but yeah, with stealth being kind of not great

[light coyote]

I had an idea of giving each of the 3 virtues a passive more tied with their aspect, defined hy the prism if you will.

And grace high builds would get a combo meter that took into accound hits, perfect dodges and parries, draining on taking outside damage (as to not conflict with self damage abilities). The higher the combo the more stagger damage you deal, rewarding a graceful playstyle

Now that i think about it, i think i'll spin this combo idea into a new one

I kinda made a post on this already.
How courage and spirit promotes/enables their intended playstyle, while grace rewards it.

But i'm getting off topic, my bad OP

[still vapor]

yeah, the system is not super nice rn. personally while i'm not agaisnt the boost to damage in specific situations that attribute gives, i do feel like in a game like this, yeah, more damage jsut becomes the best, since, well, you can jsut not get hit. kinda how warframe turned nto a mess when gating became THE big theng

[boreal ferry]

I don't really like the Virtue system as it is now. It certainly has its strengths, but the main problem is that it forces you to use certain types of Prisms that you might not want to use. In my opinion, what should have been done in this rework was the adjustment of damage scaling and what they did with armor, while the points to put into the Virtues should have been left to the discretion of the player, so that you could create your own.

[still vapor]

except, again, letting us put point manually kills any effective build diversity since it lets us make a perfect build. once you have that, you have no reason to do anything else. Prisms makes it so nothing is perfect so you have reason to try other things, because there is value in doing something else, that's healthy