April 17Th: Community Hot Topics!

[[DE]Drew]

Excalibur

Excalibur was originally covered in a Community Hot Topics last September, but now that Devstream 50 hinted at another Excalibur update, I’ve included some recent hot topics on him. One interesting point of discussion from the source threads is about what it means exactly to be a “swordsman”, and how that description should affect Excalibur’s abilities. What role do you think Excalibur should fill with his powers, and how much of an impact do you think the sword theme should have? Do you like the swordsman concept? Do you like the idea of an energy sword ability?

 

Source threads:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/230673-excalibur-20-thank-you-de-for-listening-to-us-we-are-looking-forward-to-the-changes-now/

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/439404-excalibur-an-alternate-take-and-proposal-on-his-upcoming-rework/

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/441123-excaliburs-future-changes-my-opinion/

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/441179-rip-super-jump/

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/441859-excaliburs-upcoming/

 

 

Weapons as Crafting Requirements

Crafting requirements often spark hot topics, but the inclusion of weapons as requirements is relatively new. What is your opinion on weapon crafting requirements? Do you think the requirements are too prohibitive, or do the requirements make those weapons more interesting? What do you think is a good balance between too hard and too easy to craft? Should the statistics of weapons reflect how hard they are to craft?  

 

Source thread:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/439353-discouragement-in-a-nutshell-dual-raza-crafting-requirements/

 

 

Augment Slot

The augment slot is an idea that has been suggested many times since the Augment Mods were initially announced.The suggestion is typically that an additional slot be added to make Augment Mods easier to include in warfame builds. Do you use Augments frequently enough to benefit from an Augment Slot? Do you think an Augment Slot is a good idea? 

 

Source thread:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/442041-augment-slots-or-additional-regular-slots/

 

 

Super/Prime Forma

The source thread includes a poll for a “Super Forma” concept, so I’ve included it in this week’s Community Hot Topics to expand on the original concept. Do you like the idea of a more powerful forma that could polarize two slots instead of one? What about multiple polarizations, or polarization without level reset? Post your thoughts/ideas in this thread. 

 

Source thread:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/442768-poll-super-forma/

 

 

Chat 2.0

The source thread for this topic suggests several ways to improve game chat. What improvements would you make to Warframe’s chat? Should any of the channels be merged? Would you like the option to have multiple chat channels open? What key/control changes would you make to chat? Do you find chat easy to use in and out of missions? Post your thoughts and ideas in this thread and the source thread below. 

 

Source thread

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/426811-suggestion-chat-20/

 

[Snyphurr]

Nice.

[2pro4u.com]

SUPER FORMA! :D

[AdunSaveMe]

Couldn't we just see what improvements can be done to the formae that exist?

Edited April 18, 2015 by AdunSaveMe

[N7-Justicar]

Augment Slot: BIG YES.

 

Prime Forma: Only if it add multiple polarization. Leveling isn't that hard..

 

Chat 2.0: Text highlighter. The Trading channel is always a chaos. (sometimes the Recruiting also) When you see the prime part that you are looking for and 2 seconds later it's already overlapped by other 10 wall of texts by people who selling their whole collection and you need to search back between lines for that player which you were about to whisper.. it can be annoying. (not to mention if you are slow you can miss the offer :P)

So my idea is a search option, like "Ctrl + F" which highlights the words that you are looking for.

Edited April 19, 2015 by N7-Justicar

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

On weapons used to craft other weapons, I voted yes--sometimes. But I want to be clear, the AKJagara and Somati aren't what I was voting yes to. The Dragon Nikana was the perfect form of a craftable upgrade: clear, direct upgrade, didn't require multiple weapons to craft (and therefore more inventory space), and actually behaved like the weapon it copied. It felt like a proper form of progression when I built it.

 

The AKJagara was not the perfect form: sidegrade to the weapon it was built of, required multiple weapons that themselves required multiple weapons to craft, didn't behave like the weapon it was built of, and didn't even look similar.

Edited April 18, 2015 by (PS4)WiiConquered

[Mcl_Blue]

My opinions on some of these topics:

 

Weapons as Crafting Requirements: I think only direct upgrades, like the Dragon Nikana, and Dual versions of weapons should use another weapon as a crafting requirement. Having a weapon be kinda-sorta similar to another is no excuse for it to be a component for said another.

 

Augment Slots: I think it's an interesting idea to have one slot dedicated to Augments, like we have one for Auras, BUT, at the same time, still have Augments be equippable on the regular slots. For what purpose? Simple. If you want to use an Augment, you don't have to wreck your build to do it, but if you want to use multiple, then... you can, but you'll have to work around that to do it.

 

Super Forma: I have no thoughts on different Formas that do stuff like multipolarize and whatnot, but for a Forma that doesn't reset the weapon's level, a "Legendary Forma" if you will, I think that should be reserved to polarity-related compensations (like that situation with the Ability Mods), as I feel that weapon rank resetting is a suitable balance for polarization.

Edited April 18, 2015 by Mcl_BlueMadness

[VentiGlondi]

In my opinion Excalibur should be a swift and agile melee warframe, jumping between enemies and avoiding damage, as opposed to Valkyr's take-all-the-bullets-to-the-face playstyle.

[4ever4gotin]

Finally a CHT.

 

Excal's energy sword:

 

- From what I've heard on the dev stream it'll sound pretty cool. Although if it scales of your melee weapon it's going to shoe-horn people into always bring specific weapons with the "best stats" as opposed to their favorites. I'd prefer if it had its own stats like old Hysteria.

 

Weapon inception

 

- For older players who junk alot of "mastery fodder" weapons it is quite a hassle to rebuild all these weapons over and over again. Although I do see appeal for newer players who start off with their lato, then move on to the boltos, maybe get Akboltos and the Akjargas. Gives a sense of weapon progression, if there were more building paths for future weapons I wouldn't be opposed to it, but only slightly annoyed.

 

Augment Slot

 

- Some augments are great and can justify taking up one of our current 8 slots (Irradiating Disarm is one of the best examples of good augments, a more recent example is Vampire Leech). Others, if not a majority of augments, provide little use to certain Warframe kits, and even if you specialize your build to cater to that augment your results are far less impressive than just adding any other regular mod. Some should be outright deleted and cannot even be justified in their use (Pool of Life and Swing Line)

 

- Maybe in the future when warframe abilities get more than 1 augment each, therefore bringing a whole variety of things to chose and customize your play style, then I would greatly appreciate having augment slot(s).

 

Super forma

 

- Eh, sure I guess, some ideas I've heard were "Forma without the re-leveling of X-item" or multi - polarities on a single slot. Not sure which sounds better (or worse) to implement. Need more information.

 

Chat 2.0

 

- I'm fine with the current iteration although it is a tad bit cramped for my taste.

[Kaotyke]

I'm not sure about the Augment slot since in some builds using 2 Augments can be viable, having them only equipable in the Augment slot would limit us, at the same time not having to use normal slots is....

[VKhaun]

 

Augment Slot

The augment slot is an idea that has been suggested many times since the Augment Mods were initially announced.The suggestion is typically that an additional slot be added to make Augment Mods easier to include in warfame builds. Do you use Augments frequently enough to benefit from an Augment Slot? Do you think an Augment Slot is a good idea? 

 

Source thread:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/442041-augment-slots-or-additional-regular-slots/

 

No.

 

1) The whole mod system is choice-based. If we back off and break that by giving people more room for this, there's no end to it. Why not a slot for a defense mod? Why not a slot for power mods? Why not a slot for radar and other 'utility' mods? This is not a direction I want the game to take. Feedback about wanting another slot should get rolled into the overall balance of mods and frames to make eight slots continue to work.

 

2) IMO the augment system is not being used well. The damage buffs for #1 powers are clear examples. Scott has repeatedly described a progression of damage early -> utility later but after two years many of these powers still quickly fade into near uselessness and the player must use Augs to "fix" them. Judging by design council threads this trend is getting worse. Judging by Chroma this is becoming standard.

 

If we course-correct here and fix abilities rather than relying on augs, the pressure to equip augs will even out and make more sense in an 8-slot system without need for special slots or other jury rigging.

 

If we continue to claim abilities are meant to be available and useful while leaving them broken in a state where players feel they need help then we're going to need more than just one aug slot to keep things even.

Edited April 18, 2015 by VKhaun

[(PSN)drizzit70]

on the subject of Warframe Augments . Its really simple , we need an Augment Slot next to the Aura Slot . Lets face it once you start using Forma to  get the build you want , there is no room for an Augment Mod . Its instantly dropped in favor of other Mods , which is a shame because they all seem to be really good Augments . I don't want the Augment Slot to increase the Warframe's capacity for installing Mods , just somewhere to put 1 so it doesn't mess up my build . 

[Archwizard]

Excalibur

 

The announcement in the devstream has me hopeful, but I still feel that he could be improved further.

 

- Radial Javelin is now affected by the combo multiplier, which is also reset by this skill. Once again summons a minimum number of javelins based on rank, to return synergy with Bullet Attractor.

- Energy waves from Excalibur's new ultimate have expanding cones of effect with Punch Through, allow combo stacking and can activate off of hits from Slash Dash. The player can cancel the effect by recasting it.
- Passive: Excalibur's combo counter takes (at least) twice as long to reset as other Warframes.

 

Focusing on melee comboing would be excellent for Excalibur, since it raises his skill ceiling and would task new players to graduate to advanced gameplay mechanics at high level. Since Slash Dash now increases the combo count (and he's about to get a unique melee weapon), it doesn't necessarily force him into one specific playstyle so long as his abilities can compensate.

 

Augment Slot

 

It could be very interesting, to have a setup so that you can only use one augment mod, or at most one augment per ability once that series comes down the line. At the very least, having a freebie spot for the first and the ability to Forma for others has build potential.

 

My question is, what would the augment slot do? Just be an extra slot with an immutable polarity? If it rejects non-augments, would it make the augment itself free?

Edited April 19, 2015 by Archwizard

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

I think a problem with Augments is that they're overshadowed by how powerful/OP the Corrupted mods are. Do you want Bladestorm to extend the combo counter? Or do you want to make it cost 25 energy and allow you to cast it every time you get an orb? Do you want Invisibility to silence your weapons for the 8 seconds it lasts? Or do you want it to last for 30 seconds? The only augments that can compete are ones that provide insane benefits because of the current system. I'd go so far as to say Corrupted versions of abilities should have their own modifiers, with each ability having versions that improve one aspect of that ability only while weakening another. That should prove easier to balance, easier to encourage use of multiple abilities, and open up more frame slots.

 

That's not to say Corrupted mods are entirely to blame for the disinterest in augments--augments seem to lack structure. My main problem with augments is when they do one of two things:

1. Add purpose to an ability that has none (in which case the augment should possibly be part of the base ability, and at any rate the ability needs changes). Pacifying Bolts would probably be my first example of this.

2. Fail to add anything different to a redundant ability, such as with Well of Life's augment that doesn't improve the ability or differentiate it. Here, an augment is needed that clearly contrasts it to the abilities already available from the frame.

[ndantony]

Do you like the idea of Excalibur getting an ability-activated weapon (ie, an energy Skana)?

Yes. Do you need to ask?!

 

In your opinion, should weapons be included as crafting requirements for other weapons?

I don't like the idea of use up another weapon. But I don't see why not either. After all before this was a thing, the forum was flooded with a lot of threads asking for this. Give them the taste of their own medicine. I buy the new weapon anyway so I could care less.

 

How frequently do you use Augment Mods?

Ok. Many Augment Mods are good utility. Yes, sure. I want to use often and always. But no matter how good a utility they are, I can NEVER sacrifice a mod slot. If you can't provide additional mod slots for them, then I'll just not use them at all. You can add them to their own respective abilities and thus make these abilities to have good utility as well, and there maybe hope for WF yet. 

 

In your opinion, is a Super/Prime Forma a good idea?

What is the point for this?? To reduce grind? And the players will turn around and complain this is too easy and boring? Or will this be harder to get? Then what's the point of using it in the first place? Just save it and go grind... back to step #1 complaining again.

 

In your opinion, does Warframe’s chat need a rework?

The chat system has always been very clunky. If you want to take Warframe to the next social interactive level, and I hope you do, then you'd better do something, making the chat system better.

 

Ok. I also want to rant something here:

Please let Baro Ki'Teer bring more inventory items, at least some new primed mods. Sure you can recycle some of the mods that people have missed. But for those of us who have already been attentive with the game and those events are not being served. Well, we feel desperately so. For 3 months and not even a new primed mod or two. Are we to look at Destiny's trader bringing new awesome weapons to thrill and make headline? I know Warframe is Warframe. But I think we can use some new primed mods. Sorry. 

\rantoff

Edited April 18, 2015 by ndantony

[7grims]

Hey DE, if you fancy Line of Sight so much, how about including it in some features as a direct benefit, and not only as nerfs or punishments.

Like, all targets seen by the player, or all tenno seen by the enemy, stay marked on the extermination HUD; and any other benefit features you can come up with.

 

---------------------------------

 

Augment mods:

Are the only true Modifiers in this game, and thus is why I dont use them at all.

Since all other mods are mandatory and indispensable to play, I'm not gonna waist mods slots on augments when I need all those essential mods.

This game needs to get rid off all his "serration" mods, since those are basic stats improvers, and mandatory for any built; so all those vitalities, redirections, itensifies, etc need to be removed, and turned into innate stats.

 

BTW also remove kubrow and sentinel ability mods from the game, and make them just like the frames and achwing abilities, some game developers call that design consistency, start using it ;)

Edited April 18, 2015 by 7grims

[CaptainBAMF]

I think the Augment slot next to the aura slot is a great idea.

 

Personally having it up there instead of the main warframe slot area makes it more reasonable to use to people who would never really use them otherwise. They all add a slight edge/ customization to warframes and loadouts. This literally lets people branch out more and diversify with their builds.

 

Too many of the same gets boring quick in this game.

 

Alot of the augment mods need alot of work, tweaking, or re-envisioning, but i really believe their existance, if done right, can be very benificial to the creativity of playstyles, freshness of groups and combos, etc.

 

Most people wont trade off their custom build for an augment at this point, due to the fact you have to sacrifise something you've probably worked long to build without knowing of or having the augment avaiable at the time they created their build. It wouldnt make sense to use them at that point.

 

Augment Slot sounds awesome to me =]

[Magnar21]

Forma

I want to see the ability to change the polarity of a given slot on the fly. Often, I'll invest a ton of forma into a build that is very specialized, then end up not being able to do a general purpose build later without using more forma or making another frame. Being able to change polarity on multiple slots at once would be really nice, and being able to spend extra resources to make a forma that won't require releveling would be nice. Just work to balance the costs, and not make it so obscene that no one ever uses it, unless they are obscenely rich.

 

Augment slots

Having one free augment slot on every weapon/warframe would be really nice. Then, since Warframes can have multiple augments, being able to spend a forma to add additional slots for said augments (not for repolarizing) would also add more mod space. Some mods like Eternal War do free up some mod space, but work best if you already have a fairly tight arrangement of mods. Chroma is another frame that is always pressed for mod space, and I wouldn't sacrifice a mod to put an augment on unless that augment was pretty damn good.

 

Chat

Chat is absurdly broken. Being unable to see multiple channels at once causes  me to virtually neglect the clan and alliance channels while in missions. I want the ability to create multiple tabs, choose what chat channels are displayed on said tabs, use slash commands to talk  in any channel with ease, being able to use custom colors, etc. In other words, I want a chat system on par with virtually any other competitive MMO.

 

Weapons as resources:

Using weapons as requirements for crafting only makes sense for weapons designed as logical upgrades. Lato>Bolto>Akbolto>Akjagara or Lato>Aklato>Akbolto>Akjagara are all logical upgrade paths. This is also assuming that the costs for each upgrade are logical amounts. Veterans have likely sold off those weapons long ago, so requiring them to craft all the weapons in that particular upgrade tree creates a perception of schadenfreude that destroys faith in DE as a company. If weapons are to be used as resources, then either release all weapons in the tree at the same time, or release blueprints that only consume/require resources. Requiring that you have already crafted the prior weapons in the tree to use the shortcut blueprint is an option, but if you want to continue using weapons as resources, you can't force veterans to wait 36+ hrs to craft a weapon, when half of that crafting is stuff they already did prior.

Edited April 18, 2015 by Magnar21

[manub]

energy skana seems interesting but it depends on what its stats would be, how it would scale & all, too few info to decide right now. I loved the bug where the fiery skana stayed in our hands sometimes but I fear the weapon could turn vastly underpowered

 

the weapons based on other weapons are good ones, but their access is quite limited for new players, so keep going with it but not too much either. dual raza was kind of a bummer since we needed to craft 2 kamas, then dual kamas, then at last dual raza, with 10 neural sensors in the weapon which are the hardest ressource to come by in the normal non key-accessible map. by the way when do we get other gunblades?

 

super/prime forma? why not? leveling things is quite fast so normal forma is fine with me though. but reward tables are cluttered enough already so careful with these

 

augments are kind of a sore spot with me. some augments effect seem sometimes as bandaids that should have been integrated in abilities proper. some seem somewhat not that useful but I have not tested all of them. I would welcome 1 or 2 augment slots, this would be awesome because some choices in augment/base stats  builds are very difficult to make. but dedicated to augments, so we couldn't use any other mod on it, & augments would still be installable on normal mod slots

 

chat channels are pretty fine, but I d like to have several channels open at the same time. I like goofing/helping on region while being on recruiting & keeping an eye on trading. kinda hard to do all at the same time currently.

 

 

PS: I want tesshin's dual nikana & a zanuka-type companion. just reminding it as usual. also a vay hek terra frame bobblehead

Edited April 18, 2015 by manub

[Latronico]

a) Excalibur:

Swordman theme is nice, but it must be realized properly. Warframes who are based all around damage generally suck, because damage abilities aren't able to scale in general. And that means have OP Warframe in low levels and useless ones in high levels.

Excalibur should work as Valkyr's Hysteria (damage abilities that scale with the melee weapon). That's the only way to have something that will not be completely useless one second before it's release. 

Furthermore, Valkyr and Excalibur could be the 'pioneers' for a new system for damage abilities that allow them to scale properly and be usefull both at low and high levels. 

 

b) Weapons required to build other ones:

It's ok, if they're a bit. It's boring to be forced to build again a weapon already owned and sold just to level up a new one.

 

c) Augment slots:

Absolutely yes. Aument mods are really rare to see in every Warframe builds. Except for Greedy Pull, Irradiating Disarm et cetera, they're just some nice addition to abilities. In general it never woths to remove a mod to replace it with an aument one. 
Aument slots could help, allow people to be able to build properly their Warframes and both use augment mods. Of course there must be balance, so I think that 1 augment slot per Warframe is enough. Also because in this way people are forced to pick up just one augment mod, and builds will be a bit different each others (instead of just slam all the best augment mods into the build and gg).

1 aura slot, 1 augment slot and 8 mods slots. Seems fair. 

 

d) Prime Forma:

I don't like the idea. People who want to make supa dupa builds whould work hard to polarize all the slots they need/want. I don't like the idea of a 'super Forma' that polarize two slots or avoid the weapon level reset. 

First of all, because it will be absolutely more useful then the norma Forma (who will become just a resource to build lab weapons), second because all I can see is just an addition for lazy people. 

[Evanescent]

You know for people saying augments take away the choice, So does serration and the other staple mods.

 

So we either need to fix that, or include augment slots. SO yeah, that's a great idea!

 

Energy sword sounds fantastic. Skana is awesome...but I was secretly hoping for a katana! >.< Since you guys said energy waves and all, which go really well with the katana cleaves.

 

Chat system definitely needs a large rework. But gameplay things first? Hek, scratch that-why not parallel!

 

I'll need to see what super forma does before I can have an opinion on it.

 

As for Baro....

 

 

Please please give him at least 2 new items that are non cosmetic each time. Since everything is on rotation anyway players don't have to buy everything each time! And keep the old rotation going! Currently he's too much of a disappointment to wait for every 2 WEEKS.

 

I had to get that out, sorry!

 

 

Oh and Limbo.

 

After excal and frost please look at him!

[V0LK]

Can you apply something from previous Hot Topics from about a year ago before doing new ones? This is going nowhere.

 

And yes - augment slots are a good idea.

[xRufus7x]

Augment mod slots should not be a thing.It would only limit build options. The fact that this is so frequently suggested only shows that the current mod system needs to rebalanced. There are too many mods that are required and too many augments that are not useful enough to justify bringing. Sadly, the same can be said of many of the mods in this game.

[Jaysus41]

I've wanted Super/Prime Forma since Forma was introduced, but if its just only polarizing 2 slots at once or without de-leveling I will be massively disappointed.

 

My idea for Super/Prime Forma goes something like this:

 

After you polarize all of your Warframe/Weapon Mod slots with regular Forma, you should need a Super/Prime Forma to add additional polarities to the slots, and for every Super/Prime Forma added to a Warframe/Weapon Mod slot it should increase that weapons needed affinity to rank from 0 - 30 by 5 or 10 percent

 

And after say... 10 or so Super/Prime Formas are added to a Warframe/Weapon you should need to do a challenge to allow another Super/Prime Forma to be used on that Warframe/Weapon, like say...

 

Killing 10 rank 40+ Nullifiers with your Vectis

Getting the killing blow on Captain Vor with Sleight of Hand for Mirage

Complete 5 Spy missions without raising an alarm with your Loki

Killing Nef Anyo with your AkFuris using only a single clip

Get 3 Parries with your Dual Zorens in under a minute

 

Those are just rough examples off the top of my head of what they could be, and could possibly have multiple challenges on a Warframe/Weapon if many Super/Prime Formas are used on it.

 

you wouldn't really need more than 5 - 8 Super/Prime Formas to make a Warframe/Weapon ready for multiple mod configurations, polarizing a slot, or all slots, with all potential polarities would simply be a labor of love for completionists or players passionate about a certain piece of equipment.

[Zirion_Bk]

Augment slots: No, I would not like this idea as some augments work together really well. Having an augment slot would restrict us to having only one augment effect in a mission and would also not only give us free power, but also make it a must to slot an augment mod in the slot. What if I am not interested in Chroma's spectral scream augment? In this system, my build would not be hurt by it, but it would be hurt in the suggested system as it is a mod slot I do not utilize.

Just my two cents while I am really tired.