PKBeam

And for the record, the reason we're all in this mess is something I'm more inclined to attribute to the player base than the nerfs. Devs throw out big nerfs all the time in PvP games - like those shooters with ranked game modes that actually stress players to the point of flaming each other - but no reactions from such communities are quite as unhinged as some of the things I've read on Reddit and other forum topics here. Nerfs help keep a healthy game balance. Yeah it sucks when you've been playing a build you really like and it gets nerfed, but it's something we have to learn to deal with. You can still find enjoyment in it (especially in this game where so many worse, off-meta builds are still perfectly usable), or if that's not an option then move on to one of the countless other options available.

I've been around here long enough to know that the only true constant of Warframe is that portion of the player base that will complain about literally any change DE makes to the game. I don't really have the energy to care about them, this post is moreso addressed to DE and I just want someone there to at least consider what I've written here. That said, giving everyone 20-30k+ Overguard just by clicking one button a lot around a bunch of enemies is pretty strong. It's far more potent than most of the other defensive options we have right now, and that's going to be a problem as soon as DE decides they want to make this game harder. Eventually all the enemies and incoming damage/CC get tuned up to account for it, and now you'll need Dante or Styanax or whatever other equivalently strong option we'll have by then. Basically, a passive nerf to all of our defensive options. Instead of just one or two nerfs to overguard mechanics. Yes, power creep is inevitable and we've all seen it happen. But I would like to see DE try and take more steps to limit its growth, just like how we handle inflation in the real world. For them, the easiest solution to this problem would be to ignore the player base completely. Seeing as they've actually corrected some overguard interactions and walked back some of the other nerfs while remaining open to feedback, I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

I have some Rage/HA builds on frames with (a minimal amount of) shields. Normally this is fine since I can just let the shields get shot down, but non-consensual Overguards really kill off the viability of this. All of it has to go before shields start draining, but it gets replenished faster than it gets depleted. Being able to opt out of either overguard or shields on a frame would solve this problem. Possibly with: a keybind (like Volt speed), an equippable (like the Decaying Dragon Key but removes all shield/overguard), or a mod (e.g. a mod that gives +health% but no shields/overguard, perhaps as a Vitality variant or something like that). --- Some way to cap the max overguard to a low number would also help. I feel that Styanax and Dante give ridiculously high amounts of overguard right now, and maybe clamping the max overguard for a frame to a function of its shield capacity (or health if there are no shields) would address some of that. So maybe if your frame has 300 shields, your max overguard would be quite low (like a few hundred), but if you modded your shields up or have a naturally high amount of shields you would get the full max overguard that you can get now with Styanax/Dante.

So Lua and Mars are bad because they aren't new, but then Duviri's also bad because it's new. And we're ignoring AotZ, the Parvos sisters, the Corpus ship tileset update and Steel Path, since they're obviously either not new or too new. Please define your core gameplay newness thresholds. I wouldn't mind if they trimmed half a second off of most of the Drifter's combat animations, but Drifter combat is fine. It keeps pace with the other sword combat games out there. And once you pick up a few good decrees you'll be killing those Dax just as fast as you could with a Warframe. Not liking it because it's not as extremely fast paced as combat in Warframes is entirely a personal preference. And finally... You've completely missed the point of my paragraph. Also, please quote me on the exact portion of my post where I said Duviri was innovative. A valid opinion. Oh, I could have just left out that last paragraph completely. That would definitely be some effortless downplaying. And looking back, perhaps I should have. If people refuse to recognise criticism that isn't as strong as theirs then I suppose I've just wasted a minute of my life there. Sad. That word doesn't mean what you think it means. Yeah, those definitely sound like they could be described as "some severe bugs". I should've mentioned that, my bad. And finally, This is just bizarre. Duviri was revealed in mid-2019, which means they would have known what the expansion would look like at a high level. There's no need for me to remind you that Elden Ring released in 2022. Duviri's combat would almost certainly have been finalised before then. But yeah, we've definitely seen Duviri's parry and dodge roll mechanics somewhere. Perhaps one of the designers took inspiration from For Honor (2017), Assassins Creed 4 (2013) or The Witcher (2007)? Maybe one of the team leads found their dusty old Gamecube and played a bit of TLoZ Twilight Princess (2006)? A few of those even have large explorable landscapes, so maybe DE is just ripping off Nintendo or CDPR now. You don't like Duviri because: A. it reminds you of the most recent open world game you played that had sword combat in it, and B. it doesn't surpass what said open world game was trying to do. Point B was clearly never going to happen, since we had a split 4-year dev cycle next to a 7-year one. But that's cool, Elden Ring is a good game. We're allowed to enjoy it. Doesn't mean Duviri is bad for not having a better combat system. Besides, that argument is generic: It's quite obvious that Elden Ring sucks; it's just From Software's attempt at Breath of the Wild, or Witcher 3, or Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

It seems like every time we have a new update these forums are destined to be filled with threads along the lines of "I hate this because it's different". The Drifter combat isn't bad. It just feels like it because we're used to the extreme mobility and power of a Warframe. Traditional Warframe combat doesn't scale well with difficulty; if you make all the numbers bigger you'll just polarise the situation into "use this exploit" or "die in one second". Drifter combat is revised to be able to scale horizontally, and it works precisely because we aren't overpowered anymore. Also, there's nothing wrong with the randomised loadouts Duviri presents to you. You don't even have to use them most of the time - Duviri is primarily Drifter gameplay, and the Orowyrm fight just hands you your normal archgun. The only time you have to actually engage with the loadout is Circuit, and you have so many choices between Warframe, primary, secondary and melee that most of the time you'll end up with something that you can use. Plus you have decrees that can sometimes carry a run by themselves. Steel Path isn't meant to be easy. There are surprisingly many viable weapons out there, so if you're only capable of using a small handful of them to survive then it's silly to complain when the game's hard mode (for experienced players!) challenges you to experiment with others. Still too hard? Pick up three other squad members. You just need one person with a good frame/weapon and you're set. Plus, SP Duviri doesn't lock out any content except Incarnon adapters for niche off-meta weapons - and if you're going for those then surely you would appreciate the variety the game is trying to showcase here. Finally, a lot of people are fond of saying "Duviri isn't Warframe". Frankly, this is a lazy non-argument. This game is 10 years old! There are plenty of newer live service types out there that have issues with stale gameplay/content, and the only way to avoid that is to innovate. Warframe isn't just one or two things that can be neatly put into a box like other games; it's been constantly changing and evolving ever since it released, and Duviri is just another in a long series of steps. That said, DE has always had problems with small-scale implementation. As usual, there are some severe bugs and minor balance/QoL woes. For example, I'd weight SP Circuit weapon appearance rates by disposition (or something similar), some of the content is just a touch too grindy, and the Drifter's auto-target system works about as well as every other auto-target system. But on the macro scale, Duviri is a refreshing update that proves DE can still innovate. ----- Addendum: a lot of people have been lamenting that Duviri makes their builds and loadouts worthless. This is not true. You can still use your own mod configuration on weapons and frames that you own. It's still your build, your frame, your weapon. Duviri is just forcing you to mix it up.