[PlayStation Update 30.5: Sisters of Parvos]

1 hour ago, [DE]Danielle said:

HELMINTH UPDATES:
You can now go up to Rank 15, and so much more! When it comes to the level cap increase to Helminth (from 10 to 15), we are introducing Invigorations at the same time, which will give around triple the XP of Subsumes. They should help you rank up as you invigorate your Arsenal over time.

This is similar to other MMOs, you won't retroactively get leveled up for past play when the Helminth level cap increases. 

When DE announced this, we (the community) pointed out that when the XP cap for Helminth goes up, those of us who have used the Helminth system should be retroactively granted the XP appropriate to our use, and that not doing so would effectively punish players for investing heavily in the Helminth system. It now appears that DE’s only response to this concern was to add a line of text to the update notes to rationalize why they wouldn’t be doing that. This is disappointing, especially since DE is often very good about compensating players for their investment when a system change alters the value of that investment.

This explanation also does not hold water. “This is similar to other MMOs, you won't retroactively get leveled up for past play when the Helminth level cap increases.”

* No, it isn’t similar to other MMOs, because we cannot redo our subsumes.

* Other MMOs might not track excess XP and apply it retroactively because for those MMOs, levelling up is the game. With Helminth, levelling up is the entry fee you pay to be allowed to play the game.

* Other MMOs might not attempt to calculate a player’s excess XP retroactively because the various actions players take which can generate XP are numerous and usually not recorded. With Helminth, it is clear for each player which warframes they have subsumed, and what the XP value of those subsumes would be.

Assuming that DE does not keep records of each interaction the player has with their Helminth, the least they should do is to calculate the minimum amount of XP a player would have earned for the subsumations they have performed, and ensure that that player has at least that much Helminth XP after the cap increase.

I am excited about the new Helminth abilities. I am not interested in the new Helminth Invigorations at all; they feel gimmicky and aren’t predictable, so I was planning to avoid them entirely. I have subsumed every Warframe which was available prior to this patch, so my investment in this system should allow me to explore the new abilities; indeed, if I were to make a new account now, it would do so. But now instead, I will be required to earn those abilities, I will be required to invest more for those abilities than newer players will, and I will be required to earn those abilities by interacting with a system I wanted to avoid.

-_-

[Sentinel mod concept: Stabilizer]

Stabilizer ( 12- )

Effect: Sentinel has a 40% chance to prevent it's owner from being knocked down, and increases its owner's Knockdown Recovery Rate by 90%.

Explanation:

• The idea for this mod is based on Animal Instinct. Animal Instinct combines the effects of two related mods (Enemy Sense and Thief's Wit) and provides 60-70% of their bonuses at 60-70% of the combined capacity cost. This mod does the same thing for Handspring and Sure Footed.
• I feel like it makes sense as a Sentinel mod because the Sentinel is always hovering within arm's reach, it's reasonable that it could give you a hand up.
• There's a lot of knockdown effects in Warframe, and they're very annoying. It can be hard to squeeze Handspring or Sure Footed into a crowded Warframe build; this would give us another option for reducing the downtime from knockdowns.

[Augment Proposal for Khora: Strangletrap]

This augment would enhance Ensnare so that it can be cast on a surface within its normal range to create a trap. This trap would last for twice the normal duration of Ensnare, and would trigger when an enemy comes within 6 / 8 / 10m. When triggered, it would last the normal ensnare duration, and would work exactly like one of the vertices of Strangledome - it would grab the target and dangle them from itself. While grabbed, the victim takes damage over time, takes more damage from players, and is subject to friendly fire.

I like this idea because it would allow for more strategic play, and I think it would be fun to watch. The sight of traps yanking enemies abruptly into the air or out over a pit sounds like natural slapstick.

[Orvius bounces off the inside of Gara’s 4]

After the latest update, the Orvius bounces off the inside Gara’s Mass Vitrify, when it should pass through. I didn’t test this with other glaives. I observed this when I was not playing as Gara, if that matters.

[Energy effects for Saryn’s agile idle show behind nav console graphics]

Reproduction steps: 

Equip Saryn, equip Saryn’s agile animation, go into the orbiter bridge and stand so that one of Saryn’s hands is between the camera and the navigation console.

Effect:

When Saryn does her idle animation, the energy around her hands will appear behind the console instead of in front of it.

Observed using Saryn Prime with the Integra skin equipped.

[Alternative idea for Saryn’s spores]

This is a response to the Dev Workshop on revising Saryn 2.0’s spores, available here.

The lack of spore spread on death from tick damage seems really unnatural to me. We want Saryn to feel powerful, but not to eat entire maps by herself while staring into a corner.

I propose that Spores change from being primarily a damaging power to primarily a utility power.

Let the spores spread on death from tick damage, but reduce their tick damage output. Make them like Hydroid’s puddle, where their damage is a percentage of their victim’s max health, say 1% per second per spore. (not escalating like Hydroid, just a flat 1% per second) So your spores can still clear a map, but not overwhelmingly quickly, and not so quick that they kill things before they can infect others.

Keep the escalating damage output from the overall spore infection, but don’t apply it to the spores’ tick damage. Instead, apply it as a bonus to damage dealt by Toxic Lash and Miasma, when targeting creatures infected by spores. This way you get access to that extra damage in a more active way.

Also, make targets infected with spores show up on the mini-map for Saryn, regardless of range, and maybe let her see them through walls within affinity range. This helps her find her victims to kill them more effectively.

If that’s not enough to compensate for the loss of spores damage, maybe also reduce damage output from spore infected targets by 10% per spore.

Lastly, multiple Saryns shouldn’t be competing for victims. My spores should be your spores. The spore meter should reflect everyone’s spores, not just my own. I should be able to see spored targets on the minimap even if someone else put the spores on them.

[Titania feedback]

Been playing Titania a lot for Plague Star. Wanted to provide some suggestions based on my experience.

Tribute a bit clumsy to use. The knockback it inflicts is fun, and the damage is good, but it takes too long to cast. The gimmick of collecting the souls left behind after using it is interesting, but impractical. Titania's squishy stats suggest she should always be far away and / or moving. But casting Tribute requires you to stand still, and picking up the left-over soul requires you to get close. Also, souls are tricky to collect in Razorwing mode

I suggest that Tribute's be made a one-handed ability, so you can cast it while moving, reloading, etc. I also suggest that the souls she creates should float towards her, to make them easier to collect.

Lantern has good potential, but is hard to use effectively. It's nice that it crowd-controls that one enemy plus all their friends, but usually the enemy's residual momentum carries them out of position immediately. Also, they tend to float up off the ground, so nobody gets into their damaging radius. When I use Lantern, I want the zones it creates to stay put, not float around. Also, I can't use Lantern proactively, since it has to target a specific enemy.

I suggest that Lantern be changed so that it doesn't target an enemy. Instead, you would cast it at a point on the ground or on a wall, and a glowing wisp would appear there. The wisp would float out a short distance from that point - probably less than two meters - and then remain stationary. The attraction and damage radius would emanate from the wisp, and maybe the attraction radius would show as an energy aura on the ground. This would allow me to lead enemies away, instead of simply distracting them where they are.

Razorwing

• Lots of fun, powerful, and good overall.
• Her inertia is too high - I get that Archwings are slow to stop, but Titania is a little faerie, she should be able to stop on a dime.
• I like the way it takes her some time to get up to top speed - this helps her to not run into stuff indoors too much.
• I think her top speed should be higher - flying around in faerie mode should be at least as fast as bullet-jumping around, without taking mods into account. It feels like it's slower.
• The lunge she gets for melee is lots of fun
• There's not a lot of reasons to use melee, since she's so fragile and her guns do more damage.

I suggest that the speed with which Razorwing coasts to a stop be increased, so she feels more precise to control in mid-air, and that her top speed be stepped up to match what she can achieve on foot with bullet-jumping. I also suggest that melee kills while in Razorwing grant buffs as if you had hit the target with Tribute. That would give a good reason to use melee, without giving it too much extra power.

[Amprex alt fire]

Ok. Yes, I know. The Amprex is already one of the best guns in the game, it doesn't need an alt-fire. I just thought of this, and thought it would be fun, and thought I'd suggest it anyway.

What if we give the Amprex an alt-fire like the one the Tenora has. A charged shot which uses 10 rounds of ammo, deals 10 times the damage of its normal mode, and switches its stats around a bit. The Amprex normally has high crit and moderate status, so this shot would have moderate crit and high status. And it would chain, because it's the Amprex. It would be fun to watch, and useful to proc status on a few heavy enemies before lighting them up.

[QoL - make the Zarr's alt-fire just shoot the barrage]

The Zarr's alt-fire toggles between two fire modes, and one of those fire modes can blow up in your face. You can look at the bottom right of the screen to see which mode you're in, but if you forget, and shoot a cannonball when you intended to shoot a barrage, you're dead.

Compare to the Euphona Prime, which also has two fire modes, but instead of toggling, its alt-fire just shoots the second fire mode. You always know what mode you're going to shoot, and you don't have to spend any time switching - more efficient, faster, and less error-prone.

Please change the Zarr so that it's primary fire always shoots the cannon, and it's alt-fire always fires the barrage.

[QoL request - better usability for Hysterical Assault]

Was playing around with Valkyr's Hysterical Assault augment recently, and I found it difficult to get it to activate. Too often, the enemy I was trying to target was out of range or not right under the exact center of the reticule, and so Hysterical Assault was like, "there's nothing there, lol" and did nothing. Targets which are farther away make this problem worse, ie. the more you need it, the less it helps. I'm on PS4, and using a controller doesn't help either.

This is particularly relevant now, given the impending release of Sanctuary Onslaught. Valkyr with Hysterical Assault should be a go-to pick for high speed murder, but at present the ability feels too finicky to be reliable.

So, I have two requests related to this issue.

One, could we please get some generous auto-aim for Hysterical Assault? I feel like it should trigger on the closest enemy who is touching the reticule at all. The target shouldn't need to be at the exact center, I should be able to just look in their direction, slap the button, and go. I shouldn't "miss" if the dot at the center of the reticule happens to pass between their legs or something.

Two, can we please get some kind of a visual indication on the reticule when a target is lined up and within range for Hysterical Assault? Something like what the glaives get in dual-wield mode to indicate the timing for a perfect throw. Using the ability as it is, I felt like I needed to aim at something and run towards it while mashing the button to get Hysterical Assault to go off. I should be able to tell at a glance whether or not that ability is good to go.

[Titania augment suggestion: Razorfly Formation]

Titania's Razorfly Drones currently do their own thing and attack whoever they feel like attacking. This is useful, since they generate a lot of threat and draw off attacks, but it would be fun to be able to change their behavior. In particular, I'd like them to stay near me and assist with my attacks, like the Options from Gradius.

Toward this end, I propose an Augment Mod for Titania named "Razorfly Formation", as follows:

• Razorfly drones no longer seek out and attack enemy targets. Instead they orbit Titania in an irregular swarm.
• When Titania fires her Dex Pixia, the drones move into a circular formation around her (with the plane of the circle being perpendicular to the angle along which she is firing) and fire shots along parallel paths. Their shots should benefit from the player's equipped primary weapon mods, in the same way that Dex Pixia does. 
• When Titania fires without aiming, the circle of drones orbits around her center of mass, keeping the spread of shots wide. When she aims, the circle tightens up and moves a bit in front of her, narrowing the field of fire.
• When Titania swings her Diwata, the drones swirl around her, dealing damage in an area of effect. This attack should benefit from the player's equipped melee weapon mods, in the same way that Diwata does. 

[Zephyr Tailwind: tap to hover, charge to dash]

The recent improvements to Zephyr's Tailwind are excellent, and the ability is very fun to use, but I feel that it has a few issues. Specifically:

• A high duration build makes Tailwind go very very fast. This is great on the Plains of Eidolon, but makes Tailwind far too fast for indoor areas. 
• The hover is great, but using a charge mechanic to activate it makes it difficult to use in the heat of battle and hard to get exactly the desired height. The fact that you have to land to hover also severely limits Hover's utility.

I propose that these issues can be corrected by switching the normal Dash effect from a tap activation to a charge activation, and setting the Hover effect to use tap activation instead.

• When on the ground, tapping the ability would launch you a small distance into the air (about the height of a double-jump) and activate the Hover effect. The distance this ground activation launches Zephyr should not scale with any of her stats, so that a ground-hover always gets you to the same vertical height, whatever your build. This consistent outcome should align well with level designs, allowing Zephyr players to more easily use Hover in the heat of battle.
• When in midair, tapping the ability would cause you activate the Hover effect immediately. If you're in motion (or falling) you would coast quickly to a stop. This would allow players to use Hover to prevent a fall, and would give us more precise control of our position when hovering.
• Whether on the ground or in the air, whether hovering or not, charging the ability would activate the usual Dash effect. A partial charge would have lower velocity and lower cost. This would allow Zephyr players to be more precise in their Dashes, and should make Dash usable indoors with a high-duration build.

I also propose the following minor quality of life changes:

• While hovering, you should be able to refresh the hover effect. This would allow players to hover in one place as long as they desire, provided they have the energy to do so.
• While hovering, you should be able to make small adjustments to your position with the movement keys.
• Activating Hover should reset your ability to jump, as if you had touched the ground, and you should be able to end Hover early by jumping. This would allow players to make larger adjustments to their hover position without resorting to a Dash, at the cost of another Hover activation.
• While the Dash effect is active (ie. actively propelling you) the direction Zephyr is travelling should continuously track the camera. That is, instead of Zephyr simply zooming in the direction she was looking when you started the Dash, you should be able to change course by looking elsewhere. This would help players to get the results they intend with their Dash, and should make Dash feel more like flying.
• You should be able to end a Dash early by activating the Hover effect.

[Can we please use Valkyr's Rip Line for fishing?]

The game prevents you from using your abilities while you have a fishing spear out. Just change it so Valkyr's Rip Line is exempt and can still be used. From a programming perspective, you'd probably need to actually put Rip Line into some kind of special fishing mode, so misses don't drag you to the bottom of the river.

[Can we please use Valkyr's Rip Line for fishing?]

Silly request, I know. I also realize that this would bypass the existing fishing spear advancement path, but surely getting Valkyr is more work than grinding Ostron rep up to Rank 3. It makes sense; if I can catch Grineer with Rip Line, I should be able to catch fish. It's somewhat thematically appropriate for Valkyr's cat-like theme to have her be good at snatching fish out of the water. If you're bad at fishing, it gives you a way to make the experience easier. And it would be fun and funny.