CrownOfShadows

Haha! xD

So I've been playing enough plague star to have finally picked up Nova again and gotten pretty decent with a very niche build: the max range wormhole build, with escape velocity and power donation. Nova's very unique in the way she builds and what she does. A few things irritated me consistently as I returned to her, TWIMC: The wormhole should be a hole, not a door. This has always bothered me. The door portal feels cheap, like the VFX department was on vacation that week (it was a long time ago when WF was young I know. It's fine, but it could be way better). It should be a sucking vortex as the name implies The wormhole could probably be tweaked in the way it targets. It's deliciously fast and responsive, but the targeting feels like it should maybe have some forgiveness. You know how the Tenet Envoy targets? Sort of like that but with terrain. Like if you target terrain too close it tracks over the surface to it's max distance, or perhaps a % of that distance based on how you target the ground... same for floors and walls. I also would investigate whether it's possible to make the exit a little blurry - geographically and visually. Exiting tends to be extremely disorienting and softening it slightly would probably be good. Her null star doesn't actually work very good as health protection, even with the fission augment. I'd recommend adding a UI HP DR indicator and also have a lingering effect added so that when you lose stars the DR slowly decreases over time rather than insta-erasing. This is something I've also noticed when I've tried to use it as a helminth (notably on Inaros). It feels like wet tissue paper instead of protection and the stars evaporate almost instantly. Visual side note: the stars don't look cool. They should be stars, not ping-pong balls. Alternatively this would be a fine candidate ability to rework in the form of overguard. Antimatter is of course not a great ability and should be completely overhauled or replaced - it's helminth fodder 100% of the time. Her base armor value is just a little embarrassingly low. This is probably because of the null star DR, but still you'd have to seriously buff that ability beyond what I suggested above to get it to where it would justify this value. The reason I raise this concern is because she struggles to engage well with shields. Nothing in her kit interacts with shields and she needs so many ability mods to operate that there's no real case to justify investing in them - even with redirection shields only go to 720 - which is not good in modern WF. Basically, figure out how you want her to survive. Is it shields, is it DR with hp tank? Buff accordingly. Thanks for listening, peace.

I can't be the only one xD Didn't think I'd have the stamina honestly, but I got through it. (in case you're wondering - no, there's no special reward for this)

Absolutely not. Lone Story is essential for Pathos Clamp farming, as several have already said. If I forced into the Duviri Experience to get pathos clamps, then I'll miserable waiting an eternity for everyone else to finish their sidequests or they'll be miserable as I try to force an early end. I was confused why there were two at first too, but the Duviri Experience is for people who want take their time and Lone Story is for people who have done that and just need clamps.

Amen to this post. Feels like we're shackled. Let us FIGHT!

This is so true.

I agree with the OP for the most part. Unless there's an event happening or I'm running relics, I play solo now. It's hard to say why exactly - I think it's because it's the only way I can feel any difficulty. I can jump into some high content and after half an hour or so I can feel a little bit of a challenge. Squads, especially fully kitted squads, are just so strong that everything insta-melts in every direction. I think it's also because the only thing I have left to do is tinker with builds, and I prefer to be solo when I test them out and refine them. Mostly when I'm in a mission these days, that's what I'm there for, it's certainly not because I need anything from that mission. And lastly I think because - depending on the mission type - it's just nice not to have to worry about what everyone else is doing; where the aggro is being dragged to, where the spawns are being dragged to, where the affinity and materials are being dragged to, or who can reach the end the fastest, or who can kill the fastest, or is anybody going to get that straggler or that thrall, is that dude really afk, does anybody have the disk, is anyone ever going to help me open this door, did that guy really leave after one round, am I the only one getting power cells, is this the 5th time I've rez'd you dude what is your build, all that stuff. Can just chill and play at my own pace. That stuff probably doesn't irritate the average player as much, but after you play the game too much it can really start to grate on you. It's partly because of the mission designs, partly because all skill levels are mixed together.

Hmmm the more I think about this the more I like it. I don't see any down-sides really.

Again we circle back to reaction. The idea is to give reaction time, the same as it is with shield gating. There are multiple ways of getting out of danger and back into the fight afterwards: shields (don't forget these health tanks DO still have shields AND shield gates), operator, overgaurd, a ton of helminth options and various abilities, arcanes, companions. Um, multiple hp bars is not complicated. We don't need multiple PHDs to get that working. It's hard to find an older game mechanic than multiple hp bars in all of gaming history. These arguments have sounds but how exactly would it be exploited? How exactly would it be abused? How exactly would it bite you in the ass later? These sound like hand wave dismissals. I mean no matter what mechanic you introduce it always has a risk of being exploited. Unless you have a specific case in mind this argument feels empty. Making warframes invincible is a much worse idea than building some one-shot safety into health imo, if that's what you mean by tackling it at the source. There needs to be some danger. In fact, I think we need a lot more danger in general, but we're talking mostly about level-capping in this thread, so we need to find ways of making tanks feel semi-immortal up to the top of the scale while still keeping the danger just as real and simultaneously not making regular content laughable. While on the surface attenuation seems like a good choice for this I don't think it is in reality because it's just erasing all the danger and equalizing it. Thus, once you get your frame above the threshold, you'd be invincible in any content. While that might sound like what you want (the same as shield gating), I really don't think it's healthy for the same reason I didn't think shield-gating abuse is/was healthy. Right now tanking feels good because you know your limits. As soon as you become invincible, it will stop feeling good to tank. Ideally, I think it should be really, really hard to level cap with either shield gating or tanking, but possible. Currently it's relatively simple to shield gate to cap, and completely impossible to tank (unless you're cheesing somehow). Even the best tanks really start to struggle around Level 300 in my experience. So personally I'd find ways of first equalizing shields and tanks as much as possible. If the best tanks get one shot around 300, all shield builds should also start to tap out around then. If shields can cake walk to 9999, tanks should too, but cake walking isn't healthy. For this reason I think it might be better to leave tanking as it is and instead emaciate shield builds until they hit the same thresholds, but for whatever reason DE hates that idea. I'd be really interested to know what percent of the community actually goes to level cap (not in the circuit), and how often. I feel like it's probably less than 1% and that they only do it very rarely, and this is probably why DE doesn't care much about equalizing - they have to design for the masses. In which case... well, if you look at it from that perspective, maybe things are in a good spot xD But whatever the ceiling is, it should be the same for both play styles imo.

Sure, so change it so that regen doesn't start until after the hp gate delay is over? Or better yet (because Wisp/Oberon/Trinity/Gloom exist and are a way bigger issue than the Aura) put the hp gates on a cooldown, so they only trigger every so often. Or if hp bars or gray health were used you could make it so only one bar could be healed. Lots of ways to fix a technical quibble like this.

I see what you're saying but I don't like the idea of attenuation as a solution. It seems like that erases the point of levels and scaling in the first place. It would be like effectively capping enemy levels at 250 or something (depending on the exact math ofc). This is the whole reason DE uses attenuation in the reverse situation - they're trying to erase OUR scaling to even the playing field on our side for the enemy. If we do that in the opposite direction it would erase enemy scaling and level the playing field. See what I mean? - it would be the same as just not having scaling as a mechanic at all.

Eh... I don't see this as an issue at all - I mean if we're comparing it to shield gate "abuse" then it's exactly the same. It just provides reaction time and avoids one-shots - that's the whole point really, it's not about being immortal it's about not being one-shot, I don't see how that's "useless". The only other way I can think of to take hp & armor into super high content would be to just provide more health - instead of hp-gates give 50k hp - same philosophy (avoid one shots) just not as fool-proof because some big damage might happen. Like you can make these same arguments you're making about shields - ''you can't regen shields while invul, or if you can it would be abused.' People don't die as soon as the shield gate timer expires though - they react.

I've suggested a "health-gate" many times. This can be achieved through gray-health (although overguard kinda stole that spot) or through checkpoints in the health bar itself (75%, 50%, 25%), or through multiple health bars.

I'll continue to suggest just making all augments exilus. It doesn't disrupt build diversity or power (except in a few cases), provides competition for PSF, and DE might actually do it as it's a very low-hanging fruit.

I disagree with a subscription not necessarily on principle but because I would never personally use it. The only real problem with a subscription in practice that I can see is WF's content island release strategy - people would forget about warframe and then come back for a release, get the subscription maybe, and then immediately cancel it, wait 3-9 weeks, repeat. Subscriptions only work when there is continuous new product, it saves people from making regular purchases. Maybe if it was like year-long subscription or something, but it would probably have to be expensive to balance it and that would probably turn a lot of people off. I think the main problem with WF at L+ levels is the same it's always been: there's just nothing to do. No reason to log in. No reason to play anything except to tweak or tinker. The journey's done.

For regular starchart this is absolutely, 100% true. For SP, enemies tend to last longer and so melee has some time to be useful, but it's still not as good as primaries. The higher up in the SP I go, the more my melee tends to comes out despite it being less powerful. This depends a lot on the squad too. If you're with a really powerful squad even the SP will melt faster than you can reach them with melee. I've had this happen many times, even had it happen on the latest Archon hunt. I don't think this is the average SP experience, but it does happen when your squad is full of heavily kitted people who know the game inside and out. This is why people at the top complain about there being no difficulty but people in the middle think they're crazy. I love melee, I love the feeling of fighting, of contact, of danger that comes with it, I like being in the mud, even if it's worse I prefer it. Gunplay is fine, but I don't love it. The longer I play WF, the more I play alone :(

Lol....

Well, maybe I should clarify why this is a problem. I played the Duviri Experience only about 20 times before I was completely burned out on it. That was enough to fund most of the items.... but not the incarnons. After that, and since then, I only speed run the Lone Story to get pathos clamps and collect things from the plants if I run the circuit. So basically, after working through all the content in Duviri, I was able have enough materials for most things (except Kullervo when he released, which I had to go do dedicated farm for). What this means is that there is... No reason for me to play the Duviri Experience ever again (like most content islands, it's farmed and done) I seem to get enough residual materials from the plants for all other incarnon materials. Plants don't give pebbles. I still have an occasional need for Pathos Clamps but get those through the Lone Story speed run Incarnons still ask for 100 nacreous pebbles Why this is a problem is because I have to make dedicated Duviri Experience trips to go get pebbles AND ONLY pebbles. Nothing else. JUST PEBBLES. Now you might think that it's fast, and I agree it's not the worst farm in Warframe, but it is NOT a good time. If you doubt that, I would challenge you to check your current pebble count, go to Duviri, and farm exactly 100 additional pebbles. It's not as fast as you're pretending it is, and it is definitely not fun after the 20th dive. Now if you're still (for some unknown reason) regularly playing the Duviri Experience (which would honestly amaze me) and just slowly doing all the activities including fishing, then sure, you'll accumulate a lot of random materials and this won't be a big issue for you. But I lost all reason to play the Duviri Experience long before even Kullervo released and the only reason, the ONLY one, for me to go back... is only for pebbles. Lastly let me clarify that I now have finished every single Incarnon (including all wraith and prisma and prime variants, but not the mk-1 or some of the basics because I can't be bothered). The only one I don't have is the Zylok Prime which just released. Listen. I have the actual incarnon, it's sitting in my inventory right now. I do not have 100 pebbles. The problem is such that I cannot even summon the will to go get another 100. I've already made dedicated maw runs for both Kullervos and many of the other incarnons. I'm tired of doing it. I'm tired. No more. Maybe in a few more weeks if I lose my mind I'll go do that, but right now that incarnon is just sitting in my inventory waiting for pebbles. If it was 50.... MAYBE I can summon the will. Not 100. I'd even go so far as to say every instance that requires 100 pebbles, not just incarnons, should be lowered to 50. You just should not ask people to fish that much.

The 100 nacreous pebble requirement for various incarnons should be lowered to 50 Thanks

In this latest devstream they mentioned that they reintroduced the key system for the Abyss of Dagath as a way to test whether players would organize groups. Two things: first, that is a poor way to test that because it was not communicated at all, secondly if you want prebuilt squads (for things like raids) you need to have content that requires specific warframes, not content that requires keys or items. There's a world of difference between saying you must have X, Y & Z gear wheel items in your squad and saying you must have a healer, dps, tank in your squad (or when it comes to WF other things). Gear items are just a checkbox to fill out, and people would generally rather solo that if possible than deal with the hassle of organizing a group. One is about complicating the entry to the mission, the other is about complicating the actual gameplay. One of those things is a genuine difficulty lever, the other is only frustrating. I'm not against prebuilt squadplay, although it does tend to create elitism and thus toxicity, but on the other hand can introduce some really meaningful gameplay if done well. I think that some things that should seriously be considered for any content that requires specific squad setups are... A squad finder or lobby system. Trying to organize squads via recruit chat is hard enough even when everyone is trying to bring the same thing (relics). There needs to be an automated system to help players form squads, and the more complicated the mission and/or the mission requirements the more this is true. Clarity about what is needed. You need to tell players what they need (and why) before they try to find a group. Sooner or later it comes down to experience vs newcomer, but you still need to be clear about what is expected. This is still a problem for tridolons. Players doing them for the first few times have no clue wtf is going on because it's never explained to them anywhere. I'm not saying provide a tutorial for complicated content - and there is some real magic to letting players figure out how to solve things on their own, but you need to prep newcomers to some degree when it comes to complicated missions otherwise it just creates frustration. With the tridolon example, communicating to players that they need madurai, healing, how to use lures and how many are needed for each, how to take the shards to spawn the next one and where.... are all things that should be in the game as advance knowledge. IMO the best way to do this is to introduce each needed element to the player and show how it is used before demanding they use it. That way, when a player queues up for a mission that requires specific things, they have already been trained on how to operate and what is needed. They might not have the experience to do it efficiently, but at least they have some idea what to do. Lastly, let me talk about design space for squadplay. Warframe is not designed for it. Every frame is designed to be self-sufficient (especially in modern WF) and any warframe can solo any content. HOWEVER, I think there is still a great space for squad interaction, and instead of fixing frames to be squad dependent you can fix enemies and/or environments to demand it. As I see it, this takes 6 possible forms in WF: Juicers (Wisp, Citrine, Harrow) DPS (Mesa, Saryn, etc etc) DR (Citrine, Baruuk, Styanax, Rhino, etc) CC (Khora, Hydroid, etc) Invisibility (Ivara, Loki, Octavia, etc) Safe Space (Limbo, Frost) Content can be designed to cater to all of these categories, and then compounded so that specific squad setups are needed, with each frame contributing it's specialty. There might be raid sections that require invisibility, for example, or that require great DR, or great DPS, or their might be environmental cataclysms that require safe spaces, etc. I would note that it's important no single squad member failing at their job bring the mission to it's end as well - rather that there be other but more difficult ways of dealing with any challenge. For example, if you need to get through the invisibility section but your Loki is out of energy - perhaps there's a long way around. Stuff like that.

6. Chroma 7. Vauban 8. Atlas 9. Oberon 10. Limbo 11. Trinity

The playerbase has shown time and again that they don't want BAD PvP. That's a very important distinction.

Well, mods aren't infinite, so kicking the can down the road a bit is all that needs to be done until another 20-50 mods appear, and DE seems to have mostly stopped innovating with mods so I don't see that happening anytime soon. No matter what you do players will always tend towards efficiency (despite what people try to claim on this forum about 'building to have fun'). I introduced the effectiveness gradient, the bonus activation, the valence and the corruption to all combat this natural efficiency proclivity by creating meaningful trade-offs. The more difficult it is to decide what mod should be used where, the better it is imo. It's far from perfect, but I'm just throwing the concept out there. What would YOU do about all the forgotten mods and the tightness of builds?

So there was some bonuses on an arbitration that made me raise an eyebrow just now... and I was like, heck, haven't played an Arbitration in forever, so I got into it. It was a disruption on Lua. Got through the first 4 conduits, round 1. One guy left. Another guy died and then left immediately after. Thanks for showing up guys -_-

Note that everything here is just a guess. There might be 10 slots per tree (enough to get into deeply unused mods), or 2. There might be 3 slots with bonuses active allowing you to put in the full gladiator set or augur set, or instead of dropping the power so low it might never go below half. It's all adjustable. Things like equilibrium and flow might be classified under abilities idk. The ability tree is unfortunately still very stacked and also the most dangerous, but there's also a lack of interesting "sub-par" ability mods. The corrupted idea is problematic but interesting. It would be hard to create counters and maybe it's just a pool of generic counters rather than targeted ones idk. Note that I've combined exilus and augments in the same tree like of course should be done xD *also I included steel fiber here which was a mistake - it's mutually exclusive with umbral fiber so something else would have to be in that slot Oh and also - I'm completely ignoring capacity for this example, but capacity limits could be a real thing to deal with in such a scenario. Whether or not each tree would have it's own capacity idk. Oh and forma, this could also be a forma hog, depending on said capacity limits