Brucely
-
Posts
124 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Brucely
-
-
On 2019-09-13 at 3:58 PM, (XB1)Knight Raime said:
As far as the Mach rush suggestion i'm unsure how to elaborate on it further. the design of the ability seems to be going all out with less control. The whole fantasy of it seems like sacrificing pretty much everything just to be fast. By giving him the ability to dash omni-directionally I feel it moves away from the fantasy of moving fast and starts moving towards the fantasy of being nimble/agile. I can see how the shorter bursts of speed can start to bridge the gap in that direction. But ultimately I don't think it fits his fantasy as far as kit design goes. Which is why I can't get behind it.
I see where you are coming from, like comparing Gauss to a drag racer, but we are just going to have to agree to disagree. Gauss is very nimble and agile. Sure, Mach Rush doesn't turn on a dime, but you can stop on a dime, whether by just ending the cast, jumping, aiming or hitting a wall, and then you can quickly redirect and recast.
--
On 2019-09-13 at 3:58 PM, (XB1)Knight Raime said:At the same time if battery/redline upkeep was insanely easy it devalues the whole battery mechanic to begin with. Part of which is learning how to build your battery and keep it up so it feels like you're making yourself better and better.
No, it shouldn't be insanely easy, but also it shouldn't be boring. The battery build mechanic for Redline is too passive, not rewarding enough. You reach it by being as mobile as possible, and using the abilities as much as possible. That's it. No active link to using your abilities and mobility against enemies. This results in players just looking for long hallways to run down, or jumping around in circles like maniacs. Instead, they should be encouraged and rewarded with extra charge for running through mobs, catching many enemies in thermal sunder, and getting kills at high speed and in parkour.
--
On 2019-09-13 at 3:58 PM, (XB1)Knight Raime said:I have a pretty firm stance on the whole topic about "team frames." If I were forced to pick some sort of team utility for Gauss i'd rather they work on his 3 to make it more applicable/desireable for teams than make Gauss yet another generic team buffing frame. We already have so many of those.
Fair, agree to disagree and all that, but I'm curious how you define a 'generic team buffing frame'? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Trinity is an example of this for you. Trinity: best healer, energy generator, but generally boring to play for many people. It's kinda like playing medic in Team Fortress 2, where your main job is to stay alive and give heals, rather than blow S#&$ up. Gauss, in his current state, is hardly like that, and will never be like that because he and Trinity are thematically very different. Gauss is speed, while Trinity is healing.
That's not say sticking to those themes needs to be strictly selfish and one-dimensional. Have you played Nezha? Primarily a speedy CC tank who can nuke rooms by comboing Divine Spears and Blazing Chakram, but then also steps into team utility by buffing damage to enemies AND health and energy pickups with Chakram. Why can't Gauss also have a bit of team utility like that? DE could make Gauss's Redline buffs sharable like I described, and he would be far from a 'generic team buffing frame', don't you think?
-
Last night, I played a 50 minute grineer disruption arbitration on the mars tileset and had a blast playing Gauss. I was running with Quick Thinking and a team of 2 rhinos (1 built for beyblading) and a gara. I died only once at 48 minutes, while everyone else died 2-4 times. I was only outdamaged by the beyblade.
The whole experience has me thinking more on the fun vs. function feedback and suggestions I've posted. Overall, I'd say Gauss is nearly fine as is, but he could use some small-ish improvements. Of course, there could always be more improvements to make him better, great, whatever, but the following I think are the bare essential changes would make Gauss perfectly fine.
--
Redline
- There needs needs needs to be some kind of sweet audio and visual cue for when you hit 100%. Not only will that be awesome and satisfying, but it'll be a useful way players can know when to cast Kinetic Plating for 100% without having to look at a relatively small UI element in the lower corner.
- The battery build mechanic for Redline is too passive, not rewarding enough. Here's the thing. When the player triggers Redline, they want that 100%. Maybe they don't need it, as the buffs are still strong without it, but they still want it. And they need to reach it by being as mobile as possible, and using the abilities as much as possible. That's it. This results in players just looking for long hallways to run down, or jumping around in circles like maniacs. Instead, they should be encouraged and rewarded with extra charge for running through mobs, catching many enemies in thermal sunder, and getting kills at high speed and in parkour. TL;DR battery for redline should build up even faster due to slide and glide kills, mach rush and thermal sunder hitting enemies.
Mach Rush
- I think there's one QoL tweak to Mach Rush that stands far above any other ones which have been suggested, and that's making it so that mach rush can be used sideways and backwards. It'll make the ability feel a lot more responsive and we'll get more use out of it for short dashes, especially while aiming. This doesn't mean new animations, it just means he quickly turns so that left, right, or backwards becomes the new forwards, without reorienting the camera.
Passive
1. The current passive is... whatever. Lukewarm. Milquetoast. I think there could be something more thematically tied to his speed, run and gun theme, as in faster move speed while aiming, and less or no slowdown when firing while sprinting or walking.
--
That's it. Those are, in my opinion, the most important changes Gauss needs.
-
2
-
-
Appreciate your detailed reply. Before I get into it, I just want to say that a lot of my thoughts are based on how I enjoy playing Warframe, which I fully realize is not how everyone plays Warframe. But I share my opinions anyways, cause why not and maybe someone else will relate. So, how I enjoy playing Warframe is by moving as much as possible, with less focus on face-tanking damage, being tanky in general, and nuking rooms. I prefer frames that can provide some kind of team utility, but I generally don't look to set up specific team compositions with other people. I don't like finding places to camp and just sitting still for 40 minutes, even if doing so makes things more efficient or whatever. Also, bandaid augments that feel like they should just be a natural part of an ability frustrate me so much. Keep that in mind as I respond.
--
12 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:His current passive is fine. As adaptation and his energy conversion both work off his shields. I could see buffing up his passive from 80% to 100% when at max redline to further this. But I don't think it needs to be a fundamental change. Plus Gauss already moves faster than any other frame base sprint speed wise. And slapping sprint speed related mods furthers this while making his mach rush faster. I get the intent here but I don't think it needs to happen. Especially when his mobility in tileset missions is already almost borderline excessive.
I don't have a huge problem with his current passive, and I don't really see the problem with adding one or two more passive effects. Sure, it doesn't need to change, but I would think it could be more fun with some changes. And sure, his extreme mobility in those narrow corridors is hardly elegant, but man is it fun and actually useful if you just commit to it. I've used a lot of Gauss with and without Rush, and I think he plays much better with Rush.
--
12 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:Number 2 is a nice QoL thing but I don't like the idea of number 1. It turns the ability from a forward movement ability into a defacto dodge ability. Which is cool and all but I think that's more suited for a frame like Zephyr than Gauss. Number 3 sounds like a nice augment though. As for the interaction portion I think the former half fits as a nice qol thing but the latter with sunder is again more of an augment idea.
Sure, "hard stop" is probably a small neat idea that would be more fitting to an augment. But then also maybe it's too small of an addition to really be a worthwhile augment? Also, I think it would be a lot of fun to have at least some kind of innate synergy/combo between Thermal Sunder and Mach Rush. Another idea I've had is having an interaction when you Mach Rush into someone under the effects of Thermal Sunder. Frozen enemies shatter if not get dealt massive damage, while burning enemies get ragdolled away, spreading the fire proc in a small aoe wherever they land. As for giving Mach Rush backwards and sideways mobility, I don't really get your point as to why not. Can you elaborate?
--
12 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:I could only get behind reducing his potential tank ability on the % if his DR applied to all types of damage. But since it doesn't apply to things like toxin it gives him a strong survival potential but with a clear weakness. The fact that it gives you energy based on damage shot at you rather than damage you actually take and it removes cc effects used against you gives it all the utility it needs. As both indirectly help his survival as a movement frame that lives from moving and ccing enemies.
What do you mean "damage shot at you rather than damage you actually take"? Like, you don't need to actually take damage to health or shields in order to get energy? Rather, enemies just need to shoot into an invisible area around you? If that's what you mean, where did you get that info? I'm just curious, because again I have no strong feelings about Kinetic Plating. I mean, having to take hits to get its energy conversion while I'm using the frame's speed as much as possible to not get hit feels counterproductive. But yes, it does provide an extra bit of survival.
--
12 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:Personally I disagree. The shrinking range makes no sense when you can't proc the hard cc effects without redline/double cast. Cold merely slightly slows and heat does little damage. Having to double cast also means much higher cost for these effects. And the armor strip isn't a fixed % and caps at 50% which you need 100% battery for. I'm down with letting sunder stop your mach rush sprint for sure. But his 3 needs some serious QoL overhaul.
Sounds to me like you really just want a straight buff to the ability, which I get. I mean, why not, right? My guess is DE made the ability the way it is for the sake of balance, and not stepping on the toes of other frames too much. The way I see it, Thermal Sunder is more a CC ability than a damage dealing one. In fact I'd say its damage and armor stripping is kinda irrelevant at most levels of play, including arbitrations. I think the most balanced buffs that could be applied to Thermal Sunder are to the armor stripping, and maybe making successive castings of the same damage type have decreased energy cost.
--
12 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:I'd say zero battery cost and 100% DR against most types of damage is enough of a fireworks effect.
Couple of problems with this. One that I didn't address which is the duration issues and how long it takes to reach 100%, which I think is fair to say that it's currently too long. I don't think it's really fun to have to build for insane duration, spend 20-30 seconds getting the battery to 100%, and then only get 20-30 seconds to actually enjoy its benefits, including the zero battery cost. Like I said, I feel more relief than excitement (fireworks) about that... and then the ability's over. When things get crazy, 20-30 seconds of 100% redline feels like nothing.
12 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:-sigh- No frame is on his level as far as dpsing goes. wisps buffs are over sold. She's not a meta pick because her buffs are not amazing. Harrow's entire useability is dependent on team comp. Sure, he could spam his 4 for a crit boost and temp invincibility for his team. But that's costly and honestly not as good as being a team buffer goes. Harrow ultimately needs trash to be effective and that's not a common thing for most end game comps/activities. Both frames have more direct team utility than Gauss does. Ultimately I don't think that states Gauss needs changes or that other frames are better than him. As he currently out dps's damage buffer frames for world bosses. So he already has a role in an end game comp. Where as neither Harrow nor wisp have.
I'm not approaching Gauss in terms of how he fits into the meta, or how he can fit into end game comps. I'm looking at how he can be more fun, functional, rewarding to play. I haven't played Wisp, but I have really enjoyed getting her Haste Mote, especially as Harrow, who I have played a lot of and have almost never had a problem finding trash to kill. Sure, it's a bit harder to use Penance during an Eidolon fight since there's no trash, but that's just one context in a game with many ways to play.
12 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:No. Gauss does not need to give his effects to his team. Further more you're forcing Gauss to have to build then as a team buffer so he doesn't have to hug his allies to give him the buffs. Just look at Chroma and see how trying to force a team synergy out of a kit doesn't work well for optimized comp setups. If Gauss already had some design direction as a team friendly frame then maybe. But he's clearly not. At best I could maybe get behind a well designed augment to fulfill people's desires to make him a team friendly frame. But not shoving it in his kit.
Sure, he doesn't need to. But, at the moment, Gauss feels like a bit much of a selfish frame, and I think it would be nice to make that slightly less so. Again, my preference is frames that have some kind of team utility, so that's coloring my opinions here. Warframes like Nezha, Rhino, Nidus, Garuda, you would be wrong to consider them support frames, and yet they each have a decent smidge of team utility beyond CC or just killing everything. I think Gauss can be the same way.
--
21 minutes ago, -Bv-Concarne said:Sure, but what if impacting enemies with mach rush also damaged them, you are hitting them at high speeds after all.
I've seen that a lot of people want it to have stacking additive collision damage or something, and I understand why. I would be fine with it either way. To me, it is mainly a mobility ability, so I'm having fun whether it does damage or not.
-
Thanks. Mach Rush dealing damage to enemies it hits directly would be nice. I would still want the wall splatter though, and for a bit extra it'd be cool if the wall splatter did additional damage, or even created a small explosion effect. But also I don't see it necessarily as a damage-dealing ability first and foremost.
-
9 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:
That you don’t have a point either.
I do have a point though. Sorry if it wasn't clear before, so I'll repeat.
When comparing Redline's buffs to Harrow's Penance, or Wisp's Haste Mote, sure, Redline might have the highest buffs to fire rate, etc. But, that's all it has, and at some point buffing those things has diminishing returns, like using too much ammo, or not being able to click as fast as it can actually fire. Another way of looking at it, is that at some point you have more than enough fire rate, attack speed, and so on, and anything more than that is excessive.
Redline, Penance, and Haste Mote can all provide you more than enough attack speed. Aside from that, Penance heals, and Haste Mote shares buffs with the team, two things that are useful despite diminishing returns, while Redline's other bonus is making buffing his own abilities, which doesn't fundamentally add that much utility to them.
-
5 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:
At some point everything gets diminishing returns.
Yep. Your point is?
-
(I guess Gauss discussion is spilling out of the pinned post now, so here goes).
Last night, I was playing Gauss on infested survival arbitration on infested ship tileset. As I zipped in and out of mobs to flank and pick off drones, or made mad dashes to life support towers and used the 3 to CC before hitting the tower, Gauss's fun factor finally clicked for me. Still, it all felt kinda basic still, like I could have been playing any other average frame that lacks self-synergy, team utility and interactiveness, but faster.
On the other hand, frames like Wisp, Harrow, Nezha, Volt, all those frames have some aspect of what Gauss does, but they each do something that sets them apart from the other, while also being highly scalable, interactive and also having some use for the team. I think we all want Gauss to be more like that. Here are some ideas I have on achieving that.
--
Passive: I have two ideas for this. First, Gauss moves faster while aiming and shooting to encourage a high-mobility gameplay. Second idea, modding for sprint speed also feeds into modding for power strength. I think it's a cool way to further enforce that for Gauss, speed = power, and it would make him more scalable.
--
Mach Rush: So, so fun. I have mostly QoL tweaks for this ability, but some additional interactions would be cool
-Quality of Life
- Make it castable while strafing sideways and backwards as well. Ideally, you can be aiming and strafing sideways or backwards and immediately zip either of those ways to reposition quickly and get back into aiming.
- Casting 3 or 4 should interrupt Mach Rush instantly, just to make the kit as a whole more snappy and responsive. Often times I want to mach rush right into the middle of a mob to cast 3 and then zip out, but it's hardly smooth when first I have to cancel Mach Rush, and then cast the 3.
- Finally, I think Mach Rush should have a "hard stop", where turning off Mach Rush by stopping movement completely should cast a 180 degree stagger in front of wherever Gauss stops. So, sorta like him crashing into a wall with MR, but less effective, but still giving you some CC and that feeling of being super fast, then stopping, and the air behind you catches up in a big gust that puts everyone on a back foot.
-Interactions: Impacting enemies with Mach Rush should add battery charge, which would help with Redline's charge issues and also give Mach Rush more utility. Also, Mach Rushing out of a Thermal Sunder bubble should add a sort of elemental proc aura to Mach Rush, lasting as long as that bubble's duration. So, like how Kinetic Plating adds slash procs, but instead it's heat, cold or blast procs. Adding that interaction between the two abilities is a part of making the frame more interactive.
--
Kinetic Plating: It's mostly fine, as far as passive damage reduction abilities go. Maybe it's energy generation is insignificant? I dunno, I often forget that it's duration has run out. Maybe it's a little too inferior to things like Warding Halo, Iron Skin Desolate Hands, I could go on, but the point is all those abilities aren't restricted to certain damage types. Yes, KP can give 100% reduction and that's balanced out by only applying to physical, heat and cold, but it's too much of a cliff in effectiveness when it comes to other elemental damages. Instead of zero damage reduction when it comes to other elements, there should be something like 60% reduction at max battery and additional battery drain for each hit taken. Redline could boost that reduction perhaps.
--
Thermal Sunder: Probably the best designed ability in his kit, when it comes to fun and function. The only important QoL thing I already mentioned in the Mach Rush section, having it interrupt Mach Rush. Also, the interaction with Mach Rush that I'll mention again: Mach Rushing out of a Thermal Sunder bubble should add a sort of elemental proc aura to Mach Rush, lasting as long as that bubble's duration. It would be nice if the cold sunder granted some extra battery charge for every enemy caught in it. Also, Thermal Sunder could be given some team utility by adding heat, cold, or blast damage to all teammate attacks done inside of the bubble. Mach Rush could also do bonus damage to targets that are frozen or on fire.
--
Redline: Looks and feels cool, but as far as ultimates go, it doesn't feel very ultimate. It needs another buff to make it stand out. It could be another way for Gauss to have some team utility. There could be more fireworks when you hit 100%.
-Buffs: The way Redline buffs abilities is a nice side dish, but the main course is the attack speed, fire rate, and reload speed buffs. They're great and all, but there are other warframe abilities that do the same thing with better duration, plus major team utility, and they're not even ults. Harrow's Penance heals insanely, duration scales super well without serious duration modding, it interacts well with his 1. Wisp's Haste Mote is for the whole team, and it lasts forever. Here are some buff ideas that could make Redline stand out more as an ult.
- Ammo Injection: You don't have to reload at all and charge weapons just skip their charge completely. Through Waframe Space MagicTM Gauss just feeds ammo into his guns automatically and you can just fire, fire, fire away.
- Other stat buffs: Boost damage, status chance, crit chance/damage, multishot, punch through (only if innate or modded for), projectile speed. Take your pick, mix and match. I'm particular to status, multishot, punch through and projectile speed buffs.
- SFX buff: layer on another sound effect to all attacks performed while redline, just to make it feel more special.
-100% Fireworks: I think we need additional sensory feedback and maybe bonuses for when we hit 100% battery. Right now, when you hit 100% battery in Redline, the first thing that comes to my mind is a whew, don't need to worry about that battery drain anymore. I think the feeling should be more like #*!% yes, I hit 100%. Why not give us some additional audio and visual feedback, like having more a big blast proc Thermal Sunder trigger automatically with a special animation and even more energy FX firing out of the mesh spots that Redline opens up. Maybe even reward us with even more buffs to speed, duration, power strength, whatever to really hit that awwww yeah 100% baby! spot.
-Team Utility: Drafting, or slipstreaming. It's when race car A gets into the air pocket behind race car B, so car A can accelerate with less air resistance. Now, it would be hard for teammates to run behind Gauss in order to share some of his buffs. Why not have Gauss grant teammate Redline buffs by Mach Rushing past/through them while in Redline. This should also grant extra battery gain to encourage going out of your way to help the team.
--
TL;DR Gauss is fun, but his design lacks a level of interactivity and synergy that makes Warframe not only fun but also good to use beyond being really really fast for fun. I have a bunch of ideas to change that, but I also have a lurking suspicion that Gauss will get much needed tweaks in the form of augment mods.
-
4
-
4 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:
Except Gauss provides probably the biggest increase to fire rate, attack speed, etc.
Maybe it does, even with modding, but at some point boosting that stuff gets into marginal differences or diminishing returns. And still, keeping the buffs to only that makes the ability too one-dimensional, which really is the greater sin in my view, especially when it comes to ultimates.
-
5 hours ago, IceColdHawk said:
I played Gauss. Then i went back to harrow again and i was reminded, why does Gauss exist again?
You build Gauss by selecting Harrow. Operator Void Dash covers the speed. Penance covers the speed buffs without the tedium of having to charge and keep up your battery and well covenant...keeps you invincible when needed. And yeah, free energy for everyone after each kill.
I have the same thought as well, though I am still enjoying Gauss for his overall look and theme. But yeah, the big DPS thing that Gauss's ult does is boost attack speed, reload and fire rate. Harrow's Penance and Wisp's Haste emote already do those things, but with added team utility like heals and sharing those boosts with the team.
Redline needs more so it isn't just straight less than those two abilities.
-
I don't play her much anymore, but I will never forget Banshee. She was the first frame whose kit I really enjoyed, and even though I stopped playing her a lot about two years ago, she is still my most played frame. Why did I stop playing her? Well at some point everybody needs something different. Especially if you're me and you played nothing but Banshee.
She's a glass cannon. I find glass cannons exciting to play for their high risk, high reward nature. I only ever used quake for panic-CC. Otherwise, I was all about silence, sonic boom, sonar w/ resonance, moving around a lot, and doing ALL the damage. Playing her gets a little sweaty. I think it's fair to say most people who play Warframe aren't into getting sweaty like that. I don't think any amount of reworking is going to change that, otherwise Banshee becomes a fundamentally different frame.
A tweak that would be super interesting is if Banshee's sonar worked on boss weakpoints (eidolons, orbs, etc.) but maybe with halved effectiveness. My thinking is that the boss-hunting meta of chroma, sniper rifle, and so on, is too narrow. 99% of the game's weapons are left out of that meta. This tweak would let you bring more different weapons into big boss fights, aaaand it would bring banshee for huge team utility. But still, Banshee must be able to move to survive or have a team that can reliably scrape her off the floor. Just a passing idea I had.
-
Some additional thoughts i'm having about Gauss's ability kit. While I'd say all the abilities are fun, none of them are especially useful or spectacular when it comes to damage or utility. Maybe the best is Thermal Sunder for it's quick and effective CC. Kinetic Plating is fine as a defensive ability, but it's a set-it-and-forget-it which is pretty standard for defense abilities. But still, Gauss lacks a singular sort of WOW factor, which I think all the decent and above average frames have. Sure, he's fast, but it's almost sort of a bauble, a hat feather, something that looks cool but isn't super functional. I'm going to quote my own post above about making mobility functional.
2 hours ago, Brucely said:I think one thing that would make a huge difference in tying Gauss's mobility to general damage-dealing is to give him faster movement speed, less friction, more slide while aiming. That could be another passive or it could be something granted during redline. Also, it would be cool if using mach rush while aiming could give you a short dash without taking you out of aim state.
Speaking of short dashes, I think tapping mach rush as it is gives a dash that goes waayy too short a distance. Something more like 5-7 meters would give us more dynamic, high speed control.
Maybe more mobility while aiming is a small thing, but it feels cooler and it makes a difference versus shooting from the hip, where you lose accuracy.
I think the best way to solve Gauss's lack of WOW factor would be to make Redline go farther in feeling more... redline. In particular when it comes to how weapons get buffed. As in, Redline should be the way we overclock our weapons. In comparison to other fire-rate boosting abilities, like wisp's reservoirs (low energy cost) or harrow's penance (heals), redline is just too conservative. Here are some ideas I have for additional weapon changes that Redline could apply.
- Significant status chance and/or crit chance/damage buff and/or multishot buff (obvious buffs, but also more interesting than a straight damage buff).
- Skip reloads and weapon charge times (bows, opticor, ferrox, etc.).
- Massively increase punch through (only if punch through is added via mods or innate) and projectile speed.
- Layer an additional sound and visual effect onto weapons fired while in redline.
Just think of all the variety that this opens up. Imagine going into Redline with a nagantaka and just letting its alt fire rip.
-
I think one thing that would make a huge difference in tying Gauss's mobility to general damage-dealing is to give him faster movement speed, less friction, more slide while aiming. That could be another passive or it could be something granted during redline. Also, it would be cool if using mach rush while aiming could give you a short dash without taking you out of aim state.
Speaking of short dashes, I think tapping mach rush as it is gives a dash that goes waayy too short a distance. Something more like 5-7 meters would give us more dynamic, high speed control.
Maybe more mobility while aiming is a small thing, but it feels cooler and it makes a difference versus shooting from the hip, where you lose accuracy.
-
I too wish there was a Warframe that relied on mobility to not only survive but also maximize damage output. In other words, I wish there was a Warframe that played like TF2's scout. I think there are a lot of design obstacles in the way of really achieving that, but to get close I think a squishy Warframe would need the following set of general mechanics and passives:
- High sprint speed, decreased friction/increased slide (moreso than Nezha), increased roll speed and distance
- High damage reduction during parkour moves (roll, aim glide, slide, bullet jump, any sort of high speed movement) to approximate damage "dodged"
- Some kind of "damage dodged" + "momentum" meter/energy resource that can be leveraged into scaling abilities.
Gauss could be interesting, but we'll have to wait and see.
-
3 hours ago, Alcatraz said:
While I can't disagree with you for the rest of your post, I can tell you that if you think doing bounties is the main and or best way to gain standing, you clearly need to investigate other avenues.
You're right, there are other, probably more efficient ways to gain standing. I've done plenty of fishing and my cetus stuff is maxed out. Haven't done much of the conservation or fishing in Vallis becaaauuuuse..... those things are not what I play Warframe for. While those things are great to have as ways to break up the rhythm, the main draw is the action-centered gameplay, and it needs to be good. And the action on the open world maps is not...good, not even as good as the action in the closed tilesets.
I mean, this is connected to the issue with how much DE expands content. With open worlds, they really started to venture out from the core gameplay experience which Warframe started with. Not that that's a bad thing. They just need to do it well. Bounties need to be done better, to really utilize game mechanics that define "open world" games.
Just a thought.
-
So there's a lot of content locked behind Fortuna and Cetus standing grind. Problem is, I would much rather do Arbitrations or Sortie or something else, but GAH I need to get to the content that's locked behind solaris standing. But then, man oh man, getting through that grind with bounties, the main source of standing, gets tedious and unfun very quickly, for the following reasons:
1. Mission pacing is off (length of missions, time spent in combat, difficulty/intensity of combat).
2. Combat "arenas/terrain" are too flat/simplistic (Ironically, Plains does this better than Orb Vallis).
3. Lack of consequential open world choices.
4. Enemy AI isn't quite adapted enough to the open world.
These four reasons are fairly interlinked, some more so than others, so I'm going to talk about them like that.
Enemy AI & Combat Arenas/Terrain
Now, I know Warframe's enemy AI is fairly limited in terms of how much technical resources they can allot to huge mobs. But, some more behavior variety in the enemy AI will make bounties more interesting than "stay in this area while enemies line up to be shot down like dominos" over and over again. The simple single file death march thing is fine in corridor tile sets, because many end up taking cover around a corner or box, but ho'boy is it a bummer in the open world, especially on super flat areas where there is no cover for them.
It makes things too easy. Spread them out laterally, give them more defensive behaviors like portable cover. Heck, would it be too much (I honestly don't know) to give them some more strategic behaviors, like setting up impromptu machine gun nests with deployable cover and backup and so on? On this point, I think the Plains is better because there are some enemy times and turrets that can definitely #*!% you if you don't immediately take care of them (lookin' at you, mortar turret up on the high hill). Maybe Vallis could use a unit who calls in orbital strikes and air support by visible targeting laser (gamey telegraphing).
A particular issue I have with enemy AI is how they spawn in on Orb Vallis. On the plains, it's done fairly alright I think. The drop ships are okay, the drop pods (loud and epic) are even better. I think the Vallis take on drop pods is the enemies that get "beamed" down. It needs something else, effects wise. The sound is cool, but then visually, they just boop in. Grineer pods emit a lot of smoke, maybe corpus in the vallis could have individual beams that come down and some bright particle FX that DE loves so much so that they don't just boop in.
A big problem with enemy spawns on open world bounties in general is that they often happen too far away from where players/objectives are. It makes the AI feel very unaggressive and too easy. Give them some more fast and exciting ways to spawn in, as if they are actually aggressively attacking. Have an aircraft zip overhead and just drop a troop carrier that slams onto the ground and they come pouring out. Or, instead of individual, give them a large squad drop pod with a turret on top of it. S#&$, give the corpus k-drives as well.
Now, another thing that contributes to enemy AI issues is the terrain they have available to them. On the plains, many bases/static objectives are on hills or in valleys, which is great. You're king of the hill or you're in the kill box. In Orb Vallis, I feel like most of the bounty objectives I get are on flat roads or one-directional slopes of terrain. And it's just... less interesting as enemies have less routes to attack.
Lack of Choice
Speaking of routes to attack, one of the classic features of an open world game is being offered more than one way to approach an objective, and there are real consequences to how you approach and objective. Part of designing multiple approaches to an objective is designing more varied terrain and narrative context.
For example, when doing a spy mission, you can go in quiet and sneaky through the basement filled with traps, and without setting off alarms to get the best mod/component drops possible. OR, you can do it smash and grab style, go in through the front door, blow up everyone, instead of mods/components, get bonus credits (like up to half mil) or resources and bonus xp/standing for sending a message to the corpus/grineer. But then, smash and grab puts them on high alert for the rest of the bounty, while spy keeps alert level low and maybe disables orbital strikes or turns some robotic enemies into allies or something.
Another example, raiding an enemy base, you can go in through the trap-riddled basement and attack from within the base, or you can raid it D-Day style, from land or air, running up a hill or a beach that has cover while mortars and turret fire rain down on you. Or maybe your cell can split up. Two go in via basement to take over turrets or unlock gates while the others wait for the right moment to attack or stop a HVT from escaping when the gates open.
Another example, there's a robotics plant and then there's an airfield. You can only attack one or the other, and which one you take down determines what kind of enemies you will face in the bounty's final stage. OR, the cell splits into two man teams and they try to take them both down at the same time.
There are so many other possibilities, which is a central tenant of open world gaming. Right now though, we only have choice of difficulty, which rewards and how much standing, and how long the mission is. Then it's Point A to B to C etc.
Pacing
Pacing is where all these issues sorta come together. Pace isn't measured as much as it's felt, and how it feels is influenced by intensity/difficulty and actual duration. Enemies spawn in far away and too slowly and they're often walking in a straight line across a wide opening. It's a chore to have to go to them, only to evaporate them in seconds, and then have to do that over and over again is just the very definition of tedium, stuff you do without having to put much effort in but it's a chore regardless. Since they barely have to focus on the mission, their minds wander and they become very aware of time, which makes the pace feel sooooo slooooow. It gets even worse when you have to rinse-repeat for 5 stages. Maybe 5 stages would feel much faster if things were more intense/interesting, but god right now it drags, and with no other option for a decent amount of standing, you have no choice but to do it over and over again. I think it would be much better if we had the option of doing Tier 5 bounties with 3 stages, rather than 5. With only three stages, you could go for quality over quantity. A short yet difficult bounty, maybe with higher objective thresholds (kill 40 enemies instead of 25).
-
12 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:
No, Garudas claws are her unique feature. And they should stay that way.
Well, maybe Garuda's claws are unique in the sense that they don't drain energy like exalted weapons. But I don't think we're talking about making Atlas's Landslide fists a separate equippable weapon. At least I don't really want that.
I just want to be able to mod the Landslide fists separately, like, ya kno, all the other Warframe-specific weapons in the game. The system of "inheriting" your melee weapon's mods is no doubt an outdated system, especially since there's clearly a new, more choice-friendly system in place for so many other weapons. If anything, Atlas's Landslide fists not having this option yet feels like an oversight.
-
1
-
-
23 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:
If a boost to RoF came with a damage nerf per shot, I'd be pretty unhappy. I mean, I know speed has a lot of advantages, but for me, with Primed Shred slotted, it's basically the ideal RoF. I wouldn't be seeing those advantages very often.
I think it's not ideal to have to wait 200 days before you get a mod which makes Veldt's fire rate reasonable. I can see why you would think a damage nerf would come with a fire rate buff, what with DE's 'hugs with kicks' philosophy about making nerfs alongside buffs. But I hope that wouldn't be the case, because I think we all agree that there almost no reason to nerf a semi-auto rifle. Reason being, if you had a semi-auto rifle that one-shotted EVERYTHING to the body(save eidolon joints I suppose), it would still be less efficient than using some of the low effort room wiping meta weapons.
And I think we call agree that the Veldt and semi-auto rifles don't need to be meta meta (and we might all agree that they will be meta) they just need to be not-frustrating to use, say, 20 minutes into Mot, for those of us who enjoy using semi-auto rifles.
-
I also have a lot of love for and thoughts about the Veldt, and the place of semi-auto rifles in the meta in general. But, focusing on what will make the Veldt more usable, I have this to say: overall, making it more viable with some kind of damage/crit/status boost is needed, but not enough.
1. It needs a base fire rate boost to increase dps and usability. Heck, most semi-auto rifles should just fire as fast as you click. We're already using a weapon that's way less efficient than the weapons that can murder a whole room in seconds, why widen the disparity further with click-rate caps?
2. The Veldt needs more alt-fire pizzaz. I like the enhanced zoom, but it doesn't do enough to shake up the clickclickclickclickclick while also giving the weapon some kind of situational benefit. I've posted about this before. The Nagantaka has a magdump, which I wouldn't mind being copy-pasted over to the Veldt, and then its enhanced zoom could just be the default zoom. Alternatively, and my preferred idea, would be to have the enhanced zoom put the gun in a sort of "shotgun" mode, where it fires a handful of rounds at once at some cost of less ammo efficiency and fire rate. It would be for those bombard, heavy gunner, or even eidolon moments.
--
As for the weapon class as a whole, yeah, some kind of added headshot/weakpoint multiplier or combo meter would go a long way in making it more interesting. As I see it, the weapon class is about quickly plinking heads in 1-5 rapid, precise hits. So, encourage and reward that.
-
I think it's overly limiting that Navigator can only be used on projectile weapons. Why not have Navigator apply a different "Navigator-themed" stat and visual effect on hitscan weapons? Here are some ideas I had:
1. Navigator makes hitscan weapons automatically home in on enemy weakpoints. So no matter where you aim on a single enemy, the bullets go to a weakpoint.
2. Using navigator with a hitscan weapon equipped turns your reticle into a big circle (size is range moddable?) and gives the weapon some punch through, so every shot fired from the gun will automatically travel to each target inside the circle and hit it once (for balance: no headshots, additional drain for every 5 enemies hit with a single shot). So yeah, it's kinda like how the Peacemaker works, but not really.
3. Buzlok in ability form. Activating Navigator with a hitscan weapon equipped causes Ivara to fire a marking arrow, and so every shot from that weapon now goes around and through obstacles to home in on where that arrow hit. So pretty devastating if you can land that Navigator arrow on a weak point.
Just some thoughts I had. What do you think?
-
1
-
-
(I thiiink this post falls under "UI")
Nested abilities, like Ivara's Quiver, still feel clumsy to cycle through, whether you use the tap-to-cycle or hold-to-cycle option. Tap-to-cycle makes cycling easiest, but then you have to hold-to-use the abilities, which feels slow and clumsy, especially for squishy frames like Ivara. Alternatively, hold-to-cycle is also slow and clumsy since the game is fast and situations change fast and when you can't cycle abilities equally fast it's just annoying. A real Sophie's choice here.
The solution: double-tap to cycle nested abilities. It might conflict with very spamming abilities, but I don't think most abilities work out well when they are spammed at double-tap speed.
DE, please. That's all.
-
36 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:
The thing that always comes to mind is a damage bonus or headshot damage bonus per aim level. (It could be really interesting if this scaled with zoom percentage, opening up a different optimization path.)
A zoom % bonus would be interesting as that would give zoom mods a purpose and yeah that would add some build diversity. But then I feel like that mechanic could still be implemented while also adding a dump-fire mechanic that would make the veldt more interactive.
-
I, like many, really like the sound, look, and overall feel of the Veldt, but it could use a bit more spice than an enhanced zoom (and of course stats-wise). I think adding an alt-fire mechanic, similar but slightly different from the Nagantaka, would make the Veldt more interesting and practical to use, even more so than just buffing the stats.
I really like Nagantaka's alt-fire. Making the decision between using single fire for standard mobs and emptying the whole mag (a choice not without consequences) for chunkier mobs adds a lot of variety and interactivity in what otherwise would be a pretty bog standard semi-auto weapon. Speaking of 'bog standard semi-auto weapon', the Veldt could use similar treatment!
Here's my idea: When using the enhanced zoom, the Veldt fires four combined bullets for 4x the damage, crit, status, and innate punch through. So while most mobs will need only 1-2 shots to down, when it comes to bigger targets like bombards and heavy gunners you can click on that extra precision and go for throwing a truckload of bullets at their faces, but of course at some cost to sustained DPS.
What does everyone else think?
-
1
-
-
I'm getting the same bug. It looks like the perla texture is getting stretched over the default model. Also, it looks like it's now firing from the warframe's crotch.
-
Haha, typo
(PC) Gauss / Signature Weapons Feedback
in Warframes
Posted
I like the changes overall. I don't think they overbuffed the redline charge rate. It's still a thing you have to think about, doing stuff to charge your battery, but it doesn't feel tedious anymore. And the way hitting enemies with Mach Rush adds to the battery nicely encourages you to hilariously charge down long hallways of enemies, so that's a fun activity that has synergy as well. The new audio cues for hitting 80% and 100% are eargasmic, so props to the audio team for that. Still think some more visual flare for that would be extra nice, but yeah it's extra and it would take more work that cueing up a sound.
Still have some gripes, though, from the last time I posted on this: