[Cool Concept for Melee 3.0 (Good Feedback Even if You Don't Use It)]

Perhaps I made it sound super revolutionary in the opening pitch. My fault, I suppose. The idea is meant to solve my two main problems with melee: 1) To be effective with it, you have to use it to the exclusion of your guns; and 2) you're continuously building power at risk of dropping back to nothing.

Maybe Gun Effects are muddying the presentation. I included them out of necessity while workshopping the concept itself. Let me explain.

Spoiler

The original problem I was trying to solve--melee being walled from guns--was solved by freezing the Heat gauge when switching back to guns. But there was a small problem. When you switch back to melee, does the gauge immediately begin draining? That won't leave you time to use Red Heat for anything, especially if you draw on approach. So I thought, "Well, let's just restart the Drain Delay, right?" Immediately I realized the terrible problem with that. Red Heat would be infinitely sustainable. That can't happen. It's intentionally powerful; the constant transition from Yellow to Red is what will balance the mechanic, not to mention the dramatic feeling that transition creates.

Hence Gun Effects. When you switch to guns, you have no alternative but to expend a Heat stage. This drops you to the more reasonable Yellow Heat, allowing a restart of the Drain Delay with no balance problems. I'm not too worried about guns getting a one-shot bonus if it is paced out enough, but I agree that the stats I threw out are extreme.

Perhaps it could be gated by a Heat gauge "Break": spending a Gun Effect causes the Heat gauge to be unable to rise for a short time? 5sec or so? That would mean you could only spend a Red Heat Gun Effect every 18sec at the earliest. With a more balanced effect, it would essentially be a more interactive version of Mesa's first ability, and help balance the Heat mechanic while bridging melee and guns. Removing Gun Effects from Blue and Yellow Heat would make a more balanced Red Heat Gun Effect feel less underwhelming by comparison, which is why those numbers were so ridiculous.

 

[Cool Concept for Melee 3.0 (Good Feedback Even if You Don't Use It)]

3 hours ago, Andele3025 said:

-snip-

So just so we're on the same page: you don't dislike the concept, but feel the numbers are off? Because I have seen all of DE's Melee 3.0 presentations, and I agree that the multipliers are a bit exaggerated. They are there to give a feel to the concept more than anything. I agonized mainly over the drains, as the point is that you are continuously dropping in and out of multiple empowered states, rather than building a multiplier and dropping from 60 to 0 instantly.

Originally I called this "Channeling" and was thinking that channeling mods could be attached to Heat stages. I still like that notion, but like you said, the numbers are too high. But hey, balance is DE's job. Consider this a first draft.

[Cool Concept for Melee 3.0 (Good Feedback Even if You Don't Use It)]

I've been sitting on this for a while, describing it to folks and tweaking the concept based on feedback. There's still room for improvement, but I think I'm finally ready to make a comprehensive post. Hopefully some of this will be useful to you guys. Most of the ideas you've put forward sound great to me, especially the stance redesigns (although I hope "Heavy Attack" becomes something a little more exciting than a Charged Attack). The melee base stat and mod adjustments you've proposed are also important for my concept to work, because it crunches a lot of things down.

The Problem

The main problem, in my opinion, is that melee walls off the rest of your loadout. Condition Overload subverts this, but the problem shouldn't innately exist. The real culprit here is the combo counter. Infinitely rising multiplier, with several scaling mods attached to it? That's no good. You're stuck using melee exclusively if you want your sword to threaten high-level enemies. But at the same time, if melee can quickly dispatch high-level targets out the gate, there's no difference between a lv10 and a lv60. What to do? Fear not! I have an idea.

The Solution

It came from my not being fond of the "Devil Trigger" idea. It is a new multi-stage powerup mechanic I'm calling "Heat" and it functions similarly to the combo counter with some important changes. There are other details that will come into play, but I'll focus on Heat for now.

Heat builds as you land hits, just like the combo counter. A meter in the Melee UI fills as you land them (one hit counted per swing), and begins draining if you go more than a second without landing a hit. Higher Heat stages drain faster. When enough hits are dealt and the meter fills, you advance to the next Heat stage and the meter freezes for a short time to allow you to build it up. If the meter drains completely, you will drop to the previous Heat stage. There are three color-coded stages: Blue, Yellow and Red. When a stage activates (by increase or by drain), the screen flashes the appropriate color. A subtle filter will tint the edges of the screen slightly yellow, and your frame will emit subtle colored flames. This will give a constant indication of Heat stage and also feels rad.

Stage 0: No Heat
Your weapon does exactly what it says on the tin. No additional effects.

Stage 1: Blue Heat
Hits to Activate*: 12
Effects: +20% Attack Speed
Gun Effect**: +100% Multishot
Drain Delay: 5 Seconds
Drain Time: 15 Seconds

*Indicates hits needed assuming the meter does not drain at all.
**See subheading "Gun Effects".

Stage 2: Yellow Heat
Hits to Activate: 10
Melee Effects: 2x Damage | +30% Attack Speed | +30% Movement Speed
Gun Effect: 2x Damage | +100% Multishot
Drain Delay: 5 Seconds
Drain Time: 10 Seconds

Stage 3: Red Heat
Hits to Activate: 7
Melee Effects: 3x Damage | +20% Bonus* Critical Chance | +50% Attack Speed | + 30% Movement Speed | Augmented Stance Combos**
Gun Effect: 3x Damage | +100% Multishot | +100% Base Critical Chance | Maximum Buff***
Drain Delay: 5 Seconds
Drain Time: 4 Seconds

*Additive with base Critical Chance. Does not interact with mods.
**Augmented Stance Combos: See subheading "So What's the Deal?"
***If your gun has a self-buffing effect, Red Heat Gun Effects will kick it off at the maximum buff effect; it will end under the usual circumstances.

Gun Effects
This concept partially bridges melee and guns. When switching to a gun, the Heat meter freezes until you switch back to melee. The next time you fire, Gun Effects will activate and immediately drop your Heat by one stage. You cannot spend another Heat stage for Gun Effects unless you switch back to your melee weapon, but your Heat gauge will not drain while your gun is drawn. If your gun has a ramping fire rate or is a beam weapon, it will begin fully ramped when spending Gun Effects. If your gun has a self-buffing effect, it will be kicked-off at the maximum effect; it will end under the usual circumstances.) The effect duration is determined by trigger-type.

Semi-Auto: Next shot fired
Burst: Next burst fired
Automatic: 1sec beginning when trigger is held
Duplex: Next duplex burst fired
Beam: 1sec beginning when trigger is held

(Note that Gun Effects cannot be activated while dual-wielding secondary and melee, for mechanical and balance reasons.)

 

So What's the Deal?

The Drain Time of Red Heat is the crux of this entire concept. The idea is that you are constantly dropping in and out of Red Heat, while Blue and Yellow are easily maintained. It doesn't take long to reach Red Heat, and whether you drop it or spend it as a Gun Effect, you are only dropping back to Yellow Heat and can return to Red Heat quickly. It is important to remember that the Heat gauge freezes for 5 seconds when your Heat rises to the next stage. You won't have to worry much about dropping Red Heat before you can pull off a cool combo, but you will definitely drop to Yellow Heat after doing so if you can't find more baddies to abuse. But fear not, you'll be badass again very quickly.

Scaling mods would be attached to Heat state. Since there's only three, that's much easier to balance around. No more 0.5 increment silliness.

That "Augmented Stance Combos" thing probably caught your attention. This is more involved, as it will be stance-dependent and totally at DE's discretion. Each stance will have small changes in Red Heat. Certain attacks might more times than usual, produce a powerful 8m wave, or have a huge range. There may even be completely unique attacks in your combos! For instance, a Nikana stance might gain a closer attack reminiscent of Final Fantasy's famous Zantetsuken, and deal insane damage to everything in your path with a flourishing camera angle! It would be up to DE to make this cool, but the basic idea is that your combos feel more exciting and powerful.

The specific buffs, timers, and hit requirements are obviously up for balancing. Another idea I considered was adding slain enemies' level to Heat gauge, instead of basing it on hits dealt. This has interesting consequences. It creates inherent level-appropriate power scaling for player damage. The more frantic rise and fall in Heat during high-level missions would make for a dramatic experience. But it also makes building Heat more difficult in some high-level situations. You'd have to dispatch mooks to advance a Heat stage. Enforcing target priority may not be a bad thing, but I decided to pitch the idea on hits because it's simpler.

Pretty Sweet Deal

Thanks, I thought so. I hope this was useful to you guys. I'm sure you won't use any of this specifically, but at the very least I think the idea of constantly dropping in and out of multi-stage powerups is something to throw around internally. I suspect similar concepts have been floated around the office. Eager to see what you roll out.

[I feel like melee is severely underpowered and slightly useless.]

I'm genuinely surprised that the first few responses to this thread were thoughtful and informed. I expected to go down my...

Forum Reply Checklist

• "I never noticed/cared, so this doesn't matter." - Check
• "I didn't read past the title." - Check
• "Just use ___." - Check
• "It's free, stop complaining." - Check
• "[indecipherable rage]" - Check

In all seriousness, you're right. Melee is a fundamentally flawed mechanic. Before Acolyte mods, it was pathetically underpowered. DE's solution was mods which attach additional scaling stats to the combo counter. This was a terrible mistake. Now melee is the most powerful thing out there if you only use melee, but toothpicks out the gate. Condition Overload is a nice way around this, but the mechanic is still broken at the conceptual level. You should be encouraged to use your entire loadout, not locked into one weapon.

The new upcoming Quick Melee mechanic shows that DE staff have had similar thoughts. I'm optimistic about the rework, but I think they are approaching scaling from the wrong angle. Scaling damage shouldn't be the focus of melee. Guns and melee should work together. Some thoughts:

• To please those who want to use melee exclusively: Replace the combo counter with Channeling, a new multi-stage powerup with nice VFX that ramps attack speed, movement speed and melee damage every so many hits. Final stage adds multi-hit and attack variations, such as short-range shockwaves or forced procs on certain attacks. Channeling state is color-coded: blue at stage 1, yellow at stage 2, red at stage 3. Screen flashes on new stage; screen filter and subtle embers on frame indicate state with color. Each stage has a timer that resets after so many seconds. Stage 1: 20sec; Stage 2: 10sec; Stage 3: 5sec. Building stages is fast, maintaining them is situational. UI displays "combo" as bar that fills on hit while continuously depleting, instead of hit count.
• Combo-dependent mods attached to different Channeling states.
• Switch Gun/Melee swap. Melee is tap, gun is hold.
• Melee draw has no "time", and can be canceled into during Quick Melee attacks. Attacks can be queued immediately upon swapping with no animation lag, and swap animation does not prevent actions like jumping or rolling.
• By default, Block is assigned to the context button. Guard Attack can be performed up to 0.33sec after releasing guard button. Aim input switches back to your gun.
• Add mechanics that cause guns to briefly buff melee, and vice versa, encouraging use of your entire loadout.

Barring these thoughts, I like most of what DE proposes with the rework, including aerial attacks and especially other ways of building combo (could pair nicely with my Channeling suggestion; blocks and counters contributing to powerup acceleration). Some of these problems could be solved by giving players complete control over bindings. Forbidding multiple inputs is especially limiting on controllers, since many functions in WF are only available in mutually exclusive states.

[My experience with some clans]

18 hours ago, Legion-Shields said:

It’s almost like Warframe isn’t the only video game out there.

Hello, posting from the year 2059. Warframe is the only game out there, ever since DE's chicanery allowed them to escape a wave of overbearing regulation on game sales, and memes killed the rest of the f2p market. The ozone layer is gone again. We're out of water and everything is irradiated. I've eaten my last squirrel. I think I have scurvy. Please don't kick me. There are bikerwolves outside.

[After 70 days in warframe..]

3 hours ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

Needless to say, you hit the nail on the coffin with your conclusions about the game. It's hollow. There's no sense of progression within the game, rather than a series of repetition as every 2 weeks a new gun is introduced to fight the same enemies. Why switch and level up the new gun when the current gun does the same job? Mastery..? Cuz new?

This is why I find myself missing Dark Sectors more and more as time goes on. Comparing that system to other f2p PVE/PVP hybrid games really makes me appreciate just how unique it was. You didn't have to participate in clan conflict, but you could still reap benefits from the skirmishes through battle pay. Taxes imposed a penalty, and if taxes persisted, the defending clans would be challenged aggressively. The conflicts were extremely public, right there on the star chart. It was accidentally brilliant.

Only downside was toxicity. But was it really? I run into jerks in WF on a daily basis. I think vitriolic behavior is just slightly less public, due to the absence of meaningful competition. I think the spiritual successor to Dark Sectors that Scott was cooking up should take higher priority. Secretly, I suspect it will tie into content planned for release this year...

[RailJack...]

This was a fun read. Y'all are a hoot.

Spoiler

And to play devil's advocate, WF needs something like Dark Sectors. No stories born after can compare to the incredible stories from before armistice. Sure, it bred jackasses, but it also made the game feel alive. Now clans are just a private trash-talking chatroom and a wait gate for new weapons. Annual events are like a single droplet to a man lost in the desert. Clan competition with positive and negative effects for everyone, regardless of participation, would give the game world life even when DE isn't actively releasing content.

 

[Mastery Poins on Dual Weilded weapons]

A weapon can only give mastery once; duplicates won't give additional mastery. Akimbo weapons are considered a different weapon from the solo variant, for the purposes of mastery. They are also not considered part of the solo variant's family, for the purpose of rivens and augments (whereas variants like Prisma/Prime/Vandal are considered part of the same family).

Your in-game profile gives a bit more insight into this. It will track which weapons you own/mastered by category, so you can discern the logic for yourself. But if you need specific information, the wikia has a page for Mastery Rank with a full breakdown of the mechanic.

[Most enjoyable "underpowered" weapons]

I know a guy who swears by Seer.

Personally, I have a few gimmick builds, including a fire rate/multishot Wraith Twin Vipers. It would fire 288 bullets per second if not for reloading. Dumps the entire ammo reserve in about 6 seconds, but lv150 corrupted heavy gunner still gets away with hardly a scratch. (Pre-buff, anyway. Haven't pulled it out since the balance pass.)

I also have a gimmick Prisma Angstrum with as much mag capacity and multishot as I could stuff on it... for use only with Mirage. Make it rain explosions. Shockingly, it can kill things up to around lv60.

[Ember is up to par]

As someone who has used a lot of Ember, she is more powerful than most give her credit for... but I don't know if I'd describe her as "up to par", depending on what you mean by that.

First off, don't build around WoF. It does its job decently regardless of build. Build around Accelerant, and include the augment. The aug doesn't affect WoF, but it doesn't matter because its basic effect is more powerful for abilities. The aug is there for Fireball and buffing squad gun damage which is further amped by Accelerant (assuming it doesn't combo). Besides, you should only be using WoF for burst damage or extending Accelerant's CC. It should remain off until needed, and canceled as soon as you regain control of the situation.

Ember needs changes. For one, Accelerant should adjust an enemy's resistance to fire damage, not multiply incoming fire damage. She also needs a new 3. Fire Blast is essentially an AOE blast proc that costs 75 energy. Awful. Plus it's ugly. Rework suggestion below.

Spoiler

Passive: Fire resistance, if any, of enemies within 10m of Ember is dropped to 0%.

World on Fire: No longer deals damage. (Stop, listen, there's a good reason for this. It still does what the current ability does, but in a different way.) Channel fire sprites that surround Ember. Fire sprites will seek surrounding enemies, knocking them down with a pillar of flame. While active, Ember's other three abilities become Ascended and receive additional effects.

Fireball: The lingering AOE deals its damage to all enemies in its radius per-second, but only 3 can coexist; additional Fireballs overwrite previous ones. Charging Fireball will launch three Fireballs at 2x damage apiece, and can benefit from cast combo (combo timer pauses while charging).

Ascended: Cast cooldown removed. Now a semi-auto ability that fires as fast as you can mash the button. Uses combo cost reduction/damage multiplier of abilities like Landslide and Rhino Charge. Flight speed increased by 50%. Enemies affected by Accelerant have a 25% chance to drop an energy orb when killed by an Ascended Fireball.

Fireball Frenzy: The impact AOE and lingering AOE gain the ability to confer the effect.

Accelerant: Instead of an incoming damage multiplier, fire resistance of affected targets is reduced by 250%. This applies to the highest layer health type (armor/shields before health). If the highest layer health type is removed, it will be inherited by the next health type. Ability is otherwise unchanged.

Ascended: Affected enemies receive 800 base fire damage when hit by WoF's fire sprites. This damage receives all the benefits of Accelerant.

Flash Accelerant: Damage added by Flash Accelerant will not combine with combo elements, and will not create combo elements. It has an isolated 25% status chance, and will no longer interfere with proc distribution or damage types on your weapon. These properties also apply to Fireball Frenzy. (Upside: Doesn't mess up your damage types, always benefits from Accelerant debuff. Downside: Less useful for Eidolons.)

Fire Blast: Cost reduced to 50 energy. Create a spinning column of fire in front of Ember. The column is stationary with a 6m diameter and deals 800 damage per second to enemies inside or in contact with it. The column's heat is intense enough to refract lasers and incinerate ammunition passing through it. Recasting overwrites the previous column.

Ascended: The column will move forward from its point of origin at a speed of 4 meters/sec.

Fire Fright: Enemies within 18m of Fire Blast's perimeter have a 25% chance each second to Panic and become Disarmed.

 

[Solaris United offerings menu vanished (RESOLVED)]

Okay, disregard all of this. I understand my mistake now, and I think it's time to finally find something for my insomnia... Christ.

[Solaris United offerings menu vanished (RESOLVED)]

I have deleted my profile and restored all of my settings. Eudico's offerings submenu still does not appear. I have included a video this time showing the problem, although I can't record when it first occurred of course...

Click this for the video link, as I can't embed the video for some reason...

Okay that one was my security plugins, here's the vid.

Spoiler

 

 

Also, the unrelated issue has been resolved. Not sure if it was sorcery, or one of the helpless things I tried during my troubleshooting adventures... So, disregard that one.

[Solaris United offerings menu vanished (RESOLVED)]

It's currently Saturday. Thursday evening, I reached Old Mate rank with SU. I spent around 30min on free offerings menu, chatting in alliance... eventually decided on Pax Seeker.

When I reopened Eudico's standing menu, there was no Square prompt to open the offerings submenu. Pressing Square had no effect. Where normally there would be a Square prompt and some text, there is nothing. Otherwise the menu is no different from normal. Exiting and reentering Fortuna yielded no change. I restarted the app, even my PS4, nothing worked. I'm going to try deleting my profile from storage next, but I wanted to know if this is a known issue and if there is a workaround that doesn't require changing all my settings again? Or should I go straight to Support?

 

Unrelated: I have been unable to access the forum index from my desktop for a week... All other forum pages load fine, but the index loads as a secure blank page; no timeout, same URL, just blank. The only page elements are:
 

Spoiler

<html>
<head></head>
<body></body>
</html>

The link on the homepage, as well as navigating to the index from a search engine, have the same result (update version links work since they don't redirect to index; navigating to any subforum directly or via search engine also works). At first I thought it was my security plugins, but disabling them changed nothing. I'm using Waterfox browser. Never had this problem until this week. When it rains, it pours, eh? I would post this in the site feedback subforum, but it's not showing up in search results, so I'm not sure how to reach it without knowing the page URL.

[Who do Warframe Youtubers get their information from?]

Like SortaRandom said, a lot of them are personally designed. Most weapons mod pretty similarly, so it's just a matter of testing the generic builds ideal for each stat configuration, and then tweaking to see how you can pump more power out of the weapon. Knowing the formulas for damage calculation is a given.

As for frames, well, that's more involved. Tubers who do their own testing are better at this, since the full function of many powers is not apparent. They get ideas from each other and make builds using the shared info about how individual abilities function... Pretty much the same as us.

Little tip: If someone tells you something is MR fodder, ignore them. Knowledge is power. Learn how a weapon/frame works, use the wiki (but keep in mind it can be very very wrong at times), try to build around each power individually, and draw your own conclusions.

[The Rise of Anthem:- Warframe Overhaul?]

In hindsight, I apologize if I came off as caustic. @(PS4)kfrancis902 I stand by my criticism of your suggestion, these things do not fit with the rest of WF's mechanics. However, I meant no disrespect. Coffee withdrawal and medical bills have eroded my capacity for courtesy.

[The Rise of Anthem:- Warframe Overhaul?]

2 hours ago, (PS4)kfrancis902 said:

Anthem is taking from both Destiny and Warframe to be a serious competitor, so my question is should DE start to seriously look into enemy scaling and Warframe/Operator progression. Below is my case.

Anthem has just revealed in my opinion its final piece to its puzzle which has now made it a legitimate threat to both Warframe and Desiny.

1. Weapons and Components (mods) will have base stats but will have random rolls

2. There leveling will be similar to Destiny's, a Pilot Level and a Gear Level by which the  type of content you can accomplish will be based on your Gear level.

The two main issues for Warframe in my opinion has always been rewards and endgame content.

1. Jesus god no, are you out of your mind? You can't just borrow mechanics like that. Think about how that would affect the modding system. Think about weapons with stat values that actually matter, like almost any shotgun.

2. Why? This mechanic exists in Destiny to control the pace at which a player can progress and what activities they can do. In WF, this would prevent you from getting mods from missions you can completely trivialize, but aren't allowed to do because an arbitrary value isn't high enough. It also restricts equipment to specific levels, which no. No. Absolutely no.

The mechanics you are describing are not inherently bad. But they would make WF's faults ten times worse. The combat is shallow, and the missions are boring. You can't fix that by moving numbers around or gating throwaway content.

I cannot wrap my head around this way of thinking. It makes sense for a developer, but what brainworm could make a person care about this? If you think a game is fun, play it. If you think two games are fun, play them both. It's not #*!%ing sports teams.

~~~

And because I'm inevitably going to be criticized for criticizing an idea while having nothing to contribute myself... Wall of text incoming. The old enemies are the problem. They need to be replaced. New animations, new behaviors, new attacks. Every action should be distinct and stand out in a crowd.

Example: Scorpion. It throws a physics-defying grapple, or runs at you and slowly swings its sword like it's never held one before. Suggestion: Scorpion retains its whip, but it has a slow windup and incredibly fast deployment. It gains an evasive ability, similar to Manics, but less annoying. When shot, it will quickstep side-to-side, but becomes unable to act for a second after each use. It can only do this up to three times in a row, then must wait 5 seconds before doing it again. It gains a rushing melee attack that moves toward the player at high speed, with a dramatic delay just before it connects, giving the player time to react.

Enemy overhauls like this would make combat intense and enjoyable, instead of the Dynasty Warriors mook steamroller we have currently. Fortuna is a great step forward in this regard, its enemies are diverse in more ways than their gun. We also need more Nox-like miniboss enemies. Nullifiers are alright (except for their sniper death-on-a-dice-roll BS), but imo Nox are more enjoyable to fight. They take a serious beating, and their damage partially ignores armor so they can even threaten certain tanks if ignored. Their helmet SFX are also very gratifying. Hyenas are good too. They don't take much damage, but they are highly evasive and close quickly, making them tricky to target without anticipatory footwork. The spiders... well, the big ones are threatening, but the flesh-looking ones don't have enough health to threaten, what with being such a delicious meaty target. DE needs to apply this logic to older factions.

I would also like superbosses. Hear me out. Imagine a Grineer in a mech about 5m tall, similar to Hek's Terra frame but more humanoid. It moves slowly and has shoulder cannons and wrist-mounted hellfire rockets, a laser, etc. Just a ton of artillery. The frame itself has so much armor it's damn near invincible, and immune to armor removal. Once the weapons are destroyed, it will suddenly become very fast, rushing between players with its rear jets and attempting to melee and grab with ragdolls. At this stage its armor is severely reduced, and it becomes vulnerable to corrosive procs. The whole fight would only take around 60-80sec, but it would totally change the pace of combat. It would spawn under certain uncommon circumstances, so you wouldn't see it very often. More stuff like this would just make the combat more dynamic and enjoyable.

[Open World PvP (yep, another post)]

Thank god.

For a second, I thought you were going to suggest battle royale.

Most of the players I know say they miss Dark Sectors. I have to agree. It made no sense lore-wise, didn't appeal to me personally, and generated a ton of unwarranted spite between players... but it also birthed the greatest stories to come from Warframe. Conclave exists, but it's isolated from the game in every way but lore. There's no real competitive element, not inside the context of conventional gameplay, with consequences that affect both competitors and the abstinent.

I would be happy to see something like Dark Sectors return. Not necessarily what you're describing... TDM on Plains/Fortuna would just be a silly mode that barely functions. I'd want something that fits into the larger game, and creates a really interesting narrative that hangs over the story and mechanics. Preferably something that involves clans.

'Fore I go, I'll regale you with a little tale. I recall visiting Sechura once, I forget why, but I ended up with a pub squad who were all in the same clan. I know because one of them barked at me, "This is our territory. Leave." I grinned and said, "I don't see your name on it." I knew how he'd reply, he was obviously a member of the clan that currently held Sechura. He was also an idiot, telling the very players they were taxing to leave the sector. Anyway, he pulled rank on me and threw out some credentials. At the end of wave 5, he tried to get the rest of the squad to pull a bait-and-switch to stick me in the mission alone. But they didn't cooperate. He was pissed, loudly. Got a great chuckle out of that.

[Fireball Frenzy]

Please allow the augment to take effect on Fireball's lingering AOE instead of direct hits from the projectile. Network lag makes it very difficult to use on moving targets, especially with a controller. Disqualify Ember from receiving the buff if you must, but please make it reliable in a typical play scenario.

[Mesa Prime better be the next one,here is why.]

On 2018-12-03 at 2:20 PM, mikakor said:

I think you're in the minority here, because "some" is in fact a really huge number of regular Mesa user.

And you are already rewarded by using your guns. Why would arrange get abilities that any weapon can achieve? Gun gun gun? You don't even need energy for this. I can't wait for her.

I like her a lot, but I don't stay in Peacemaker for more than a few seconds. I try to mainly use it in the air and cancel as I hit the ground. Was disappointed when they removed the ability to maintain a slide during Peacemaker. The only good thing about that infernal power menu. :/ Unless I'm mistaken and it was the ability itself that prevented slide from ending.

On 2018-12-03 at 3:57 AM, NightmareT12 said:

That's it, although I didn't see it on that site. The thing is that info dump as you call it seems to be a DE press release (you know, the ones a company send to gaming sites so they can post it).

Those press releases usually have a source. I get that games journalism doesn't take itself very seriously because games are just entertainment, but I'm not super down with that.

After digging again, I was able to find a few similar articles that look more legit. One of them provided a source. Yay for professional journalism. They were posted prior to my initial search, so I guess they just hadn't been fully crawled by DDG. Downside of not using Google: you're the last person to learn things.

[Mesa Prime better be the next one,here is why.]

7 hours ago, NightmareT12 said:

Has no one read that Nintendo news site that got a Press Release from DE stating Mesa would be sold in Prime Access alongside the Vault and Chroma?

Anyways, as soon as they send the next build to cert for consoles we'll know.

Are you referring to this? I saw that, but it's just an infodump on a news page... No preface, sources or citations, and no linkback. The formatting looks messed up too. I couldn't tell if it was legit.

[I think Nova needs some changes]

(Boldened for speed readers.)

I've criticized Nova a bit in the past as well. Wormhole and MP being the abilities that need attention. They serve their purpose, but they could serve it a little better.

Wormhole
It's great for rapid traversal if you don't care where you end up. This could be addressed with a visual overhaul. Instead of a door and a string, it could be a crazy Stargate tunnel. I'd also like an additional function when the button is held. Instead of generating a door and moving instantly, the alternate function would cause Nova to collapse and travel at rapid speed (think Atlas' 1, maybe faster) for as long as the ability is held, or up to 10sec, or until you collide with terrain. Then Nova pops back into existence and leaves a two-way tunnel that spans the distance she traveled. Entering this tunnel from either end will cause rapid movement toward the other end, but you can eject yourself with a melee attack or roll. It has 3x the number of uses as a conventional wormhole and the same duration. Enemies in the path of the tunnel during creation will be jailed, but still able to turn and fire. This allows you to escape or flank when enemies have you walled off, without having to leave the ground, and without having to worry about how your range is modded.

Molecular Prime
The aim here is not to add functionality so much as improve what it does already. Put simply, slow/speed would increase/decrease, respectively, based on proximity to Nova. The vulnerability debuff is untouched. At the maximum distance of the ability spread, speed would have normal functionality. But within a certain range of Nova, say 50m, the effect is reduced by 15% per 10m proximity to a minimum of 45% effectiveness at 20m. Slow would be the opposite; it would begin at 45% effectiveness, and increase to 100% effectiveness as enemies approach Nova. For clarity, the ramping effectiveness is based solely on position, not a timer. (Effectiveness zones would need to be carefully positioned and not moddable. If linear from Nova to the edge of the spread, the ability's current performance would suffer.) This allows Nova and the squad to stay a bit safer in speed, and allows slow to prime in defense and survival without slowing down kills/life support as much. There's one big downside to this: slow's performance in interception would be lowered in a squad, and significantly lowered in solo. Which sucks. To some, that's not worth the tradeoff, but I'd take it.

(Note: Percentages are of the change in enemy movement speed; not strength or percentage of base enemy speed. That would be ridiculous.)

Also, let Nova's balls self-feed again! :( C'mon, DE. They'd still have the damage cap. Other frames have similarly powerful abilities now, it's not that crazy.

[LifeofRio appreciation thread]

This may be the alcohol talking, but I saw the thread title and knew it would be a good time.

Thank you for improving my evening. Y'all are hilarious.

[Void Traces, and their Alerts]

Trace alerts gave 10. Some time ago, they were increased to give 20.

The average amount of traces earned from a fissure is 18. 10 was literally a waste of time. 20 is statistically more than opening a relic will award.

So in that sense, 20 makes sense. However, there is no endless multiplier in an alert, and you cannot open a relic. So it still feels like a gyp.

[Daily rewards nerf for players who missed the last couple years]

It seems some commenters don't grasp the finer points of the complaint you're making. But I suppose that's understandable for someone who wasn't around three years ago.

When DE rolled out the revamped tribute system back around the Second Dream update, they decided that everyone should progress along it from the same starting point. Being that the honor system and rewards were new, players who had been playing prior weren't being left-out. Anyone who continued playing past that point would get access. (There was also the fact that later rewards weren't actually in the game yet.)

For someone returning now, I imagine it looks a little different. But you're starting from the same point we all did, oldbies from pre-Steam integration and new players alike. The rewards you got for supporting the game in its infancy are still there for you. It would be difficult to argue that said support merits quicker access to rewards added years after you stopped playing.

However, for the purpose of resource acquisition, I do understand your complaint. It's a valid one. I don't necessarily believe DE should be expected to honor it, however, since the resources you'll be getting are still more than everyone got a few weeks ago.

[Frames that trivialize certain missions make the game less interesting]

23 hours ago, Gurpgork said:

I'd honestly go so far as to say that most of the big problems with this game can't be fixed as long as armor scaling exists. You can't appropriately determine how much damage players should be able to do to enemies when one faction has ten times as much EHP as the other two. 

Funny how anytime someone tries to discuss difficulty in WF, whether they want it to be harder or easier, the thread instantly devolves into namecalling. That's... not directed at you, just wanted to get it outta my system.

I strongly disagree with the criticism leveraged at armor scaling. In fact, I think enemies should be tankier and deal less damage. An enemy that dies in one hit can only threaten you when it kills you in one hit. In a horde shooter where you're being attacked from all sides at all times, that's a bad design choice. My only complaint about nullifiers? They have a random chance to one-shot you from across the map. The solution, I believe, is fewer and tankier enemies; enemy damage being %player-remaining-health plus a base value with scaling modifier that caps at a set value (to control what can and can't one-shot); enemies with clearly visible, dramatic and exciting behaviors and attacks that players must react quickly to; more sophisticated mission objectives (defection is about the right level of complexity)... I could go on. But yeah, I don't believe moving numbers around can make WF enjoyable. Its major problems are mechanical, not statistical.

But this brings me to my point. You believe your arguments are grounded, and that adhering to them would create a game that is more satisfying to you personally. I feel the same about my arguments. We both want difficulty, but that means something different to everyone. DE didn't know what kind of game to make, so they tried to make what people wanted. But everyone wanted something different. So they brand it as a game without identity, like an abstract painting, meant to be appreciated for whatever reason the viewer chooses. They sprinkle on bits to please each type of player, unable to fully satisfy anyone. Imbuing any definitive identity on WF now means alienating huge swaths of players.

I think @tzaeru hit the nail on the head. It's just too damn late. The one aspect of WF's identity that DE can settle on is that it's a braindead Dynasty Warriors buttonmasher. I often tell myself the fact I'm still playing is proof I have too much free time, because I'm not really having fun. I know that sounds harsh. I love a lot of frames and weapons for their design and playstyle. The environments are gorgeous and the worldbuilding is great (mostly). But it's just not fun to play.