Ampathetiic

Most feedback is going to be suggesting what should change, so it's going to skew negative, even if the people really like the game overall. And it should be that way, as there's no point in pretending to be satisfied with something you aren't satisfied with. Express your opinions and be loud with the hope that something will change. For the Eclipse changes, it isn't that people are being contradictory; they just have different opinions on the balance. If DE nerfed Helminth Eclipse even harder (let's say 15% damage boost, 25% damage reduction), you'd probably agree that they destroyed the ability, even though they said they'd have to nerf the ability if they made it a toggle. You have the right to disagree and argue with other players, but they're giving their feedback based on their observations and opinions. We can be appreciative of developers, but let us remember that we have a consumer-producer relationship with them. They are making money from us, and we are looking for the best video game to give our time/money to. It isn't making the game any better by shutting down valid criticism because DE is one of the good ones. I agree that DE is better than many studios, which is why I bother trying to give my feedback in the first place. If you want to see how much appreciation people show for this game, go look at the fan art, reviews, video essays, cosplays, player metrics, annual events, and the fact that this game has been going for more than a decade! DE are not unsung heroes; they are very well appreciated. If you don't think there's enough praise, go contribute to one of those things. To tie this back to transparency, I can't give feedback on something I can't know about. Of course DE are going to receive less flak if they hide things, but that just means that the community doesn't get to give their feedback before something releases. People were still going to make bug compilations about Railjack, because Railjack was a buggy update. DE being transparent doesn't change that, but it does give the consumer a better idea of what's happening.

You either don't care about transparency or didn't read my other posts. Either way, they reverted the changes to something more consistent with their initial proposal, so I'm mostly satisfied.

So they reverted the Mirage change, but more heavily nerfed Eclipse on Helminth. I can see why people are upset, but I'm mostly satisfied now that they're more in alignment with their previous statements. It seems like Eclipse will be a bad pick as a pure damage boost, but will be more of a hybrid ability, which is probably how they envision the ability being used. Now you'll likely pick Eclipse for the damage reduction, and use the damage boost when you don't need the reduction. I'm not sure how applicable that'll be, but maybe on someone like Banshee?

I'm glad that Mirage isn't getting nerfed- I didn't think she deserved it- but I hope a lesson is learned here in terms of clear communication, both on the developer and player side. Warframe staff shouldn't be telling us they definitely aren't going to nerf something before they nerf something, and players should expect better from the product they give their time/money to. I'm pessimistic, but I'd like to reinforce the message anyway.

I don't see where the problem is. My second paragraph assumes the same exact balance changes, but different communication, because I care about the communication more than the balance changes. I'm not under the impression that the community would magically all accept the changes because DE was honest, or even that they'd change their vote (I've seen the toggle suggestions for years).

It's truly baffling that someone would be in the wrong for making a reasonable assumption and taking a Warframe staff member's word at face value. Is it really fine that the expectation is for developers to mislead us and speak in dodgy language that is technically correct? I'm sorry, but if a game designer tells me that they're probably not going to nerf Mirage with this update, then a community post says that they aren't going to nerf Mirage with this update, I'm 1000% right for assuming that they aren't going to nerf Mirage with this update. And of course I'm going to complain about it and support my points because I want to inform/persuade other players, and I want DE to do better. If everyone were to just grumble silently to themselves about their frustrations with a product, that product would never change. I want to address this point separately. I feel that it is pretty obvious that I'm not claiming DE will never change Mirage for the rest of Warframe's lifespan, so I see no reason to frame my argument that way. However, if it wasn't clear, I will clarify (mainly for the sake of logical consistency) that I'm arguing that DE's language heavily implied that this upcoming update would not come with any nerfs to Mirage's version of Eclipse. I don't really care if they nerf or buff Mirage; I just want them to be straightforward and transparent about it.

The bare minimum for me would be for them to point out the switch in their thoughts and explain their reasoning behind it. It's really frustrating that in Devstream 177 (1:28:45), Pablo starts his explanation of the Mirage Eclipse nerf by saying "as we said last time, if we make it a toggle, we're going to have to nerf it some" as if the expectation was always that Mirage would get nerfed (which I hope I've demonstrated isn't the case). Edit: If Pablo said something like "We initially said we weren't planning to nerf Mirage, but upon further play testing Eclipse is more powerful than we would like it to be, and we're going to make it buff base damage to be in line with other damage buffs." I wouldn't have a problem. I'd still probably disagree with the nerf, but that's far less important than the problems with developer communication.

If the "I think" is really so important, then the absence of that phrasing in the feedback thread should be a problem, since it is confidently stated there that Mirage wouldn't be affected. Once again, it's not our job to look for technicalities. Pablo should have clarified his indecision with something like "We don't plan to nerf Mirage, but we'll have to play test the changes and decide later." The feedback thread should have clarified this as well, especially since the thread had time to be phrased properly. And it is just as disingenuous to say that these nerfs were the result of community feedback. In reality, this nerf was unexpected, and the frustration arises when everything previously suggested that Mirage wouldn't be nerfed. I don't really care about things getting nerfed; I understand that a mix of buffing and nerfing leads to healthy game balance and a better player experience. I care more about the lack of transparency when transparency is the whole reason I keep up with devstreams and forum posts to begin with. They all but promised X, then did Y, and that bothers me.

What is especially frustrating is that he even specifies that the effectiveness reduction would only apply to Helminth. In Devstream 176 he says at 1:00:24... "The main thing with toggle that I just want to clarify: Right now the Eclipse Helminth is the second most used Helminth in the game. So if we were to just make it a toggle and remove its only weakness- which is how unreliable it is- it would just explode to the moon, so we cannot just do that. We would have to find some way to throttle it back. It's fine for Mirage: For Mirage herself we could just make it a toggle and I think it'd be fine, but for the Helminth which affects everything it would just be too powerful." He then goes on to name some possible ideas for reworking the Helminth version of Eclipse, none of which include changing the damage calculations. The Mirage part of the nerf really just came out of nowhere.

It is truly amazing how hard we will hinge on a single word while completely dismissing the entire part about the reductions only applying to Helminth Eclipse, which again, is what the community was asking for. Do you not find it irritating that the language is apparently so unclear as to mislead this many people into believing DE would actually implement their feedback in the way that was seemingly proposed? At what point is it their responsibility to communicate their message better? Why do their messages need to get off on technicality, rather than just being articulated simply? As it stands, they misled people by framing their ideas as a set of options that would be implemented in response to community feedback. I'm willing to be charitable and say that it wasn't intentional and malicious; there could have been some miscommunication between teams about what they were actually planning to. However, that thread failed to portray what they would implement, and so people should make a fuss about it so DE does better in the future.

Here's the quote again, since you're choosing to exclude the part they lied about: We can change Eclipse to work more reliably, but may need to reduce its effectiveness when used as a Helminth ability by reducing its power, duration, or other factors. Eclipse is already the 2nd most popular Helminth ability, so removing its main barrier to entry (reliability) would mean a rebalance is in order. This effectiveness reduction would not affect the ability for Mirage, only when applied from the Helminth. Go to the original thread and scroll through the feedback. The majority is asking for a tap/hold with the compromise of a nerf to the Helminth version of Eclipse. We very clearly agreed to one thing, and got something else.

Doesn't that just mean that the feedback they asked for was ignored? We were given options A, B, and C, only for them to pick D. They offered a compromise, we accepted the compromise, then they changed the terms of the compromise and decided on it without considering player feedback. That sounds like something to be upset about. Even if you're fine with Eclipse being nerfed, it'd be disingenuous to frame this change as the result of community feedback.

The difference is that Hydroid and Inaros have been the subject of constant calls for reworks for years, whereas people barely talk about Mirage (before this change, obviously). The fact that it took so long for those two to be reworked is evidence that we cannot assume DE will do anything specific unless they say it directly.

I would imagine if they were thinking about changing the other two abilities, they'd communicate that in any way. They haven't communicated that, which is why I ask if there's any reason to believe they'd make other changes. To me, it seems pretty clear that Mirage is basically irrelevant in this change, and this change was driven by Eclipse popularity in the Helminth system.

If this was a change driven by Mirage users, why are Prism and Sleight of Hand left untouched without being mentioned? They have the same exact inconsistencies, but they aren't popular infusion choices, so we aren't talking about them.

I totally understand them making the change based on player feedback, because it was abundantly clear that people wanted Eclipse to have the tap/hold. However, it seems somewhat lazy to me that they only changed Eclipse, and didn't even bother to fix the lighting for Mirage's other 2 abilities that depend on environmental lighting. To me, that demonstrates that Mirage is basically irrelevant in this decision, and that DE don't really care that her kit isn't properly implemented with the rest of the game. I would love a Mirage design that actually works around environmental lighting to provide interesting gameplay that causes you to pay attention to a usually overlooked part of environmental design; that sounds really fun and interesting. However, it seems to me that the designers aren't willing to dedicate the resources needed for that kit to be properly implemented, so I'd rather they completely strip out the lighting mechanics and just make Mirage a functional frame with light and darkness as flavor, instead of the current solution that disappoints both Mirage users and Eclipse users.

Here's the quote: "We can change Eclipse to work more reliably, but may need to reduce its effectiveness when used as a Helminth ability by reducing its power, duration, or other factors." "Eclipse is already the 2nd most popular Helminth ability, so removing its main barrier to entry (reliability) would mean a rebalance is in order. This effectiveness reduction would not affect the ability for Mirage, only when applied from the Helminth." This falls under the vague "other factors" change, which people have a right to be upset over, as they had no way of knowing what that would entail. Second, they just lied about the change not affecting Mirage's Eclipse, which we absolutely should be upset over.

Is there any reason to believe this? It seems much more likely that Mirage will be forgotten, since she's not even the reason this nerf happened. This was a change driven by helminth Eclipse users, not Mirage users.

Sure, I'd have no problem with them buffing things like Shock or Mind Control, but I suspect that people wouldn't actually see that as a recompense for a Nourish nerf because "who cares about Mind Control?" There's an attachment to the powerful thing because they use the powerful thing, not because they want a balanced sandbox. The only way DE deals with that attachment is to give us even more powerful things to get attached to, which basically undermines the point of balancing the old things.

I might have missed something, but I got the impression that this Nourish nerf is a slight number reduction, not a change to the ability's effects. Nourish will probably still work on whatever build you use it on, and the effectiveness you lost was probably overkill on a good build. We also got an Inaros rework and new augments. Those are buffs.

I understand that there was actually reasoning behind the change. I just disagree with the reasoning, since the end result is an ability that isn't very strong or interesting. This really seems to be the case for the whole change, since Sleight of Hand and Prism were untouched, despite having the same inconsistency that made Eclipse so annoying to use.

They removed Eclipse's interesting mechanic, only to then remove the reason people used the ability to begin with? It feels like there was a lack of coordination between these two changes, despite them happening at the same time.