Please Explain Why Universal Vacuum Is Bad

[RazorTip]

Inb4 DE adds a new mod that allows your sentinels to float and pets to follow you around.

I mean, we gotta have more mods, right?

[Nitro747]

The lack of univac and even the NERF of Vacuum's original range just keeps proving that the game DE's devs plays is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than the game we, the real players, play. Just look how they were showing Garuda's "amazing" abilities and gameplay while we could all see that she would get rekt in any decently leveled mission. The fact it took this many years for them to understand that Kubrows and Kavats also need Vacuum only proves that they don't understand what's really important in this game.

The game is all about collecting resources. You can't do ANYTHING if you don't have thousands of each. The simple fact that there is a group of companions that makes getting all that loot that is all over the place a less idiotic activity means that players will automatically prefer these companions overwhelmingly. Without vacuum you have to run in tiny circles around just to grab stuff, and then there is all the loot of all the other rooms.

[(XBOX)Thhhpbt]

6 hours ago, Hikelos said:

... every community will always ask for "quality of life" changes that homogenize the game until it becomes a grey blob where nothing matters, and that in most cases developers shouldn't buckle down to these demands and focus on providing something that is fun rather than convenient.

Brilliant insight.

[DrBorris]

7 hours ago, Hikelos said:

If I learned anything about multiplayer games is that every community will always ask for "quality of life" changes that homogenize the game until it becomes a grey blob where nothing matters, and that in most cases developers shouldn't buckle down to these demands and focus on providing something that is fun rather than convenient. 

There is a big issue with a lot of what you put out there, the difference between your power and 'quality of life'. Vacuum does not make you more powerful. You are associating two things unfairly. It is like if you compared the ability to color your weapon with the ability to put mods on your weapon. They are two different categories.

This associating with Vacuum, being casual, and laziness is cow poop. I use my Kavats all the time, and you know how much my gameplay changes? Not at all. I don't start scouring around the map making sure I get every resource, I don't tactfully leave energy orbs around when I only need 10 more energy for max, I play the game exactly how I do when I have vacuum. The only difference is that at the end of the mission I get less drops. Now are there some people that do this? Probably, there is always that one guy, but I have never seen even one of the anti-vacuum streamers/YouTubers play do anything besides play like a person with Vacuum. This is a false dichotomy between vac and non-vac users, we all play Warframe the same way*, the only difference is that some get more resources at the end of the mission. If you give everyone vacuum, the gameplay doesn't change, it doesn't become a grey glob, it is just fudging vacuum for Pete's sake. No one is saying that Trinity needs an AoE nuke or that Mesa needs to be able to heal allies.

 

And it is kind of insulting how this 'slippery slope' fallacy is used. Do you think that I, a uni-vac supporter, am going to start screaming "moar, moar" if DE gives uni-vac? That I don't understand that certain game systems do need to be upheld? Spoiler: I don't. This is not a slippery slope, this is one single item that just makes the game more fun for a large portion of the playerbase.

 

*Within reason. I know that there are many ways to 'play' Warframe, but none of those subgroups have this division of vac and no-vac within them. Speed runners speed run regardless of vac. Melee mains play the same way regardless of vac. The only group that maybe plays differently with vac is new players who pick up everything that is shiny.

[Hikelos]

10 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

There is a big issue with a lot of what you put out there, the difference between your power and 'quality of life'.

The reality is that changes that are truly only QoL and don't affect power are usually exclusive to the UI.

Vacuum is power, because it lets you pick up orbs from much further away. It's not a lot of power , but it is power nonetheless, most noticeable with a Nekros for example. 
Of course Vacuum is only Vacuum, it won't demolish the game and I haven't claimed that.

However, little by little, one QoL change today, another next month, and with this mindset everything does inevitably turn into a grey blob.

As a monumental proof of concept, WoW took nearly 10 years to turn into what it is today, and it was just QoL here and QoL there, a little balance, a little convenience, etc. and now half the playerbase clamored so hard about how bad it became that they're releasing the Vanilla version of the game all over again. 

At the end of the day though, DE chose to basically give us UV, which hits Sentinels really hard. I think this was done mostly for the benefit of the new MOA pets, but they should probably work on giving the Sentinels a baseline iconic perk back that makes them more useful than beasts in some scenarios.

[Oreades]

7 hours ago, Hikelos said:

People will be mad about Vacuum regardless of whether they understand it or not, but I'm going to try and explain it for fun anyway.

Before I explain it, let me preface by saying that I play with a Smeeta Kavat for the grandest majority of the time and the lack of Vacuum is never an issue. It's slightly more convenient and it can help you pick up energy and health orbs, but the standard vacuum range is honestly ok.

The reason they gave Vacuum to sentinels only (and the reason they should keep it that way, flame me all you want) is that homogeneity of perks through the choices you can make is very bad for gameplay.

You need limitations and variety in order to provide choices that feel meaningful, and right now there are only 2 real reason to bring a sentinel over a Kavat, these being Vacuum and a Status Deth rifle to complement your Condition Overload melee. If there are any others, I have never heard of them. (I'm not talking about specific sentinels, like bringing Carrier for his specific ammo ability, I'm talking about a sentinel in general over a Kavat or a Kubrow)

On the other hand the reason you would bring a beast over a sentinel is that they can be ressed, they can aggro enemies and they can refill your HP when they do damage.

Saying "Bring Vacuum to pets" is like saying "Let my sentinel roam around and aggro enemies" or "Let me ress my sentinel". 

TL;DR- You need iconic variety and limitations, pros and cons, to make two things unique.

Ex. "Why can't Frost generate a hailstorm around him that lets me kill everything like Ember's 4 does?" Because Frost is not Ember.

If I learned anything about multiplayer games is that every community will always ask for "quality of life" changes that homogenize the game until it becomes a grey blob where nothing matters, and that in most cases developers shouldn't buckle down to these demands and focus on providing something that is fun rather than convenient.

That is possibly the longest "Everything needs a trade-odd" I think I've read to date.

Rest assured that you will be able to continue to use your Smeeta without vacuum but for the vast majority of people who aren't even giving companions a chance because they find manual loot collection to be too tedious, the option is now there. And they still have to figure a place in their build for that mod. So there's your trade-off and your no-vacuum Smeeta is always going to be slightly better at something (other than vacuuming up loot) than their Smeeta with a vacuum.

I kinda also get a fear vibe from a lot of these posts. That now that the unwashed masses will be more inclined to actually pay attention to the Companions that their Companion use won't be special any more. Tho even that has a bright side, in that DE is going to have to seriously look at some of the Companion AI issues that have been a long time complaint among Companion users. Since the pool of Companion users is poised to significantly increase turning that back burner problem into a higher priority issue. 

DE clearly wants more variety and you don't get variety by burying such a fundamental feature behind a single classification. If you truly want variety you need to "homogenize" some things. First Carrier was king because it was the only Sentinel that removed the tedium from looting. Once they homogenized Vacuum amongst the sentinels the spread changed to include more sentinels and a Smeeta. Now that it's going to be spread amongst all the Sentinels/Companions people are now completely free to choose what they want to use based on their Iconic Variety untethered from the limitation of "oh hey this makes looting horrible" and again if you don't care about the looting aspect GREAT! you get an extra mod slot to work with.

So yeah, ya really haven't given a reason why it's "bad".

 

6 hours ago, DoomFruit said:

In any case, I'm still never using animals because of the stupid genetic degradation mechanic. 

I tend to agree outside of forcing the player to press a button once every 8(?) days it really doesn't add anything to the game. 

The very short window where in which it is actually a credit/resource sink has all the clout of a speedbump aaaand then it's over but ya still gotta keep pressing that button. Every 8 days...... for reasons~

Personally I think they should just ditch degradation, lock in the the health in at the current max and if they need something for players to do/interact with companions, turn it into a treat system. Turn needless punishments into rewards. 

With the extension to the gear wheel, I'd turn treats into a gear wheel item. Give your pet X time worth of something interesting but not totally game breaking like I dunno immunity to status effects or something~

I kinda feel like they will probably be ditching it with Fortuna *fingers crossed* because they have been diligently depreciating all the other needlessly irritating aspects of companions. If they still have Degridation..... that's just one more needless/irritating mechanic vs yet another robotic type that just works. 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Scott explained his reason in Devstream 100. Go rewatch that

[Hikelos]

3 hours ago, Oreades said:

If you truly want variety you need to "homogenize" some things.

If you want variety

Make more things the same 

Spoiler

Edited October 21, 2018 by Hikelos

[DrBorris]

4 hours ago, Hikelos said:

The reality is that changes that are truly only QoL and don't affect power are usually exclusive to the UI.

Vacuum is power, because it lets you pick up orbs from much further away. It's not a lot of power , but it is power nonetheless, most noticeable with a Nekros for example. 
Of course Vacuum is only Vacuum, it won't demolish the game and I haven't claimed that.

However, little by little, one QoL change today, another next month, and with this mindset everything does inevitably turn into a grey blob.

As a monumental proof of concept, WoW took nearly 10 years to turn into what it is today, and it was just QoL here and QoL there, a little balance, a little convenience, etc. and now half the playerbase clamored so hard about how bad it became that they're releasing the Vanilla version of the game all over again. 

At the end of the day though, DE chose to basically give us UV, which hits Sentinels really hard. I think this was done mostly for the benefit of the new MOA pets, but they should probably work on giving the Sentinels a baseline iconic perk back that makes them more useful than beasts in some scenarios.

You're doing that slippery slope thing again... 

[Oreades]

1 hour ago, Hikelos said:

If you want variety

Make more things the same 

  Reveal hidden contents

When there is for the most part one gigantic stumbling block that is causing the disparity of use between Sentinels and Companions, you remove that block by making it uniform between the two. It isn't exactly rocket surgery. 

It affords people the freedom of choice to determine what they want to used based on their unique qualities (which contrary to unpopular belief they actually retain) instead of instantly writing off one class of "lil' buddy" as inferior right out of the gate. Based entirely off of their inability to efficiently gather loot, in a looter shooter.  

So yeah you encourage variation by making more things the same. 

 

Now all they need to do is finish leveling the field by removing DNA degradation and I will finally buy a pet bed and some toys. 

[Hikelos]

4 minutes ago, Oreades said:

When there is for the most part one gigantic stumbling block that is causing the disparity of use between Sentinels and Companions, you remove that block by making it uniform between the two.

Alright, there's really no point in debating this further, but I'll give you a last point of argumentation and maybe that'll get your noggin joggin, as they say. Call it an experiment.

Removing choice, does not encourage more choice. It's not rocket science.

If you don't have to choose between a ressable pet with no vacuum and a permadeath pet with vacuum ,then there is no choice. You removed choice.

As Shalath said: Why use anything other than Smeeta?

And it's true. Why pick a sentinel over a beast? I already use Smeeta for everything, occasionally I will use Helios for Vacuum in capture relic speedruns, and that's about all the use my sentinels get as it is right now.

Again, I use WoW as proof of what DrBorris dismisses as a "Slippery slope" because a giant like ActivisionBlizzard was made to bend the knee and recognize this as fact: things like having to choose which pet to bring and having to feed your pet are things Hunter players are asking to have back right now. These are little annoyances that fill up the experience and make it much more satisfying.

"Why do I have to feed my pet?" is not too far away from "Why do I have to crack relics with additional missions after I got them? Can't they just open for the entire team as we all get them?" . And you have to take into consideration that "QoL" changes justify more "QoL" changes in the future.

In conclusion, it is just vacuum and it is just sentinels. I really don't care all that much, if anything my Kavats just got better. I just enjoy seeing how people rationalize these things when confronted with the possible long term consequences.

Obviously it's not like DE will spiral down into coddling from this alone, that's ridiculous. They seem to have a good vision for their game and again, I think this change was 100% just to make the new MOA pets more appetizing.

[Oreades]

4 minutes ago, Hikelos said:

Alright, there's really no point in debating this further, but I'll give you a last point of argumentation and maybe that'll get your noggin joggin, as they say. Call it an experiment.

Removing choice, does not encourage more choice. It's not rocket science.

Theres no point in debating further

Let me debate this further

*insert meme image* 

I stopped reading here tho I am almost curious enough to continue. That said they didn't remove anything, they added or more aptly are finally adding the same choice to companions that they extended to all Sentinels some patches ago. You are by all means free not to use it but the choice is now there. 

[Solarsyphon]

It's not bad it's just unnecessary and kind of  boring. Id have preferred something unique for companions. Now I have to deal with imagining exactly how a Kubrow is producing a 7m vacuum. Where does all the air go? 

[Nitro747]

2 hours ago, Furappi said:

Just.... just go near the item and pick it up, is not that difficult

Yeah, and do that in a mission with dozens of rooms, with thousands of enemies killed, thousands of loot on the floor, including rare mods. Do that thousands of times, walking around in circles to pick S#&$ you need because the game asks 1500 of X resource to craft a single key-important item for even tactical alerts. It's not like there are 3 or 4 resource piles on the floor, there are 300 to 400.

[Xzorn]

Long story short.

 

• Warframe used to be more of a strategy shooter with far less enemies and heavy emphasis on aim. There was arguably strategic value to picking up items at the right time during this period and the numeric amount you got per pickup was also far more than it is today.

 

• Warframe later became a horde shooter and the strategy is largely gone. In both the way a player approaches enemies and item pick ups. Items were increased in drop ratings due to enemy numbers but lowered in numeric value. Except of course Energy Orbs which was the beginning of the end for Energy Management but that's another subject.

 

There really isn't a good reason to not have full radius vacuum. At least not a game driven one. There is however a financial reason, which is probably why they've moved to sandbox game play like PoE. Self contained ecosystems the player has to restart every time they add one. Think of the main items you need from these places and how they're things Vacuum can't help you with and that's very likely on purpose. They also didn't add the small passive radius until PoE.

I don't believe it's about choice or strategy. DE was all to happy to mention Shmeeta works in Kuva Survivals because it's a selling point but meta options have no business being in a game, that's why most RPGs have done away with items that increase things like "Magic Find" or "Item Rarity". These things cause more problems than they solve, mostly by not really being optional.

Who remembers swapping weapons / items for the last few hits on Diablo bosses for a magic find boost? Pretty much everyone I bet.

[Teridax68]

Vacuum I think is one of those things that's perceived really differently by the developers, compared to most of the player base. DE has brought it up as an important balancing tool first to make one Sentinel on par with the others, then to make Sentinels as a whole on par with pets (with the idea being that pets were being allowed to be stronger because they didn't have Vacuum). To most players, though, Vacuum is a convenience tool that's considered essential for smooth play: this is why, even now, Sentinels are still vastly more popular than pets, as DE was forced to admit, and thus why Vacuum needs to be made universal, at least on companions, in order for all companions to have a more equal chance of getting picked.

I agree with the OP though that Vacuum would be best implemented as a universal passive. The developers now are clearly aware that, as long as Vacuum is given out as an optional mod, it will have to be made available in some form or another to every other companion in order for those to be picked more frequently, so they know how integral it is to gameplay. For all the big scare about the power creep Universal Vacuum would supposedly represent (which ultimately boils down to one extra companion mod slot), DE has had very little issue implementing much more direct power creep through the release of weapons and mods that blow the rest out of the water, e.g. Gram Prime or Adaptation. As such, the opposition to its implementation (and the fiasco that was The Vacuum Within, which almost gave us what we wanted, but stopped short for no real reason) I think comes down to stubbornness, and so due to past circumstances. It's taken the developers literal years to come to this point, but nonetheless, we're inching closer and closer to a more universal Vacuum. Hopefully, a little farther down the line we could finally have it as a universal passive, though making it a pet mod would already allow the player to have Vacuum regardless of companion, thereby making it as universal as can be without making it innate to every frame.

[Loswaith]

13 hours ago, Hikelos said:

Removing choice, does not encourage more choice. It's not rocket science.

Removing meaningless choices does actually encourage meaningful choices.

Edited October 22, 2018 by Loswaith

[ScribbleClash]

This discussion is and always has been incredibly dull.

There's but one argument against Universal Vacuum: Control over picking up energy/health orbs and ammunition.
Well here's a concept: UVac just sucks Ressources.

Hell, why not just throw a switch into the options to turn UVac off if you don't need it? That way all the Elite-players who want to pick everything up themselves can keep doing it. Or is it that you just want others to play the way you'd like them to play?

Edited October 22, 2018 by ScribbleClash

[Zi-Sui]

On 2018-10-20 at 10:44 AM, XaoGarrent said:

You're not going to get a good answer to this, because there is no good answer. You'll find a lot of mindless apologetics, ungrounded rationale and probably a few instances of a begging the question fallacy or similar circular logic, but you wont find any good answers. Because they simply don't exist. It's as you say: A stubborn insistence.

This is the closest we'll ever get to true univac, so I'm just going to accept it before they change their mind.

So my user experience without vacuum is not valid because I don't mind being without it, but your user experience with vacuum is valid because you can't live without it? And I'm not the one with vacuum obsession.

And what about the argument for universal vacuum? I can do both looting and more than enough killing on any frame most weapons without it and I'm not a pro, so harder gameplay is hardly an argument. And it's just one mod slot out of 10. For optional thing.

Oh and you get taxon very early in-game and Vacuum is common af. So new players is really not an argument.

Oh yeah I think the best argument for vacuum is that everybody uses it. But everybody also uses health mod if they have it, so should that too be in-built to encourage choise? Logic?

Lets try this: be without vacuum. Might suck but you get used to it and your companion will do everything else as usual. You know companions can actually do stuff other than vacuum. If you dont know it's l2p issue. But try companion without health mod. Suddenly you no longer have a companion because it's dead. No vacuum no nothing. So which is more essential, health mod or vacuum?

And I have an obsession for health mod but unlike people in this topic I'm not afraid to admit it and I don't demand the game to be changed because of it.

Edited October 22, 2018 by BoarWarrior

[Fallen_Echo]

On 2018-10-21 at 3:27 AM, Misgenesis said:

game design stand point Vacuum makes the loot system largely redundant in most places in the game.

But also from game design standpoint the current looting system is both outdated and not fitting for this game.

 

On 2018-10-21 at 6:42 AM, Hyohakusha said:

Univac means less overall gain, which in turn means more incentive to make mistakes purchasing things from the market, or buying them off of other players.

If that would been such an important factor in why we dont have univac than the vacuum within wouldnt have happened at all.

Also it might pressure players into buying stuff from the market but no vacuumable item is tradeable.

On 2018-10-21 at 8:35 AM, Hikelos said:

The reason they gave Vacuum to sentinels only (and the reason they should keep it that way, flame me all you want) is that homogeneity of perks through the choices you can make is very bad for gameplay.

Hey guys, we introduced one pistol what has awesome stats but looks like literal trash and one great looking pistol what is simply useless!

We wont gonna change any of them because we want you to choose your instruments, homogenity is bad m'kay?

On 2018-10-21 at 10:03 AM, Shalath said:

Community: Why us anything other than Smeeta? Sentinels are pointless. Plz give them something unique!

If the only reason why the community doesnt use one companion over anything else is because it doesnt have a QoL mod, that means that the rest of the companions need to be buffed.

[vomder]

9 minutes ago, Fallen_Echo said:

no vacuumable item is tradeable.

What about mods?

[Fallen_Echo]

14 minutes ago, vomder said:

 What about mods?

Oh forgot about those. 

[Fallen_Echo]

19 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Scott explained his reason in Devstream 100. Go rewatch that

You mean the stream where he just said "we dont want it to be in a noticable size?"

Im pretty sure i could ask a 3 year old to reason why he doesnt eats vegetables and get a more compelling argument.

 

[Fallen_Echo]

13 hours ago, Furappi said:

Just.... just go near the item and pick it up, is not that difficult

Welcome to Warframe!

A game about lightspeed fluid combat, fast and agile movement, acrobatics defying gravity to reach greater lenghts faster than ever with enemies who murder you if you stop moving!

This is the game where you are forced to use outdated looting, completely breaking the flow of the game as you need to stop and move between two crates to be able to pick up the one thing you farm.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

8 minutes ago, Fallen_Echo said:

You mean the stream where he just said "we dont want it to be in a noticable size?"

Im pretty sure i could ask a 3 year old to reason why he doesnt eats vegetables and get a more compelling argument.

 

You’re taking that line out of context and skipping the actual part where he explains his reasoning for why vacuum is the way it is.