Excalibur Umbra zero affinity discourages use of his passive

[Buttaface]

3 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Hah, the attempt...

Effigy does not earn you affinity while you are in Operator mode. Also, it deactivates when your frame runs out of energy. If you want to give an example of AFK farming that actually works, I'll be here.

Effigy earns the team affinity while it is out. Umbra should too. "Ha" all you like. The end.

[Birdframe_Prime]

8 hours ago, Buttaface said:

Effigy earns the team affinity while it is out. Umbra should too. "Ha" all you like. The end.

Obviously it shouldn't, because it doesn't. This would have been patched in the last six months otherwise. Deliberate design choice by DE because unlike Effigy, which disappears when you run out of energy, Umbra is available for free and carries your actual modded weapons.

[MirageKnight]

19 hours ago, Buttaface said:

So I guess kills with Chroma's Effigy don't grant affinity either... erm wait.

Except...

18 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Effigy does not earn you affinity while you are in Operator mode.

Truth.

Just a friendly reminder....Effigy is an extension of the Warframe that is activated as an ability. That stays in one spot. And has its own forms of doing damage.

Comparing that single, limited ability to a fully modded Warframe armed with fully modded weapons that can run around and  act on its own while the player is in spoiler mode is quite unfair.

[Vantooth]

IMO this should work like specters. I don't actually know whether specters generate affinity or not but if they do he should too. If they don't it's fine as is because consistency is important.

[Buttaface]

14 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Obviously it shouldn't, because it doesn't. This would have been patched in the last six months otherwise. Deliberate design choice by DE because unlike Effigy, which disappears when you run out of energy, Umbra is available for free and carries your actual modded weapons.

What a joke of an argument that "it would have been patched by now" is on at least two levels. First, as you well know, WF is cram full of things that have been needing patching for years, let alone six months, and 2. This is a feedback forum requesting changes, not a "whether or not something is intentional based on whether it has been patched yet" forum. But I think you know these things full well and are just being OBTUSE.

You and the other one are going to cling to the bad, unsound arguments about Umbra affinity til the cows come home apparently. Why not just say "I don't want the team getting affinity for Umbra kills... just because" and leave it at that -opinion- because the arguing points you are offering are transparently flimsy.

Whether or not the operator is out is an obvious red herring.

And again for emphasis, if the team gets affinity for things Chroma's Effigy kills, the team should also get affinity for what Umbra kills.

If it's deemed that the player's operator amp doesn't get affinity while out of Umbra for Umbra kills, -that- would be more understandable, but contrary to red herrings, that is not the topic of this thread.

Edited December 6, 2018 by Buttaface

[apostateCourier]

On 2018-12-05 at 4:41 PM, Thaylien said:

Again, you keep arguing this, and the answer remains; because the frame is capable of playing the game without player input on it, using fully modded weapons, it has a downside to using that.

It's not rationalisations or excuses, this is the actual reason why he doesn't. No matter what your opinion on it, the design choice was deliberate. Whether you think they are wrong or not doesn't change the fact that they already took in all of these considerations and points that you have come up with, and still did it. The behaviour that they are stopping is, based on this fact, more important to stop than any potential improvements that allowing it could bring.

It's able to do stuff on its own because that's the Warframe's passive, that it has instead of any other passive. That is the cost. Do any other passives remove affinity from the map?

[apostateCourier]

15 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Obviously it shouldn't, because it doesn't. This would have been patched in the last six months otherwise. Deliberate design choice by DE because unlike Effigy, which disappears when you run out of energy, Umbra is available for free and carries your actual modded weapons.

Until we hear from DE, I don't want to hear any more assertions that you know exactly what they have and have not intended and/or done.

[Birdframe_Prime]

14 hours ago, apostateCourier said:

It's able to do stuff on its own because that's the Warframe's passive, that it has instead of any other passive. That is the cost. Do any other passives remove affinity from the map?

No, Umbra's passive has a cost. It is different from another passive and that is not a cost. Is equipping Octavia for energy regen on casting an ability a cost for not equipping Nidus to give you consistent health regen? No. It's a different frame with a different passive. Umbra's has a cost because if it didn't it would be an exploit.

15 hours ago, Buttaface said:

Why not just say "I don't want the team getting affinity for Umbra kills... just because" and leave it at that -opinion- because the arguing points you are offering are transparently flimsy.

Because you, by this answer, aren't even understanding the argument.

Umbra is literally playing the game for you. He is not limited by your energy, he is not static, he is not a Drain function that has limits and balances against how long he can be used without you actively playing the game. This is the definition of an AFK exploit, and, as such, has the limit of not letting you benefit from what an AFK exploit would give you, namely Affinity towards your gear. This is true whether it's you using it, or another player in the squad.

Also, how is 'whether the operator is out or not' a red herring? It's literally the difference between whether Umbra's Passive is triggered or not. You instantly have access to that Affinity when the operator is not out because you're actively playing the Warframe and getting kills, or your team is contributing to you with Affinity Share. The moment you aren't actively playing as the Warframe, it doesn't magically lose the high-end guns and melee, it still has the modded range and strength of the abilities it chooses to use, it's not like a regular Spectre that you can just deploy. It's still a Warframe. And whether your Operator is deployed is the key to whether you are playing the game, or whether it's playing the game for you.

OP wants to 'fight alongside' their Warframe, and that's a fine goal. Doesn't change this fact that the result of what they want is an open AFK Exploit.

But I'm not having to argue why Umbra shouldn't grant Affinity while he's in his autonomous mode, you're the ones having to argue why he should when he deliberately doesn't. My statement about 'it would have been patched by now' isn't me being facetious, it's literally the case that this question of whether Umbra should gain Affinity or not has been asked before both by us the players and by the Devs when the AFK exploits began in The Index and Rathuum. The answer is that the frame being able to play the game for you should not grant you the same rewards as when you play the game yourself.

[Buttaface]

5 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Umbra is literally playing the game for you...

Just like Effigy, which grants the team affinity. Moreover, Umbra is obviously hamstrung in aiming and AI so that there are only a few mission types where he can even come close to competing with a player controlled frame. He has lousy aim, almost never lands a headshot spends lots of time casting dash and javelins that do literally nothing, won't use EB at all, and won't use secondaries unless no primary is equipped. He runs into black holes regularly and sometimes just stops doing anything at all. If you think that's "playing the game for you" then you are mistaken. It's essentially like letting a friend who doesn't play WF sit down and play your frame.

"Being able to play the game for you should not grant the same rewards" is dishonest. It grants -no- affinity currently, and wanting it to is feedback as legitimate as any other. Finally, calling OP advocating for an "exploit" is also dishonest.

Edited December 7, 2018 by Buttaface

[Birdframe_Prime]

49 minutes ago, Buttaface said:

Just like Effigy, which grants the team affinity.

No, no, that's patently false. Effigy is an incredibly limited ability, it can't use a fully-modded Tigris Prime or Arca Plasmor, it's damage and CC range caps out at a pitiful amount, and it costs energy constantly so it ends by itself because you aren't feeding your warframe energy by actually playing the game. Even augmented it doesn't have the ability to follow you around for no cost and it isn't even on par with a base Warframe Spectre for functionality.

Just because Umbra has poor AI, and spoilers, all Warframe Spectre AI is that poor, does not mean that he isn't still shooting a fully modded weapon, casting with fully modded abilities (even if those particular abilities aren't the ones you would use) and able to make things die on the regular and it costs you nothing, you can literally peace out and do nothing.

And no, I'm not saying that OP is advocating for an Exploit. I'm saying that they are asking for something that is entirely different, but that when you take into account the one thing that is required to achieve that different thing, it creates an Exploit. That's something that's fairly common in these Forums; people want to have fun by allowing Nidus to only need 10 stacks to activate his Undying, but that's a function that was increased to 15 because it was deemed by the people who have the actual stats on the game that the ability needed to be more expensive.

Umbra grants no affinity currently, and it isn't because it's been forgotten or somebody didn't turn on the switch, it's literally a device to stop behaviour that DE have said, time and again, that they don't want. It's behaviour that is the exact reason we get nerfs that aren't really deserved, like Ember's range, Mag's Greedy Pull, Mesa's omni-directional Peacemaker and so on. That's why this feedback is doomed from the start, because the situation we have is actually what the game devs have done on purpose.

DE have turned off a method for exploiting the game, and if you expect that turning it on won't result in people exploiting the game, you're either naive or deliberately ignoring the facts and history of this game.

[apostateCourier]

I'm saying that Excalibur Umbra deleting affinity from the map is enough of a problem that it pushes people away from using the frame. It makes his passive entirely pointless until you have literally zero progression left to do. Punishing normal use of Umbra's passive because of the possibility of Umbra "afk farms"- entirely impossible to do purely afk because your Operator will be found and gunned down- is ridiculous.

[Kyrosiris]

Yeah, so this really needs to get fixed - I did an Elite Sanctuary Onslaught today to farm up the last half of the XP I needed for my Penta - it's level 15, so on a Trinity with only one weapon this should take a wave at most, right?

Our group had an Umbra that sat in operator mode all run, while Umbra ran wild murdering everything with Staticor.

It took five waves to get the XP for fifteen ranks on a weapon that was my only equipped weapon (meaning 75% of all ally kill XP went to it).

I should not be punished because someone else is using Umbra. Even if you for some inane reason want Umbra's operator themselves to gain no affinity, they should NEVER be an active impediment to their party. Even Limbo is only annoying because the mechanics are obtuse and unexplained, and they can be worked around (other than the auras of those in the Rift not applying to enemies as they spawn, of course, which also needs to be fixed); I can do nothing about Umbra wiping out waves of enemies and me seeing zero benefit from it.

Fix this ASAP.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Kyrosiris
typo fixing, also fix limbo nullifying corpro please :)

[Lohitukipuhelin]

There probably should not be a troll frame that can just delete affinity, essentially allowing you to bully other players on accident and you can probably make it even worse if you minmax it.

[Lugwy]

Sounds like a bug with Umbra being classified as an "ally" in terms of affinity gain, as it seems to only unbug itself during syndicate missions.

It'd be nice if it gets fixed since it seems a bit counterintuitive to actively punish an entire squad for using one of Umbra's gimmicks. There's already an anti-AFK measure in place in game, IIRC.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Lugwy

[Cathair]

I feel like the lack of team affinity makes the various arguments over idling moot and irrelevant. If you say that automatic Umbra kills shouldn't produce affinity because it would mean a significant source for an idling player, then you've also admitted that the amount of kills/affinity currently not being shared with the team is significant. That means anyone can choose to deprive their teammates of a meaningful quantity of potential rewards by using Umbra in this way. As far as I know, that's the most serious means of trolling currently possible in the game!

 

Conversely, if your stance is that Umbra's killing potential isn't enough to roadblock teammates, then... how would it be any real unfair advantage for the Umbra player, either? In light of Kyrosiris' post, I do think it's significant; I'm just saying that even as a hypothetical, there's no argument in favor of the current implementation that isn't self-defeating.

 

Please fix this, DE. If you really must exclude the Umbra from gaining affinity for itself or its player, then so be it, but the team impact really has to be fixed. Not cool!

Edited December 17, 2018 by Cathair
clarity.

[Birdframe_Prime]

12 hours ago, Cathair said:

Conversely, if your stance is that Umbra's killing potential isn't enough to roadblock teammates, then... how would it be any real unfair advantage for the Umbra player, either?

The stance is simple: The upsides and downsides of Umbra's passive having Affinity Gain and not having Affinity Gain were weighed against each other, and this is the result.

There has not been a single argument yet, that anyone has suggested, that has not already been considered by DE during development, and still the gavel came down on this side. It's not an accident, it's not a decision they made in a vacuum. It's genuinely that the loss of that Affinity, even to a team, does not outweigh their policy of anti-AFK farming.

[apostateCourier]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

The stance is simple: The upsides and downsides of Umbra's passive having Affinity Gain and not having Affinity Gain were weighed against each other, and this is the result.

There has not been a single argument yet, that anyone has suggested, that has not already been considered by DE during development, and still the gavel came down on this side. It's not an accident, it's not a decision they made in a vacuum. It's genuinely that the loss of that Affinity, even to a team, does not outweigh their policy of anti-AFK farming.

Citation needed.  Show me where DE said this.  If you can't, then you're making this up.

Edited December 17, 2018 by apostateCourier

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, apostateCourier said:

Citation needed.  Show me where DE said this.  If you can't, then you're making this up.

The Warframe was released in this state, and that's after about two years of Umbra being in their system, the 'Umbra Prime' existing on the Chinese build of the game for their Founder's Pack (instead of Excal Prime) and the quest itself being a year in production. It's not a decision they made without forethought.

What I can point to specifically are the multiple patches where Umbra's ability to earn rewards in other ways was removed, The Index being one of the best credit farms now doesn't score you points automatically with him, and the fact that he can't even trigger certain Operator Arcanes where he could on release, those are all patched. Every decision DE have made with him has been to prevent us from getting rewards out of his functionality.

Again, your argument isn't against me, I'm just here pointing out the fact that this is intentional. Literally nothing you've said so far has any weight because it's all things that had to be considered for them to have released a Warframe with a passive like this one.

[Kyrosiris]

4 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

The stance is simple: The upsides and downsides of Umbra's passive having Affinity Gain and not having Affinity Gain were weighed against each other, and this is the result.

There has not been a single argument yet, that anyone has suggested, that has not already been considered by DE during development, and still the gavel came down on this side. It's not an accident, it's not a decision they made in a vacuum. It's genuinely that the loss of that Affinity, even to a team, does not outweigh their policy of anti-AFK farming.

I never thought I'd see "yes, it is cool and good that a player should be able to sabotage the gameplay experience of three other people simply by using a provided frame as intended to be used" stated unironically.

Please A) cite where the hell DE actually said any of this nonsense you're spouting and B) explain why in the nine hells you think a player using Umbra with a high powered weapon should actively harm other people's gameplay experiences.

I don't give a good god damn about Umbra's operator not getting Affinity. I very much care about the fact that something that should've taken a wave or two of EOS at most (getting one weapon up fifteen ranks) took five because an Umbra with Staticor was out-killing the two Volts in the group (because no one but me brought Corrosive Projection because most of this game's community hates basic mathematics).

[apostateCourier]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

The Warframe was released in this state, and that's after about two years of Umbra being in their system, the 'Umbra Prime' existing on the Chinese build of the game for their Founder's Pack (instead of Excal Prime) and the quest itself being a year in production. It's not a decision they made without forethought.

What I can point to specifically are the multiple patches where Umbra's ability to earn rewards in other ways was removed, The Index being one of the best credit farms now doesn't score you points automatically with him, and the fact that he can't even trigger certain Operator Arcanes where he could on release, those are all patched. Every decision DE have made with him has been to prevent us from getting rewards out of his functionality.

Again, your argument isn't against me, I'm just here pointing out the fact that this is intentional. Literally nothing you've said so far has any weight because it's all things that had to be considered for them to have released a Warframe with a passive like this one.

DE makes bad decisions and then walks them back later all the time. And yes, the turnaround on those can take years! Also, Umbra as he is today hasn't been out for years. You need to cite some sources.

[Birdframe_Prime]

18 hours ago, Kyrosiris said:

I never thought I'd see "yes, it is cool and good that a player should be able to sabotage the gameplay experience of three other people simply by using a provided frame as intended to be used" stated unironically.

I never I'd see 'Yes, I think it should be perfectly possible to introduce a function that let's a player stand in an invulnerable state out of the line of fire and let their Warframe run around with their high-powered weapons killing everything for them and gain all the benefits' stated unironically.

[Lohitukipuhelin]

Yet that is not what people are saying. What we are saying that even if umbra deletes affinity for its user, it should not do that for the rest of the team at minimum.

[Kyrosiris]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I never I'd see 'Yes, I think it should be perfectly possible to introduce a function that let's a player stand in an invulnerable state out of the line of fire and let their Warframe run around with their high-powered weapons killing everything for them and gain all the benefits' stated unironically.

I have zero goddamned control over that, you absolute numpty. You still haven't provided any justification or proof of your claims, still are ignoring that I am having my gameplay experience diminished through no fault or action of my own, and still are sitting here stumping for a bug because every other "autonomous entity that can kill for you" mechanic doesn't work this way.

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, Kyrosiris said:

I have zero goddamned control over that, you absolute numpty. You still haven't provided any justification or proof of your claims, still are ignoring that I am having my gameplay experience diminished through no fault or action of my own, and still are sitting here stumping for a bug because every other "autonomous entity that can kill for you" mechanic doesn't work this way.

I literally do not have to do anything, I'm not stumping for some bug, this is what the state of the frame is and not by accident. You and yours have to find a viable reason to change it, and none of you have.

I'm not an unreasonable person, if you can actually give me any kind of reason to take your side I will consider it for a point of viable debate.

You are vastly blowing this entire situation out of proportion, you are literally whining about ten to twenty minutes of mild inconvenience if, and only if, that entire time is spent with an Excal Umbra in autonomous mode on the field.

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, Lohitukipuhelin said:

Yet that is not what people are saying. What we are saying that even if umbra deletes affinity for its user, it should not do that for the rest of the team at minimum.

Yeah, but what if the rest of the team is just AFK'ing as well? Do you know why I ask that? Because they literally were. They literally were going into places like The Index and Rathuum and literally letting the frame play the mission while they got the rewards.

The team can just as easily get rewards from Excal Umbra, and unlike the actual rules for AFK play, players count as not-AFK if they're in Operator mode and healing up their frames, boosting the damage and so on.

This whole thing is ridiculous, because if you're actually playing the game, then Umbra literally cannot take a meaningful amount of Affinity away from you, because his AI is crap. It's only if you are trying to benefit off the kills from Umbra in any way that you actually lose out.