Recasting...

[punipunichen]

Hey, Could we have auto recasting based on duration and depletion? like a shift + <Hotkey To skill>? or just hold cast to activate "auto recast cast" for timer based skills, should recast right at the end of last second, so the effect of the build up is kept... and depleting recast for the skills tennos want to have on all the time.. such as rhino skin and warding halo, sould auto cast when activated the moment it ran out... for the people who don't care for activation time... of course  auto cast is turned of when fail cast (when energy not suffusion), thus people don't have to use 3rd party program for auto timed clicks...

[LordPantaloonsthe3rd]

or you could just like...press a button once and awhile.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Recasting is part of the way they check you're actually doing things and not automating your play. Why do you think so many abilities don't even sync up with each other, like the durations on Mesa's 2 and 3?

Some abilities are re-castable before the duration ends, and that's because they have effects that count on your being able to keep the ability going. For example, Chroma's Vex Armour has a buff that you have to build up and sustain, and you're actually in a bad place if you let it drop. For another Gara's Mass Vitrify is recastable because it's the only way that you can refresh and sync up the timers on active Splinter Storm casts (which you want to do because of the damage scaling Storm actually can have).

But almost everything else? No, the downtime between casts is the balance beyond just Energy cost.

[punipunichen]

so... memorizing timing.. is part of skill? sad... Im too busy guns and blazing to keep Vex Armor up all time... and when I missed the recast... it screws up my day... I jsut think it's a pain to consider that part of "skill" ... AFK check... ? yet people DO still use Macro for their game, and it is allowed...

[PurrrningBoop]

 

7 минут назад, punipunichen сказал:

so... memorizing timing.. is part of skill?

Short answer: yes.

I'd consider not being lazy is a skill worthy of note.

[Birdframe_Prime]

10 hours ago, punipunichen said:

AFK check... ?

No, 'active play' check. If you can't manage guns and abilities in tandem, then you really aren't playing Warframe very well.

10 hours ago, punipunichen said:

so... memorizing timing.. is part of skill?

Every single online game with a cooldown or duration timer includes this as part of its skills. Just look at the MOBA genre, managing your timings is exactly the way you win.

Even though Warframe is PvE, not PvP, paying attention to your own abilities as much as the enemies is 100% part of the skillset.

10 hours ago, PurrrningBoop said:

Short answer: yes.

I'd consider not being lazy is a skill worthy of note.

But you, sir, get a like for your name alone XD

[punipunichen]

Vet talk Roasted... totally revealing. Okok... I AM BAD at cool down counting..... yeah... I just can't multitask that well with timing... will work on that... Just thought if Macro was built in, then it wouldn't be a issue of 3rd party programs...

[Birdframe_Prime]

13 hours ago, punipunichen said:

I just can't multitask that well with timing...

You do have my sympathies there, my friend, it's not actually all that fun when you have to push skills that you've not needed and have to learn in order just to enjoy something.

But, here's the thing:

14 hours ago, punipunichen said:

Just thought if Macro was built in

Historically Warframe has had a real problem with Macro. To the point where they literally went over-the-top and nerfed some frames into the ground and others got penalties too. If you look at the state of certain abilities these days, you look at the state of Excalibur's Radial Javelin, of Mirage's Prism, Mag's Shield Polarise... all of these things were changed because of players abusing a meta that not only map-wiped under the right circumstances, but could also be macro'd.

The AFK system evolved from simply not granting you mission rewards if you used up all your revives and stayed Dead doing nothing for the mission, all the way to some complicated thing about not even granting Affinity, turning off Vacuum and more if you don't move more than a certain distance, kill something, use a targeted ability... a number of variables had to be satisfied and basically if you only do things that could be macro'd for longer than three minutes, you get the AFK status.

That's because macro makers caught on to the initial state of 'inactivity' and made sure they macro'd in a 'move, fire weapon, cast ability' sequence in and more. Much like virus makers, they adapted their programs to beat the AFK detection.

Nekros' Desecrate was the worst, actually, as you literally had to cast it every time something died or you weren't being a good Nekros, people would macro him to cast Desecrate up to five or six times in a row, once every two seconds, so that all they needed to do was walk around in the bits between. And that state, where you had to cast all the time and barely had any time to do anything else with him, was why Desecrate became an Aura ability that takes energy based on how many enemies you affect, instead. (Not because you could macro it, but because it was so repetitive people believed they had to, and it interfered with every other thing you would do as Nekros.)

Basically, as easy as Warframe is to macro from a third party, DE really, really, really doesn't want you to do it.

[punipunichen]

that's why DE can built them in and pick and choose what would be considered AFK, I think(still today) Vex Armor continuity auto cast to lasting stack isn't cheating, there is just so many things happening, I still to this day can't keep my stacking for five minutes! I always forget! I guess what I can live with is if DE give a audio cue for Chroma's vex armor at around 5Seconds, then Im good...

[(PSN)caoshen0625]

14 hours ago, punipunichen said:

that's why DE can built them in and pick and choose what would be considered AFK, I think(still today) Vex Armor continuity auto cast to lasting stack isn't cheating, there is just so many things happening, I still to this day can't keep my stacking for five minutes! I always forget! I guess what I can live with is if DE give a audio cue for Chroma's vex armor at around 5Seconds, then Im good...

Just take a quick peek at the countdown whenever you reload? That way it's technically not multitasking.

[Teridax68]

While I can agree that an easy fix to this could just be to pay attention to timers, and that the game should probably not run itself on autopilot, I also very much sympathize with the OP: if the only real gameplay to an ability is to constantly look at a timer on an ability bar and press a button every so often, the ability has no real gameplay. It is simply poor design to make abilities whose only real input from the player is that they press a button once to exert power over a prolonged duration, and such design is precisely what causes those abilities to be easily automated via some macro. Thus, the OP's request is not even that major, because if DE doesn't provide that option, there are alternatives that can be easily found online (which, as far as I know, are compliant with the game's terms of use).

With this in mind, providing such a macro is largely inconsequential (people who'd be looking for one would obtain it one way or another), and if DE really wants people to not simply AFK win their games, they need to update their design so that their abilities never boil down to passive buffs with potentially 100% uptime. Chroma's Vex Armor is a prominent example of an ability whose gameplay absolutely does not come from its reactivation, as it may as well apply permanently and provide equal or better gameplay, and similar steroids exist in the form of abilities like Mesa's Shatter Shield, Trinity's Link, and even Nezha's Fire Walker (which got changed from a toggle to a duration effect because constant Energy drains disable regeneration, and players often forgot to turn the ability off entirely and caught themselves out of Energy at random moments). Octavia herself is a frame entirely made up of duration-based deployables, and there would be no meaningful difference in her gameplay if all of them just had infinite uptime (which I think says more about Octavia herself than ability design in general).

By contrast, abilities like Trinity's Blessing (when used to save allies), Harrow's Condemn, or Mesa's Peacemaker are all abilities that genuinely feel fun to use, because deciding when to cast these abilities is itself a meaningful decision (you can't use these abilities literally nonstop, except with Peacemaker, and even then you slow yourself down drastically). Even in the case of always-on abilities like Rhino's Iron Skin, Frost's Snow Globe, Nezha's Warding Halo, there is a meaningful timing component there, because casting those abilities at the right moment nets the player a bonus to the effect's strength (plus Frost can also case 3 to freeze enemies and deal a surprisingly large amount of damage). Thus, there are already examples in-game of how abilities can change to not simply devolve into timer management minigames, which are generally tedious more than truly engaging or fun.

[Birdframe_Prime]

18 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I also very much sympathize with the OP: if the only real gameplay to an ability is to constantly look at a timer on an ability bar and press a button every so often, the ability has no real gameplay.

Don't get us wrong, we do sympathise.

But remember that DE does have a system that allows you to press the button and then continue without active recasting.

And that's Drain. Which is a terrible system, would ruin the modding for Chroma by forcing him onto Duration and Efficiency if he wanted to maintain his buffs without losing all his energy, and even then a simple Magnetic proc from an Eidolon or even a door trap would completely remove his ability anyway, while the Duration version carries on after that allowing you to get your energy back. It's also one of the (many) reasons that people don't like using his 1 and 4.

We get what OP's asking for, we just don't want DE to get the idea into their head that he needs another Drain on him. A recast-before-end ability is miles more efficient, and leaves him with the ability to actively use all his abilities (if you want to).

And yes, you're right, an ability that only requires one button press every set duration is not very engaging. But as you pointed out, lots of frames have these. In fact it's hard to find a frame that doesn't have an ability you just press once every set duration and watch it do things. That's one of the key parts of Buff and Debuff abilities; you cast them and they do the work while you actually go do something else like shooting or melee, while you're now buffed or while the enemy is debuffed.

These kind of abilities aren't just limited to Warframe. You name a game with active-cast abilities, I'll give you examples of defense/buff type functions that you just press, go do your thing for a bit, and press again once you need to.

So yeah, it's not fun that people can lose their buffs, but it's kind of part of that whole 'active play' thing; if you forget your timers, you lose your buffs, or you leave yourself vulnerable when duration-based defenses die.

[Teridax68]

18 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

But remember that DE does have a system that allows you to press the button and then continue without active recasting.

And that's Drain. Which is a terrible system, would ruin the modding for Chroma by forcing him onto Duration and Efficiency if he wanted to maintain his buffs without losing all his energy, and even then a simple Magnetic proc from an Eidolon or even a door trap would completely remove his ability anyway, while the Duration version carries on after that allowing you to get your energy back. It's also one of the (many) reasons that people don't like using his 1 and 4.

The problem with drain isn't with the core mechanic, i.e. enabling continuous use of an ability, but with the quirks of its implementation: drain disables Energy gains over time, for example, which renders Zenurik useless, and draining Energy over time is in itself not a great mechanic for abilities that you just want running in the background, which is why games like Path of Exile instead have abilities like those reduce the player's maximum resource while in use, without imposing any other limitation (so you don't lose mana/Energy, but have your usable pool reduced to, say, 100, rather than 150). Also, Drain doesn't differ from normal abilities in terms of mod synergy: duration and efficiency increase uptime, just as they do for cast abilities on a fixed duration, so even if Chroma's 3 were to be switched to a drain effect, he wouldn't magically become forced to rely on a different mod setup if he is balanced to consume the same amount of Energy on average. 

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We get what OP's asking for, we just don't want DE to get the idea into their head that he needs another Drain on him. A recast-before-end ability is miles more efficient, and leaves him with the ability to actively use all his abilities (if you want to).

A toggled ability with a continuous Energy drain would similarly let Chroma "actively use all his abilities", but I can agree that it's generally not a good idea at this time to turn any ability into a drain, again because the implementation of drains is pretty bad. To me, though, that also means drain as a mechanic needs to be reimplemented, so that if an ability is meant to be always-on, that can be made to happen without the ability being made dysfunctional due to some mechanic that does not need to exist.

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And yes, you're right, an ability that only requires one button press every set duration is not very engaging. But as you pointed out, lots of frames have these. In fact it's hard to find a frame that doesn't have an ability you just press once every set duration and watch it do things. That's one of the key parts of Buff and Debuff abilities; you cast them and they do the work while you actually go do something else like shooting or melee, while you're now buffed or while the enemy is debuffed.

These kind of abilities aren't just limited to Warframe. You name a game with active-cast abilities, I'll give you examples of defense/buff type functions that you just press, go do your thing for a bit, and press again once you need to.

Sure, except those effects are typically not seen as particularly interesting. Of course they're commonly used in videogames, because pressing a button to gain a power boost is a pretty simple effect to implement, but that does not mean that mechanic is inherently interesting. Moreover, the fact that this sort of boring design is so prevalent in frames, and even across different games, does nothing to detract from this, as the end result is still that a whole lot of steroids in games are boring. This doesn't necessarily mean that every steroid is boring (the crit buff on Harrow's Covenant I think is terrific in how it encourages players to land headshots), but I think we need to stop tricking ourselves into believing that pressing a button to deal X% more damage for a long duration, and so repeatable indefinitely, is truly fun and engaging gameplay.

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So yeah, it's not fun that people can lose their buffs, but it's kind of part of that whole 'active play' thing; if you forget your timers, you lose your buffs, or you leave yourself vulnerable when duration-based defenses die.

What does this even mean? I don't think that's what active play means at all, and if it were, then I don't see what value there would be in having it. Active play in a shooter generally means paying attention to what's actually happening around you, i.e. enemies, your surroundings, and mission objectives, so that you're genuinely engaging with the game. Constantly looking at timers and waiting to refresh an extended buff with the press of a button involves strictly none of this, and in fact distracts from the genuinely interesting parts of gameplay, which is why I'd say it goes against active play. There is nothing inherently fun about dying just because your always-on 90%+ damage reduction ability ended and you forgot to turn it back on, nor is there anything inherently fun about remembering to recast that effect and gaining some ridiculous durability steroid for another minute or so. If such gameplay isn't fun, and actively detracts from fun gameplay, why do we need to have it?

Edited January 19, 2019 by Teridax68

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

What does this even mean? I don't think that's what active play means at all, and if it were, then I don't see what value there would be in having it. Active play in a shooter generally means paying attention to what's actually happening around you, i.e. enemies, your surroundings, and mission objectives, so that you're genuinely engaging with the game.

Yeah, but this list, despite what you say, involves learning your timers and knowing when your buffs are going to end. Does for any game where you have personal or team buffs like this. 

Active play does not involve pressing the button and then never ever noticing the ability unless you run out of energy or the ability is removed.

[Teridax68]

39 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Yeah, but this list, despite what you say, involves learning your timers and knowing when your buffs are going to end. Does for any game where you have personal or team buffs like this. 

Active play does not involve pressing the button and then never ever noticing the ability unless you run out of energy or the ability is removed.

If the player cannot notice an ability until they run out of Energy, then the ability itself is so unimpactful to the player's gameplay that it simply is not worthy of inclusion. "Learning your timers" is certainly a skill, but skills are not inherently valuable: if the player's game spontaneously froze at random intervals, and the only way to resume would be to type in the Konami code, that could certainly be a skill, but not a skill worth having in-game. Similarly, forcing the player to take their attention away from the actual game, and instead onto some timed button-pressing minigame (i.e. timer management), I don't think is a skill worth having in a game like Warframe, and I am by no means the only player with this opinion.

[Elementalos]

9 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Active play does not involve pressing the button and then never ever noticing the ability unless you run out of energy or the ability is removed.

Isn't never even noticing the ability part of the whole complaint about these buff timers in the first place? You press a button and then you have to hope you remember to press it again 30 or 40 seconds later because many of these effects aren't all that visible or engaging. 

After all, if the ability was viscerally noticeable remembering to tap the button again to reapply it wouldn't really be an issue.

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, Elementalos said:

After all, if the ability was viscerally noticeable remembering to tap the button again to reapply it wouldn't really be an issue.

12 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

If the player cannot notice an ability until they run out of Energy, then the ability itself is so unimpactful to the player's gameplay that it simply is not worthy of inclusion.

People keep saying this like buff abilities are ever going to be engaging or anything but timer-based abilities you turn on for as long as you can do that.

The point is that because these are buffs that are un-engaging, the game has to ensure that you are still paying attention to them in another way. It's boring, I've never denied that, but anyone here is absolutely laughing if they think that DE is going to implement a function that is basically just going to macro their abilities for them.

Sure you can do that yourself with something external, but that's not something DE can prevent.

The closest you're going to get is what the OP already settled for a few comments ago; actual alerts of some kind that audibly or visually tell you when the buff is running out.

Because you'll never change what flat buff abilities are or do, you can only influence the player to make sure they have incentive (no matter whether that's the good kind of incentive, like recasting gives an additional function, or the bad kind where not recasting them gives no, or even a negative effect) to actively manage their timers.

12 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Similarly, forcing the player to take their attention away from the actual game, and instead onto some timed button-pressing minigame (i.e. timer management),

And you keep repeating this. It's not 'taking your attention away from the actual game' it's making sure you're paying attention to the whole game.

Abilities are part of the game, many of them only last a certain mount of time. Ignoring, or forgetting, the timers is not paying attention to the game. Getting tunnel vision into shooting things is not paying attention to the actual game, only one part of it.

[Teridax68]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

People keep saying this like buff abilities are ever going to be engaging or anything but timer-based abilities you turn on for as long as you can do that.

But they can be, and I already listed multiple examples: Harrow's Covenant is a legitimately interesting buff, because its invincibility cannot be made always-on and so requires proper timing, whereas its crit buff specifically rewards him and his allies for getting headshots, as do the other buffs in his kit. Even Rhino's Iron Skin has an engaging component in that he can stack even more Iron Skin if he casts it at a time when he's taking heavy fire (and even more so if he uses Ironclad Charge to hit as many enemies as possible right before). These are abilities where the timing component is legitimately interesting, and where even the usage of the buff in many cases is also inherently conducive to more interesting gameplay (Nezha's Warding Halo also gives him this tiny damage aura that lets him apply Slash procs if he gets up close). As such, it is absolutely possible for all buffs in the game to be made interesting, and those that cannot have no place in this game. There is nothing inherently engaging about pressing a button for prolonged 90%+ damage reduction, and the very existence of that kind of power without gameplay is precisely what's causing Warframe's balance to be so out of whack.

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

The point is that because these are buffs that are un-engaging, the game has to ensure that you are still paying attention to them in another way. It's boring, I've never denied that, but anyone here is absolutely laughing if they think that DE is going to implement a function that is basically just going to macro their abilities for them.

But why does the game have to do this? What happens if it doesn't? Either way, the fact remains that the game pushes absolutely uninteresting and unnecessary amounts of power onto the player, at a time when players are far too powerful for their own good and thirsting for a real challenge, as well as deeper gameplay. There is strictly no need to force timer management onto players even now, and while I agree that DE will almost certainly never include an official macro to auto-recast, I strongly believe it is in their interests to rework their uninteresting buffs, particularly as they've moved away from that design in most of their recent frames.

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Because you'll never change what flat buff abilities are or do, you can only influence the player to make sure they have incentive (no matter whether that's the good kind of incentive, like recasting gives an additional function, or the bad kind where not recasting them gives no, or even a negative effect) to actively manage their timers.

... why? DE have reworked many kits, and most of these have become more fun to play as a result. Why do the boring buffs that currently exist in the game have to exist forever? 

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

And you keep repeating this. It's not 'taking your attention away from the actual game' it's making sure you're paying attention to the whole game.

Abilities are part of the game, many of them only last a certain mount of time. Ignoring, or forgetting, the timers is not paying attention to the game. Getting tunnel vision into shooting things is not paying attention to the actual game, only one part of it.

By this same silly reasoning, the ludicrous example I gave of the player having to type in the Konami Code to unfreeze their game at random intervals would also be "part of the game"; that still does not detract from the fact that it is not a part of the game worth having, nor is it a part of the game players truly care about. Players by and large do not care about their timers, and given the option would rather focus on parkour, combat, and using abilities that produce interesting effects. It is you here who are tunnel-visioning on timers and insisting upon enshrining timer management as this essential part of the game, simply because it is a thing in the game that exists. Newsflash: not every part of the game is good, and there are countless features the game has changed or dropped entirely, simply because the developers or players did not find them enjoyable (e.g. Nervos, Stamina, and limited revives per day, where the player had to purchase more with plat). Timer management is one of those, as evidenced by the many players who openly dislike that part of the game, and criticize frames whose "gameplay" is lacking precisely because they rely so hard on those mechanics.

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

But why does the game have to do this? What happens if it doesn't?

I think your argument is reversed here. Why does the game have to implement a built in macro? Why should the devs have to program that in when absolutely nothing bad happens when they don't?

They aren't 'forcing timer management', it is part of the game. Even the ones you call interesting have timer management. Yes you have to time the cast for best effect, but once you have it that's it.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

DE have reworked many kits, and most of these have become more fun to play as a result.

But that's just it. They've reworked many kits, and the function is still there, almost as if... wait for it... it's supposed to be there.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

By this same silly reasoning, the ludicrous example I gave of the player having to type in the Konami Code to unfreeze their game at random intervals would also be "part of the game"; that still does not detract from the fact that it is not a part of the game worth having, nor is it a part of the game players truly care about.

By this silly reasoning, you're expecting what the players care about and what the game developers care about to be the same thing.

Yes, having your game freeze and having to input a code would be un-fun, but yes it would be part of the game. Heck, there are games where a timer exists for your available game play and if you don't extend it with actual items, you have to stop playing that part of the game and move on to another part. Kingdom Hearts DDD does that, making you play a mini-game before you can continue playing even as a different character. And that game is actually built around that inconvenient function.

Whereas DE has limited us in our ability usage by putting on timers that you have to pay attention to as part of the base game. No, players don't think it's a necessary function, but it's clearly a function that, after six years, is supposed to be here.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

It is you here who are tunnel-visioning on timers and insisting upon enshrining timer management as this essential part of the game, simply because it is a thing in the game that exists. Newsflash: not every part of the game is good,

Exactly. Not every part of the game is good.

So, when you see them rework every single buff ability to be something that you actively maintain by functions like extra kills, different actions that are part of the core game loop of 'shoot, cast, get kills, get loot, repeat', then you can talk to me about removing timers from them.

Because even the ones you've pointed out as 'interesting' or even 'mildly interactive' still have timers and will still need to be refreshed if you don't pay attention to them as part of the game.

[Teridax68]

29 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I think your argument is reversed here. Why does the game have to implement a built in macro? Why should the devs have to program that in when absolutely nothing bad happens when they don't?

But bad things do happen without a macro, because players simply forget to turn their ability back on and die. That is why macros exist, which players install, that do this job for them. DE doesn't have to implement that same macro, but it would nonetheless present a benefit to some players by eliminating an inconvenience in a manner that is easy to program and implement, and where solutions are only one step removed anyway.

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They aren't 'forcing timer management', it is part of the game. Even the ones you call interesting have timer management. Yes you have to time the cast for best effect, but once you have it that's it.

You are going round in circles here, repeating the same tired argument long after it has been countered: yes, timer management is part of the game; no, it is not a part of the game worth having, just as other features that were once "part of the game" have been cut. Ultimately, if the game expects the player to manage their timers in order to not suffer disproportionately negative consequences such as the death of their character, then it is indeed forcing timer management upon the player, and would be doing so even if it were unintentional. You also appear to have completely (and deliberately) missed the very point of the abilities I mentioned: sure, some of them have timers, but that is separate from them having legitimately interesting timing, because the precise moment at which they activate those abilities is meaningful: by contrast, when it comes to buffs like Mesa's Shatter Shield or Chroma's Vex Armor, it does not matter when you press the activation button, so long as you keep the buff going. It is this critical difference that separates interesting timed abilities from uninteresting ones.

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But that's just it. They've reworked many kits, and the function is still there, almost as if... wait for it... it's supposed to be there.

... where? Also, why? This is an utterly terrible argument, and confuses entirely what is and what ought to be: just because something is in a game does not mean it ought to be in that game, and there have been so many reworks at this point, including multiple reworks to the same warframe, that it is patently ridiculous to latch onto any one iteration as if it were the One True Version. Moreover, this same argument is countered entirely by frames like Harrow, Nidus, Garuda and even Baruuk, all of whom deliberately move away from timer management minigames. By your own logic, it's almost as if timer management isn't supposed to be there, which is why so many recent kits stay well away from them.

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By this silly reasoning, you're expecting what the players care about and what the game developers care about to be the same thing.

... yes? Why should it not be the case? The only time where it would make sense for there to be a difference would be when it comes to monetization, but then again, how exactly does timer management on abilities contribute to Warframe's monetization? I find it very strange that you would consider it "silly" for player and developer interests to align in a videogame, particularly when Warframe is known for having a development team that pays very close attention to players and their feedback.

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Yes, having your game freeze and having to input a code would be un-fun, but yes it would be part of the game. Heck, there are games where a timer exists for your available game play and if you don't extend it with actual items, you have to stop playing that part of the game and move on to another part. Kingdom Hearts DDD does that, making you play a mini-game before you can continue playing even as a different character. And that game is actually built around that inconvenient function.

I'm sorry, so you actually condone the deliberately, ridiculously awful example I made up? All because "it would be part of the game"? Yikes.

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Whereas DE has limited us in our ability usage by putting on timers that you have to pay attention to as part of the base game. No, players don't think it's a necessary function, but it's clearly a function that, after six years, is supposed to be here.

... why? Again, you seem to be deliberately ignoring all evidence to the contrary: for a time, Nervos were "supposed to be here", as was Stamina, as were limited revives. For your information, they aren't anymore: does that mean they should still be part of the game, or does the fact that they got removed automatically mean they shouldn't? Putting aside how it patently makes no sense to say that a feature should be in a game simply because it is in the current version in the game from any logical perspective, this kind of loopy logic makes even less sense in a game that is constantly changing as part of its ongoing development: every few weeks, parts of the game change, are added or are removed, and so because the developers believed those features had to change, even when they still existed in-game. At best, your entire line of argumentation here is worthless, as what you deem to be "part of the game" changes on a near-weekly basis, and at worst it is wholly counterproductive, as it simply leads to you opposing any suggestion for change, simply because it involves changing the game in some form. This in itself is a particularly poor mentality to hold in a game's feedback forums, which are dedicated entirely to feedback intended to change the game.

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Exactly. Not every part of the game is good.

So why are you insisting upon keeping the not-so-good parts?

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So, when you see them rework every single buff ability to be something that you actively maintain by functions like extra kills, different actions that are part of the core game loop of 'shoot, cast, get kills, get loot, repeat', then you can talk to me about removing timers from them.

Why? Why should I talk to you about removing boring timer management after it's already been removed? This is why your line of rhetoric here is so ridiculous, because in opposing literally any change to a game in a constant state of change, you are setting yourself up to be proven wrong consistently. Your model of what the game should be is outdated by design, and hilariously short-sighted in how it fails to realize that said model changes with every change brought to the game.

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Because even the ones you've pointed out as 'interesting' or even 'mildly interactive' still have timers and will still need to be refreshed if you don't pay attention to them as part of the game.

I'm sorry, which ones again? Because Iron Skin and Warding Halo don't have their primary effect run on a timer, and Harrow's Covenant is specifically designed so that its buffs cannot have 100% uptime no matter what. These are abilities that expressly do not fit the model I pointed out of boring, power-without-gameplay buffs such as Shatter Shield, because they genuinely feature gameplay around their timing, which is different from managing timers. Do you even understand the subject matter you are discussing?

Edited January 20, 2019 by Teridax68

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 minute ago, Teridax68 said:

DE doesn't have to implement that same macro, but it would nonetheless present a benefit to some players by eliminating an inconvenience in a manner that is easy to program and implement, and where solutions are only one step removed anyway.

I literally spent an entire comment before you arrived here explaining why DE do not want, and actively discourage the use of Macros from past abuse of them. That's why they're never going to implement one.

2 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

You are going round in circles here, repeating the same tired argument long after it has been countered: yes, timer management is part of the game; no, it is not a part of the game worth having, just as other features that were once "part of the game" have been cut.

You haven't countered it, you've tried to dismiss it. Just because you think it's not worth having doesn't discount the reason it's there in the first place.

2 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

Why should it not be the case?

Because players are, by long proof of this game, out to deliberately shorten any function of this game to reach the goals they set faster. DE put in functions specifically to limit us, and players find any way they can to get around them. In some cases this is good, because it encourages thinking outside of the box, in others it results in outright exploitation of functions that were not intended.

DE have a goal for how players should interact with and experience their game, and it does not always align with what the players want to do.

5 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

So why are you insisting upon keeping the not-so-good parts?

I'm not, I'm just the messenger here. They are in for a reason, and if you don't like that reason that's fine, but it's not going to change it.

6 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

I'm sorry, which ones again? Because Iron Skin and Warding Halo don't have timers, and Harrow's Covenant is specifically designed so that its buffs cannot have 100% uptime no matter what.

Iron Skin and Warding Halo, especially without augments, are designed so that if you don't pay attention to how much damage you're taking, they end and you have to recast. Fail to recast, and you die. It's no different to a Timer, because if you aren't looking at that percentage in the corner, you aren't actively monitoring your gameplay.

And how is the idea that Harrow's Covenant being 'designed so you cannot have 100% uptime' any different to any other ability that has a timer? You aren't supposed to have 100% uptime on any defense cast. But some of them, because the function for getting more out of the ability has an additional cost (like Chroma having to take damage) have the option to recast before end of duration. This is a form of allowing potential uptime. If you do not actively recast, though, you do not get permanent uptime. Harrow's 4 doesn't have an additional cost, it's a buff regardless of whether you use it to increase your damage, or whether you're using it just to get the 10 seconds of invulnerability for you and a squad. When you compare that to other abilities that provide scaling buffs, they all have additional costs beyond the button press, and most of those have the option to re-cast before the end of duration, or they have a Drain on them to limit your overall usage instead.

You can't state that something is designed to end as a feature when you're trying to argue that the same 'feature' on every other cast like it is detrimental.

I understand the subject matter, you're the one deliberately trying to dismiss it or counter it with examples that don't support your own narrative.

[Teridax68]

1 minute ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I literally spent an entire comment before you arrived here explaining why DE do not want, and actively discourage the use of Macros from past abuse of them. That's why they're never going to implement one.

... where? The only thing you did was extrapolate from entirely unrelated events and come to the personal conclusion that DE was waging some secret war against macros, instead of simply banning them. As I commented, most macros are compliant, and DE does not chase macro-users, so your entire hypothesis that DE "actively discourage the use of Macros" is, well... unsupported.

1 minute ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

You haven't countered it, you've tried to dismiss it. Just because you think it's not worth having doesn't discount the reason it's there in the first place.

And what reason may that be, pray tell? I haven't dismissed anything, I've merely pointed out how the rationale you are using is illogical and self-contradictory. I'm not saying the devs had no reason to implement these sorts of buffs: as I've already said in a previous comment, these buffs tend to be common fare in video games because they're very simple to code and are an easy way of filling up a kit. DE themselves are no stranger to padding Warframe with a whole lot of filler, so in this respect I don't think it's surprising that they inserted those kinds of buffs into some frames.

However, where the problem lies here is with your own interpretation: you seem to be trying very hard to tell me that DE had a very specific reason to add these abilities to the game, and so over other alternatives, yet you have strictly no supporting evidence for this claim. Despite acting as if you knew the minds of the developers working on the game, your claims are directly countered by a pretty consistent stream of new frames who feature buffs that do not feature the same boring timer management as older kits. Just because there was a reason for those abilities to exist in the first place does not mean those abilities are still worth having now.

1 minute ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Because players are, by long proof of this game, out to deliberately shorten any function of this game to reach the goals they set faster. DE put in functions specifically to limit us, and players find any way they can to get around them. In some cases this is good, because it encourages thinking outside of the box, in others it results in outright exploitation of functions that were not intended.

Sure, players want to optimize their play... but why is this relevant here? I can understand not wanting to make a game trivially easy to play (though DE has done an especially poor job of limiting us there, so your argument falls apart), but this isn't a question of players optimizing the fun out of a game, this is a case of wanting to optimize a quirk of the game that does nothing except present an inconvenience. You also don't seem to be arguing in favor of changing the game to fix exploits: if a feature exists in-game that leads to exploitative behavior, or otherwise contributes negatively to gameplay, would you at least support changing it for the better?

1 minute ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

DE have a goal for how players should interact with and experience their game, and it does not always align with what the players want to do.

Where? Why? Again, you cite zero examples here, which makes your argumentation here come across as awfully vague and evasive. What specific discrepancies has DE explicitly stated to exist between the way players play, and the way the developers want players to play the game? Why are those discrepancies relevant here?

1 minute ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I'm not, I'm just the messenger here. They are in for a reason, and if you don't like that reason that's fine, but it's not going to change it.

I'm sorry, I had no idea you were the designated emissary of the One True Voice^TM of Digital Extremes, and that every word you speak comes directly from the mind of the developers. Please, forgive me. /s

But seriously, do you realize how presumptuous your claim is? Where is the evidence for these claims of intention you are making? What proof do you have that Digital Extremes deliberately want to force timer management upon players in their game?

1 minute ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Iron Skin and Warding Halo, especially without augments, are designed so that if you don't pay attention to how much damage you're taking, they end and you have to recast. Fail to recast, and you die. It's no different to a Timer, because if you aren't looking at that percentage in the corner, you aren't actively monitoring your gameplay.

... but that isn't true in the slightest. Warding Halo was specifically given an animation and invincibility period so that players don't have to pay attention to their ability bar to know that the effects have ended. Iron Skin itself has a visual indicator on Rhino, that DE have polished on multiple occasions, to indicate how much of it is left without having to check some number. Just because an effect is limited does not mean it runs on a timer, and the very fact that you are attempting to conflate the two shows how far you are willing to reach just to save face in this argument.

1 minute ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

And how is the idea that Harrow's Covenant being 'designed so you cannot have 100% uptime' any different to any other ability that has a timer? You aren't supposed to have 100% uptime on any defense cast.

So why can Vex Armor be recast while still in effect? Why can Shatter Shield be reactivated the moment it expires? You are flatly wrong here, and if you truly believe Harrow's Covenant is in any way similar to an always-on defensive buff, go play Harrow, because at that point you'd have revealed to know nothing about him or how he plays.

1 minute ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

But some of them, because the function for getting more out of the ability has an additional cost (like Chroma having to take damage) have the option to recast before end of duration. This is a form of allowing potential uptime. If you do not actively recast, though, you do not get permanent uptime. Harrow's 4 doesn't have an additional cost, it's a buff regardless of whether you use it to increase your damage, or whether you're using it just to get the 10 seconds of invulnerability for you and a squad. When you compare that to other abilities that provide scaling buffs, they all have additional costs beyond the button press, and most of those have the option to re-cast before the end of duration, or they have a Drain on them to limit your overall usage instead.

But again, Mesa's Shatter Shield offers a pure defensive buff with no additional cost, and can have essentially 100% uptime, and Baruuk's Desolate Hands, also a defensive buff with no additional cost, can be recast on demand, so you are once again demonstrably wrong here. You are, quite simply, making stuff up, and then trying to pass it off as DE's own design philosophy.

1 minute ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

You can't state that something is designed to end as a feature when you're trying to argue that the same 'feature' on every other cast like it is detrimental.

Yes, I can, and you do not get to pretend that abilities with drastically and verifiably different gameplay are the exact same, just because reasons. Covenant does not play out like Shatter Shield, Warding Halo does not play like Vex Armor, and trying to pretend they do demonstrates supreme amounts of either ignorance or intellectual dishonesty in this discussion.

1 minute ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I understand the subject matter, you're the one deliberately trying to dismiss it or counter it with examples that don't support your own narrative.

I'm sorry, what have I dismissed? Where? This is a pretty disingenuous accusation to make when I have replied to your every point systematically. Moreover, you appear to have slipped up, as the examples I brought up indeed don't support your own narrative: unlike you, I have actually cited concrete in-game examples that completely disprove your made-up claims, claims that have remained themselves utterly unsupported by any evidence. It is becoming rather clear that you appear aware of your own shortcomings in this argument, yet rather than come clean, have decided to project them onto me. The fact remains that it is you who have been dismissing my claims out of hand, instead of providing any sort of concrete response, while blatantly fabricating nonexistent design principles under the transparent pretense that all this is somehow DE's own intended design.

[Gurpgork]

14 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Iron Skin and Warding Halo, especially without augments, are designed so that if you don't pay attention to how much damage you're taking, they end and you have to recast. Fail to recast, and you die. It's no different to a Timer, because if you aren't looking at that percentage in the corner, you aren't actively monitoring your gameplay.

Having to pay attention to how much damage you are taking is different from having to pay attention to a timer that will expire at a specific time. The former is something that you consistently have to pay attention to whether you have the ability up or not. The latter is an additional thing you have to pay attention to. 

19 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

And how is the idea that Harrow's Covenant being 'designed so you cannot have 100% uptime' any different to any other ability that has a timer?

Because it means that the timing of when you use the ability actually matters. If you chain-cast Covenant every time it expires, then you won’t have the invulnerability when you actually need it, and your subsequent crit buff will frequently be weak if you don’t use the invulnerability to sponge damage. 

That’s in contrast to Shatter Shield, where you will always have 95% DR regardless of whether you have to press the button every 15 seconds or every 30 seconds. The way Mesa plays will not meaningfully change if you add a macro that refreshes Shatter Shield when it expires. 

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

It is becoming rather clear that you appear aware of your own shortcomings in this argument, yet rather than come clean, have decided to project them onto me. The fact remains that it is you who have been dismissing my claims out of hand, instead of providing any sort of concrete response, while blatantly fabricating nonexistent design principles under the transparent pretense that all this is somehow DE's own intended design.

Your whole argument is based off the idea that it somehow isn't part of the design, and that simply isn't true. Moreover the basic idea behind the argument is that you can't be bothered to recast an ability once every thirty or forty seconds yourself. Your problem isn't a lack of interactivity, it's laziness, and your idea for 'solving' something that is putting in a way to be even lazier.

Your examples cite an interactivity with the initial casting as being the way to make the ability more interactive, and even @Gurpgork has joined you on that, and I have not denied that these are slightly more interactive. But they are still, at base, non-interactive buffs once you've achieved them that you have to pay attention to a number in the corner of the screen in order to utilise them properly, and then you have to recast them after or you don't gain the benefit.

If the timing of that cast is the only interactive part, then that's a very poor example of interactivity.

Abilities, even non-interactive ones, have to have an end to them, a balance to make sure that the player is not just tunnel-visioning. If you forget your timers or percentages, there are consequences, and that is the direct cost of having a period of, say, 95% damage reduction.

So no, the game-play of something like Shatter Shield or Turbulence wouldn't change if you made the duration a little shorter or longer, but that's not the point of any of this. The point is that you just don't want the inconvenience of having to recast something because you think that's boring.

That the ability is un-interactive is not in question. That you're not interacting with the game as a whole is.

[Elementalos]

7 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

People keep saying this like buff abilities are ever going to be engaging or anything but timer-based abilities you turn on for as long as you can do that.

What I'm saying is that if "Press a button every 30-70 seconds" with nothing else to monitor, manage or consider other than that timer is the best gameplay an ability can offer... maybe that ability shouldn't exist.

Like if tomorrow a patch came out and it introduced a bug that made Mesa's 2 be completely unable to activated it basically wouldn't change how I play the frame at all outside saving me two inputs a minute (assuming I was hitting the skill on cooldown which, frankly, I forget to do sometimes because of the aforementioned lack of visceral or engaging mechanics).

What's worth protecting about that?

Edited January 20, 2019 by Elementalos