Its past time we got a dedicated augment slot

[Birdframe_Prime]

6 hours ago, TKDancer said:

thing is, DE doesnt seem to want to do that for a lot of abilities and they'd rather just add augments instead :^(

I don't agree with that at all. DE are consistently working through the frames with reworks year after year, they just don't get to them all at once.

And it's something that's desperately needed in almost every case where a person says 'oh, it's a bad augment, why would you ever run it over something else?'

The biggest issue with almost every single augment is that it's a direct upgrade to the ability, only a few are a trade-off on function, but they aren't upgrades to the Warframe.

The most powerful augments are ones that make what the frame does overall better. Like the Iron Skin one, yes, because that lets Rhino do what he does best without the limitations that are placed on him normally. It does cost a mod slot because of the power, though, and that shouldn't change.

Meanwhile you have augments like the one for Ballistic Battery, which is a full upgrade to the ability, granting the shot status chance as well as damage, which is counted as Additive chance on projectile weapons for better effect. Except... Ballistic Battery is currently not what Mesa does best. What she does best is Shooting Gallery, Shatter Shield and Peacemaker. With abilities that strong, of course you're going to put the augments on them, not on her 1, it's not worth the slot because it's the weakest ability in her kit and needs a rework to make it actually worth modding for. (Maybe a nice 3-4 second buff duration? So that it buffs all weapons based on DPS, not based on a single shot?)

Or you have Well of Life's augment, which has potential in the same way that Nezha's Chakram now has the potential for both healing and combination with Health Conversion, but because Well of Life is completely eclipsed by Trin's Blessing... it doesn't help her do what she does. It's the weakest ability in her kit and needs to be reworked to make it function better, so that it's then worth an Augment.

People like @Peter up there only consider some Augments 'essential' because the abilities don't do enough for the Warframe in the first place, they exist because of the theme of the frame, not because of the specific function they bring.

Instead of getting changes that would make an ability like Shuriken more effective at more levels, instead we have an augment that only gets more powerful the higher level you go, stripping armour completely off targets, meaning that the only reason not to run this augment on Ash is if you're using a specific build that ignores Shuriken entirely. And what's worse in the case of Shuriken is that because the Augment is so powerful, why would they ever make the ability itself better? If people complain about the ability not being powerful, or at least have some effective function at later levels, then all that happens is people point out the Augment, and there's no room for doing anything from there.

It's the abilities themselves. The abilities need the reworks and the buffs necessary to make them do more for the frame, and the Augments need to compliment what the frame does, not specifically what the ability itself does.

I mean, look at Neutron Star, perfect for a tanky Nova build because you can stop and replenish your damage reduction at will, except... now there's a new one that does even better. It takes what Nova does; Molecular Prime, and makes it the way you top up the Damage Reduction from her 1. Every enemy you kill after priming them is a potential 5% DR restored to you, saving you energy on your casting and making her abilities work together.

That's the example of a good augment. Not essential, but a good augment. It buffs the frame overall.

Abilities need to stand on their own merits first, while Augments need to stop focusing on only buffing the single ability they affect and be about buffing the warframe's play style and overall function.

[TKDancer]

21 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I don't agree with that at all. DE are consistently working through the frames with reworks year after year, they just don't get to them all at once.

i dont know how you can disagree

-people complained khora's dmg output was extremely lackluster without uber-powerful riven'd stat sticks, then DE decides to add an augment instead of changing the ability

-people complained about equinox losing charge on her abilities when switching forms, DE adds an augment for her 4 that lets it retain charge when switching, which doesnt even do a lot cause we still have to waste the entire charge to heal in night form

-people complained about mag's survivability, then instead of just tweaking her we got a rework of an existing augment as the way to address her bad survivability

-since the DR function of null star was discovered people have been asking for it to be reworked so it actually functions like a defensive ability, instead we get yet another augment with a focus on giving back null star orbs

-people wish they had more control over octavia's resonator? AUGMENT!

 

clearly DE is cautious about reworks and  ability tweaks, they seems to prefer using augments for a lot of stuff

[Teridax68]

I would support this if augments were power-neutral. Unfortunately, right now augments are almost always pure power boosts, and only rarely truly alter the gameplay of a frame's ability (they usually just add stuff). Were warframes to receive augment slots, that would directly contribute to power creep, and so significantly in the case of certain augment-reliant frames (e.g. Khora, Inaros, Nekros, Rhino, etc.).

Because of this, while I agree that there needs to be far more room for experimentation than we have now, I don't necessarily think augment slots with a universal polarity are the way to go. Rather, I think modding in general may end up in a far better spot if we were given unlimited mod slots for all of our warframes, pets, etc., but instead had stricter restrictions based on mod drains: if frames and weapons could be slotted with many more small-drain mods, there'd be much more room for utility effects, which typically have low costs, but still aren't considered worth the slot (because mod drains are rarely a factor, especially with Forma), but if there were harsher drains on more meta mods, namely damage mods on weapons, players would have to make tougher choices on which ones to equip, and DE would therefore have much better tools to balance the popularity and power of mods. If mods could also be ranked up or down at will, this'd make for a much more flexible customization system overall, one where more niche augments would have more space to shine, without DE being expected to necessarily have us equip those mods at no real cost on our frames.

[Tiltskillet]

One thing about it is there would be more of a poopstorm over the frames with bad augments, or sets that are mostly situational or not to everyone's taste.  Which is most of them, but not all.

 

 

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

35 minutes ago, TKDancer said:

clearly DE is cautious about reworks and  ability tweaks, they seems to prefer using augments for a lot of stuff

I think they're cautious about it all, to be fair. But I don't think they prefer Augments over a change to the base Ability.

They know that band-aids are not fixes, they have shown (especially with both our earlier points about DE clearly wanting us to use the abilities so much that they made them innate on frames instead of mod-cards, and changed the modding system so we wouldn't remove them anymore) that they want the Abilities to be the core of what the frame does, and they want them to function together.

Augments are, whenever they're released as you've pointed out, only band-aids. And it paints them into a corner, because every band-aid they put on prevents the ability from getting a rework (as I mentioned). And no creative mind likes putting themselves into that kind of no-win scenario.

Have they made the mistake of band-aiding with Augments? Yeah.

Is this the way they wanted to go with them? Almost certainly not, because it makes their job of fixing the frame harder down the line.

[Leuca]

If you create a bunch of mods that are subpar, people will not use them if there isn't room in their loadouts, assuming they want efficient builds.

[TKDancer]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

They know that band-aids are not fixes,

then why do they keep adding band-aids to the game

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

especially with both our earlier points about DE clearly wanting us to use the abilities so much that they made them innate on frames instead of mod-cards

that was over 4 years ago

[(PSN)thefallenloser]

Nah, but I'm still pushing for Augments to go in the Exilus and weak Augments/Abilities being buffed accordingly. Especially since Exilus slots already cost 20 platinum even if you buy the Frame.

[Birdframe_Prime]

50 minutes ago, TKDancer said:

then why do they keep adding band-aids to the game

Uhh... TK?

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Have they made the mistake of band-aiding with Augments? Yeah.

Is this the way they wanted to go with them? Almost certainly not, because it makes their job of fixing the frame harder down the line.

 

[TKDancer]

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Uhh... TK?

thing is, the mistakes arent things of the past, they keep adding more and more

4 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Is this the way they wanted to go with them? Almost certainly not, because it makes their job of fixing the frame harder down the line.

DE seems to be struggling with the direction they want to go in, and it seems to also hurt other aspects of the game, such as addressing balance, remember when vauban deluxe got released and all he got was charge mechanic to tesla?

 

or just now with them adding spectrosiphon, trying to make gara's worst ability not bad, but with an augment, that doesnt even really get the job done

 

but neither of us know whether it is or isnt the way they want to go with balance/augments

Edited January 10, 2019 by TKDancer

[Tiltskillet]

34 minutes ago, TKDancer said:

then why do they keep adding band-aids to the game

It really doesn't make much sense unless that's a large part of their intent for augments now.  Otherwise they're just deferring ability reworks -and- an overhaul of all the band-aid augments.

 

[Shaburanigud]

6 hours ago, TKDancer said:

DE seems to be struggling with the direction they want to go in, and it seems to also hurt other aspects of the game, such as addressing balance, remember when vauban deluxe got released and all he got was charge mechanic to tesla?

I think this is rather due to DE having too much on their plate in the first place.

And even then They still keep on adding more and  more. The list does not seem to get any shorter. Only longer

Which brings more of these problems.

Edited January 11, 2019 by Shaburanigud

[CrystalWitch]

I think some of the problem is the fact that some augments aren't powerful enough, or just powerful enough to warrant using up a mod slot.

Take Oberon's Phoenix Renewal

It adds a nifty ability to an already good ability.
Carrying low-level players? Have squadmates with glass cannon builds? 
Running Defection Missions and want a little help keeping them alive?
Attach Phoenix Renewal and you'll be spending less time picking people up.

It's worth the consumption of a slot because it adds a third facet to the ability. If that was worked into the ability innately, it'd be a tad overpowered.

 

Now, look at Inaros's Desiccation's Curse.
It adds an effect that only has a chance to proc, and doesn't last for very long, nor is it modifiable by mods.

Desiccation's Curse is a Warframe Augment Mod for Inaros' Desiccation ability that has a chance to summon
a Sand Shadow when killing a blinded enemy with a finisher.

• The chance to summon a Sand Shadow is not affected by Ability Strength.
• There can be a maximum of 3 Sand Shadows at a time.
• The Sand Shadows last 15 seconds and they are not affected by Ability Duration.

Adding Desiccation's Curse doesn't add anything to Inaros's playstyle.
In fact, it takes away from it. In order to make use of it, you'd have to spend every other 15-20 seconds or so
trying to blind enemies, kill them with a melee finisher, hope the finisher's strong enough, but fast enough
that it doesn't take too long for the animation to complete, move a few feet, do it again.

It feels like a discount Shadows of the Dead. Whereas Shadows of the Dead can be modified to make a better copy of an enemy (And more of them at once)
Either making them do more damage, last longer than the 33 seconds they do with a vanilla Nekros's duration or have a better Augment than Curse.

Shield of Shadows can turn Nekros from a relatively squishy Frame on his own to a powerhouse of a tank if built right.
Making Phoenix Renewal and Shield of Shadows rather worthwhile investments if wanted and Desiccation's Curse is... well...
a joke of an Augment. Tank Inaros or any other Inaros really isn't, and can't really feasibly make use of that augment.

 

[(PSN)MrNishi]

On 2019-01-09 at 1:50 PM, Gurpgork said:

The ones that provide only mobility already can be. 

Except for Ripline Swing Line Augment, because Pablo...

On 2019-01-09 at 1:58 PM, Gurpgork said:

At any rate, does anyone else remember the days before U15 when we had 10 mod slots, but abilities took up mod slots, leaving us with only 6 if we wanted to use all of our abilities? That system got reworked when augments were introduced into what we have now: eight mod slots with four abilities. That was our mod slot expansion. 

 

On 2019-01-09 at 2:15 PM, Xardis said:

And do you remember that on most frames you would put 1 or 2 abilities at most? That means that you had 8 or 9 modslots, not 6. There were almost no synergies in using different abilities of the same frame. So no, that wasnt the points where we got more slots.

And do you remember what was the highest nonendless enemy level range? Yeach coz I do, regular starchart as it is now. Sorties with its 80-100 level 3rd mission were introduced 3 updates later in 2nd Dream.

My case for 1 more slot purely for augments is that right now, for serious build you dont have slots to put another useful augment, in many cases you cant put any augment at all.

I actually believe Augments should be slotted on the abilities tab. 

Some of the reasons :

Makes it weird that a player can slot an "Augment" without access to the ability that will be augmented.

Some Augments change what stats affect the ability. (Ice Wave not being affected by duration, but Ice Wave Impedance makes it a duration ability.)

Then there are the few Augments that alter the ability from base to be utilized differently.

Example : Prolonged Paralysis being a CC lockdown/knockdown AoE instead of an AoE finisher stagger.

Mesa Waltz & Nyx Assimilate allowing stationary abilities to be mobile.

Escape Velocity with Nova Wormhole or Jet Stream with Zephyr both granting Volt Speed like boosts for rushing. Both abilities not being power strength dependent, but both Augments change that. A slot that would be useful to have a power strength mod for the now affected ability due to Augment.

 

Maybe one-day Augments will be slotted on the abilities tab and the stats and description will change with the slotted Augment.

[fartloud]

As much as id be for it, most of you fail to mention a bigger problem. How many augs are even useful? Very select few are. Some are ok, but not good enough to warrant a slot. So ok we get a slot for augs, what do we actually get? A slot where an augment sits in permanently.

I say remove augment mods entirely. Fic abilities by putting band aid aug effects on them. Then, the actually interesting ones (DE has been really failing in that creative department) make even more choice based with advantages and disadvantages. Wait didnt I say to remove augment mods?! 

Indeed. Now make them as something you unlock by leveling a frame (add some new potato if you have to) and choose in your abilities screen. 

[(PSN)Yes-Man-Kablaam]

Every round of augments this thread happens and it is still not neede coming from someone who's run frameswith 3-4 augments people just really think everything is essential. "But muh 23% power str" if you're unwilling to compromise that is just your problem.

[(PSN)caoshen0625]

On 2019-01-09 at 2:15 PM, Xardis said:

My case for 1 more slot purely for augments is that right now, for serious build you dont have slots to put another useful augment, in many cases you cant put any augment at all.

I think DE what the "cost" of augments is losing a mod spot, but currently, some augments are a straight buff for the ability, some are a "trade-off", it's kinda messy.

I guess DE could do one of two things to "match" their intent: Make all augments straight buff and use the common mod slots, or make all mod "trade-off" and have dedicated slots. I suspect that's too much work for them either way.

One questions, when you say "serious build" what do you mean? Fighting edolons? that shet don't need no forma even. Or you mean fighting 300 enemies that DE doesn't consider exists? 

 

[Xardis]

5 hours ago, (PS4)caoshen0625 said:

One questions, when you say "serious build" what do you mean? Fighting edolons? that shet don't need no forma even. Or you mean fighting 300 enemies that DE doesn't consider exists? 

Like a caster build for arbitrations, its very hard to have one there - you need to put loads of survi mods and you need to fit other mods for you to be usefull. Same for any build that wants go deep inot any endless mode. And eidolons require loads of forma for Trin, Chroma and Ivara. My full build for Ivara took 5 forma for frame, 4 for castansas and 3 for bow, + I use Rubico, thats also 4 forma. Chroma requires less but its both for weapon and frame. Good Trin build takes 3-4 forma.

Edited January 12, 2019 by Xardis

[WhisperBiscuit]

An augment slot itself or have more augments capable of being slotted in the exilus slot. That's the only slot that costs plat, and the mods you put in are mostly utility. Some augments, like Accumulating Whipclaw are big power boosts and if they could be slotted into an augment slot or exilus it would be straight power creep. But, other augments, like dessication curse are straight nerfs to the frame when used and, while technically "upgrades" to the ability, don't provide enough utility or power to warrant the mod slot. But, slot those weaker, pure utility, augments into exilus, and now they might see use. 

I'll never slot Dessication Curse on my Inaros, even though I have spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to get a sand shadows based Inaros build to work (it doesn't. At least not without a lot of work, forma, and ultimately at a sacrifice to his overall usefulness and strength). If it was exilus compatible, then I probably would. 

Edited January 12, 2019 by WhisperBiscuit

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, WhisperBiscuit said:

That's the only slot that costs plat

Except it doesn't. It can be farmed for free. It only costs plat if you're skipping the grind, which is pretty much the entirety of the game, you skip grind with plat, but you don't actually need to.

[(PSN)caoshen0625]

17 hours ago, Xardis said:

Like a caster build for arbitrations, its very hard to have one there - you need to put loads of survi mods and you need to fit other mods for you to be usefull. Same for any build that wants go deep inot any endless mode. And eidolons require loads of forma for Trin, Chroma and Ivara. My full build for Ivara took 5 forma for frame, 4 for castansas and 3 for bow, + I use Rubico, thats also 4 forma. Chroma requires less but its both for weapon and frame. Good Trin build takes 3-4 forma.

13

Yeah forgot about arbitration exists for a second there. Guns always need forma no doubt, but I don't know how serious you are about hunting tridolons. To me as long as my warframe don't die, and the required abilities don't cost noticeable difference I'm fine with it...So I've been running a lot no forma builds. 

By the way if you have a dedicated augment slot, then what if someone doesn't like any of the augments, can the player use other mods for that slot? cus I'm sure ppl will ask for that if augment slots actually came true.

[Xardis]

2 hours ago, (PS4)caoshen0625 said:

Yeah forgot about arbitration exists for a second there. Guns always need forma no doubt, but I don't know how serious you are about hunting tridolons. To me as long as my warframe don't die, and the required abilities don't cost noticeable difference I'm fine with it...So I've been running a lot no forma builds. 

By the way if you have a dedicated augment slot, then what if someone doesn't like any of the augments, can the player use other mods for that slot? cus I'm sure ppl will ask for that if augment slots actually came true.

About eidolons, I dont know how the eidolon scene looks like on PS4, but Im doing 5x3s on PC. In terms of DPS, Im talking about instakilling limbs when shields go down. With Trin - well I just like my bless to last 25s, not 10-15, its a noticible difference when aside using bless you also need to prepare for damaging shields alongside Volt and Harrow.

Idealy I would like augments to all be changing what ability at its core does, not just an upgrade to existing abilities. If that was the case, I would like augments to stob beign mods at all and act more like an ability variant that you can choose on the abilities screen. But if ever, thhat is a veeery long way off. For now a dedicated slot would mean exactly that - nothing exept augment can go in. Its hard for me to believe that right now, there are people who would find no augment usefull for their current playstyles. Now its more of a "is it worth it to drop this for augment".

Edited January 13, 2019 by Xardis

[CrystalWitch]

11 minutes ago, Xardis said:

About eidolons, I dont know how the eidolon scene looks like on PS4, but Im doing 5x3s on PC. In terms of DPS, Im talking about instakilling limbs when shields go down. With Trin - well I just like my bless to last 25s, not 10-15, its a noticible difference when aside using bless you also need to prepare for damaging shields alongside Volt and Harrow.

Idealy I would like augments to all be changing what ability at its core does, not just an upgrade to existing abilities. If that was the case, I would like augments to stob beign mods at all and act more like an ability variant that you can choose on the abilities screen. But if ever, thhat is a veeery long way off. For now a dedicated slot would mean exactly that - nothing exept augment can go in. Its hard for me to believe that right now, there are people who would find no augment usefull for their current playstyles. Now its more of a "is it worth it to drop this for augment".

When you put it like Ability Variants, strangely I'm on-board for that.
Like you have to still buy the Variant to swap how an ability is executed, but maybe the energy cost should change around for that kind of use instead of having to drop other mods?
Like Oberon's Smite Infusion can ONLY be used on Allies when swapped.
Nekro's Despoil can be "Do you want to spend Energy or Health for Desecrate?"
Hell, make Ivara's Infiltrate be "Be invisible and move at a faster pace and but lose the headshot bonus and double the drain" or stay vanilla.

Kinda like how ESO's abilities are with the morphs
Do you want your Piercing Javelin to cost Magicka and deal more damage if it travels far?
Or Stamina and stun for a bit longer than normal?
There are only two options, but every skill has two options to better the ability, at the cost of two points, one for the skill itself, and the other for the morph.
 

[Xardis]

1 hour ago, CrystalWitch said:

When you put it like Ability Variants, strangely I'm on-board for that.
Like you have to still buy the Variant to swap how an ability is executed, but maybe the energy cost should change around for that kind of use instead of having to drop other mods?
Like Oberon's Smite Infusion can ONLY be used on Allies when swapped.
Nekro's Despoil can be "Do you want to spend Energy or Health for Desecrate?"
Hell, make Ivara's Infiltrate be "Be invisible and move at a faster pace and but lose the headshot bonus and double the drain" or stay vanilla.

Kinda like how ESO's abilities are with the morphs
Do you want your Piercing Javelin to cost Magicka and deal more damage if it travels far?
Or Stamina and stun for a bit longer than normal?
There are only two options, but every skill has two options to better the ability, at the cost of two points, one for the skill itself, and the other for the morph.

What I mean, most augments in game should just be integrated into the abilities. Others should be developped into the fully formed variant that has the same concept, but does different things. Look at antimatter mine. Thats a good variant for AMD, but its conclave only... On that, loads of things that are conclave only are cool and woulds see some use on normal game - like stances. 

Maybe an augment for MPrime for nova - targets are not speed up or slowed, they dont explode. The wave goes x2 faster and damage recived by primed targets scales with power strength. Things like this. Instead we got a mod that should have been at the very least Neutron Star rework.

[(PSN)caoshen0625]

8 hours ago, Xardis said:

About eidolons, I dont know how the eidolon scene looks like on PS4, but Im doing 5x3s on PC. In terms of DPS, Im talking about instakilling limbs when shields go down. With Trin - well I just like my bless to last 25s, not 10-15, its a noticible difference when aside using bless you also need to prepare for damaging shields alongside Volt and Harrow.

 

Yeah, I'm not disagreeing that there's an optimal build for everything, my belief is that this game is intended to be accessible(sometimes I can get 4X3 with 0 forma oberon and 2 forma trinity in pugs, when I'm lucky to get a good team that is), which means you don't need an optimal build to just complete the missions unless you want to add unnecessary challenges for yourself(I.E. endless runs, 5X3 hunts), not saying playing like that is wrong, just saying it's obviously not what the DEV intended players to do, so it's a little unfair to ask them to balance or add features that mostly benefits that.  

8 hours ago, Xardis said:

Its hard for me to believe that right now, there are people who would find no augment usefull for their current playstyles. Now its more of a "is it worth it to drop this for augment".

Well for games like this we need to expect ppl to want EVERYTHING lol. Ppl come up with opposite ideas all the time, and every one of them thinks their idea is reasonable and fair, not meaning they are inherently right or wrong, just saying that's how they feel. Just look at how many ppl disagreeing/agreeing with you in this post. So I can definitely see ppl asking that aug slots to open up for general mods. And that "is it worth it" mentality still at plays for aug slots, it just becomes "I'd rather have more strength than whatever this does, it's a shame the game forces me to use the augments".

Furthermore, I can see ppl want an aug slot for each ability, then they would want multiple aug mods for each ability...but they are just bandaid changes to simulate a better ability system aka ability branch. 

8 hours ago, Xardis said:

Idealy I would like augments to all be changing what ability at its core does, not just an upgrade to existing abilities. If that was the case, I would like augments to stob beign mods at all and act more like an ability variant that you can choose on the abilities screen.

That's what I'm saying! This would be great, wouldn't it! 

However the current system is closer to this "branch system" than having an aug slot, it's just the aug mods are all over the place. 

Just for example, currently

    Ability path A: extra strength/range/duration/efficiency(whatever mod you are replacing the aug mod)

    Ability path B: aug mods

This is somewhat a branch (if they can get the mods right....) of course worst than a real ability branch cus the mods you replaced effect all abilities.

Dedicated aug slot:

    Ability path A: extra strength/range/duration/efficiency

    Ability path B: extra strength/range/duration/efficiency + aug mods

This is a straight "buff" that plays may or may not care/want, and not really a brach, is it?