Its past time we got a dedicated augment slot

[(PSN)MrNishi]

21 hours ago, (PS4)caoshen0625 said:

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.

If Augments were to be slotted on the abilities tab themselves...

then a player that does not care for Augments would have just the base abilities as they are.

 

I agree Accumlating WhipClaw is a Prime Example of an Augment that is just powercreep. Same for Vampire Leech on Trinity.

While Whipclaw without a Melee weapon does become a wet noodle, Vampire Leech loses usefulness in the rare no Shield Mode. (Oddly, still providing unseen Over Shields, same with Harrow Codemn and Penance being usuable in No Shield Nightmare mission or the rare tome I have seen Valkyr Paralysis apply damage in No Shield Nightmare when Taxon has provided Shields.)

I don't know what DE has in store for the future.

If multiple Augments for the same ability are a possibility, than it would make sense to have the Augment slotted on the ability tab: changing the description and affected stat values dependent on which Augment was slotted.

 

*However, if there are no plans to have multiple Augments for a single Ability, then having Augments on the abilities tab, might appear as overkill. Except Hydroid and Nekros (see bottom of spoiler; below)

*Wall of text in spoiler* (Example of 3 Augments per each ability)

 

 

In my opinion, each Syndicate could have an Augment for every Warframe ability, just different Augments for factions.

Example : Valkyr's Augments currently are available from Perrin Sequence and New Loka. Swing Line, Eternal War, Prolonged Paralysis, nd Hysterical Assualt.

Steel Meridian & Red Veil could have 4 Valkyr Augments :

1) AoE Rip-line pull similar to Ensnare or Larva but no duration  to keep enemies in place just quick enough to group together and apply Ripline damage.

2) WarCry Augment that instead changes from enemy slow and Ally melee attack speed & armor Buff to being a redirection Aura where all incoming attacks are directed to Valkyr and allies in range are healed for a percentage of the damage received. (Like Amesha's Benevolent decoy but as WarCry Aura)

3) Paralysis Augment that stuns enemies setting them up for Finisher, but Shields are no longer used for damage but instead 1/3 of Shield value is converted to supplying energy to allies in Range. (Paralysis has a pretty short Range and players don't tend to normally build Valkyr for Shields, but might encourage some build diversity)

4) Hysteria Augment that removes invulnerability instead granting 75% damage reduction, draining health instead of energy, and converting delayed damage to added Hysteria damage. (So this Augment for Hysteria would be for attacking and not cheesing Invincibility)

 

Arbiters of Hexus and Cephalon Suda would have 4 different Valkyr Augments ... 

1) Rip-line Augment that allows Rip-line to utilize Melee mod on equipped melee weapon, add to and benefit from melee counter, and benefit from Stealth melee multiplier

2) WarCry Augment that increases allies health pool instead of armor, increases multi-shot, and instead of an enemy slow it grants a Puncture proc or 30% energy damage reduction.

3) Paralysis Augment that panics enemis from Valkyr relasing health instead of Shields. Losing 1/3 health per cast is lost and ability is now duration based. Health amount lost is calculated for range modifier...the larger the health amount the further the range.

4) Healing Hysteria : valkyr retains invulnerability, damage multiplier is removed, Valkyr now heals allies and objectives for with innate life-steal affected by Range. Delayed damage ramp-up can be lowered by amount of Ally health healed.

 

Having the Augments on the Ability tab: Would allow for a player to have a total of 4 different ability choices per ability.

The base vanilla ability unaugmented or one of the 3 Augments.

 

Letting a player use the Augments to be more supportive or offensive, as desired. While having the available mod slots to bolster and tailor build effectiveness without the Augments taking up mid slots.

 

 

 

Nekros is good example of a WarFrane where all 4 Augments can be useful but doing so requires a different approach for Energy efficiency.

Soul Survivor - doesn't care what your efficiency is: a single cast to resurrect a teammate is all of your current energy. So it would be unwise to use Soul Survivor with Flow, Primed Flow, Streamline, or Fleeting Expertise....all of your energy is consumed in 1 cast.

Despoil works with Soul Survivor and Equilibrium to let health give energy to replenish since all energy is consumed upon Soul Survivor cast on Ally.

Creeping Terrify allows for the enemies that are debuffed by Terrify's armor removal to be easier targets rather than fleeing around.

Shield of Shadows allows for some tankiness via Link, and also makes it easier to distinguish which enemis are Shadows to avoid targeting.

Because that is 4 Mod slots already gone, with a 5th Equilibrium being needed to combat Soul Survivor energy loss with Despoil...that currently leaves 3 Slots an Aura and an Exilus.

Power strength helps 3 of those Augmented abilities

Although with 5 slots taken up by the Augments and Equilibrium it really limits any build diversity if using all 4 Augments. While 3 of the Augments could greatly benefit from either range or power-strength that doesn't leave much room for any Survivability mods or Natural Talent (for those long macarana dance-casts). 

✓ Nekros having those 4 Augments slotted on the abilities tab would greatly benefit from having 4 Mod slots to help make those Augments scale better.

(Hydroid is another where all 4 Augments on the abilities tab would make him a better, as he needs the mod space to cover some of his mod scaling for abilities to work well.)

 

 

Edited January 14, 2019 by (PS4)MrNishi
Example of 3 Augments per ability in Spoiler

[Shadedraxe]

I personally would love an augment slot... but there is a crux. 

The problem is that augments just aren’t created equally. Some add QoL (that arguably should be part of the base ability), some alter how they functuion (what I wish all augments did, augment slots totally would be a thing if that were the case), and some are just straight up buffs and improvements to an ability. And those buff augments are the very reason we won’t get a dedicated slot. Because if we could add a stat boosting mod back into our builds along with those augments it would make them even more broken.

its a shame really, because this means that a lot of the lack luster augments will continue to go unused because they aren’t worth replacing a stat mod for.

however augment slots could be a thing one day, but some augments may get nerfed for that to happen.

[Birdframe_Prime]

13 hours ago, (PS4)MrNishi said:

If Augments were to be slotted on the abilities tab themselves...

See, now I have a thought for you here, and I'm just going to put this out there.

I went through a phase of believing that Augments should stay the purview of the Syndicates that gave them. So you level up your standing in each of the six main syndicates and by doing so you unlock a place to augment a specific frame in your collection. In fact, because of the way this works, you would have a section for every single frame in your Arsenal, and this would be a separate modding system.

The advantage of this is that the separate modding system would then have its own caps, its own mod costs, and the function of having to create builds with your Augments as much as with your Mods. It would also allow multiple augments be released for an ability and you would have to choose between them in the screen, or DE could even create augments that built on other augments, meaning that you could build entirely around a specific ability (like being able to have a new augment that cuts the range on Null Star's targeting by 50% but makes each orb have a guaranteed Stagger and Radiation status, and then including the new Molecular Fission augment to keep killing enemies to replenish those orbs) or build something in for three of them. But the key would be that the system doesn't have Forma, so some mods would negate the use of others just by their cost.

Now, I went into a huge amount of depth with this idea. I spent months debating back and forth with people.

Until somebody asked; Isn't this just pure power creep? It doesn't matter if the Augments are in the Abilities tab, in the Syndicates or in a dedicated slot. If the situation thus far is that augments are dubbed, by virtue of them being direct upgrades to abilities (99% of them), as costing a regular mod slot. If that situation is an actually declared state of affairs by the Devs and this whole thing is entirely deliberate and meant to limit you...

Then what reason do they have for actually removing that limitation? Because removing that limitation counters their desired course for what Augments do and cost.

So without a cost for this, and I mean a real cost, not some Plat price or some special unlock you can grind for, I mean an actual limitation placed on players that stops this from being more powerful than what we have now...

How is it supposed to be balanced?

We're already incredibly powerful without the band-aids, without the upgrades, without the augments. Base abilities do have some flaws, but we're already capable of doing any level of content in the game without the Augments. So if we're already that powerful, where is the balance in making us more so?

And here's the kicker to this point, one that somebody came back to me with when I responded to that point:

If your answer to this question, about how it's pure power creep, is anything to do with fixing/reworking the Augments, or fixing the Abilities to make these new slots/slot not over-powered... then why not do that and instead make the augments and abilities all worth the main Mod slot in the first place?

What is DE's incentive for giving us dedicated Augment slots when the actual solution even with this new slot would still include 'we have to rework the augments'? Why not skip the extra step and just rework the Augments?

Rework the Augments, rework the Abilities they apply to.

Make Augments stop being only direct buffs to the Abilities themselves, or band-aids to them, and start being buffs to the Warframe as a whole instead.

[ADirtyMonk]

I’d prefer warframe augments to act more like a forma.

The vast majority of augments are either S#&$ or bandaid in functionality and the market for even high demand augments is so saturated they go for peanuts. There is also a subset of augments that are “ok” but not good enough to displace a standard mod. Give players a reason to play more and further max out the warframe by letting players fuse augments into the Warframe. Only One augment can be fused in for each ability and on fusing will reset the warframe level like a forma. Maybe even make it require a semi-rare timegated item that can bE gotten from early-mid star chart planets on a rotating mission basis to encourage players to fill up dead nodes. 4 resets per frame is a lot of playtime that DE gets to add to their metrics. Bad abilities get a bandaid without compromising the rest of the build, and the work put into programming the augments won’t be totally wasted. Also Eventually there will be more than one augment for each ability in which case players will need to choose which augment to fuse.

Edited January 15, 2019 by ADirtyMonk

[VencirGan]

I'd personally love an augment slot or the ability to place the augment into my Exilus slot. Exilus slots are meant to be utility right? Iunno, I could think of all the more uniqueness it could add to some of my frames/builds.

[Atsia]

2 hours ago, VencirGan said:

I'd personally love an augment slot or the ability to place the augment into my Exilus slot. Exilus slots are meant to be utility right? Iunno, I could think of all the more uniqueness it could add to some of my frames/builds.

But that's just the thing, it really wouldn't make builds more unique. It'd just be pure power creep for the majority of players as the free slot on frames is just gonna used to stack more strength/ range/duration/efficiency in the end.

[(PSN)STR8L8CED]

I think you should be able to put any mod anywhere as long as you have the space. Universal.

[(PSN)NemitheNem]

I think we need more slots, period.

Isn't DE a bit upset about the same-y-ness of builds?  In weapons and warframes?  The thing is, there is no choice, you got limited space and you need to be effective. More slots, without changing the capacity might fix that

Alternatively, more slots, bring back ability cards and give Warframes more abilities

[Birdframe_Prime]

4 hours ago, (PS4)NemitheNem said:

Isn't DE a bit upset about the same-y-ness of builds?  In weapons and warframes?

Actually, they did mention this. They went the entirely different way in their comments on stream to the way you're thinking.

They don't want more slots, they just want to make certain stats not need modding. So one of the things they wanted to do with the system was to make Health and Shields part of the innate scaling of the Warframe, and replace the base Redirection and Vitality mods with 'bias' mods. So your Warframe would scale up to a certain amount naturally, but where you want a frame to have more health, you would trade off shields for it, and where you'd want more shields, vice-versa. So for frames like Valkyr you could trade off her shields for more base health, and frames like Harrow, you could trade off base health to get shields.

The important thing being that if you used neither bias mod, you'd still get as much health and shields on a rank 30 frame as you would have with the current health/shield mods equipped. This would leave open some interactions like putting Vigor on a frame like Inaros, and then using the Bias mod to give him even more health by siphoning off the shield, but that wouldn't be as necessary.

Similarly they discussed the base Serration, Hornet Strike and Pressure Point mods, and wanted to remove those mods and make that bonus innate to scaling 'mastery' of the weapons, so that you would always have that extra slot free out of your current builds instead.

The idea being that all of our current builds, the ones where we put in a single survivability mod, would not need that mod and every single build gains a slot by default without increasing the actual number of them.

But where that idea went, and why they bothered with Primed Pressure Point if that was in the works I'll never know...

[VencirGan]

5 hours ago, Atsia said:

But that's just the thing, it really wouldn't make builds more unique. It'd just be pure power creep for the majority of players as the free slot on frames is just gonna used to stack more strength/ range/duration/efficiency in the end.

I mean changing an ability up does make your build more unique because your ability changes, thus changing your build. I could run Natural talent in that slot with.. An augment in the exilus slot. Honestly in general I'd personally just allow everyone to alter one ability in their kit for free. I like augments a lot and some of them are pretty broken. I'd also like to use them if I want, and I can.. In general though, game has pretty bad power creep.

Honestly after nidus warframe power creep has gotten interesting, at least in my eyes. Constant regen, undying/revive, stacks that increase damage, cc, damage reduction and a very selfish kit in terms of doing all of that.

4 hours ago, (PS4)NemitheNem said:

I think we need more slots, period.

Isn't DE a bit upset about the same-y-ness of builds?  In weapons and warframes?  The thing is, there is no choice, you got limited space and you need to be effective. More slots, without changing the capacity might fix that

Alternatively, more slots, bring back ability cards and give Warframes more abilities

Warframe ability cards would be nice, I'd personally like to see abilities you either have to work for or maybe even just some alternate abilities. Guess thats what augments are for but. I end up only finding one per frame I like, which is why I'd love the exilus slot to provide that nice and safe space for that mod to go.

[(PSN)NemitheNem]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Similarly they discussed the base Serration, Hornet Strike and Pressure Point mods, and wanted to remove those mods and make that bonus innate to scaling 'mastery' of the weapons, so that you would always have that extra slot free out of your current builds instead.

The idea being that all of our current builds, the ones where we put in a single survivability mod, would not need that mod and every single build gains a slot by default without increasing the actual number of them.

But where that idea went, and why they bothered with Primed Pressure Point if that was in the works I'll never know...

But the mods won't go away, DR has been consistently good about not taking away what we acquired. 

So all that means is that my weapons will be more beefy

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, (PS4)NemitheNem said:

But the mods won't go away, DR has been consistently good about not taking away what we acquired. 

Actually, no, that was the point. The mods would genuinely going away or being outright replaced by a different function.

Think the changes that are going on for Melee 3.0, completely removing the base 'channelling' function on attacks, reserving it entirely for blocking, and replacing all the mods that apply to channelling with mods that apply to Heavy Attacks instead. With there even being previews of existing mods getting updates to apply to the new system, such as Reach, which they specifically said would be nerfed because of the upgrade to the base range of all weapons, does a certain percentage of extra range, but then also adds Punch Through to the new Heavy Ground Slams (meaning they can go through solid objects and other enemies).

What they were talking about was a complete removal and replacement of the current health and shield mods, along with complete removal of the base damage mods for weapons.

And why? Because there's already precedence for this too. Our Abilities were previously Mods, they removed those mods and made the abilities innate. So the same process would apply, removing the mods for the function and making the function innate.

Again, though, what the heck happened to that discussion? No idea. Dead silence ever since. So we don't know if this worked out as actually practical, or if it's just back-burner status until the major Melee stuff is out.

[(PSN)MrNishi]

On 2019-01-14 at 12:24 PM, Birdframe_Prime said:

....(snipped)

What is DE's incentive for giving us dedicated Augment slots when the actual solution even with this new slot would still include 'we have to rework the augments'? Why not skip the extra step and just rework the Augments?

Rework the Augments, rework the Abilities they apply to.

Make Augments stop being only direct buffs to the Abilities themselves, or band-aids to them, and start being buffs to the Warframe as a whole instead.

That is all fair.

My response to that is DE removed the abilities as Mods to give us access to all 4 abilities which was powercreep in the sense of Warframe ability access but was a Nerf for those of us that had Zero or Single ability builds.

Edit: You even covered this issue 

Currently some of the Augments are basically pandering to the same issue DE was looking to curb by making all abilities available all the time: They did not seem pleased with players having a single ability build.

I fall into the problem-category with Valkyr where I had a no ability build where I was just utilizing high non-ability Survivability. 

With another (different crafted and Forma'd) Valkyr built around nothing but pre-augment Valkyr.

When they removed Abilities being slotted as a Mod: My no ability Valkyr lost 2 mod slots, basically ruinging my build; but hey I got r abilities which I had abandoned.

My non-Augment Paralysis build only lost 1 mod slot with me now using Prolonged Paralysis Augment and having Exilus slot to pseudo make up for 1 of those lost slots.

 

So if the idea of DE not wanting players to min-max for a single Ability hasn't been fixed with players (me) still min-maxing over a simple Augment.

Now I strongly agree that Augments and base abilities should just be fixed without band-aid Augments, but that would still just be powercreep without diversity.

The multiple Augments for a single Ability caters In-line with Frame customisability and thus play style diversity.

 

Personally - I vote for powercreep with Diversity over just plain powercreep. (Correlating Augments being a buff to the Whole Warframe and not just the ability as still being powercreep.)

[Birdframe_Prime]

5 hours ago, (PS4)MrNishi said:

So if the idea of DE not wanting players to min-max for a single Ability hasn't been fixed with players (me) still min-maxing over a simple Augment.

Now I strongly agree that Augments and base abilities should just be fixed without band-aid Augments, but that would still just be powercreep without diversity.

The multiple Augments for a single Ability caters In-line with Frame customisability and thus play style diversity.

I don't believe that this was a move made to prevent min-maxing. If you want to see their moves on anti-min-maxing, just look at every frame that Pablo has worked on. You can min-max, but he makes the frames work better if they have all-positive modding, with bias rather than maxing.

Honestly I believe that DE just wants us to not be consciously removing options, which is why when they made the change, their own preferred status of only six mod slots, with the four ability slots, increased to eight.

And I believe that's the way that should be taken with Augments too.

5 hours ago, (PS4)MrNishi said:

Personally - I vote for powercreep with Diversity over just plain powercreep. (Correlating Augments being a buff to the Whole Warframe and not just the ability as still being powercreep.)

But that's not precisely true. Augments that buff the warframe overall to produce a difference in game play would not be considered power creep as long as those augments are still costing a full mod slot.

We are still having to give up the best build for specific abilities, or a specific play style, in order to get a new one. That's why I believe frames that have augments like Jet Stream and Molecular Fission are the ones that offer the most diversity.

Before Jet Stream there was literally no reason to build Zephyr for Strength. Before her rework, even less reason. Even now, the preferred build for her is to favour Range over Strength, with emphasis on Duration and a bit of Efficiency, because Turbulence is still her best cast. Now though... Now that her Tornado is an actually viable cast, even if limited, and now that she has Jet Stream with the unique function of increasing Projectile Flight Speed, slapping on 155% Strength at the cost of a more neutral Range not only has the ability to make Dive Bomb capable of killing enemies around level 40-50 (if you have a decent height tile) and Tornado capable of stripping down enemies it catches and apply a fantastic amount of status while you prime it with damage from your weapons... you can also get more value out of a lot of weapons that you might not have considered for her. Fall-off damage is affected by Flight Speed, meaning that shotguns, the Baza, actual projectile based guns, thrown weapons and bows/crossbows become far more reliable, travel distance of weapons like the Arca Plasmor, and the Catchmoon, are instantly better... And all because you've got a little Augment that makes it worth modding for a bit of Strength at the sacrifice of a bit of Range and Duration, which are her go-to stats.

And Molecular Fission... It takes what you already do with Nova and gives you something you also wanted, but previously had to play a completely different way. When you lost a Null Star orb before, you would burst your ability and recast it because of the specific augment. Now you can swap that out and simply maintain orbs through active play, through kills. But here's the catch; you need to then treat M-Prime differently too. As you'll be modding for max-Duration, this will then hit everything outside of the room you're in too, which can be death for Survivals, because the enemies that are more than 40m away don't get alerted as fast, don't come to you for killing as fast, and therefore don't supply life support as fast, and the cycle spirals down. In Defenses, enemies will be hit in the Spawn rooms, so you'll have to go hunt them down every time you want to finish a round, too. So you might have to mod for slightly negative Strength and let enemies function at normal speed, or just a slight slow, where in other situations you might want to lock-down the area with the full Slow. It makes you play Nova differently, or suffer unintended consequences.

Augments should be a buff to the frame, but in the form of giving us something we want, at the cost of forcing us to consider something we normally wouldn't have thought of.

[(PSN)MrNishi]

16 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

But that's not precisely true. Augments that buff the warframe overall to produce a difference in game play would not be considered power creep as long as those augments are still costing a full mod slot.

We are still having to give up the best build for specific abilities, or a specific play style, in order to get a new one. That's why I believe frames that have augments like Jet Stream and Molecular Fission are the ones that offer the most diversity.

I see your examples for Jet Stream and Molecular Fission as still being the same as powercreep and also as Min-maxing.

Modding for Jet Stream can still make sense for Funnel Clouds but counters Target Fixation Augment. Which promotes always building for Funnel Cloud as basically now a staple mod for Zephyr. If an Augment Mod that affects the other abilities to the point of making other Augments for that same frame obsolete, then I feel that is the opposite of build diversity.

To me Jet Stream is to Zephyr as Accumulating Whipclaw is to Khora. Both boost an ability that that allows lingering effects to boost or synergize with other abilities. 

✓Ensnare synergy with WhipClaw gets boosted with Accumulating Whipclaw, like wise for using Strangle Dome  followed by Ensnare this allowing Accumulating Whipclaw to count for full Ensnare combo damage.

The only ability combo that doesn't directly benefit is Venari. Unless counting dead enemies as increased Survivability for Venari OR that if Venari died in place of Khora... Accumulating Whipclaw makes it easier to kill enemies to speed up Venari respawn.

Compared to Jet Stream which negates any reason or benefit for slotting Target Fixation since they promote opposing playstyles. Target Fixation is more suited for stationary playing utilizing (Float Hover) where as Jet Stream can be more flexible for normal mobile game play. That could mean Target Fixation is just a bad Augment, or that Jet Stream is just literally that much better when currently a player can look at these Augments as competing for the same mod slot. 

Molecular Fission basically does the exact same thing of making Neutron Star not worthy of competing for a Mod slot. Giving a better alternative to maintain Null Stars. On PS4 it is common to build Nova with a heavy duration focus; even when building for speed Nova build for faster spawns. Molecular Fission is straight powercreep beating out Neutron Star's utility & thus not being an equivalent for competing for a Mod slot. Speed Nova with Overextended and/or Power Donation still works for high duration build and greatly speeds up endless defense waves and also allowing for faster Survival Spawns. 

That is still promoting Min-maxing to the point of making an Augment a staple mod for Warframe builds.

 

I believe there would be more build diversity if there are multiple Augments for each ability & those Augments being on the abilities tab. Allowing for new Augment stats that may require Strength, duration, range or a Survivability stat that now affects the newly augmented abilities.

I still see it as powercreep with a Single Augment that allows a Warframe to better utilize their whole kit & it is powercreep if each player can slot Augments on abilities tab with 8 mod slots available for normal mods to scale said abilities. An Augment that offers an improvement over the base ability is powercreep - plain and simple. (Especially when most Augments do not have a downside in comparison to vanilla ability.)

[punipunichen]

a second Exlous slot! or make Augments Exlous too??

[Birdframe_Prime]

Well your basic argument is making a bit of sense, @(PS4)MrNishi but unfortunately you're running up against the problem that I did when I was trying to design a separate Syndicate Augment system; the examples you're finding to compare to all fall into the category of the Direct Buff to the single ability (as in, no change needed for the modding), or Band-Aids (still no change needed), and in the opposite direction you've got one example that's just a badly designed augment in and of itself (why would you ever use it, it isn't even a buff or a band-aid).

Accumulating Whipclaw is one of those straight-up buffs to an ability. It does have a wider effect, as you pointed out, but only on existing combos. It's no different, in a sense, than the Melee Combo Counter scaling that the ability already has. You're just getting access to that damage far, far quicker, and as a force-multiplier to that original function. In a very real way, Accumulating Whipclaw is the embodiment of what Augments shouldn't be. It takes an existing singular function that the frame does, that one ability, and just adds that direct buff to what it does, no trade-off, no difference in your modding apart from that one slot.

Jet Stream, on the other hand, takes the base modding for Zephyr, high Duration and Range for CC with no real reliance on Strength, and forces you to consider Strength. Taking something the frame doesn't do and making it a priority to change up how you play that frame.

Unlike Target Fixation, which should do the same, but is at it's core a badly designed augment, so it can't. For example, I think you may have missed what Target Fixation is and does:

Target Fixation doesn't work with Hover at all, I'd like it to, but it doesn't. Target Fixation counters its own function after every cast. The damage on Tailwind ramps up with every enemy hit, but cancels as soon as you land, wall-clings/runs count as landing, and you automatically land if you're within 1m of the ground at the end of the animation (which is almost every time if you're aiming to charge through a line of enemies). It's impossible to use this augment as intended because the ability itself cancels the effect after one single cast, unless you're attacking actual flying units on the open landscapes, and even then it's faster just to shoot things.

If we were able to get the update to her rework that's being pushed by a lot of people, me included, where the Hover becomes an effective mobility function on her instead of a counter-intuitive stationary cast on the ground only with a three second charge time... Then it might work. Or if Target Fixation got a rework so that it functions on targets we hit with weapons while using the Hover, then yes that would probably work too. It would still be just a buff to the ability, which we don't want, but it would be a functional augment. Target Fixation as it stands, though, is the least functional Augment in the game so far.

But if it worked, even then the modding for Target Fixation wouldn't be really any different than the modding for Jet Stream or Funnel Clouds. And that's the point I was making. If you work purely off Zephyr's abilities, then having neutral or even negative Strength works fine, you are able to min-max for Duration and Range to make the most out of her CC and Defense casts. But having her Augments, which switch out the CC on Tornado for Damage, or add functions that make Turbulence into a buffing ability based on Strength as well, or make Tailwind into a cast with self-buffing Damage... Strength becomes a factor, it changes how you mod Zephyr at base, to make her more effective at something else that she doesn't usually do.

Meanwhile, what does Null Star's augment do? It allows early recasting. That's it. That's not a good augment, it's a band-aid.

So yeah, I'm glad that Molecular Fission makes Null Star's augment obsolete, we can get a better augment for her 1 that compliments her kit overall rather than something that purely affects the single ability.

Think of if she had a Null Star augment that went with... Anti-Matter Drop. Null Star Infusion, a fixed quantity of Null Star orbs will immediately feed into the cast of Anti-Matter Drop, boosting its damage by 25% for one orb, up to 100% for four. Now this isn't a force multiplier, it's to replace Weapon Damage as the charging mechanic if all four orbs are absorbed. You gain max-damage on your AMD without firing your weapon into it as long as you have four Null Star Orbs around you. So you have the interesting choice of modding for multiples, eight, twelve, or sixteen, because you might not want to have only a 50% strength cast on the last one that you then still have to charge with weapons... And that makes a Tank Nova a little more interesting to build for.

So you sacrifice your Defense for Offense, and AMD becomes the way you strip back your Null Star for recasting, as complete opposition of the Molecular Fission augment which becomes the way you maintain Null Star without recasting. Find a build that uses both? You have the combo of Prime, fire off AMD with a full Infusion, recover the Orbs from the killing of enemies that were Primed, repeat for pure casting-driven damage... that isn't quite as good as it could be, certainly not as survivable as the Tank build, but a very, very good Glass Cannon build, because you're using two Augments and only six regular mods. That's the trade-off you make for the added power you'd get.

Completely changing up the way you mod the base frame and/or the way you play the base frame by playing in to one part or other of the frame's kit with Augments that compliment it, rather than flat buff or band-aid the individual cast.

That's what I'm working towards.

[(PSN)MrNishi]

@Birdframe_Prime

I guess I looked at Accumulating Whipclaw as being a replacement for Power-strength mods and this allowing the flexibility to have more range mods equipped. Although in Gun Only- missions Accumlating WhipClaw is still wet noodle damage wise not having those melee mods to scale from.

I do agree it is a direct damage increasing Mod

In regards to Target Fixation: I had rembered casting Tailwind -> Wall Run ->cast hover from Wall Run and the damage boost remaining. But it seems you are correct in that recasting cancels the damage stack. I guess that just makes it a bad Augment as it is unpractical to use. Although I would still have to say it is powercreep over non-augmented Tailwind; just really difficult to justify wasting a mod slot on.

 

Ice Wave Impedance would be an example of an Augment that changes what mods scale the newly augmented ability.

Prolonged Paralysis doesn't change the affected mods for scaling the ability, but the scaling has bonus affect. Originally Prolonged Paralysis could have been looked at as a direct buff to normal Paralysis; since enemies were still standing but pulled together (Ensnare) for easy headshots or Stealth Multiplier quick-melee polearm head strikes. 

~ But DE made it so Augment knocks enemies down leaving them in a dog pile rather than easy punch-through headshots or finishers.

Due to that mechanic change it makes the ability feel entirely different even though the modding had no change. Power-strength still increases Shield conversion Damage, but now also increases Stun length or enemy recovery duration. Due to the pulling of the Augments it incourages modding for Range which is counter to normal Valkyr modding aside from Ripline. Ground-pound from Hysteria works well with Dog piled enemies and Hysteria Charge attack is a better/more mobile enemy finisher prompt than casting non-Augment Paralysis. 

(So both Valkyr' Prolonged Paralysis and Khora's Accumlating WhipClaw encourage a Range oriented build because grouping more enemies together makes it more effective to damage said enemies. While both abilities are mainly Power-strength focused for modding, both are direct-buff Augments.)

 

I do greatly appreciate you taking the time to reply and share insight.

I guess I'm still tunneled-vision on seeing Augments as the new ability mod slots, except we have less mod slots than before. Which is exactly how I felt with slotting all 4 Nekros Augments ... if Augments and Ability Mods were an either/or mod back when we had 10 mod slots my 4 Augment Nekros would have been better than 4 Ability Mod Nekros. (So either Soul Punch or Soul Survivor could be slotted but not both)

When looking at Augments being the equivalent of the now-defunct Ability mods & future expectation that each ability would have a variety of Augments : I don't see how we really moved away from the abilities being mods. (Other than we still have access to the vanilla abilities that we can neglect through Min-maxing an Augment)*

I do concur that it would be Powercreep to just put Augments on the ability tab.

The most balanced soultion would most likely be bringing back ability Mods and having those and Augments count as the same mod type.(Meaning only 1 could be slotted) That would result in a Nerf to players because we would lose mod slots in order to slot abilities/Augments, returning back to just an Aura, 4 ability/Augment slots, and then 6 normal mod slots possibly with no Exilus adapter (due to Capacity restraints). (For Warframes where all 4 Augments get slotted this would be a buff to return to old 10 slot-style but for players that prefer to run Augment free & use vanilla abilities it would be a Nerf. (I am assuming majority of the community would fall into the latter category.)

[Birdframe_Prime]

4 hours ago, (PS4)MrNishi said:

I do greatly appreciate you taking the time to reply and share insight.

I always rather have a chat with people than just flat-out argue. But it's less insight than having cooler heads than mine calm me down and talk me through the options, and being talked around to their side myself.

3 hours ago, (PS4)MrNishi said:

The most balanced soultion would most likely be bringing back ability Mods and having those and Augments count as the same mod type.

The issue I can plainly see with this is that Warframe's actual policy was that when Abilities were Mods, we were only supposed to have six slots to mod with, and so as you mentioned we'd go back to that. Not only that, the fact that you had to fuse into Abilities to make them function at their best, and instantly had access to their full power where currently DE wants us to only have the full power on them when we've maxed the Warframe...

See, back when the Abilities were Mods, we also didn't have the system of our MR affecting the base mod points we have available. This was important because it meant that if we had an Aura, we could get only 14-18 points available on a build when the frame was Rank 0, meaning that even with polarised slots we could only then get one or two abilities, and maybe another single mod, or one ability and two regular mods. This prevented us, as players, from using a Rank 0 Frame at full power. It was a limitation.

The current system of having access to more base mod points already (currently a Catalyst and Aura gives the top MR players access to 66-70 points at Rank 0...) which allows us to put on most of a build right from the outset but... funnily enough, we still can't play the frame at full power until we max it out. This is another way to limit.

For some players it's easy to max a frame, literally one or two runs on their particular levelling node of choice, but for others this can be a serious hindrance. And for low MR players, it's doubly so. And that's intentional to how DE wants the frames to be utilised before they're maxed out, and that includes when you add Forma.

The only way I could see this working is a hybrid system, where the Abilities are still 'innate', but marked as mod cards in a visually separated part of the modding screen, then there are only the six mod slots that you can actually slot things in, and the Aura and Exilus as normal (the Exilus is still balanced by the limited power of the mods that go in there and the necessary investment of an Exilus Adaptor, which not everyone was lucky enough to be present for the drop of 27-30 of those during the DevStream accident).

The key being that you're now limited to that six-slot build again, unlike the eight-slot we have currently, but that Augment mods are then slotted in place of the Abilities not interfering with the regular mods, with the limitation that you can't Forma Ability slots and each Augment costs some amount of capacity where the base Ability doesn't.

One issue with this, though? None of the players will want to go back to the six-slot method. That, to all of them, will feel like a massive nerf to the system.

Because of one thing; this effort to make the Augments worth it and feel like they're supposed to be important changes to our abilities, and not have them cost a full mod slot has a fatal flaw at the centre of it.

The only way you can make Augments as important as the Abilities they change, is at the expense of being able to mod for the Abilities without them. Augments are supposed to have this limit, where if they are used then you don't get the most ideal build, and if you want to use two of them or more, then while it does feel more like the original system, nobody really enjoyed the original system in the way DE intended it to be used.

They're on record explaining the changes and why they made them this way, and... well... until Augments really are reworked to be meaningful changes to abilities that can change how you play the frame, and where each ability in turn is then reworked in a way that makes it actually worth putting on a specific Augment for that ability, then there really isn't any need for us to change how the base modding system works around them yet.

If Augments were how we wanted them already, I would be making and commenting on every thread to do with fixing the modding system to make using Augments a clean and reliable system that not only complimented, but could make the most of all the modding possibilities.

But they're not.

For now, the first step is getting DE to actually work Augments through the right way. Make the Abilities and the Augments work together as a whole on each frame in turn. After that, on to the bigger step of fixing up the modding system to account for that.

[(PSN)MrNishi]

19 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

One issue with this, though? None of the players will want to go back to the six-slot method. That, to all of them, will feel like a massive nerf to the system.

Except in the case where a Warframe has 4 usable Augments...having 6 slots to mod would be better than the current 4 mod system. (I used Nekros as my Example because Soul Survivor is useful when paired with Vazarin Protective Dash; Vazarin Protective Dash is also a band-aid to Heal Shadows of the Dead and objectives when all energy is consumed from Soul Survivor resurrect.)

If all Warframes could have 4 useful Augments: that would put them in the spot where 6 slots to mod is better than 4. But as you mentioned : Augments need work to for then to all be useful.

19 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

For now, the first step is getting DE to actually work Augments through the right way. Make the Abilities and the Augments work together as a whole on each frame in turn. After that, on to the bigger step of fixing up the modding system to account for that.

+1

I agree Augments need to be revisited, a lot of them are not practical & then we have had some Augments removed that were more useful than their replacements.

Tail Wind could have still had 2 Augments Target Fixation (which is in need of QoL mechanic change) and Dive Bomb Vortex. It was basically Prolonged Paralysis without the slow pull. 

I don't understand DE wanting to only have 1 Augment per ability, since it would be more customization if abilities have different Augment choices.

Some WarFrame and Archwing abilities also seem to be void of Augments , since the base abilities are just that good.

Trinity Blessing : not sure how you Augment Blessing without it being powercreep.

Same goes for any of Amesha's abilities. How do you Augment any those abilities without it being powercreep. I mean: where Warding Halo needs an Augment to cast on allies; Vengeful Swarm can be cast on Allies and objectives (AW MD) as base mechanics.

Literally if Amesha's ability set was a Warframe...I would have 1 playstyle for Archwing and Warframe. 

If we are even given the chance to make a Suit from Archwing Abilities that would be my go to.* 

Edited January 20, 2019 by (PS4)MrNishi

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, (PS4)MrNishi said:

Except in the case where a Warframe has 4 usable Augments

Yes, but augments are optional, they aren't mandatory, and even when we do have 4 usable augments, we might not want to use them all together because two of them might be something like Molecular Fission and Escape Velocity, which promote playing Tank Nova so that she gets sustained defense and consistent speed boosting, while the other two might be like Anti-Matter Absorb and the prospective one I mentioned for Null Star that boosts the damage with your orbs, which promotes a completely different tactic of consistent AMD usage.

This is exactly what I meant about this kind of change being at the expense of regular play. The six mod system would not produce builds that work effectively across the board for every frame and Augments would become a mandatory part of the experience, otherwise the build wouldn't be complete.

And that's not the point of Augments at all. Frames need to function entirely without them first.

1 hour ago, (PS4)MrNishi said:

I don't understand DE wanting to only have 1 Augment per ability, since it would be more customization if abilities have different Augment choices.

It's not that they don't want more augments for the abilities, but not every warframe even has 1 for every ability yet ^^

The policy is to ensure that all of them have functional augments for their abilities first, then we can put in more augments per ability.

1 hour ago, (PS4)MrNishi said:

Trinity Blessing : not sure how you Augment Blessing without it being powercreep.

Benevolent Blessing: Duration of buff is extended for every enemy killed while stunned with Well of Life ^^

[sixmille]

Say no to drugs power creep.

[-GAx-]

Imo, the Augment system needs no change. 

Any improvements to it makes power creep more apparent, and vets'll complain about low enemy scaling again. 

[Shikkoku]

On 2019-01-09 at 9:50 PM, AvPCelticPredator said:

See pal, why dafuq we need thousands of augments and other mods if we cannot combined them or used without spending standard slots for build!?

For example I dont using augments exept for Nekros (Despoil) and Hydroid (Pilff), thats the only augments which is usefull right now, all other augments gives u short buff counted is 5-10 sec...etc.

90% of augments are trash, remember that!

That's not true: Shield of Shadows; Infiltrate; Chromatic Blade; Peaceful Provocation; Irradiating Disarm; Hall of Malevolence,Total Eclipse; Vampire Leech; Safeguard; Mesa's Waltz; Resonance 

Just a few augements that useful and worth it. Well mybe the best to not stir up the augmented mods system, but it would be nice to have an augmented mod slot. 

My suggestion for augmented mod slot is this: Give us an unlockable mod slot (similar to exilus), you can put an augment in it, and it won't drain any capacity, but it's permanent. You can't change that. (or just via loosing the augmented mod) 

So you gain some benefits, bot lose the ability to freely variate your build. 
 

[(PSN)MrNishi]

23 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Yes, but augments are optional, they aren't mandatory, and even when we do have 4 usable augments, we might not want to use them all together because two of them might be something like Molecular Fission and Escape Velocity, which promote playing Tank Nova so that she gets sustained defense and consistent speed boosting, while the other two might be like Anti-Matter Absorb and the prospective one I mentioned for Null Star that boosts the damage with your orbs, which promotes a completely different tactic of consistent AMD usage.

This is exactly what I meant about this kind of change being at the expense of regular play. The six mod system would not produce builds that work effectively across the board for every frame and Augments would become a mandatory part of the experience, otherwise the build wouldn't be complete.

And that's not the point of Augments at all. Frames need to function entirely without them first.

But... Abilities when they were mods were "Optional" just as Augments are now. With my suggestion abilities would go back to being slotted mods with the 6 Mod system; just Augments and Vanilla abilities would count as towards the same slot. (Meaning you could have Paralysis (vanilla)or Prolonged Paralysis (Augment), but not both slotted at same time.

I use Escape Velocity and Anti-matter Absorb on my Nova Builds. Hoping to fit in Molecular Fission when it arrives.

Granted if I had to slot Null Star or Neutron Star because abilities would no longer be innate...then Molecular Fission would no longer be in my build.

23 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

It's not that they don't want more augments for the abilities, but not every warframe even has 1 for every ability yet ^^

The policy is to ensure that all of them have functional augments for their abilities first, then we can put in more augments per ability.

I already acknowledged that not every ability had an Augment yet.

It doesn't seem as though the policy is to have "functional Augments" as looking at discussion of Dive Bomb Vortex being changed for Target Fixation seems like the opposite direction. Same as how Nidus players may have felt with Larva Burst, or Wukong's Enveloping Cloud (Just received this Augment on PS4 and Switch will be receiving in soon).

23 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Benevolent Blessing: Duration of buff is extended for every enemy killed while stunned with Well of Life ^^

That seems like a "more work" version of Perpetual Vortex. So while not technically powercreep, it wouldn't be a functional Augment; which you listed as the main Policy for Augments.

It may be useful for Solo gameplay where the healing from Blessing is not needed and you only want to extend damage resistance duration.

It would have also been useful back when you Blessing could not be recast until duration ended. (Back when a long duration build would utilize Well of Life for topping off Health, rather than just another health low hit map-wide Blessing during early trial days.)

Otherwise a player would just continue to Recast vanilla Blessing to have a reliable team heal over a 50m (+ if Vazarin) area which is larger than Well of Life's modded Area of effect.

It would be one of those Augments that majority of the community may not use. 

I think I would have an easier time defending Abating Link in my build than explaining why I used a Blessing Augment that requires me to use a completely overshadowed ability "Well of Life"

It would be more energy efficient, but Trinity with Energy Vampire doesn't really have efficiency concerns. 

Would be harder to justify Benevolent Blessing in the 4 Ability/Augment and 6 mod slot scenario as it would require slotting either Well of Life or Pool of Life. But that is making a stronger case for not moving away from the current innate abilities and 8 mod slots.

(*Unless Augments that rely on another ability also included that ability, so that Slotting an Augment could in fact give you 2 abilities for 1 mod slot.

Example: Molecular Fission & Benevolent Blessing in one of the 4 Augment/Ability Slots granting innate Null Star and Well of Life, respectively, without having to slot those Null Star Ability Mod or Well of Life ability mod, nor third augmented mod. Basically freeing up a mod slot*

Back to reality: I can no longer see DE revamping how Augments/Abilities are implemented in terms of reverting back to Mods needing to be slotted, giving us an Augment slot, nor slotting Augments on the abilities tab.

 

It is weird to me, that you are still allowed to Slot Augments that affect an ability that is not yet unlocked, except for Hydroid Pilfering Swarm as that Augment works with his passive.