Devstream 126 Overview

[[DE]Taylor]

We’re back with another Devstream, featuring your first look at Wisp (the 40th Warframe’s) kit, as well as some Ephemeras and Deluxe skins in the works!

As usual, if you have the time, we recommend watching the full episode for all the nitty gritty details, or just read about the highlights in our overview: https://www.warframe.com/news/devstream-126-overview

[this_is_better_on_ps4]

so this devstream begs the question... invincible cleaning robots canon?

[Zendadaist]

I was very concerned about the issue regarding Itzal being everyone's preferred mode of transport across the open world maps. It was suggested that the solution isn't to bring other transport up to speed and convenience, but instead to nerf the Itzal. That's an absolutely terrible way of resolving this! I note that this was not mentioned in the Devstream Overview above...

[Urlan]

17 minutes ago, this_is_better_on_ps4 said:

so this devstream begs the question... invincible cleaning robots canon?

Sorta reminds me of Mettaurs from Mega man.

[FSK41]

 

[Pixydis]

This is the vacuum deal aaaaall over again, now featuring Itzal. Yet again, the hammer approach.

"I don't like blank, lets remove it."

"Blank restricts player choice, lets remove it."

"Blank doesn't work, lets remove it."

I'm all for variety, but not at the cost of something else. Why not offer a choice that offers BOTH, and no buts!

[Aenris]

I... wow. I'm really disappointed with Wisp. Her theme is all over the place. 

With her name, movements and design i was expecting a "ghostly" or "Spirit" warframe. Not necessarily something spooky, maybe more akin to spirits from nature or perhaps shintoism.

But so far it looks like her abilities are Plant + Sun.

The Reservoir could easily be Will-O-Wisps rather tan plants. That could have a bit more of cohesion.... but still: why the sun? it confused me. Also: aren't we having too many ultimates in the style of "press 4 to channel death ray"? I feel that we are having too many of these, where we basically trade the control over our warframe for an easy way to kill enemies. Revenant has one, Garuda almost had one? Hildryn does not have any death ray incorporated to her ult, but she also loses control in order to channel her ultimate.

[Cypher7464]

I love the idea of her one and three working together, but I feel like an explosion should also come from wisp herself so that we aren't FORCED to cast her 1 to even be able to cast her 3. I do LOVE the full kit though! keep up the great work!

[Plushy]

I die a little on the inside Everytime there's an update but it doesn't come with the new Nyx skin. I NEEEEED it so bad!

[Chroia]

Due to no-time, I haven't watched the stream yet, just read the OP and renjingles' summary, so I'll probably be missing stuff.

Scott:
Yes, Itzal's Blink probably the most useful Archwing ability.
Firstly, and I can't stress this enough, this says more about the effectiveness of every other Archwing than it does of Blink.
Second You're the ones who introduced these huge maps with areas of activity far between. What sense does it make to blame Itzal for being the right tool for the job, given that the job is nearly always 'get across this huge map so you can use your Warframe' (especially given the above point)... what do you expect to have happened?
It's effectively Vacuum all over again: Warframe is a looter-shooter. Egads! The loot-centric Sentinel, which just happens to increase your QoL by massive amounts, gets 78%+ usage rate! D:
(Although I've seen people use Amesha to good effect in Plague Star, and heard testimonials to Amesha-use for soloing Fractures.)

On top of which -most particularly in Orb Vallis - without constant use of a 'chaff' ability, your in-AW combat time against alert enemies is measured in handfuls of seconds. If you don't believe me, try leveling Amesha in OV. Not even in bounties, just sniping random enemies.

 

Wisp:
Passive's nifty.
Maybe the issue is the cosmetic/fluff, but I don't get what her Reservoirs have to do with her codename (what even is her theme? Beats me).
I like her 2, but have concerns on how instantly you'll get downed if you try actually using its movement capability.
Portals? What? You can say her Reservoirs are portals to whatever, but all I see is dispensers. If you want to fluff her Reservoirs as portals to basins of X, you're gonna have to reskin them, imo.
Don't get me wrong, her 4 looks awesome (as to effective, guess we'll see. Heat doesn't fare well against armor, and every single VIP is armored nowadays), but...?
You want a Portal-frame? I don't think Warframe's engine can make one work, (tbf, I don't think any game could currently anyway - inputs / game controls aren't good enough to enable it,) but sure, go wild. Blink was awesome long before Portal. Heck, the movie did a decent job of portraying that, even.
But Wisp, at least currently, isn't it.

Hell, I'm (almost) genuinely surprised to see Reservoir on Wisp rather than on Vauban. (Not saying that'd necessarily be a good fit.)

New Warfan:
While stylish and all, the flutter animation in mid-combo breaks your flow and locks you in anim, which kills them for actual use, imo. It'd probably be fine if you actually killed something and then did the flutter, or maybe if you had iframes during it. As it stands, sadly, /care.

That's all for now.

 

P.S., ty Taylor.

[windsofdestruction]

So does anyone in your team remember this slogan?

 

Don't nerf X, make Y as strong as him!

 

Do you know what this word is?

S H A M E

Forget it, I think you cannot understand.

[Hayabusa97]

Again with the damn Twitch clips causing slowdown

[Davidx7487]

Sounds pretty cool. I'm excited for this update.

[Valiant]

Hoping the stasis slots we've bought will be transferred over to the next system. 

Looking forward to the pet/companion update quite a lot really... Hoping it makes them more worthwhile and sorts out some of the ai as sentinels are still the most used apart from the odd kavat outside of kuva missions. 

[Silly_Dili]

Please don't nerf or delete Itzal movement. I don't have the itzal Archwing, I rather use the Amesha, but altering it is not the right way to go about this. Archwing shouldn't be seen as just getting from A to B, but it should offer more in the missions.

Question: Why don't players use the other Archwings then?
I'd love to use my healing/protecting bubbles on defence targets, however I constantly get shot down by "missles incoming". If my bubbles would persist when i'm out of archwing that would make for much more reason to hop in archwing, place bubble, shoot some stuff in the air and slam back down with warframe.
My suggestion is to keep abilities from archwing going while out of archwing; just like operator and zenurik dash.

=> I'd like more synergie between warframe and archwing in the planes, like operator and warframe have. Don't nerf this. Instead, make archwing abilities great again.

[Liu_K]

Very unpleasant to hear about Itzal's possible nerf. It's fun. This game is supposed to be fun. I have fun with Itzal. I get so confused with some of these changes. Steve will say something like: "We like you to have fun.", or "This game is a power fantasy." and then you folks proceed (in certain places) to take away the fun or the power. 

[jwya]

1. What about swapping World on Fire and Sol? 

Wisp's abilities suggests that her role is to create buff zones for allies to fight in, so Light and WoF can clear/ incapacitate enemies while reservoir + reservoir moves the frontline forward. 

Meanwhile Ember's Accelerant and Fire Blast gives her distance between herself and enemies, while softening them to be finished off by a ludicrous directional Heat attack ie Sol. 

That, and Sol fits Ember's theme more than Wisp imo. 

 

In the name of the Sun, I will punish you! - Whoever inherits Sol

 

Ps the video (?) at the bottom of the overview regarding air casting seems to be broken, at least on mobile

[(PSN)Unstar]

I am absolutely loving Wisp's abilities; a little bit of stealth, the ability to lay traps (that look like they'll be more effective than Vaughban's?), and a big solar laser?  Sounds fun!  Really looking forward to giving her a try.  I had a hard time understanding her first ability, but hopefully once I can try it out with the new in-game ability Tips screen, it will make sense.

It was also really interesting to hear some thoughts from the inner circle regarding the "imbalance" of Itzal vs Archwings vs K-Drives.  I can't say myself that I know the right answer to this problem, but I agree it's a problem and am looking forward to seeing how all of this goes.  If I'm in a group, I usually feel bad when I take out my K-Drive to get somewhere, because everyone else is usually Itzal-porting their way there 10 times as fast.  But I also like K-Drives and want to use them in my natural gameplay.  It's a tricky problem.

[People_have_3_Urgent]

Why don't you add in the joadas verdict again instead of nerf itzal?

[Keltik0ne]

Wisp seems like a mess of unrelated abilities dumped in the general location of a warframe

Her 1 is immobile, so useless in any mission with movement 

Her 2 is great, fit with the theme well

Her 3 is bad, really really bad, look at the arguments Scot was making about Vauban being immobile

Her 4 could be good, on a warfrane with a different theme

Passive fits well

 

If you work on a custom move set for a frame, it seems a waste to saddke it with immobile skills

[ml1201]

In regards to the Itzal it has the speed as its pro, but its con is that one shot you're basically dead and if you're playing someone with a continual power like Inaros' scarab armor, its gone once you enter archwing. So that's something you have to worry about with the Itzal when traveling with the archwing. If you nerfed the speed people will just use either Zypher for their fly thing (which is also pretty fast), void dash and Nova's portals. Those are, if done correctly, potentially faster than k-drive, so if you nerf the Itzals speed you would have to nerf all of that as well to *force* people to have other options. I personally don't use the Itzal, not a huge fan of it because its not as versatile for general use. My suggestion instead is just do something to boost the k-drive because no matter what people will find a way to get to places the fastest way possible and still not use the k-drive unless you do something to boost it. I was talking with a friend and they were saying give the k-drive powers or give them mods that will let them do boosts, kind of the a 'Nitro' boost thing like in racing games. This way the fun can be combined with more speed and you don't have to upset the player base by nerfing Itzal. This would also allow people to more likely choose the k-drive over archwing since archwing does cancel out things like scarab armor.

[unrealityCatalyst]

I'm gonna have to agree with a few other sentiments on how Wisp's current kit seem somewhat jumbled. Given her appearance, I was actually expecting something different. Her one is just way too immobile for a game emphasizing large amounts of movement, and her three being tied to it, albeit quite appealing to look at, only roots her into place just that much more. Wisp's four (again, cool looking), just doesn't mesh with her theme all that well either. The only ability that I find to fit well on her currently is her two.

A couple suggestions -

• Make it so that her one, rather than rooting the reservoirs down, makes them orbiting objects that provide the buffs to anybody within range, lasting for a duration once they get further away. With this change to her one, it would automatically make her three much more useful right off. Big bonus to @Aenris for the idea of making them look like Will-o-wisps.
• Rather than a big ol' sun of burning-burniness, I'd say it should create a massive aura of enchanted mist surrounding Wisp, providing a small amount of damage to enemies in range that also gives them debuffs such as a chance to inflict blindness, heightened damage vulnerability, and maybe a rare chance of radiation-induced friendly-fire.

[Konachibi]

It has been 3 years now since Zephyr Deluxe was teased on a devstream.  It was announced that it would be released after the Mag and Chroma deluxe skins.  You have just announced a Garuda deluxe skin, nearly 40 months after Zephyr's deluxe skin was teased.  Let that sink in for a moment.  40 MONTHS.

Should we Zephyr players continue to keep our hopes up, praying that one day you will actually release what was promised to us 3 years ago, or should be just accept that you have completely abandoned Zephyr and have taken to pretending she doesn't exist?

I understand if Zephyr deluxe is a passion project being handled by a single person, but if that one person has been working on it for 3 years and STILL hasn't finished it, you need to take it off his hands and do it yourselves, or it won't ever see the light of day.

If you're finished developing Garuda deluxe, fine, release it, and for sure I will buy it, because I like Garuda, but I sincerely hope that the next deluxe skin will be Zephyr, or my faith will be lost.

[Melanholic7]

Im sad about Itzal thoughts, but mostly dissapointed about wisp. I wish she was more...ghosty/shadow/spirit thing...not this seeds/sun powers. 😞 But w/e. just my own problems of expectations 😛 

at least she looks nice and her ult looks nice (but it will be useless anyway, it feels). 

[Thenbhd123]

(Huge sorry for my english)

I totally agree with what DE Scott said about Vauban (the difference between the evolution of the game and the evolution of Vauban and the "superiority" of Warframe with damage and CC upon exclusive CC Warframe). 
 

Main problems with Vauban I have noticed: 
- Lack of reactivity. He has a slow and preventive playstyle and you are hoping that the ennemies play around your abilities. 
- Fragile. You get down so easily, even at medium level. It is easier to survive longer with less tankier Warframe

- Lack of synergy, especially between Bastille and Vortex. 

Here 2 lists of changes: 

In my opinion the first list is the most important because I don't think there are bad or stupid ideas. However these changes concern only quality of life. So with these changes Vauban will not be good but, at least, less frustrating to play with because he can be really frustrating. 

- Increase grenades' flight speed. 

- Hold the button ability to see the trajectory of the grenade (same mechanic as Nidus' first ability I think)
- Grenades (except Tesla) are no longer body block by allies or ennemies.

-Increase base stats (especially armor. For example what you did with Hydroid was perfect and I think Vauban needs the same)
- Limit the number of every ability. You can spam a lot Vauban's ability and you spam a lot to be a bit "effective" but there are too much things, visual effects on the screen. It is better to limited great abilities than "infinite" ok abilities. As a player I don't want 20 Bastille or Vortex to do something in game because it is a lot of time, energy and visual effects. . 

- Tesla: Press [x] to stick a Tesla on yourself, max. 3-4 (same mechanic as Volt and his shield). This mechanic to stick grenade on someone is really interesting however it is hard or impossible to stick a grenade on Vauban. 
- Bounce: Now you have to press the jump button inside the radius to activate the effect. Like that you delete the "troll" aspect of the ability. 
- Shred-concuss: Increase the radius to detonate the grenade 

I do not develop why these changes are important but you don't have to play Vauban for long to understand that we need these changes, and could be really useful to make Vauban more fun to play. 

Now, to make Vauban great I have some suggestions for the rework. However I think there are better ideas. (second list)
 

First of all, I think Vauban sould be a CC, buff, debuff Warframe like oberon but without the heal. 
Then the suggestions, 

Minelayer: the system isn't bad but isn't great too. Except if you find a better system maybe it would be better to have only 2 mines to speed up the system.
- Fusion concuss and shred in one mine. 
- Bounce: (Remember the first change on the first list). Now boost the jump and bullet jump (like Titania's passive). When you jump you get a damage bonus for a short amount of time. When you bullet jump, you get a bonus to reduce incoming damage for a short amount of time (it would be like an ok escape ability). While you stay inside the cercle you get a low amount of shield. 

Tesla: 
- 3 arcs/ grenade 
- 66% status (electricity)
- When an arc hits an ennemy, gain a small amount of shield/ overshield

- Damage: fix amount + a low percentage of the ennemy life

- A charge Tesla creates a Trip laser

Bastille: 

- Gain damage reduction or Evasion while inside Bastille 
- Tick of damage 

Vortex: 

- When a vortex is inside a Bastille, all ennemies affected by Bastille are affected by Vortex if it is possible with the limit ennemies number. 

- ennemies have a chance to drop orbs 

That was all my ideas, I think some are great/ ok (Minelayer, Tesla shield boost or Bastille) and the rest could be improve. However, I don't think there was the good idea to make Vauban great and he would probably needs more or something different.

To conclude, I'm glad you're working on a rework for Vauban and that is the top priority rework. Vauban has a huge potential, great skins. For a long time it was hard (or long) to obtain all of his components and for his prime version he's the only Warframe with only rare parts so I think he deserves to be good. Let's hope you'll find a way to make him good as you did for oberon or nezha.