Archwing Variety Fix (Itzal Nerf), K-Drive problems

[lnfine]

1 hour ago, Aldain said:

Hence the quotation marks, but you're completely right about the momentum issues, hell the sheer amount of momentum is why Rush missions are nigh unplayable for me.

The retention of inertia is also an issue to me, mainly in the fact that there's no real way to "Stop" other than hitting a wall or Itzal's 2 ablity as mentioned above.

No, I mean I actually wouldn't mind if archwing movement was realistic realistic with proper conservation of momentum that's consistent. Then you could actually steer and brake with main thrusters with the same efficiency you can accelerate with them and you could actually do useful combat maneuvers while preserving your aim point.

Edited April 6, 2019 by lnfine

[Jinzanami]

 

4 hours ago, HugintheCrow said:

Itzal has become new coptering.

There was never anything wrong with coptering nor is there anything wrong with itzal.

However, due to the way melee was previously comparably useless for anything BUT coptering and Archwing is nowadays useless for anything BUT fast movement, those mechanics do stand out as somewhat broken.

The thing is... They aren't broken. The reason everyone coptered and didn't bother with damage melees was because damage melees sucked.

The reason why everyone is itzaling is because nothing else is good enough.

So nerfing itzal will not stop people from using it, it will just make it worse for no real payoff. The other options still suck.

 

i kid you not they've been eye-balling itzal blink ever since we get an open world update, and things escalated with failtuna and they dont like that 100%.

when i want to kill stuff in the plain/failtuna valleys ill use my powercreeped modded rivened primary gun and/or a nuke frame, when i want speed and speedrunning ill use itzal, if they nerf it then ill use void dash so the whole idea of making you use other archwing is bs because nobody use them for the speed, its not they're shtick and nothing will change that unless you give every archwing/kdrive a blink.

[Jinzanami]

nerfing/removing blink is pro devs move that help no one but them, they made it but when they realize that they're rushed crap is slapping them in the face then they made scout who is known for his nerfs and bs to be the one who drop this bomb on us.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Jinzanami

[TARINunit9]

13 minutes ago, nslay said:

It's worse than that! It's like tearing down another house even though the crack in the wall is inherently irreparable. Kdrives innately suck when compared to flying! It's shortest path vs. traversing hilly terrain with obstacles! That crack is built-in. It cannot be fixed! And we're ignoring all the clunkiness of Kdrives (rugged/rough terrain).

I think kdrives should be solely meant for brand new players who do not have the credits, mats, Ostron standing, or clan membership to acquire the Archwing Launcher Segment or Archwing Launcher. Heck, I got kdrive months before Archwing Launcher! I imagine the Ventkids are extreme end-game when you're so bored with the game, you're crafting custom kdrives and racing them in Orb Vallis for standing and kdrive mods that don't really help you beyond being satisfied with collecting them... and that's it.

Agreed, K-drives are a novelty. That said, while we can't exactly fix K-drives, I think there is a way to fix the overall crack regarding "why think about archwings at all? just get itzal for blink"

[TARINunit9]

32 minutes ago, zbv2 said:

Currently for archwing content the best option is itzal it's got the speed of blink and a mass vacuum ability with cosmic crush along with the cold snap augment. Other Aw such as Amesha or Elytron have to rely on Hyperion thrusters and still feel sluggish but they ultimately still pale in comparison.

For open world specifically there's a lot that can shoot you out of the air quite easily and the survivability is staggeringly low in comparison to warframes so there's little point to stay in it for any amount of time. If all you plan to use Aw for is travel you pick the fastest one, which of course also supersedes k-drive as they're predominately for travel. So survivability is fairly big especially if Aw is going to be an important part of Railjack, I'd personally say do away with certain mods specific to archwings themselves such as enhanced durability and instead use WF mods but restrict certain ones from use similar to how exalted weapons or companions handle mods such as blood rush on exalted blade.

For the issue of speed it may mean an increase for vehicles in open world as a whole. One suggestion mentioned a couple times I've seen was binding a universal short range blink to the operator button since it's unused in archwing but give it a cooldown similar to void dash which can open things up for focus schools affecting archwing as well and rework Itzal.

Exactly

Looking at archwings for combat is a waste of time, because almost EVERY ENEMY can launch those annoying EMP rockets. Even the Butchers can shoot these rockets. And since you have the same guns on foot, you might as well stay on foot

Because you can't use archwings for combat, you only use them for speed. That's the only reason Itzal became ubiquitous

[Darena_Bryant]

I have seen the big mess that's exploded from the mere suggestion of nerfing the Itzal so more people will use the K-drives... and I kinda see where they're coming from. It's not a great idea to kill something everyone likes because you want them to use something else. That's like shooting the family dog so your daughter will play with the cat more, or crushing someone's antique car to get them to start driving a newer one. Instead, I came up with some ideas for the K-drives that might actually get people to want to use them more... and possibly an idea that won't, but might still get more of them to try the scenic route.

To be honest, I remember before Fortuna came out, and you were talking about 'a new vehicle to ride on' for Tenno. I was thinking some kind of actual vehicle that we could climb into and drive around. When I saw those big wheel vehicles the Corpus were driving and the huge tank-like trucks parked in Fortuna, I was thinking we would get something like that; maybe a cool motorcycle or hover car. Instead... skateboards. This previous idea *could* be expanded on though. Maybe put some fast, weapon loaded vehicles into the game, and make it so when people drive, things change. You could have it that when a Tenno vehicle is on the roads, a lot more Corpus vehicles come to try to stop it or destroy it. You could take Dying Light's vehicle concept as an idea. The car is closed, but not completely. Enemies can hit you if they get close enough. Parts need to be exchanged and upgraded. In turn, you can ram and shoot at them. There's options to electrify the body of your car, sending enemies flying when they latch on. You have a large number of enemies that you could use for this, from the heavy melee Corpus to those grapple hook moa, to the small spiders that dig up out of the ground. Making each trip a battle from one place to the other, with rewards in resources, vehicle EXP and so on would be one idea to keep things interesting, and also add a market in vehicle parts.

There are also some things you could do with K-drives to make them more enjoyable.

1. let people fish while riding one. It would make fishing a lot easier if you could hover directly over a hotspot and fish.

2. Mount weapons and a nose guard on them, and let riders run a b***h over while using one. If the thing was as much a weapon as it was just a skateboard, it would be even more fun to use it to get from point A to point B.

3. Give it better terrain handling. Right now, K-drives hit every little bump as if it's a wall. Make it so they don't get lodged on every crack or slight rise in the ground, so people can use them to go straight to their destination. Some angled front hover elements would make technical sense as to why they're able to compensate for the height difference

4. Design them more around F-zero than around Tony Hawk. Being able to do sick flips on your board is great... if that's your thing. But most players in Warframe want speed, not tricks. Make the boards faster still, and replace some of those grind rails with slalom arches like you'd see in Luge racing in the Olympics, then let players see how fast they can take a corner or jet down a slope.

5. In keeping with the racing concept, add that in instead of skating. Let players have actual races between mission objective points (since they're doing it anyway). maybe even make it a sort of 'bonus round' thing so players are rewarded with additional resources for being the fastest, and have the Ventkids recognize players for being insane on speed and handling.

6. Make the parts of the K-drive you build actually confer stats that matter. Right now, no matter what build you settle on, you're basically getting the same board. Add in those parts i mentioned to parts options (side weapons, nose guard, forward hover elements) and work to make it so each combination, just like kitguns and zaws, can result in a totally different board.

[SageVonAwesome]

The low survivability of archwings in open world areas is a bigger detriment to their usage than Itzal's speed, IMO. If people could just fly over an objective and rain death they would do so even if they moved slower than optimal (laziness > efficiency). As it is, if you get within 9000 miles of combat you are going to get shot down though so the only option you have is to favor efficiency. It is not that Itzal is 'the best', it's that all the other options are hot garbage.

The other problem is with open world content itself though which ping-pongs players all over the very large open world map, you don't have this problem in the more classic parts of the game. You don't get RNG that sends you 50 tiles one direction and then 100 tiles the other direction then back past where you started and then all the way back 200 tiles in a different direction to extract.

[AugmentedJustice]

Thought I'd add my two cents. Really really bad move to nerf itzal just because it's the goto archwing. And there's a reason for that, you guys have created a situation where this is the case. K-drives? USELESS. All other archwings? USELESS. Two open world maps, and people wanting to use the one thing that efficiently gets you from point a to b the fastest because you have made it this way? PRICELESS...

[(XBOX)Erudite Prime]

Like someone else said, the ONLY reason people use nothing but the Itzal in the open worlds is because Archwings are useless. Why? Because they die in like one hit! Since Archwings are so unreasonably fragile, your only option is to use the one that can avoid taking damage the easiest: the Itzal. I just can't wrap my head around why DE made them like this in the first place, and also how they can't see that it's obviously the root of the issue. 

If Archwings didn't get obliterated by the weakest enemies in the open worlds, people would use all of them. But for some reason, DE is adamant on them being able to be shot out of the sky by a light breeze. This is literally the only reason why people are using nothing but the Itzal.

[TARINunit9]

Even better, remove the reasons why those other things are useless. The reasons air-to-surface combat is terrible: wonky broken momentum, and the face almost every enemy is allowed to spam archwing-disabling EMP missiles

Itzal isn't ubiquitous in the actual archwing combat missions, just like Loki, Volt, and Nova aren't ubiquitous in ground gameplay. We only look at Itzal for open world because looking at combat archwings in open world is a waste of time, because air-to-surface combat DOESN'T WORK

(also, Scott shouldn't get hung up on making K-drives good, because they can't be. They're a novelty, not a progression item like archwings)

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

10 hours ago, Diavoros said:

Ok, they aren't useless, they are just incredibly MEDIOCRE at best. Better that way?
In every online game there are weapons, classes, etc that VASTLY outperform the rest at ONE thing and yet everybody loses their mind because their favorite cannot perform at that level, for that ONE thing. While Elytron is the slowest and therefore obsolete for travel, Odonata doesn't have anything amazing to use over Itzal for travel, Amesha can give a solid area defense, damage mitigation and energy replenishment for allies during bounties which makes it a decent alternative to use in the plains/vallis even while atmosphere abilities are weaker than in space. Sure if speed it's all there is to the game, and some tunnelvision in the O V E R W H E L M I N G speed of Itzal, sure, too OP, gotta nerf so equipment that isn't focused on speed can have a chance, doesn't it? There is always powercreep in games as they progress with new additions, and the way is forward, always, not stepping back because something that was added cannot catch up, nope, you ALSO bring that up to the level, nerfing isn't the way to balance, powering up the weak elements is.

Wukon is a two trick pony... But those two tricks... Defy and iron staff are excellent, makes him crazy good dps tank. Does he need a rework? Yes... But useless? Nah.

Vauban... Go with high range/duration... Low power strength plus Bastille augment mod... Best interception setup there is. Does he need a rework? Ofc he does... Useless? No... Very good, not great but very good. 

[Variks_Prime]

5 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

Scott was NOT joking. I mean he made Rebecca and Steve stop laughing so he could explain how he thinks nerfing Itzal without buffing K-drives is a brilliant idea. In fact he thinks it's such an amazing idea he compared it to removing Coptering (somehow forgetting that the loss of Coptering came alongside removing the stamina bar and adding Bullet Jumps, Double Jumps,  and Wall Cling).

Exactly. If we were to lose Blink in free roam, which would be a bad idea to begin with, for it to be equivalent to how coptering was handled, we'd need to get just as much or MORE speed traversing free roam as we had with it from other, now-universally-available sources. Such as making Void Dash not take energy in free roam. THAT is the sort of thing that would be REQUIRED for there to be any equivalence to coptering on this issue. Or add a turbo option to air dash (the midair "roll") where you can use bullet jump straight up to clear obstacles, then spam-tap roll in midair to have it continually move at blink speed until you stop tapping. Something that will actually replace the mechanic with something comparable or better. Air roll is already pretty fast, it's just short and only usable once per jump, which is what makes it currently a mere drop in a bucket that needs to be completely filled when it comes to getting around the Vallis.

[Demeraire]

1 hour ago, (XB1)Tornicade said:

Combat boards.

Probably best to stray away from any combat aspect for k-drives and give them their own place in utility.

[Ambivadox]

2 hours ago, justin0620 said:

I can envision if K- Drive goes ridiculously fast, players are gonna hit walls or not be able to control it.

 

I'm down with a turbo-drive if my score wont get deleted because I hit a blade of grass.

[Sargrak]

Nerfing Itzal will not make us use something else, it's the only good solution to travel on plains being so long and boring. Even without blink, it will still be the fastest, and the only thing that will be achieved is making open style content more annoying.

K Drives are a solution in wait of a problem; they're a side activity not that many people like, and there's nothing to be gained trying to make those relevant.

[(PSN)Zero_029]

Honestly, the easy fix for this is simply to remove/block Archwing powers when in Atmosphere.
Done.

Nerfing Itzal's blink cripples the Archwing for it's actual designed content...IE: Archwing.
Yes, I know most folks on these forums don't play Archwing. I do play Archwing, and I've leveled (and even Forma'd) my Archwings multiple times.
I've learned the differences, nuances. & etc for each Archwing. Itzal is very well designed, it's kit is very well balanced.
Blink is critical for movement when in Penumbra (Cloaked), also the very light (Amesha like) Armor of the Archwing is justified by the fact that the Itzal can blink out of bad situations.

The Archwings are debatably very Trinity/role based.
Elytron - Tank (Warrior/Berserker)
Takes heavy hits, locks down areas, & when needed can dish out some massive burst of DPS. (That Nuke is amazing.)
Somehow this Archwing's kit has really started to suck dps wise since PoE. The #1 is great for annoying enemies & getting their attention.
The #3 is good for locking down an area but unless thep layer stacks the dmg it really only prevents enemies from charging in/kills trash, the #4 is amazing in Archwing missions but laughably weak everywhere else.
Itzal - DPS (Rogue/Theif)
Fast, Nimble, deals large & consistent DPS, avoids taking damage (like a Rogue) whenever possible.
Blink + Penumbra is how it avoids damage the majority of the time with Fighter Escort serving as decoys & a damage buff.
All of this Archwing's kit is around avoiding damage while dishes out damage. Cold Snap ifor example is effectively used as both CC (Augment) & dps.
Odanata - Off-Tank/DPS/Support (Paladin...ish?)
Jack of All trades really, but tends to do better as an Off-Tank as it's dps is impo more consistent due its #1 being a fiery version of Volt's shield for the team (Augment), it's #3 being very solid & reliable dps that also clears out trash in droves, & it's "Win Button" #4 that does amazingly/surprisingly high dmg/OHK everything.
Amesha - Healer/CC/Support (Priest/Cleric)
Not much to write about, it defends, it distracts, it heals.
 

The nerf to Archwings in Atmosphere gameplay has already made the bulk of their powers useless, you really can't fight in Atmosphere either because the Grineer & Corpus have perfected Anti-Archwing weaponry that instantly destroys the Archwing, and they are all perfect shots when it comes to fast moving aerial targets as they NEVER miss.

So blocking Archwing abilities on land would both remedy the "balance" issue Blink causes all while preserving the balance between Archwings for Archwing gameplay.
With Railjack incoming I DO NOT want the Itzal being nerfed over content that it barely has an effect over.
Archwings will always beat K-Drives because they can fly, and boosting even the slow Elytron is faster than a fully modded for speed K-Drive.
No terrain to block/slow players down, no enemies (in the air), Breakneck speed, no downsides.
K-Drive sadly while useful for fast travel of short distances is more of a gimmick, as damage/weapons they lack the needed punch to be useful. The mods just don't do enough damage, they get destroyed too quickly, and players are ragdolled off them by taking a snowflake to the face.

DE needs to BUFF K-Drives, Block Archwing Powers, and call it a day. No Nerfs needed.

[(NSW)Sk0rp1on]

11 hours ago, Methanoid said:

 ...the movement should be reasonably similar for all archwing without 1 standing out as the defacto must have option.

The difficult thing here, though, is that speed is the only metric that’s important in freeroam, so how do you really balance that?

in Arch wing missions Itzal is more balanced because while it is the fastest, it doesn’t have many offensive capabilities. 

I don’t have a problem with Itzal being the Meta Open World choice because it’s just not that relevant. You get Itzal for open world and some other Arch Wing for missions. No problem. 

They should really just add shooting to the  K Drive. Maybe on a cool down after you take enough damage while on it.

[mikakor]

2 minutes ago, (XB1)Cubic Clem said:

Yes Nerf it 😄 I want to collect all the tears possible ^^ 

Meh, IDC.. Scott was right though.. 

he wasn't. here is the problem.

he thinks archwing are all being left in the dust by Itzal? lets get to the root of the problem.

All archwings can get knocked out by ONE single shot, the EMP rockets, which ALL enemies can shoot. that's BS. and we have the same guns, on archwing, or on foot.

2 : the EMP rockets... was a load of crap. thing is, Itzal can blink once, and lost the focus, or turn invis, and still lose focus.

3 : since all archwing usability in fight situation has been totally reduced to complete and utter uselessness, and this, DE only is responsible, the only usage left for ability is the capacity to travel far, and fast. because everything on the plains is just so bloody far from everything else. even bounties make you travel miles to get to point A to point B. so Itzal just became the natural answer to stupid and insane distances in a world where everything can knock you out of archwing.

Since Archwing combat is NOT viable on open world, they are simply used as taxy. Itzal is bestboi Taxy. if DE is too blind to see this, too #*!%ing bad. i'll still only use Itza because leveling ANY arch-equipement is a damn pain in the ass. and anyway, i still have my operator do travel light years distances, if they really #*!% up.

 

so, yeah... Scott is NOT right... he's blind, that's not exactly the same thing. if they want other archwings being used, they must

1 : take out the EMP weapons, that's total BS, because you always get OS

2 : they must give to other archwings the ability to go as fast and quick as Itzal.

let me give you a comparison to what is Scott stupid logic...

If you have several soccer ball, that are all flat, and only one that roll wall on the playfield, are you going to destroy it so it's as flat, useless, and lame as the other balls, or pump up all the other balls so that they can also roll on the playfield evenly?

in this problem, Scott is the one destroying the ONLY good ball on the playfield, simply making everything worse, and not fixing anything. all the other flat balls here are the other archwings, and the Kdrives. that's it, that's what Scott is thinking, right now, and it is plain dumb, because that's not how you fix a problem.

[Variks_Prime]

1 minute ago, Sargrak said:

Nerfing Itzal will not make us use something else, it's the only good solution to travel on plains being so long and boring. Even without blink, it will still be the fastest, and the only thing that will be achieved is making open style content more annoying.

K Drives are a solution in wait of a problem; they're a side activity not that many people like, and there's nothing to be gained trying to make those relevant.

Agreed, insofar as nerfing Itzal would just make me start avoiding free roam content again like I did the first year plains was out.

However, I think K-Drives ARE redeemable, they just need abilities, ideally ones keyed towards achieving Itzal-grade movement. Teleports, extreme turbos that can be activated for those long, straight distances (especially at the peak of jumps,) things like that. K-Drive doesn't have to stay something almost no one uses, they just need to acknowledge what would actually be needed for people to want to use them much. Just raising K-Drive base or sprint speed would just make them uncontrollable - that's why speed bursts need to be on some special ability that can be used only when it will actually help.

[Chewarette]

I'm all in for an Itzal nerf, but only if it is motivated by REAL reasoning.

Nerfing Itzal because it is faster than K-Drives ? Nop. It doesn't compete with K-Drives. As I said in other topics, that would be the same as nerfing the Paracesis because of the Machete, or nerfing Volt's speed because Atlas can't keep up and that would be the only reason why nobody uses Atlas (hint: nope )

They shall think about the reasons why people don't care about K-Drives. Itzal is maybe one of the reasons, but people overally hate K-Drives altogether. Remove the 6k MR Points per K-Drive and you'll see nobody ever uses them.

Itzal being the only Archwing used, on the other side, is because of several reasons :

- Everybody hates traveling in Open Worlds, so this has to be as short as possible. How to solve? Make Open Worlds easier/more fun to travel within. Plus, it's an efficiency game about grinding, people will just use whatever is the most efficient, even if that means 1% faster. So unless all Archwings, KDrives and Nova's Wormhole have the same benefit, there WILL be a "meta" for going fast.

- Tridolon. It is a time-gated thing, nobody wants to waste 3 minutes travelling from one point to another just because the Hydrolist randomly decided to teleport to the other side of the map. Same kind of thing for Thermia Fractures.

- The only approximately relevant content for Archwing is SALACIA. Where Itzal's 3 is way more useful than all the other Archwings combined.

In my opinion, Itzal shall be balanced around ARCHWING MISSIONS and only balanced regarding OTHER ARCHWINGS. So for me, the only thing that has to be done, is to give a real identity to every Archwing. Amesha is the healer/support one, Elytron should be the Nuke, Itzal the sneaky/fast one (Loki-style) or control, and Odonata the Oberon (versatile). Basically, the Itzal's nerf, if it should ever occur, is more on his 3 than on his 1 - but I firmly believe a simple BUFF to Elytron would balance it quite easily.

After that, once we have some relevant Archwing content, everything will be balanced. Amesha is the queen of the Archwing Defense, but nobody does that mission. if we had the requirement to deal an insane amount of damage and Itzal was not that stupid in this position / Elytron didn't have a lame, damage-wise, ultimate, Elytron would be picked as well.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Chewarette

[VanFanel1980mx]

Using Archwings in free roaming missions and being out of the enemy reach is an exploit and thus completely against the developer's vision of how the game is meant to be played, that's why they implemented the insta-takedown missiles, we should stop using exploits (aka, being creative) and play the game as intended... btw, how is it intended to be played?

[VanFanel1980mx]

8 hours ago, Sagittarix said:

Choosing to use a certain thing because it provides a certain benefit is not game breaking, it is called strategy.

You are talking about people who don't like enemies to be thrown into pits for instant kills, not even when Raids are no longer a thing.

[(PSN)Onder6099]

Removing AW from OW, min from Fortuna, will probably solve more issues than possible Blink rework.

[Talinthis]

if i didnt get shot out of my archwing in 2 bullets maybe i would use something else.

[VanFanel1980mx]

7 minutes ago, Talinthis said:

if i didnt get shot out of my archwing in 2 bullets maybe i would use something else.

B-b-b-b-b-but using archwings breaks the game! the poor enemies can't reach you that high so it was only natural for DE to make the nullifier projectiles for that!  --says the shill.