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

[Steel_Rook]

10 hours ago, taiiat said:

or possibly even a dedicated Enemy Type? that way it could potentially look cooler.
the AA Turrets can be left ofcourse, since those are in predictable positions and large enough that you could see it before it's too late. we have Enemies with Archwing Weapons on Venus, so we could have them on Earth, too?  

Even with dedicated AA enemies, I still wouldn't allow them to disable our Archwings. Deal heavy damage? Sure. Maybe even hit us with status effects or knock us around. Just don't disable people's Archwings, because that alone makes aerial combat a pain in the ass. It's the game wagging its finger at you and telling you "No! Don't use that!" And in all cases, AA missiles need to be subject to standard Archwing defences to at least some extent. I'd be fine with them, for instance, expending all of the Amesha's drones or breaking the Odonata's shield in one hit, but our defensive abilities still need to do something. A Rhino doesn't randomly suffer Bleed and Toxic effects because an enemy decided to ignore his Iron Skin. Frost doesn't have to worry about guns shooting through his Snowglobe because enemies randomly decided to ignore it. And yes, there are Nullifiers, but the majority of those are well-telegraphed, slow-moving and easily avoided.

But yes, having specific AA enemies would be fine by me. Like I said, I feel that Mortar units are a good place to put those. Bombards and those long-range bombardment Turrets are my personal favourite candidates. For one thing, both have a unique silhouette which is easy to spot at a distance. For another thing, they're both fairly inert against aerial targets due to their dumbfire, slow-moving, parabolic projectiles. Allowing them to serve as dedicated long-range AA removes the need to add new units (we need LESS enemy variety and more DISTINCT critter roles) and seems like a good fit.

And one final note: Improve the lock-on warning. Place a waypoint on any missiles currently locked onto the player as soon as the warning pops up. That way, the player can more easily locate the missile in space and have a precise reading of how far away it is. This should help players actually dodge AA missiles via simple mobility tools (i.e. mid-air dodges) without having to squint at the screen and try to judge distance without depth perception. I'd actually go one step further and actually waypoint the source of the missile as well, for at least 10-15 seconds. That way player can tell where they're being shot from and retaliate. I mean, that's why Ballista snipers have visible laser sights, after all. There's a reason Archwing missions have markers for everything - because when you're fighting at a range of 300+ meters, everything's too small to make out on the screen. Give players the needed info and they'll be more likely to adapt.

*note* Also, there already are enemies wielding Archguns on Earth. Tusk Heavy Gunners are equipped with Grattlers.

 

10 hours ago, TwilightVulpine said:

Archwing balance aside, I believe K-Drive has the potential to become much more useful if they allow us to use at least some weapons and tools in it.

If you want more people using K-Drives, let us use them in all instances. While they're not great in tight claustrophobic hallways, plenty of tilesets feature large open spaces with a significant amount of ground to cover and they DO work in larger hallways relatively fine. About the only bit which would need work is interaction with ceilings. Currently, K-Drives come to a dead stop and seem to "stick" to any ceilings you impact, which can be really problematic. Fix that, though, and they're a pretty good alternative to the frankly annoying practice of bullet-jumping across long hallways and larger tiles. If balance is needed, their stats can be tweaked for non-Free-Roam maps similar to how Archwing ranges are tweaked, though probably not to the same extent.

Of course, coming up with a non-S#&$ way to level up your K-Drive and gain Vent Kids standing would also go a long way towards helping. For starters, STOP forcing us to do tricks. Nobody came to Warframe looking for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater^{[citation needed]}. Having the ability to do tricks is fine, sure. Have at it. Making that the ONLY way to earn Affinity and Standing is asinine in the extreme. From the perspective of not-a-skater-boy, when am I going to perform tricks? I only really use my K-Drive to travel point-to-point, and doing tricks is objectively and significantly slower than simply boosting. Just let me gain Affinity simply for riding the sodding thing and maybe more people would bother. Because yeah - a fully-upgraded custom K-Drive is quite fast and agile. The default white "board," on the other hand, is utter garbage that nobody likes. If you want people using K-Drives, give them K-Drives worth using in the first place, and then maybe they'll be motivated to want even better ones.

[Steel_Rook]

6 hours ago, Jitsuryoku said:

Amesha is awesome (I mean I did use it for immunity on eidolons for some time), but again no missions that actually needs it

No missions need it? Several Plains missions have defensive components and half the Orb Vallis bounty stages are defending a thing, or at the very least holding a very static position. Amesha is Frost on Bullshark Testosterone.

[Alejandrokek]

hace 17 horas, nslay dijo:

It's a misdirected idea. They just need to make an open world where k-drives shine... maybe Gas City will have poisonous sky that will kill you if you fly. Or a sky full of debris? Or perhaps they could make a Cephalon open world (the Weave) that is completely flat with few obstacles deadly sky or sky with debris?

Yeah sure mate, "just" make another open world. It's so simple, tomorrow I've got one done.

...

No, that's not a solution.

[0_The_F00l]

We need a k drive slingshot to get use between places even faster, like speed travel points. 

[birdobash]

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

No missions need it? Several Plains missions have defensive components and half the Orb Vallis bounty stages are defending a thing, or at the very least holding a very static position. Amesha is Frost on Bullshark Testosterone.

I mean, you could also use a warframe for that, but I guess if you're not running a defensive type frame then it could be a second option.

[nslay]

1 hour ago, Alejandrokek said:

Yeah sure mate, "just" make another open world. It's so simple, tomorrow I've got one done.

...

No, that's not a solution.

As far as I know, they are working on a new one. And yes, it's the only solution! With hills, mountains and obstacles k-drives will always have to travel longer distances than the the linear shortest paths any Archwing can travel. If you want k-drives to have any sort of advantage or equivalence, you either need to make an open world where it is hazardous or problematic to fly or you need an open world that is flat with few obstacles like the Cephalon datascapes.

[Jitsuryoku]

3 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

No missions need it? Several Plains missions have defensive components and half the Orb Vallis bounty stages are defending a thing, or at the very least holding a very static position. Amesha is Frost on Bullshark Testosterone.

Most defensive frames can do a better job than Amesha. Also, I don't recall ever needing to go out of my way to defend in PoE. Offense works better

[Drasiel]

On 2019-04-05 at 12:19 PM, Ham_Grenabe said:

Potential nerf to Itzal is completely pointless, because as @kingvaldemir points out, we only use it because we have a distance to travel and it does the job well, but that's it. It's just a vehicle. 

We're not thinking about Itzal strategically, we're just interested in getting to the location, because we're usually on the clock. Itzal is basically the equivalent of bullet-jumping in a starchart mission: it covers ground fastest, so therefore we use it. Like I said in the other thread, K-Drives are fun side games, like fishing or mining.

If they wanted this to be different, they should never have permitted Archwing in the Orb Vallis in the first place.

I disagree with this. Bullet jumping can be done by every single frame. Itzals blink is a single power on a single archwing. Blink is a lot closer in behavior to coptering: extremely limited item selection that gives the best mobility option. 

DE replaced coptering with bullet jump. I am curious to see what changes will be made to vehicle mobility to balance out blink changes. 

[FlyingDice]

On 2019-04-06 at 2:19 PM, peterc3 said:

If the only use for Archwings is using Blink on Itzal, that is not really using Archwings, it's a time skip. That's it. DE has to do something to change that.

People are still going to use AW for transport if they nerf Itzal. K-Drive is hot garbage and nothing will change that. They could outright remove AW from the OV and people would use porter Nova and similar builds rather than K-Drive.

[KokoroWish]

When they removed Zoren Coptering we got Parkour 2.0.

Lets hope the nerf results in something equally as nice.

[(XBOX)UlisesTheFallen]

I hope DE doesnt take this too personally, but Scott has no knowledge on the game he works on. Itzal is prized for its speed in open world over the others, because thats literally all Archwing is used for in these open worlds. There is no other incentive to use them outside of transportation. No need to use abilities for combat, because the frames are there to do that. Nobody wants to waste time on horrendously boring bounties moving 2000m between objectives. Its like DE forgot that outside of open world, Archwing missions exist, where Itzal isnt really used, except for farming Alu during Razorback Armada. Every other Archwing is far superior to Itzal in every other situation. Amesha, the healing support Archwing, is far more viable in combat situations then Itzal. But in open world where they are solely used for transportation, and nothing else, Itzal is top choice. And even then, its not like people are forced to use Itzal anyway. It would be like nerfing Volt because of his Speed, Zephyr because of Tail Wind, or Nova because of her Wormhole, because they can cover farther distance faster then the other frames. Thats stupid-incarnate, and someone with common sense should know that Itzal having extra mobility is completely fine. Balance doesnt exist in this game to begin with, but how low have people fallen that they will go as far as complaining about the speed of an Archwing being better then the others, and a dev having that same mind set is just sad. Maybe make the boost all archwings have actually boost at a much higher speed then what we have atm. Its not Itzal's fault. Its the open world's fault for being so boring and tedious, that people want to rush it as fast as possible. When Railjack drops, Amesha and Odonata Prime will be used far more then Itzal because those Archwings are designed for battle, not travelling. I'm sure even Elytron will be used more during Railjack. But in terms of travelling open world, Itzal is used because thats what its good for, and that isnt a bad thing. Seriously, this isnt a personal attack on Scott, but if he really plays this game, I just dont believe it. If he did, he'd know Itzal isnt the problem at all. People complained Archwings didnt have a use for the longest time, and now they do. When Railjack does drop, I bet Itzal will be the least used because its got the weakest kit out of all other Archwings in terms of combat. What then? Nerf the others? Thats just sad that in order to make a couple people feel better about their choice in transportation, everyone else has to suffer for it. Stop listening to the wrong side of the community. And if you want K-Drives to be used more, buff their speed instead, and increase the speed of other Archwings as already suggested. Nerfing doesnt create player choice, it forces many of us to play the way a few others want everyone else to. How is it this hard to understand that buffing the others creates more diversity, instead of forcefully pushing us away from something we worked towards. I built my Itzal, I should have the speed I'm entitled to have when I worked for it, not punished to satisfy those who choose not to use it

[Teridax68]

I feel like there are two separate issues at hand here:

1. Archwings are useless in nearly the entirety of the game, and even in levels like the Plains of Eidolon or Orb Vallis, are incapable of fulfilling any purpose other than traversal.
2. Archwings, and Itzal in particular, are good for traversing the Plains of Eidolon and Orb Vallis, possibly even too good.

So, on one hand, it's not really fair to just nerf the sh*t out of Itzal, because the absolute last thing Archwing as a mode needs is to have its last remaining use stomped into oblivion. On the other, it's kind of necessary if we want to solve all of the issues relating to traversal around these big maps, because currently Itzal is the only valid choice, to say nothing of how completely irrelevant K-Drives are due to their inferior speed. It's thus perhaps not a great idea to just nerf Itzal, but then there will still have to be some point where traversal will need to be equalized somewhat if we don't want one option to dominate over all the others (because currently Itzal is far quicker than even frames perfectly suited for long-distance traversal, such as a Tail Wind Zephyr). With this in mind, I feel there are some more conclusions to draw from this:

1. Simply nerfing Itzal isn't the answer; Itzal is a barely functional, heavily exploit-y Archwing to begin with and could use some love, even/especially if that comes with changes to its mobility.
2. More generally, purely focusing on nerfing Archwing in large levels is short-sighted and harmful; if we're going to change Archwing, we should also try to make it more generally useful and integrate it better, e.g. by perhaps not having us get near-instantly shot out of the air the moment we try to use Archwing in combat.
3. We should be looking comprehensively at movement in these open levels and perhaps look to buff other options, and not just nerf (though that shouldn't be entirely out of the question either). K-Drives could use a boost (or a faster boost), and perhaps there could even be warframes who could use buffs to their traversal in the Plains or Vallis.

I think for numbers 1 and 2, Railjack could likely help, as it looks like it'll give Archwing much more presence. However, for the time being, we really could use changes to enemies so that they don't automatically knock us out of Archwing when we try to fight from the air: there could be this awesome element of aerial combat, which would add a tactical layer to Archwing, but currently DE knee-jerked way too hard on this, and outfitted every enemy on the Plains and Vallis with homing anti-air missiles that can instantly kill us in Archwing, knock us out of Archwing, or both. Perhaps it's time to relax on those controls, particularly if there are going to be nerfs to our Archwing-based traversal, as otherwise the mode will become irrelevant to the entire game once more.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Teridax68

[(PSN)Silverback73]

On 2019-04-06 at 2:11 PM, Ahcruna said:

They were joking about it on the last stream and Scott said to enjoy it because it was going to go away.
It came up because some one asked about the speed difference when it came to K-Drives.

In my honest opinion they don't need to change either of them, just add risk-reward, aka have more flying enemies that focus on you once you go Arhcwing.



___________________________________________________
There was a hole here, now it's gone. I guess...  (╯°Д°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Another move that would displease me.

I don’t need my mobile Gunships nerfed because not enough people want to indulge DE in the Snow boarding code they forced on us.  Make Tenno sno-“Hover”boarding more fun and effective, and not AW less so, please.

Edited April 8, 2019 by (PS4)Silverback73

[Solarsyphon]

How about let void dash from operators be used on all vehicles? It would give them all a teleport of sorts and tie focus into more things. 

[InfestDylan]

I agree, I feel like so much of WF is segmented and yet so much of it is dead content. Things are either functionally useless or are just hands-down best for any situation. There is so much variety but little use for any of it.

[taiiat]

10 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Even with dedicated AA enemies, I still wouldn't allow them to disable our Archwings. Deal heavy damage? Sure. Maybe even hit us with status effects or knock us around. Just don't disable people's Archwings, because that alone makes aerial combat a pain in the ass.

i agree, sorry i just assumed that it would (in the future) be that all sorts of AA would just deal Damage(yeah, maybe Status), and you would only get knocked out if your Archwing was "Killed".

10 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

But yes, having specific AA enemies would be fine by me. Like I said, I feel that Mortar units are a good place to put those. Bombards and those long-range bombardment Turrets are my personal favourite candidates.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ there's plenty of opportunity for new Enemies, too.

(and yeah, Heavy Gunners have Grattlers, which already fills the unguided type of AA, but only for close-ish Range, ofcourse)

 

10 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Nobody came to Warframe looking for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater^{[citation needed]}. Having the ability to do tricks is fine, sure. Have at it. Making that the ONLY way to earn Affinity and Standing is asinine in the extreme. From the perspective of not-a-skater-boy, when am I going to perform tricks? I only really use my K-Drive to travel point-to-point, and doing tricks is objectively and significantly slower than simply boosting. Just let me gain Affinity simply for riding the sodding thing and maybe more people would bother. Because yeah - a fully-upgraded custom K-Drive is quite fast and agile. The default white "board," on the other hand, is utter garbage that nobody likes. If you want people using K-Drives, give them K-Drives worth using in the first place, and then maybe they'll be motivated to want even better ones.

_{^{indeed, nobody came to Warframe for Pro Skater, but i'm happy that it's there :D}}

but Players should have multiple options, certainly.

[Goodwill]

4 hours ago, (XB1)UlisesTheFallen said:

I hope DE doesnt take this too personally, but Scott has no knowledge on the game he works on.

Wow... Now that's a bad opener. Sadly he probably knows more of the game than you. It may even be your lack of knowledge why you are unable to see the greater scope of the issues.

I would read your wall of text but that first line tells me everything I need to know.

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

As someone with maxed Kdrive mobility mods..

Even with all speed buffs, jump buffs and the reduced fall speed mod allowing you to jump over most obstacles, archwing boosting with itzal is still faster.. any archwing in fact.

 

Add in blink and there is truely no reason to choose another AW.

To me thr solution is to increase the usefulness of Archwing in a combat sense. Make elytron usefully powerful in the plains and people might use it over insta speed.

 

However KD can never compete with AW in speed or utility in its current form. As long as weapons and abilities are restricted from use the boards are useless in any function other than fun.

I dont think DE understands this..

[(PSN)ImTheOx]

7 hours ago, (XB1)UlisesTheFallen said:

I hope DE doesnt take this too personally, but Scott has no knowledge on the game he works on. Itzal is prized for its speed in open world over the others, because thats literally all Archwing is used for in these open worlds. There is no other incentive to use them outside of transportation. No need to use abilities for combat, because the frames are there to do that. Nobody wants to waste time on horrendously boring bounties moving 2000m between objectives. Its like DE forgot that outside of open world, Archwing missions exist, where Itzal isnt really used, except for farming Alu during Razorback Armada. Every other Archwing is far superior to Itzal in every other situation. Amesha, the healing support Archwing, is far more viable in combat situations then Itzal. But in open world where they are solely used for transportation, and nothing else, Itzal is top choice. And even then, its not like people are forced to use Itzal anyway. It would be like nerfing Volt because of his Speed, Zephyr because of Tail Wind, or Nova because of her Wormhole, because they can cover farther distance faster then the other frames. Thats stupid-incarnate, and someone with common sense should know that Itzal having extra mobility is completely fine. Balance doesnt exist in this game to begin with, but how low have people fallen that they will go as far as complaining about the speed of an Archwing being better then the others, and a dev having that same mind set is just sad. Maybe make the boost all archwings have actually boost at a much higher speed then what we have atm. Its not Itzal's fault. Its the open world's fault for being so boring and tedious, that people want to rush it as fast as possible. When Railjack drops, Amesha and Odonata Prime will be used far more then Itzal because those Archwings are designed for battle, not travelling. I'm sure even Elytron will be used more during Railjack. But in terms of travelling open world, Itzal is used because thats what its good for, and that isnt a bad thing. Seriously, this isnt a personal attack on Scott, but if he really plays this game, I just dont believe it. If he did, he'd know Itzal isnt the problem at all. People complained Archwings didnt have a use for the longest time, and now they do. When Railjack does drop, I bet Itzal will be the least used because its got the weakest kit out of all other Archwings in terms of combat. What then? Nerf the others? Thats just sad that in order to make a couple people feel better about their choice in transportation, everyone else has to suffer for it. Stop listening to the wrong side of the community. And if you want K-Drives to be used more, buff their speed instead, and increase the speed of other Archwings as already suggested. Nerfing doesnt create player choice, it forces many of us to play the way a few others want everyone else to. How is it this hard to understand that buffing the others creates more diversity, instead of forcefully pushing us away from something we worked towards. I built my Itzal, I should have the speed I'm entitled to have when I worked for it, not punished to satisfy those who choose not to use it

you trying to tell me boy, that my Amesha is useless against Eidolons and othe defense missions?? 

And i tough it compensated for my DPS warframe so i could be an even better type of Equinox... 

[ShortCat]

This issue stems from the initail design decisions behind K-Drives. From day 1 there were inferior as means of transportation and there is only so much fun you can have grinding, given how maps are constructed and how limited moveset is. Point is, K-Drives lack any real purpose or depth to be usefull or enjoyable. K-Drives need a place in the game, it is not limited to mobility.

While K-Drives were in development and filled a lot of screen time on DevStreams, I had the impression, they will be key elements in fights against Orbs. I quickly distanced myself from my own idea, to not get disappointed later. Then Fortuna droped - during the questline we got our first board and shortly after we used this board in a following quest mission to deliver a bomb to an Orb - at that time, my initial vison of K-Drives was reinforced and I already saw myself grinding under an Orb in "yet to release" Heists. We all know how it turned out in the end.

What conclusions did I make from this experience? First, DE genuinely tried to include K-Drives into Orb fights, but could not properly execute this vision, so that we were left with a bare-bones side activity. Second, there was no vision from the get-go, it was just an idea someone had and it seemed catchy enough to bait attention for the next big update.
Speculations aside, K-Drives in their current state have no purpose or meaning and should not exist in the first place. The idea to cripple other, already suffering parts of the game, to let 2 dead horses compete against each other in the process is nuts. Not that I support latest design decisions DE made, but this is too much even for a joke.

[Steel_Rook]

7 hours ago, taiiat said:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ there's plenty of opportunity for new Enemies, too.

(and yeah, Heavy Gunners have Grattlers, which already fills the unguided type of AA, but only for close-ish Range, ofcourse)

The reason I typically argue against new enemy types is a bit off-topic. Generally speaking, I'm of the opinion that horde shooters work best when enemies have unique silhouettes, defined roles and little overlap. Gameplay depth comes not from the complexity of individual enemies, but rather the way they play together. For this, target recognition and priority is important. A large variety of samey-looking, samey-acting enemies tend to dilute this quite significantly, leading players to treat most if not all enemies the same. Essentially, too much enemy variety causes people to stop paying attention. That's why I'd like to reuse existing critters with already unique silhouettes (the mortar tubes backpack) in the role of AA.

This is not specific to Archwings, though. I tend to prefer this style of encounter design in broad terms, for all parts of the game.

 

5 hours ago, (PS4)ForNoPurpose said:

Even with all speed buffs, jump buffs and the reduced fall speed mod allowing you to jump over most obstacles, archwing boosting with itzal is still faster.. any archwing in fact.

Yup. All Archwings are faster and easier to use for travel with no mods installed than even the best K-Drives. I have a maxed-out K-Drive of my own with all the jump and speed boosts, and all that really accomplishes is making it not-terrible at travelling long distances. Even my very basic Amesha in no way slotted for Speed is still faster and better at this, however. The simple fact of the matter is K-Drives will never, under any circumstances, be better for travel than Archwings. Broadly speaking, ground travel is never going to be as good as air travel. Instead of trying to make K-Drives competitive with Archwings and breaking systems in the process, give them their own niche. As I've suggested before, letting me drive them in regular instances where Archwings don't fit would instantly give them a lot more use. Maybe make them easier to get and upgrade, as well.

Long story short, K-Drives are not good transportation for open-world maps. Trying to force them in that role is a lost cause. Find another use for them that Archwings can't fill.

With all of that said, though, I don't think K-Drives are the sole or really primary issue with Itzal Blink. Rather, the issue is with balance within the Archwing category itself. As with Energising Dash, the problem is broader than just that one ability and does come down to there being very little use for Operators Archwings in the game besides a single basic utility ability. I'm just saying that even without considering K-Drives, Blink has its own entirely separate balance considerations.

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

That's why I'd like to reuse existing critters with already unique silhouettes (the mortar tubes backpack) in the role of AA.

however, Tusk Bombards already fill multiple roles, and there's even already two Variants of Tusk Bombards.
probably better with some new Enemies, rather than risk having one Enemy Type doing every job at once.

(and i don't think any of this is off-topic, this is all encompassed inside of what needs to be done to make Archwings and Hoverboards actually desired to be used for anything)

[DreisterDino]

So, with the recent riot about Itzal probably getting nerfed,

i think its a good time to talk about K-Drives 🙂

 

Preamble:

In a Devstream long ago when they showed K-Drives they said something like "we are still debating wether players should be able to use their weapons while on K-Drives or if this is too OP". I understand that they think about this, but for a few reasons i think that we dont have to fear that we might get too strong when we could use our weapons on K-Drives.

• we can use our Weapons in Archwing, but nobody would say that we are OP because of that
• in many scenarios, using your Warframe-Abilities is superior over using your Weapons
• many Enemies can knock you off our Archwing or K-Drive
• shooting while moving with an vehicle is a little harder (DE even made Riven challenges that make us kill enemies while in Archwing for example)

 

Why are very few people using K-Drives?

• its slower than Archwings (and restricted to the ground)
• its a mobility-tool only, you can do nothing when else when you are on your K-Drive
• additionally, there is no mission-design incentivising the use of K-Drives (we could use it for "kill x enemies of type y", but since we cant shot from our K-Drive, this is too clunky)
• all K-Drives are the same, besides MR and fashion there is no reason to level and use them all
• massive grind for standing, no real way of gaining standing through core-gameplay

 

What is the solution?

• let us use our weapons on our K-Drives
• give each K-Drive 4 abilities to bring them on par with Archwings
• if this is done right, even the people that freaked out about Itzal getting nerfed might forget about it because the new alternative is useful and fun!
• let us level our K-Drives like we can level Archwings and Warframes
• let us gain standing for VentKids more efficient and maybe also passive with equipped sigils on our Warframe like we can for the regular syndicates
• Bonus: Redesign missions in the OpenWorlds a bit so that we have less of "stage 1 - travel 1000m - stage 2 - travel 700m" etc, this a very important factor on why Itzal is getting used in 90% of the cases. The distances between stages are huge, and there is nothing to do really, so of course everyone uses the fastest method to travel to the next stage.

 

Thats it basically, but i want to present you a concept for the K-Drives i have in mind.

Let me know what you think about my thoughts in general, and post ideas for K-Drive abilites, i would be curious what you have in mind 🙂

Also, if you agree, feel free to share this, and btw, i will add this to my Thread in the Feedback-subforum 😉

What would be your favourite K-Drive to use?

 

Concepts:

Each K-Drive has its own purpose and abilities that can be used in different scenarios.

A nice bonus for all K-Drives would be that we can restore a small amount of energy performing tricks!

Abilities can scale with mods - so standard +ability strength/duration/range mods need to be introduced for K-Drives.

 

Badbaby - the Allrounder

Spoiler

1st Ability: perform a slam-attack that creates a shockwave, knocking down enemies (can only be casted when you are in the air before)

2nd Ability: create a small Nullifier bubble around you (will prevent knockdowns and up to 50% damage, cant be recasted until it gets destroyed)

3rd Ability: duration based, when active each enemy you touch will get knocked out for certain time (5 to 10 seconds maybe)

4th Ability: create 2 portals (entry and exit) that each player can use for quicktravelling

Flatbelly - the Supporter (no 4th ability yet, what are your ideas?)

Spoiler

1st Ability: Drop an Ammo or Health supply (acts the same as the consumables you can equip in your gearwheel)

2nd Ability: Disable Nullifiers for a very short duration and a Radius of around 25 meters around you

3rd Ability: catapult yourself into the air into a stationary position and mark enemies to remove shields/armor for a short period of time

4th Ability: Healing AoE, perform tricks to heal other players?^^

Needlenose - the Stealth-Killer

Spoiler

1st Ability: Duration based invisibilty

2nd Ability: Decoy - makes enemies come to you (good use with 3rd ability)

3rd Ability: when activated, Needles will puncture everything around the K-Drive in a 2m Radius (up to 360°)

4th Ability: when activated, you will pull yourself onto an Enemy and perform a finisher

Runway - the Damage-Dealer (no 1st ability yet, what are your ideas?)

Spoiler

1st Ability: Tap to charge through enemies, ragdoll them like Rhinos charge does

2nd Ability: Shoot a ballistic grenade in front of you (good damage, low rate of fire, traveltime, self damage possible)

3rd Ability: Drop a mine behind you that triggers for massive Explosion when an enemy steps on it (self damage possible! you can trigger the mine yourself!)

4th Ability: Attach your Melee-Weapon to the K-Drive (will deal as much damage as your melee, but you attack with the tricks you can perform)

 

Edited April 12, 2019 by DreisterDino

[Aldain]

Not really sure this would help make them more viable, but here's some ideas for the 4th and 1st abilities you're missing.

For Flatbelly make it a ragdolling draw in ability by spinning in place (think like that Inaros ability or Vauban's Vortex) for easy collection of enemies for allies (or the player after its done) to blast quickly.

As for Runway, make it like a chargeable Rhino 1, stopping dead to charge up for a damaging bull-rush (toss in some damage reduction while charging/dashing for good measure).

[Chewarette]

We don't need to make them viable. They need to be like Syandanas, use them if you want to, or don't.

Remove the freaking mastery points from that abomination. KDrives are the only non-combat stuff which award MR points, that's as stupid as putting MR points behind Syandanas and Accessories.

As long as they exist, I won't even bother anymore with MR grinding, as I know I'm locked out of 24k (?) unreachable Mastery points.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Chewarette