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

[Grav_Starstrider]

I personally think significantly buffing all of the archwings in order to be potent alternatives to Itzal's mobility would only further widen the gap between K-Drive lack of use compared to Archwing for a lot of players. I'm kinda feeling like a slight nerf to the burst-speed of consecutive itzal blinks is needed to trim the Itzal down into line with the other Archwings a smidge, and then K-Drive needs the buffs and additional mechanics in order for it to be worth using over Archwing.

[Arcira]

They could make Nitro Boost a 10 ranks mod with +55% increased boost speed and remove the unnecessary duration from Magus drive.

In terms of nerfing Itzal I´d prefer another solution. Currently people only use Archwings to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. If they get another purpose this problem might be solved as well.

Edited May 5, 2019 by Arcira

[Grav_Starstrider]

People will tend to do things the most quick and efficient way possible, so it'll be hard to make Archwings not the best option for mobility, but I personally think that's fine, they should just try to close the gap a bit by nerfing/changing Itzal just a smidge, and buffing K Drives. Just to make Archwings less choice-prohibitively worse to choose, and the Itzal less choice-prohibitively better for mobility than the other Archwings.

[EinheriarJudith]

1 hour ago, Arcira said:

They could make Nitro Boost a 10 ranks mod with +55% increased boost speed and remove the unnecessary duration from Magus drive.

In terms of nerfing Itzal I´d prefer another solution. Currently people only use Archwings to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. If they get another purpose this problem might be solved as well.

the only reason they are lacking in purpose is because of rockets that take you out of them. all the boss fights could have some fighting in archwing mode and some on the ground but the rockets say no.

i am on the side of blink needing to go. its not like hyperion thrusters doesnt exist. itzal speed is pretty fast even without the blink and losing it will not even be a loss. archwings are still faster than K-Drive

[MonsterOfMyOwn]

5 hours ago, EinheriarJudith said:

the only reason they are lacking in purpose is because of rockets that take you out of them. all the boss fights could have some fighting in archwing mode and some on the ground but the rockets say no.

^ So much this. I'd love to use archwing in PoE or Vallis for anything else than moving from point A to point B, the rocket spam make it tedious and even "defensive" ability (whole Amesha kit...) are useless.

I've tried using K-drive as vehicules, they are just too slow and you're a burden to your team. K-drive are slow, you can't deal damages, and you can't even buff your allies...

[Grav_Starstrider]

My hope would definitely be that they rework some of the archwing mechanics, like the anti-aircraft rockets that knock you out of archwing. I find that half of the time, the abilities that are supposed to be explicitly defensive anti-anti-aircraft-projectile abilities, like blink or penumbra or core vent or flares, tend to not actually work against their archwing nukes. Not fun. The abilities meant to foil incoming projectiles should do so, and you should also have the ability to shoot down the incoming missiles. 

But the perceived "problem" of Itzal being the indisputed meta archwing, and archwings being indisputably more efficient mobility AND combat than the dedicated-vehicular K-Drives calls for bringing up the K-Drives to be comparable alternatives to archwing, and to bring the archwings a little bit more in line with each other. There's clearly some people that think blink is a problem and should be removed, and then there are other people that think the other archwings need movement buffs instead of nerfing or removing the itzal's blink's mobility, but the problem is that it would make it even more choice prohibitive to choose archwing over k drive, if they just buffed all archwing mobility except for itzal. 

[Flambeau83]

What about giving all Archwings a movement mod slot similar to the Exilus Adapter/something new adapter slot?  Move all movement related things to that slot.  I believe you would only have to change Itzal's first ability.  Now you can balance all movement abilities vs one another and the archwing themselves aren't dependent on best movement options.  Right now there is only Hyperion Thrusters I believe that affects movement.

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

Scott already further adressed this last devstream. It appears that the focus is not just on Itzal but on other Archwings too, to make them all as good. And that way I believe we can rest assured that whatever change comes it'll be good since the focus is in the right place.

[Duality52]

25 minutes ago, Flambeau83 said:

Hyperion Thrusters

At the same time, the mod cost should be addressed for it is insane being the one and only mod that has 20 drain for only a mere 27.5% speed increase.

[(XBOX)Th3BelovedSaint]

The go to knee-jerk response to the community at large gravitating to any given game mechanic cannot continue to be "I'm going to nerf the s*** out of this!" If the developers follow through on gutting the Itzal there are a lot of people who are going to take it as the last straw and quit WF. Many more are going to stop doing Archwings at all and STILL not use the K-drive. If you dont like people dissing the K-drive, change it to make it more desirable. If it becomes useful and fun, the community will use it. Take a lesson from the addition of Fetch to pets. I have run my pets consistently since they have received Fetch. The Itzal is my go to because of the Cosmic Crush ability, not because of Blink. Also, I like the fighter swarm. Killing a popular game mechanic will not cause people to choose a poorly implemented mechanic. Personally, I will bullet jump betwern points rather than be bullied into using something I do not like to use.

[EinheriarJudith]

2 hours ago, (XB1)Th3BelovedSaint said:

The go to knee-jerk response to the community at large gravitating to any given game mechanic cannot continue to be "I'm going to nerf the s*** out of this!" If the developers follow through on gutting the Itzal there are a lot of people who are going to take it as the last straw and quit WF. Many more are going to stop doing Archwings at all and STILL not use the K-drive. If you dont like people dissing the K-drive, change it to make it more desirable. If it becomes useful and fun, the community will use it. Take a lesson from the addition of Fetch to pets. I have run my pets consistently since they have received Fetch. The Itzal is my go to because of the Cosmic Crush ability, not because of Blink. Also, I like the fighter swarm. Killing a popular game mechanic will not cause people to choose a poorly implemented mechanic. Personally, I will bullet jump betwern points rather than be bullied into using something I do not like to use.

doubt it. itzal not being able to blink is not the end of the world. it is still faster than all other archwings. really DE should have disabled the use of archwings in orb valis if they wanted K-Drives to even have a chance. they did not.

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

On 2019-05-04 at 4:25 PM, Grav_Starstrider said:

Make Itzal's blink more cost-effective, accurate, and with more utility and additional effects, in exchange for a decrease in the spammyness

Not sure how this helps. It's not that the Itzal's spammy, the problem is that Itzal is so much better at solving the problem than anything else.

The solution? Fix the problem: we don't want to spend ages traversing the world.

1. When travelling in to a open world allow users to pick a starting point - for that Vallis this could be any of the capture-able bases.

2. Allow users to Save & Exit from anywhere in the open world.

3. For bounties automatically start close to the entry point and keep every chained incursion within 300m of the last one. If I have to travel over a click then I'm gonna bring the Iztal.

4. Like you said: give k drives more utility. There are a bunch of ways to do this, but I'd suggest:

5. Archwings give enemies a heads up, they know you're coming. As long as you don't use an archwing within 300m of a mission start you get damage, affinity and rep bonuses. Walk or kboard to a mission and you get benefits you don't if you fly.

These would only work all together, nobody's going to kboard over 1km for a small bonus, but if they know the next mission is no more than 300m away AND they get a bonus by skating there (rather than flying) then the benefits outweigh the Iztal's speed.

 

 

[Grav_Starstrider]

On 2019-05-06 at 3:46 PM, (XB1)KayAitch said:

Not sure how this helps. It's not that the Itzal's spammy, the problem is that Itzal is so much better at solving the problem than anything else.

I could swear they legitimately talked about the perceived "problem" being that the Itzal's Blink was too "spammable", in the last dev stream.

 

On 2019-05-06 at 12:53 PM, (XB1)Th3BelovedSaint said:

The go to knee-jerk response to the community at large gravitating to any given game mechanic cannot continue to be "I'm going to nerf the s*** out of this!" If the developers follow through on gutting the Itzal there are a lot of people who are going to take it as the last straw and quit WF. Many more are going to stop doing Archwings at all and STILL not use the K-drive. If you dont like people dissing the K-drive, change it to make it more desirable. If it becomes useful and fun, the community will use it. 

I feel like you drastically overestimate how many people would quit over the Itzal being "gutted". And I did not propose gutting or nerfing the s*** out of it, I was proposing a minor nerf to the most "problematic" and choice-prohibitively-fast quality of Blink, and proposed a number of QoL and Combat applications to add to it, to make it more of a rework or sidegrade than a nerf. 

Regarding the observations several of you made about the K Drive just needing to be made better, I agree! That's why i also described possible improvements and additional systems to implement for K Drive!

I do agree with Kay and Twilight about this though, the way that the bounties and incursions and such make it feel *necessary* to have the Itzal speed, that could be adjusted, so that it makes just as much sense to hop on the still-spawned K Drive to do some tricks for standing for the only few seconds it takes to get to the next bounty, rather then enter archwing for a flight taking a similar length of time. Maybe if they weren't sending us over half a kilometer at every stage, we wouldn't feel like needing to use archwings. And they *did* initially say that archwings were supposed to be dis-incentivized in the orb vallis, saying that there would be storms and such making archwing navigation more treacherous and difficult, and slower. Maybe adding weather, and adding air patrol or anti-air measures, would add challenges that players would find either more interesting to play against, or they'd find k drives a more attractive option at that point.

[(XBOX)Artakka]

I mean, Itzal is kinda op...  but then again, this is a game where the players themselves are op so... BUFF K-DRIVES

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

11 hours ago, Grav_Starstrider said:

On 2019-05-06 at 8:46 PM, (XB1)KayAitch said:

Not sure how this helps. It's not that the Itzal's spammy, the problem is that Itzal is so much better at solving the problem than anything else.

I could swear they legitimately talked about the perceived "problem" being that the Itzal's Blink was too "spammable", in the last dev stream

They did say too spammable, but that wasn't why they were talking about nerfing Itzal - it was specifically that it was the only choice. If you have an Itzal then it's what you use in the open worlds. DE have said over and over that they don't want a fixed meta - they want as many choices as possible to be viable.

Sure, make blink less spammable, but you don't solve the problem: Itzal is still the fastest way to skip all that tedious travel time, so it's still the only choice.

I reckon DE are really regretting making archwing a gear option rather than a consumable (even though that objectively sucked).

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

I don't understand wanting to nerf ANY archwing over their utility as a travel device in open world areas. When it comes to actual Archwing missions, Itzal's blink isn't that huge of a boon compared to the other archwings. I still like it because of Cosmic Crush and the swarm of drones (blitz is just a nice open world perk, IMO), but as a solo dojo owner, I haven't had the resources to research more than the Itzal yet (so that's the REAL reason I only use Odonata and Itzal only... no other options yet).

Anyway, from the 2nd Devstream, it sounds like it was, in fact, a half-joking comment (noting that it created some good feedback on forums), and their REAL plans were to adjust all the Archwings to bring them up to par, as well as address the underlying issue that they were seeing, and not simply to just nerf Itzal.

[(XBOX)Fat Gregory]

I’m all for not having a fixed meta.

But nerfing Itzal is...how to say...a bandaid on a gunshot wound.

And keep in mind, this is coming from someone who has Itzal but doesn’t even use it. I use Amesha.

[(XBOX)Th3BelovedSaint]

On 2019-05-08 at 2:08 PM, Grav_Starstrider said:

I could swear they legitimately talked about the perceived "problem" being that the Itzal's Blink was too "spammable", in the last dev stream.

 

I feel like you drastically overestimate how many people would quit over the Itzal being "gutted". And I did not propose gutting or nerfing the s*** out of it, I was proposing a minor nerf to the most "problematic" and choice-prohibitively-fast quality of Blink, and proposed a number of QoL and Combat applications to add to it, to make it more of a rework or sidegrade than a nerf. 

Regarding the observations several of you made about the K Drive just needing to be made better, I agree! That's why i also described possible improvements and additional systems to implement for K Drive!

I do agree with Kay and Twilight about this though, the way that the bounties and incursions and such make it feel *necessary* to have the Itzal speed, that could be adjusted, so that it makes just as much sense to hop on the still-spawned K Drive to do some tricks for standing for the only few seconds it takes to get to the next bounty, rather then enter archwing for a flight taking a similar length of time. Maybe if they weren't sending us over half a kilometer at every stage, we wouldn't feel like needing to use archwings. And they *did* initially say that archwings were supposed to be dis-incentivized in the orb vallis, saying that there would be storms and such making archwing navigation more treacherous and difficult, and slower. Maybe adding weather, and adding air patrol or anti-air measures, would add challenges that players would find either more interesting to play against, or they'd find k drives a more attractive option at that point.

For the record, I was quoting the Dev as saying he is going to nerf the Itzal. Not sure how you construed that I was referring to you. I stand by my post. Nerfing the Itzal is lazy and unimaginative.  Make the K drive desirable.

[TaylorsContraction]

While I don't care either way I will point out that blink is Itzal's signature defense mechanism. Repositioning in actual archwing combat and using blink to lose homing missiles is it's main defense for mobile combat where you aren't sitting in one spot.

 

If they remove blink the alternate ability better be able to provide the same defensive measures. Some of us actually play (or played) archwing combat and seeing this amazing aw combat mechanic gone will affect itzal negatively unless done right.

[(XBOX)Th3BelovedSaint]

Didn't have a lot of time to respond yesterday. Apologies if the person responding to my original post is part of the DE Dev team and I did not recognize it. I only had time to glance at the name and I didnt see [DE]<name> as I am used to seeing. I dont get to watch a lot of the Devstreams and I dont know all the Devs. Steve kept trying to make the point that there would be QoL improvements made to the K drives and to the other Archwings. That is fine, make improvements to the other Archwings. The Itzal is not broken, it does not need a "Fix". If anyone wants to check, since Buried Depts dropped, I have been using the Amesha. I swap back to the Itzal when I do Orb Mother runs to quickly gather resources and get to min safe distance. Also, I dont want to give the impression I hate the K drive. I am approaching 90% completion of my 1M kilometers achievement. So, I use the board. I actually use it anytime I am on O.V. solo. Mining, fishing, scanning for memories or lately farming for the Saturn Six Three. I have a lot of love for the K drive. Absolutely could not wait to get one. My core members of my clan also love the boards. Maybe if we had a true Top-Tier board that starts with more base speed and base boost. Give it a passive and/or some active abilities and let people fight from the boards. While I understand the intent behind the large distances between bounty stages, when people are in squads, especially PUGs, they are typically trying to do Run-And-Done missions. So, making bounty segments be closer together would definitely help keep people on the boards.  

I commend everyone at DE for what you have created. You have created a universe that has captured the hearts and imaginations of a growing community. Every person at DE does what they do because they love what they do and who they are doing it for. That is evident. In all fairness though, when the Itzal issue was being discussed, one of the Devs did make a statement that sounded like "I am going to nerf the s*** out of that!" After Ember, Gara, Chroma, Mag, Saryn, Opticor have all gotten nerfed, that comment hit a raw nerve. Intended as tongue in cheek humor or not. Now, let me follow that up by saying the reworks delivered thus far have been awesome. Saryn, as an example, is in her element as The Duchess of Disease. Titania, the list goes on. The team working the rework effort is doing a world class job. I only ask that the focus be on improving the K drive experience and improving the other Archwings, not on degrading the Itzal. Those who loved Gara felt punished when she got nerfed. My wife loved Gara but after she got nerfed she has refused to use her. I am a senior programmer and have run 2 large customer support operations.  Nobody understands better than i do that you csnnot hope to please everybody but the overriding focus should always be on if people are having fun in the game. I like using the Itzal in Archwing missions because of its 3 and 4. I seldom ever touch the 1 and 2. It helps me solo Archwing missions, which I typically have to since nobody in my clan likes Archwing missions. For future reference, nerf is not a term to be used lightly. Keep doing great things. See you at Tennocon!

Edited May 15, 2019 by (XB1)Th3BelovedSaint
Spelling

[Woedenberg]

What about putting buffs in the Archwing Maneuvers in general? Like archwing speed, small dmg resistance, status resistance, bullet deflect [...]. Something useful for some seconds after executing them.

 

[(PSN)Khaleg]

On 2019-04-05 at 9:11 PM, (XB1)Deathjt1218 said:

I wouldn't use a K Drive as long as the Archwing exists for Orb Vallis and Plains. Mostly because I can go over the mountains and not have to fight terrain. Nerfing the Itzel is just a waste.

Just this, plain and simple.

If you fly, you avoid dealing with any obstacle tied to orography. It is so simple. An Archwing always will be the best option to go from A to B quick, being Itzal or whatever Archwing you choose. And if there is an Archwing quicker than other, then this will be the best option over every else.

Nerfing something, because there is no better option is not a good idea. Do you want see K-Drives being used?, make them funny or useful then. Make them part of a rewarding activity, if there is no activities, being worth, tied to the K-Drives use, you will not see these being used, period. People are no fools, they will choose this that is optimum (or funny) for the task.

Everybody uses the Lanka or Rubico to fight the Eidolons... why not nerf these then?, so people will be forced to use another weapon. Why not go further?... why not nerf all weapons, except the Pangolin sword,... I rarelly see anyone using this... oh my God..

Edited May 24, 2019 by (PS4)Khaleg
Typos, lack of a key "no"

[Ketec]

Itzal is the only AW i use - if it gets nerfed AW is dead.

The rest are completely useless in the open world - horrible range, low damage and utility etc.

 

K-Drives also got the issue of getting stuck everywhere, you can't attack, easy to fall off.
It needs autopilot that can automatically take care of small bumps and holes.

It also completely lacks visibility/area awareness - unlike AW.Insert image from URL

It is also behind a very dull grind for the kiddyrep with no alternatives.
 

Edited May 24, 2019 by Ketec

[Grav_Starstrider]

Gonna kinda necro this, since I've seen no dev activity or response in here aside from the actual compilation of these various threads into this mega-thread, but also to legitimately summarize what I've seen.

I think, by and large, overwhelmingly, we're seeing that people's response is that they think DE isn't quite paying attention to the fact that a lot of players, especially in pubs, are often going for the optimal, most efficient, quickest method possible. So even if the Itzal was hella nerfed, people are *still* going to use it, DE will have just annoyed all of those users because, while it's still fast, they decided to arbitrarily "nerf the S#&amp;&#036; out of it" because they think that's the solution to improving the variety. But in the same way that you let us use Volt speed builds, and we'll surely use Running Man's speed, for Capture missions, because it's efficient, I think most people would agree that instead of increasing the tedium of travel time, you should let us retain Itzal's speed, but you should adjust the way the Bounties work, so that it makes more sense to just briefly K-Driving over, and possibly upgrade the other Archwings to be a bit more comparable and worth sacrificing speed for their fun or effectiveness. Make more K-Drive combat features (make it so that people that want to travel but use Warframe abilities can do so from K-Drive, or use their sidearm. Or allow Operators to use K-Drive and be able to use some of their powers) and amp up their speed.

I'll reiterate my suggestion for Itzal in particular, in case DE still wants to "nerf the S#&amp;&#036; out of it". 

I proposed the following changes.

Make Itzal's blink more cost-effective, accurate, and with more utility and additional effects, in exchange for a decrease in the spammyness. Currently, the meta I know for mobility is to drop 2 energy pads to quickly get your energy maxed, and then you can burn through it all in a few seconds of blinking to the desired location (to the eidolon shrine or teleported eidolon, to the toroid farming spots, etc). One burns through the energy surprisingly quickly, especially when you add in using the Itzal's 3 or 4 along the way or at the end, to pull in resources or kill nearby enemies.
So we could make Blink better by giving it a charge mechanic, with a visual indicator of where it's going, to aid precision. Spamming the uncharged blink would feel the same as the current way, but shorter range and requiring more clicks and overall energy per the distance/speed. Make it so that for an absolutely fractional amount more, you can charge the blink up to go further. If DE implements more spy-like mechanics in Archwing, Railjack, or Trials, being able to invisibly, discreetly teleport to an exact position for a lower energy cost, would be great! Additional features you could add to make this a net side-grade or upgrade rather than a downgrade or nerf, would be to implement synergy with archmelee and with cosmic crush, where a partially/completely charged blink could be activated with melee or cosmic crush, as an epic, hero-moment dash-attack using either just melee, or more energy. There's also the option of allowing a small portion of movement after blinking to not break Penumbra's invisibility, so that less-accurate blinks in Penumbra-stealth aren't as punishing. I'd let DE figure out the numbers, but I think making Blink have more versatility and synergy can offset a nerf to max speed without it feeling like a really blatant, obnoxious nerf.

[Hemminator]

If they honestly want people to use k-drives more, then maybe the affinity gain for k-drives and standing gain for vent kids should not be absolutely tedious and annoying to get up.  also, the different parts do NOTHING as far as I can tell, they are literally only for cosmetic differences (anyone who wants to correct me on this can do so as i am not wasting my time on something this tedious and unfun).