Simple Zephyr Quality of Life Improvement: Tail Wind Transition Into Crouch Slide

[Gun_Gryphon]

I really enjoy playing Zephyr, the freedom of mobility the frame offers is fantastic on open maps. The biggest area of improvement I can see though is how she handles in indoor levels (which is the bulk of the games content). When using Tailwind, it is very hard not to get caught on the upper part of a door-frame, being pinned there by the ability for a second or two until you slowly float down. Aiming your tailwind downward a little more mitigates this a small amount, however you stop on a dime as soon an your hit-box brushes the ground. This momentum killing is necessary for precise character control, but there are times when you really want to keep your momentum going such as getting to extraction.

I've thought of a very simple way to have the best of both worlds: During a tailwind, have Zephyr transition into a crouch slide if you hold down the control key when her hit-box touches the ground. We already use crouch sliding to preserve momentum from bullet jumps, so why not implement it here? Because we can aim our tailwinds lower, this would alleviate some of the frustration associated with getting stuck in the ceiling as well. I'm sure that this would simple tweak would allow her to more fluidly traverse any indoor map with less frustration about getting stuck on terrain.

Thank you for your time, I would appreciate a careful consideration of this idea.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Hi and welcome!

To be short, and at no insult meant to you...

We know.

Welcome to the club ^^

[Gnohme]

I think this is just reflective of how the game still has a few issues with movement - the reason you get caught on the doorframe and have to wait is because in Warframe your momentum is not obstructed by walls - it will sometimes push you a little to the side and if you are lucky enough to manage to sneak around the edge of the obstructive polygon, your momentum will continue as it were before, taking into account  how much speed you've lost in your jumping arc which still continues even while you're face first into a wall. In most games if you hit a wall, you bounce off it or slide to the side of it, but then you hit the floor and that's that. It feels like the system is attempting to compensate for errors of parkour accuracy by letting you continue your original trajectory if you manage to sneak past any things you clip on - but in my experience this is very rare. It ends up making  the movement feel "sticky" most of the time, as your character continues to act as if they are gliding through open space while stuck on a wall. I usually cancel my momentum by transitioning into a wall jump and then just reaim my bullet jump to be more centered. Personally I'm not really sure how I feel about it, I think I'd like for my momentum to just stop when I hit so I could get to the floor faster and try again.

 

That being said I agree, a slide out of tailwind would feel great.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Gnohme

[Birdframe_Prime]

To be a little more helpful here, if you do find yourself getting stuck to a wall, use Wall Latch for 1 second. It will cancel your momentum as it's a function specifically made to halt forward momentum and keep you on the wall.

It's not ideal, and it really, really, really sucks that we need these kinds of work-arounds, but it does work, and you can jump away to get a better angle at where you were going in the first place.

As for the stopping immediately on landing, cancelling all momentum... I'm fairly sure that it's DEScott's having read one of the threads before the rework and badly misinterpreting the desire of the people there. It was supposed to, if you weren't pressing Forwards or Crouch, to keep you going, but if you weren't pressing anything the momentum would stop.

The current situation, I think, is because after the cast there appears to be a delay in when it accepts button inputs, and won't accept them while the ability is going. The only recommendation I have for that is... roll. The quick roll button will start your momentum forward, even if it's not exactly a quick animation to go through.

The better fix is to have DE remove the actual animation and allow Zephyr to actually use her in-air steering that's part of her passive to angle or re-orient her dash somewhat. This means there's no delay after the end of the actual cast before buttons can be pressed, and landing will still be landing, but holding crouch will then slide, holding forwards and sprint will start sprinting, and so on.

[(XBOX)scrobledublezip]

On 2019-06-02 at 10:11 PM, Gun_Gryphon said:

The biggest area of improvement I can see though is how she handles in indoor levels (which is the bulk of the games content). 

I agree, she is my go to frame and I find often that the scenery littered liberally around the maps too provide cover from gunfire to be a challenge for her, and many other frames when it comes to maintaining momentum (volt). I can honestly say that with time and familiarity with a tileset that part does get easier, your fast-twitch automated responses to approaching collision will start to kick in earlier. 

But with specific regard to Tailwind I feel your pain, it often feels like her ability was designed purely for open world environs and you are being punished for taking her in closed maps by nerfing a chunk of her mobility. 

I agree that the slide transition or steering in flight (such as has already been provided by the guiding light combo of the blind justice stance mod) would be a superior solution for mobility, but it is possible that the limitations will remain to prevent overpowering the ability. Imagine boosting through the earth tileset with a good degree of control at the sort of speeds tailwind can reach when modded properly. It's got potential to leave the other squad members for dust, rushing just to get to extraction and not even joining in with the mission. 

Possibly not, every zephyr player I've met so far has been unfailingly polite and helpful. 

My solution for the moment has been to have 2 builds for zephyr and to really nerf the speed of tailwind for the indoor build so it covers less distance. It can mean multiple casts in some areas but there are more situations where it is safe to use and I'm less worried about pinning myself to the wall like a bird flying into a patio window. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, (XB1)scrobledublezip said:

Imagine boosting through the earth tileset with a good degree of control at the sort of speeds tailwind can reach when modded properly.

The answer to this little part is kind of two-fold. Mostly it's the actual modding, but the initial part is freeing your mind to the nature of 'OP' movement not existing ^^ The first is that Nova can actually go through a mission faster than the map can load, even on very fast machines... And I have an old veteran making a video right now highlighting that Wisp can actually travel 1.8km in a second with her 1 and 3 combo (in relative terms that's over Mach 5).

So never worry about movement abilities being too powerful, DE broke that a while ago ^^

The second is that I, specifically, have been campaigning to get the actual stats that affect Tailwind changed for a looooong time.

Sit back for a little crafting!

Basically having Tailwind scale off Duration alone, with only the area of the damage affected by Range and Strength, is directly the cause of Tailwind's problems. As it stands, Zephyr always wants Duration. It doesn't work any other way. But what's negotiable on Zephyr is Strength and Range (to a degree, you always want Positive range, but I go as low as 106% on my favourite Jet Stream build).

With Duration as the base form of modding, you end up not only with the ability locking you in the animation for longer, but also accelerating to reach the end of that duration faster. The result of this is that mis-aiming gives you an even longer amount of time pinned to a wall and an even larger amount of Momentum to overcome even when the animation ends.

The fix to this would be switch entirely off Duration for Tailwind itself, and use Range and Strength. Range for how far you go, and Strength for how much Momentum you have after the distance is travelled.

Put the base range as 'pretty damn big' and use the same mechanic as the current Duration cast for making you go faster to get that same distance. However, the Momentum is dictated by your Strength, where Neutral is 50% Momentum (slows you down to half your speed) and you conserve 100% of Momentum at 201% Strength, but you can also Overextended/Power Donation your way to lower Strength and slow yourself down to a capped low-end of 25% Momentum, which slows you right down but lets you keep going in the direction you were for a bit of hang-time.

Couple this with the Animation removal I mentioned earlier? Beautiful.

Players frequently play high Range Zephyr for Turbulence, defending the objectives and allies. Where this could mean that they have a long Tailwind cast, which isn't as good indoors, they would also usually leave her on negative Strength, and so the cast would then slow down significantly after the range ended, giving them more control over it. Meanwhile builds for high Strength to exploit Jet Stream, Funnel Clouds (or even base Tornado) often leave Zephyr with less Range because of compensating for the lower Duration (usually from Transient Fortitude), and this would leave them with a more normal initial distance travelled which is compensated for by the higher Momentum to allow them to travel further if they want to.

But Birdframe, I fantasise you all asking, with the Momentum preserved, how would you fix the way we have to keep wall-latching or landing to counter the momentum when we're indoors?

Well that's the third change.

Zephyr's Hover was implemented in the 2018 rework and... it sucks. Let's be honest, it's not worth having to crouch on the ground for three seconds just to get an arbitrary Hover time that doesn't even let us mod it for Duration and improve on. Zephyr does not belong squatting on the ground waiting to flap her arms and fart out lifting gas to Hover.

Zephyr wants mobility, and sometimes Mobility (with a capital M) involves being able to stop when you want.

Change the Hover to a half-second hold, like the ones used on basic tap/hold casting for Gara or similar. Tap makes you dash, hold makes you Hover. On the ground, Zephyr bounces up in the air like usual and you can just use the current method of pressing Aim to stop that wherever you want it, or get up to the top and Hover as normal. But in the air it locks you in place, just like Itzal's 2 (so we know momentum stopping is an ability that exists in the game), and you Hover there instead. The length of the Hover is now a Duration so we can see when it ends, and this way we have incredible Mobility in the air.

A long-distance Dash in omni-directions, capable of being customised for both indoors and outdoors just by switching a couple of mods, with a set of air-brakes that only takes a half second to cast.

Wouldn't that be absolutely ideal, fellow Zephyr players?

[(XBOX)scrobledublezip]

3 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Wouldn't that be absolutely ideal, fellow Zephyr players?

Yes. You have obviously given this a great deal of thought and I can see the way it would balance with that type of setup would allow for some nicely balanced and tuned builds. 

I have only one question.. 

You mentioned campaigning for this... how does one go about such a thing? 

On 2019-06-02 at 10:11 PM, Gun_Gryphon said:

 

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, (XB1)scrobledublezip said:

You mentioned campaigning for this... how does one go about such a thing? 

Badly. ^^

The only 'campaign' that you can actually do is literally just be here on the Forums promoting an idea for the better part of four years. So far it hasn't worked out...

[Caelward]

12 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Badly. ^^

The only 'campaign' that you can actually do is literally just be here on the Forums promoting an idea for the better part of four years. So far it hasn't worked out...

We successfully campaigned to have DE realize we were unhappy.

That was as far as it went.

[(XBOX)scrobledublezip]

I suppose others such as Gun_Gryphon adding their own voices and independently highlighting issues starts to make it more of a widespread issue and less of one player's personal crusade. 

There will come a day when zephyr has her name in the Dev workshop again and they are actively courting opinions. 

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

5 hours ago, (XB1)scrobledublezip said:

There will come a day when zephyr has her name in the Dev workshop again and they are actively courting opinions

Yeah, that'll be the day her Deluxe skin gets finished. Mind you, they showed artwork for it in 2016 and said it was being worked on as a passion project from one of the devs.

So I'm sure it'll be coming soon.

[(XBOX)scrobledublezip]

Patience is a virtue. 

And its good for character development to learn to live with disappointment or rejection. 

So vauban players must be developing quite nicely by now. 

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

16 minutes ago, (XB1)scrobledublezip said:

Patience is a virtue. 

But time is a commodity.

17 minutes ago, (XB1)scrobledublezip said:

And its good for character development to learn to live with disappointment or rejection. 

Oh, that's good then. You'll find a lot of opportunity with Warframe to keep growing.

 

18 minutes ago, (XB1)scrobledublezip said:

So vauban players must be developing quite nicely by now. 

There's only 1 Vauban player left and he already kicked DEs ass for making him wait for changes with the moderation program and the guides of The Lotus program. 

I guess he ran out of patience.

[Birdframe_Prime]

9 minutes ago, (XB1)scrobledublezip said:

Patience is a virtue. 

My friend, with respect, don't.

Renova has been part of the Zephyr community longer than me.

More than half of the ideas I've ever crafted for Zephyr were built with input from people like Renova and Caelward up there.

After two years of 'patience' Zephyr got her rework. And was put into exactly the same state as she was before it. Her abilities were not actually improved and only had changes that removed the most egregious downsides of using them. Issues that Renova and I predicted ahead of time, literally commenting on thread after thread, still made it into the rework and DE seemed to be actually proud of implementing them, and players repeatedly complained about those issues exactly as we predicted. We got a new 2 that literally just does, at range, what her 2 did before... It was really, really disheartening.

Unlike frames like Vauban, or even Ember, Zephyr has been just flat ignored. Far from having bad updates, nerfs, buffs, changes over time that were disappointing... Zephyr has literally just been ignored since they figured out how Turbulence was actually going to work.

And Renova has taken the exact opposite route that I've taken. Where I've decided to be positive about trying to get more, better change. Renova has been entirely put off and doesn't believe we'll get better.

There's good reason for that point of view, and you weren't to know, you're new ^^ But leave that be.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

36 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

My friend, with respect, don't.

Renova has been part of the Zephyr community longer than me.

It's ok, he's entitled to his opinion and allowed to dream. 

I just won't anymore. Like, ffs.. Even when they accidently allowed turbulence to be cast while moving, they had to take that away too. 

Like c'mon, these guys just don't listen to feedback, read their forums, or just don't give a damn.

They patched a long standing request out of the game, lol after they accidently added it. That's literally what Bioware devs do with Anthem. So silly.

Edited June 5, 2019 by (PS4)RenovaKunumaru
Grammar

[(XBOX)scrobledublezip]

You're right I was not aware, I always consider light-heartedness a good way of dealing with frustrations but I can understand why after that amount of effort it is not possible to laugh it off. 

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the community here, guys like you always pushing to improve the game and having the long conversations about improvements that the devs get paid for but you don't. I find this game incredible and the depth and breadth of it inspires imagination and creativity. Most of the best builds and tactics I've seen have been the result of dedication and fascination by the players who want to push harder. I don't think this game will ever reach the point for me where there is nothing new to discover.

So please, from new player to veteran, don't lose faith. You may keep getting knocked back but it's the people like you guys who care that have made this game what it is. You may not have made the difference in this conversation, but look at the number of conversations you have had, there is zero possibility that the contributions you have made have failed to make a difference in many places, perhaps in places where you would least expect it.

Even if DE aren't listening too close, I and other players hear you and really appreciate the contribution.

*Puts down pom-poms*

P.S. I re-read my earlier posts and realized they sounded quite arrogant. My apologies, it was a rushed post from work. I struggle with text comunication as I fail to convey humour or sarcasm properly. 

Edited June 5, 2019 by (XB1)scrobledublezip
self-realization in progress

[(XBOX)scrobledublezip]

On 2019-06-04 at 11:41 AM, Birdframe_Prime said:

you can just use the current method of pressing Aim to stop that wherever you want it, or get up to the top and Hover as normal.

Blink

I never knew that

That is really useful

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

2 hours ago, (XB1)scrobledublezip said:

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the community here, guys like you always pushing to improve the game and having the long conversations about improvements that the devs get paid for but you don't. I find this game incredible and the depth and breadth of it inspires imagination and creativity. Most of the best builds and tactics I've seen have been the result of dedication and fascination by the players who want to push harder. I don't think this game will ever reach the point for me where there is nothing new to discover.

So please, from new player to veteran, don't lose faith. You may keep getting knocked back but it's the people like you guys who care that have made this game what it is. You may not have made the difference in this conversation, but look at the number of conversations you have had, there is zero possibility that the contributions you have made have failed to make a difference in many places, perhaps in places where you would least expect it

Next time I feel like being too cynical, I'll return to this post. 

They right there is powerful. 

[Gun_Gryphon]

Thanks for all of the ideas and discussions guys (that wall latch tip has been helpful), I can understand the frustration with seeing untapped potential. I like to hold out a little hope on the far fetched chance that things can be improved, but I understand that there are roadblocks at play. Warframe is a massive game and the devs have a lot to consider and work on. I'd just be grateful if a developer added this tiny tweak to their to-do list.

[Gnohme]

On 2019-06-04 at 10:04 AM, Birdframe_Prime said:

Badly. ^^

The only 'campaign' that you can actually do is literally just be here on the Forums promoting an idea for the better part of four years. So far it hasn't worked out...

True. I'm still campaigning for a frame that can bunnyhop. Wishful thinking

 

Edited June 7, 2019 by Gnohme