Dev Workshop: Revisiting Wukong

[TheGodofWiFi]

On 2019-06-13 at 6:38 PM, [DE]SpaceySarah said:

Cloud Walker

• Wukong evaporates into a fast-moving cloud of mist that will temporarily daze and paralyze enemies in his path. While in his cloud of mist, Cloud Walker has the additional mechanic of healing Wukong and his clone.
• His movement can be interrupted by attacking at any time.
• Cloud Walker has a much faster cast time which will no longer hold Wukong in place.
• Wukong will no longer trigger laser traps or doors while using Cloud Walker.
• Energy cost for Cloud Walker has been lowered.

Reasons for changes: Previously, Cloud Walker did not have many use cases as it was a slower and lesser stealth option than that of other frames. These changes make the Ability good for repositioning, more well-rounded - and WAY faster.

 

• Enveloping Cloud: No planned changes.

Just wanted to add some specific feedback regarding Cloud Walker and its augment.

In regards to the ability, can you guys please remove the timer? Having both a drain and a timer on pre-rework CW just made it even less worth using. Remove the timer and reduce the energy cost would be much better. I hope the new Cloud Walker will fast enough that it would be worth using as a means of travel in the Orb Vallis or Plains.

For Enveloping Cloud, please change it so that allies can fire without breaking the stealth. That would make the augment worth a mod slot and perhaps a dedicated build for squads. I can see how Wukong would be a good choice for late game squad-missions with this augment.

[Fangerzz]

As a Wukong main, I'm not really sure how I feel about these changes. I'm not really sure what DE is trying to do, as some of these changes seem to be a step forward, however some of them seem to be regressing, a step backwards. Of course, I can't say much as the changes aren't released yet and are still a work in progress, but these are just my initial impressions. 

First of all, I think DE needs to make a test server to gather some real feedback and opinions on these changes, and whether they work well or not. It would help in regards to tweaking and bug squashing as well as to gather the community's opinions in addition to their own. It'd give players the option to test out new/reworked content, and I'm sure that'd make players happy, a win-win situation for both parties. It'd also prevent to an extent issues that have come up previously with reworked frames, issues that I'd say could of been easily fixed had they gathered this feedback beforehand.

Celestial twin is a nice addition. I'm happy they changed his iron jab and are trying out something new, that fits both lore wise as well as having been requested by players before. Whether or not the Clone AI is any good or not is yet to be determined, my personal opinion in regards to spectre ai isn't very good initially, but hopefully that's not the case.

Cloud Walker. Just why, honestly? Yes, DE fixed some of the issues players had complained about, mainly the speed, but why not just ultimately decide on a new ability entirely like Celestial twin? Currently cloud walker serves niche purposes, and even the proposed rework right now seems honestly pointless. There's still practically no use for the ability, it's got extremely niche uses even now. Some of the complaints about it is you're stuck in a cloud literally not able to do anything, whilst really, I could either pull out my gun/sword and kill enemies being more productive than hovering in a cloud being useless effectively. A waste of time really, where I'm unable to do anything. Sure yes, I can jump out now of it by attacking but what's the point? Why even have it up in the first place? I honestly think they need to just pick a new ability like they did for his 1. 

(Also, I could just bullet jump, parkour to get around like I've already been doing that doesn't consume any energy whilst also being able to attack...)
(Triggering laser traps and doors? Not really all that game changing, maybe for spy, but there's some seriously better frames you probably SHOULD take...)

Defy. Can we get some more additional information like numbers on these changes? Potentially some more indepth gameplay of his abilities in actual content? Just how much armour percentage buff are we getting and for what duration is it going to last for? If it's too low of a number of armor percentage or vice versa with duration times, then Wukongs literally going to die to a papercut, especially in the case of higher level content and scaling.This also applies to the damage reflect. What percentage of damage will it reflect? What's the range of the melee staff spin? If it somehow doesn't hit anything, does that mean I've effectively wasted my "stored" damage and need to recharge again? Etc, so many questions...

(You know, there's this frame called Rhino and his Iron Skin more or less does the exact same thing as defy currently. Pretty much same concept but whatever. Of course breaking iron skin is a joke )
(In addition to that there's also frames like Inaros, etc that still do a similar role/concept)

Primal Fury. I'll keep it short. Whilst I like the ability in general, I don't really see a point of using it apart from a few laughs. Exalted weapons are outshined by zaws in general. Why would I waste my energy and whatnot on using my "ultimate" when I could use my melee/zaw? (Also, in all seriousness, how does a stick do slash damage?)

Passives. This is going seriously backwards in progress. Why should any of his passives be RNG dependant, in addition to only being able to use 3 of his abilities out of the 5 he posses? In addition, why is it only limited to 3 times in a mission? I mean, in all honestly, that's 3 minutes worth of buffs the entire mission duration at best. Let's assume that RNG gives me 3 cosmic armour's. That's 90 seconds of invulnerability (not including the initial 2 seconds) the entire mission duration. That's pretty pathetic, especially if you're in a long mission like survival or whatnot... 

(In addition, whilst players won't be intentionally killing themselves for the limited buff, at least I hope not, you never know... In all seriousness, I don't really see why the buff only takes effect on "death". It's not like people will intentionally die, but it's still a sour taste to know you have to die to even get the passive buffs to activate...)

 

I really hope DE shows some indepth gameplay with Wukong and hopefully takes into consideration players thoughts, suggestions, criticisms and feedback whilst tweaking and working on Wukong.

Of course I'll have to wait until the actual release to know anything, but as I said before, these are just my impressions.

[Warlord1400]

The rework is looking good! I have one issue though... the passive can expire? This would be unfair for Wukong; he would 1) be the only Warframe that loses its passive after too many uses and 2) there is Nidus that has a similar passive, but can recharge its effectiveness after just a few stomps to a mob.

I think instead of giving him only three death-cheats, it should be a cooldown for at least 2-3 minutes.

[MonkeyKV]

16 hours ago, Urlan said:

Fair enough, what should the invisibility on many warframes, or the Invulnerability of Hysteria be replaced with?

Discussion for another topic. Feel free to start one, I do not care for those frames. Always found invisibility that doesn't break when you attack to be the absolute cheese. If at least you had to stay within smoke clouds AOE or had to do something to keep it. Anyways I don't play those frames, and bad designs on other frames do not justify keeping invulnerability/immortality on wukong.

[Urlan]

17 minutes ago, MonkeyKV said:

Discussion for another topic. Feel free to start one, I do not care for those frames. Always found invisibility that doesn't break when you attack to be the absolute cheese. If at least you had to stay within smoke clouds AOE or had to do something to keep it. Anyways I don't play those frames, and bad designs on other frames do not justify keeping invulnerability/immortality on wukong.

I think its fair to not really care for some frames over others, but I think its quite valid to compare warframes that had reworks recently or simply have similar levels of mission interaction.

[MonkeyKV]

22 minutes ago, Urlan said:

I think its quite valid to compare warframes that had reworks recently or simply have similar levels of mission interaction

Having similar interactions don't necessarily means it's good. They are moving away from invulnerability and there's a reason for it. It's a complete braindead mechanic, specially when the game hardly has any difficult content in it.

I wonder what are people struggling with that they want a godmode on so they can complete it.

Yes I think hysteria should be different as with the invisible mechanic on some frames. Just because those still have those doesn't mean I want wukong to have them. 

Depending on the armor buff he won't need it anyways (never needed it before, a umbral build with arcanes makes him tanky enough for all content), I'm just hoping for a better passive that doesn't incentive us to kill ourselves and is spent. %armor buff on death cheat so it combos with defy armor buff, making you more tanky as you die more and more.

[Urlan]

Just now, MonkeyKV said:

Having similar interactions don't necessarily means it's good. They are moving away from invulnerability and there's a reason for it. It's a complete braindead mechanic, specially when the game hardly has any difficult content in it.

I wonder what are people struggling with that they want a godmode on so they can complete it.

Yes I think hysteria should be different as with the invisible mechanic on some frames. Just because those still have those doesn't mean I want wukong to have them. 

Depending on the armor buff he won't need it anyways (never needed it before, a umbral build with arcanes makes him tanky enough for all content), I'm just hoping for a better passive that doesn't incentive us to kill ourselves and is spent. %armor buff on death cheat so it combos with defy armor buff, making you more tanky as you die more and more.

I didn't see Hysteria remove from Valkyr during her rework, nor do I see warframes losing invisibility, including with Wukong here. So that statement isn't based in former or current events; DE could state that is the intent going forward starting here, that would have quite the feedback spike on the forum! I can totally feel you on personal calls here, and they are perfectly valid for how you would prefer the game go, or how you think the winds are moving, but that doesn't mean its logically shown here. If you would want more chance of death with Defy while keeping it as it was, Quick Thinking has examples of making it less reliable as it repeatedly triggers for overkill damage for example.

I can understand situations where Godmode, as you put it; might be required in the current enemy balance situation. Take for example getting hit by the rapid fire laser shot from the Ropalolyst in the central arena area of its boss encounter. Any enemies with elemental or physical enhancements - particularly corrosive, radiation, and puncture - can one-shot any warframe playing normally outside of what some might call 'cheesing' or ie, playing either around the scenario mechanic limits or avoiding the enemy interaction entirely, as with Riftwalk, invisibility, Valkyr Hysteria, or other invulnerability or complete avoidance mechanics. Pure Crowd control could also fit into this category, as DE has at least considered it, per changes to enemies with Trials, giving them cumulative resistance to powers; and more recently with pure immunity most but a select subsection of power and statuses!

[MonkeyKV]

6 minutes ago, Urlan said:

can understand situations where Godmode, as you put it; might be required in the current enemy balance situation

My experience with the ropololyst is short, RNG was on my side and I farmed the mods and wisp absurdly quickly, but I actually enjoyed the boss and specially the laser you mention. It's the first time you actually have to dodge a boss hit instead of just bringing a tank and facetanking everything.

Yes in general personal feelings dictates much of what I said, but I think powercreep has gotten to the point of not having challenge anymore. Invulnerability is the most extreme case. We are giving a staff slashing damage for the sake of effectiveness instead of fixing the IPS and enemy scaling. 

[[DE]Rebecca]

We will be going live shortly to review this on our Test Cluster:

 

 

[Sajochi]

37 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We will be going live shortly to review this on our Test Cluster:

 

happy and boastful Wukong noises 

[DeMonkey]

9 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We will be going live shortly to review this on our Test Cluster:

If all goes well, how close do you think you are to a release?

[NightmareT12]

Wanted to ask the same as Monkey, do you guys have an estimate regarding combo and Wukong rework shipping? Or too early to want to venture?

EDIT: So this week...

I wonder if they decided to get Monkey'd rather than Rubble'd for the next gilded warrior...

[Urlan]

Just now, MonkeyKV said:

My experience with the ropololyst is short, RNG was on my side and I farmed the mods and wisp absurdly quickly, but I actually enjoyed the boss and specially the laser you mention. It's the first time you actually have to dodge a boss hit instead of just bringing a tank and facetanking everything.

Yes in general personal feelings dictates much of what I said, but I think powercreep has gotten to the point of not having challenge anymore. Invulnerability is the most extreme case. We are giving a staff slashing damage for the sake of effectiveness instead of fixing the IPS and enemy scaling. 

That is all good, I am glad RNG was on your side truly. I got the parts myself as well but for me every moment of it was just running it out of stubbornness instead of fun due to my first encounter being something of a "Wtf" one touch being capable of downing my Oberon modded for armor, life, and Phoenix renewal while being perfectly capable of firing those things rapid fire during the cinematic - which was embarrassing for my pride there to be honest! I use it as an excellent example of an attack or challenge for a player being scaled way outside the reasonable level - I figure accidentally to be fair - the heavy focused laser the Ropalolyst does when you are on the Generator platforms does far less damage if you face tank it, though it hurts pretty well for the level. I know this is sorta sliding into off topic here about that, but testing how much damage, it seemed to be at least 15k per rapid fire laser!

Powercreep isn't really the issue for most gear in the game, at least on the player side, as we do plateau rather quickly. One could say though, that if we do have fully ranked mods and reactor/Catalyst, forma to fit those mods that we are often going to be stronger than the starchart except in endless missions, particularly in nightmare or t4 Void due to their innate nightmare damage boosts. Enemies scaling goes like leveling in an rpg, but unlike ours, doesn't have as early a wall. Powercreep in the specific sense is more akin to getting a prime for a regular piece of gear, or the same weapon stats and firing mode but just a better attribute or stats; to use a Magic the Gathering analogue, a Grizzly Bear is strictly worse than a Nest Invader as long as Creature type is not an issue like with tribal themed decks. Are we stronger than when the game started? Of course, the game has grown, and when a game grows, the players have more options and have progression (for us that is embodied by getting improved versions if only slight of existing gear; improved mods (primes or Umbra for example); and Focus/amps for the Tenno. Conditional though not true progression can also help us go farther than previously possible. That is not innately powercreep, not innate to a healthy game system with progression elements.

Fixing IPS was a muddled kettle of fish to pardon the phrase; as we saw with the workshop thread before Khora was originally supposed to ship. Status 2.5 was going to be a pure nerf to slash damage, while making Puncture have to build up to reducing the enemy damage (10%, 20%, 30%, upwards) and Impact would have depending on the level of base impact either staggered, knocked down, or pure out and out ragdolled enemies which per example would have been if you used a high impact sniper thus making it actually harder to land repeated sniper head-shots with that gun if it had status! I figure the idea will be ironed out eventually, but that was the at the time presentable version, much like with Wukong in this very thread.

[DeMonkey]

@[DE]Pablo I know I offered to bribe you with my original pokemon card stash in my thread several months ago, I hope you aren't planning on taking me up on that offer.

I'm liking the looks so far, the cloud speed looks faster than bullet jumping (as it should be).

[Urlan]

Seems to look a lot like some of the Ash rework suggestions @Nazrethimm had a while back. Particularly the one that had Smoke giving bonuses like healing or damage; and markers ordering Ash's specters which would have been specter clones versus just being attacks like prior and before. Defy's replacement didn't seem particularly functional as far as I could tell from the video feed I am afraid, but I wouldn't mind seeing stats for how it converts, ranges, and such though personally I am not optimistic in it finding a solid role in Wukong's kit; I wouldn't mind seeing more selling points.

[Jarriaga]

The description provided by Pablo for the combo system streamlining sounds like a huge nerf in damage if you only get the multiplier in 1 combo.

[DeMonkey]

Well, I'm excited to play that. Main criticism for me right now is that not moving combos are... kinda counter intuitive.

The slam combo that I adore has tragically tiny range and will stagger enemies backwards. In order to ensure they're hit reliably by the actual weapon you kinda need to be moving. It's currently possible to even throw in a slide mid slam to close the distance. Having to stop moving to initiate will likely kill quite a bit of the flow.

[Urlan]

5 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

The description provided by Pablo for the combo system streamlining sounds like a huge nerf in damage if you only get the multiplier in 1 combo.

That is a good point. The dev workshop post mentions this is being used as something of a test bed for melee 3.0 so that would suggest such changes might be for all melee if successfully accepted.

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We will be going live shortly to review this on our Test Cluster:

 

Leave the video up, that way everyone who missed it can see it

[--F--NerevarCM]

23 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

The description provided by Pablo for the combo system streamlining sounds like a huge nerf in damage if you only get the multiplier in 1 combo.

They said however for a long time that they will increase the base damage of all melee weapons. Probably to reach the same power as a 3x combo multiplier.

[ToKeSia]

when this wukong + melee 3.0 going to be shipped? , someone wrote "this week" so i'm curious . . .  anyone know ?

[Urlan]

1 minute ago, -OP-NerevarCM said:

They said however for a long time that they will increase the base damage of all melee weapons. Probably to reach the same power as a 3x combo multiplier.

They said they might, more that they will; while some weapons were going to get base range nerfs and a few like Dual Daggers and Sparring were mentioned to be getting slight range increases. Course, those ideas might have changed by now; so we can potentially learn about current plans by observing how Primal Fury is being done now.

[Chatv71e]

@[DE]Rebecca @[DE]Pablo  Thank you for showing up the abilities of the upcoming rework. I'm very interested in the Celestial Twin since Duality is one of my favorite things in the game, and I already see a lot of improvements with monkey clone. 

Looks like ability to constantly block instead of attacking was removed. It would be nice if other specters would have that too. 
I also understand that there a lot of AI limitations in terms of hitting certain enemies so that's something we will have to live with. 

But I'd be really happy if you looked into this thread of existing specter issues and maybe tweaked a thing or two from the list.

For instance double reload on weapons with high fire rates

[Urlan]

2 minutes ago, Chatv71e said:

@[DE]Rebecca @[DE]Pablo  Thank you for showing up the abilities of the upcoming rework. I'm very interested in the Celestial Twin since Duality is one of my favorite things in the game, and I already see a lot of improvements with monkey clone. 

Looks like ability to constantly block instead of attacking was removed. It would be nice if other specters would have that too. 
I also understand that there a lot of AI limitations in terms of hitting certain enemies so that's something we will have to live with. 

But I'd be really happy if you looked into this thread of existing specter issues and maybe tweaked a thing or two from the list.

For instance double reload on weapons with high fire rates

Excellent idea! If Wukong's specter has resulted in better overall specter AI, that would be very logical to enhance existing warframe specter's with similar pathing and attack logic.

[PsiWarp]

Footage looks good. He and his twin are quite the dynamic duo going on the offensive.

His numerous and on-demand invulnerability phases will keep him in the fight longer than most, plus twice the firepower from your arsenal loadout is nothing to scoff at.