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Dev Workshop: Revisiting Wukong


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I have a big problem with Cloud Walker; as soon as i use it my frame rate drops to about 10~15 frames on the lowest graphics settings possible. This didn't happen before the update, please reduce the particles or whatever so i can actually use it.

Thanks.

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I posted this in another thread, but I figure I'll post it here as well since there's probably a marginally better chance of DE eyes landing on it here, and I do think this could help them a bit. 

Having put a few hours in with Newkong now, doing a broad range of content, I feel like I've got a fairly decent grasp on the rework, both the highs and the low, and I'm gonna lay out my feedback for DE here.  Sorry if I end up word-vomiting a bit.  To start off, I think this rework is largely quite well done.  It's created a cohesive, synergistic kit out of a single button and a couple of half-baked ideas, while also staying true to the themes of the Warframe.  That isn't easy, and DE (and, to my understanding, especially Pablo) should be lauded for pulling it off.  But not all of it came out quite the way they wanted, methinks, and there's some rough edges that could do with sanding down.  I hope my feedback here could be of use to them in that endeavor.

Now, let's get right into it.  I'm going to go through each individual ability, starting with his passive, and lay out my thoughts, along with suggestions for improvements:

5 Levels of Immortality
High-Level Feedback: From a purely mechanical perspective, this is absolutely fine.  Passives, as a general rule, are not hugely impactful, and this one fits right in, power-level wise, with most; 97% of the time it won't proc even once, let alone 3 times, but when it does, it's generally modestly helpful.  Better yet, that moment when it procs, when you go "I just died!  But I live!" is quite solid, it feels very much like Nidus' and that's a high compliment.  However, at the same time, it just doesn't feel very good.

What comes next is just... awkward.  The few seconds after that moment are either you being an unstoppable god or feeling screwed because you're not an unstoppable god, and giving RNJesus the power to determine that never feels good.  It feels like a punishment half the time, not a reward, as all your abilities should, and the disconnect makes it less than enjoyable.  Similarly, running out of charges on it and finally dying just ends up feeling frustrating, because your passive is just gone entirely.  This can create a negative feedback loop where, for whatever reason, you screwed up and died a few times, and then suddenly you don't have any of your passive's effects at all.  In essence, you get punished for using your passive, and that doesn't feel great, no matter which way you slice it.

TL;DR
Pros:

  • Surviving when you were supposed to die feels great
  • Power level is in-line with other passives, on average
  • Strong thematic tie to Sun Wukong and the Journey to the West

Cons:

  • Heavily random effects hamper enjoyment a fair amount
  • Limited charges can create a negative feedback loop

Suggestions: 5 Levels of Immortality has some problems, but nothing conceptual or deep-seated mechanically.  It just needs to dial down the RNG and, like Nidus', have some means of regaining charges during a mission, and in my view, both of these can be solved by embracing the "trickster" element of Sun Wukong.  I would take this passive and change it to:

Quote

Monkey Business
When Wukong takes fatal damage, his Celestial Twin takes the damage instead and sacrifices all of its remaining health to heal Wukong by 75% of his maximum health.  This cannot occur more than once every 90 seconds, reduced by 1 second for each kill.

With this change, the core functionality is entirely intact, Wukong gets to show off his immortal bonafides, but the RNG elements are removed, both the lows and the highs, and the arbitrary limit of 3 is removed in favor of "if you can kill fast enough, you can use your passive infinitely", which replaces the existing negative feedback loop and failure spiral with a positive feedback loop.

Conclusions: On the whole, I think this passive is very good, and a huge improvement over Wukong's original.  It just needs some minor cleanup and it'll be fantastic.

Celestial Twin
High-Level Feedback: This ability is really neat conceptually, and again fits really well with Wukong's theme.  In addition, the way Wuclone uses the opposite weapon type Wukong does is a truly inspired idea that has a lot of potential for builds (the low-hanging fruit here is a high-status gun with a bunch of damage types paired with Condition Overload on a melee weapon).  It really is an excellent idea and in my experience it even tends to work fairly well.  The clone does some serious work, especially if you kit him out appropriately, more than enough so to make up for the fairly derpy AI managing it, and if the player micromanages it as well, then it really wrecks face.

Unfortunately, there's some niggling annoyances, and bugs, that tarnish the experience somewhat.  There's no real mechanical or conceptual issues with it, just rough edges that need polishing before it really shines.  For example, Wukong activating Primal Fury causes both Wukong and Wuclone to be running around with a melee weapon.  This breaks the fundamental promise made by the opposite-weapon-type functionality, and means you can't take advantage of one of the basic design pillars of this Warframe while using the other pillar.  It limits the player's creative space for no real reason, and it hurts me in my soul to see.  There's also a number of bugs regarding weapon selection, I've seen Wuclone stuck on using a gun even while I have a gun out, or using melee at the same time as me, or Wuclone only ever using my primary weapon instead of the secondary I had out a second ago, etc, but I'm sure those'll get fixed in the coming weeks.

TL;DR
Pros

  • Extremely good concept with lots of potential for build diversity and depth
  • Powerful enough to overcome AI deficiencies

Cons

  • Buggy, though far from game-breakingly so
  • Aforementioned build diversity potential nearly totally eliminated while Primal Fury is active

Suggestions: Celestial Twin is actually in a pretty good spot right now.  All it needs is for Wuclone to stick to its core mechanics when Primal Fury is activated.  Allow Wuclone to use guns while Wukong is beating people with Ruyi Jingu Bang, and be able to pull out its own Iron Staff if Wukong starts shooting baddies without deactivating Primal Fury (or in other words, treat Primal Fury the same as Wukong's normal melee weapon) and fix the bugs and this ability will be basically perfect (with its only remaining flaw being a need for spectre AI improvements).

Conclusions: So close to being great that it physically pains me that it stumbled as hard as it did right at the end.  A single fairly minor tweak would make this ability amazing.

Cloudwalker
High-Level Feedback: This ability is awesome.  It's a fantastic tool for both movement and survival that, while not nearly as flashy as the rest of Wukong's new kit, is the workhorse that quietly allows serious work to be done.  It's the real meat and potatoes of Wukong's survivability, as well as an excellent movement and CC ability.  It can take a bit of getting used to, and I still occasionally end up getting trapped on random decorations/map elements because of how fast Wukong moves as a cloud, but once you get used to it, it's pretty excellent all around.

The only real issue with it is that it's buggy, especially with regards to attacking while it's active.  I've seen everything from randomly teleporting 40+m laterally to the game refusing to attack at all, and pretty much everything in between.  I'm only able to successfully attack out of the cloud without major issue maybe once in every 5-6 tries, and I don't think I've ever managed it without any issue at all.  It's fairly reliable when used purely for movement, but attacking out of it definitely has some issues.

TL;DR
Pros

  • Excellent workhorse ability that drives the bulk of Wukong's survivability
  • Extremely good mobility

Cons

  • Has a small learning curve, as the raw speed can cause collision issues until you learn to adjust
  • Very buggy with regards to attacking out, to the point I don't even bother trying anymore

Suggestions: Just fix the bugs, that's really it.  Maybe also consider adding a "slow" mode to it somehow (a sprint toggle is the first thing to come to mind) to allow for more precise maneuvering, but that's far from necessary, player skill will accommodate it soon enough.

Conclusions: Excellent ability all around, good job DE.

Defy
High-Level Feedback: This is another awesome ability.  There's very little bad about it and a lot of really good things.  It's a pretty decent thematic tie to Sun Wukong, as "Whatcha got bro?! Come at me!" basically defines him for much of the Journey to the West, and is excellent mechanically.  It's a perfect "oh-S#&$" button, that does respectable damage and  synergizes with Celestial Twin extremely well.  On the whole, I think this is very well done all around.  My only meaningful complaint is that it's a bit too easy to misread incoming damage (or, more often, a party member comes swooping in and murders the dudes you were about to taunt) and overwrite a fairly new really high armor buff with a super low armor buff.

TL;DR
Pros

  • Extremely strong thematic link to Sun Wukong
  • Very well-designed ability that synergizes well with Celestial Twin

Cons

  • Rapid changes during battle can neuter the ability to a sometimes extreme degree

Suggestions: What I'd like to see for Defy is a change so that if you recast it while the armor buff is up, it will only overwrite your armor buff if the new one is equal-to-or-better.  For example, if I dive into a group of enemies and Defy and get a 1500 armor stack and wipe them out, then 4 seconds later try to do it again, but right as I hit Defy, the Rhino in the party hits stomp and I take zero damage, I should still have my 1500 armor buff for another 21 seconds, instead of a 50 armor buff for 25.  And then, if I hit Defy a third time 10 seconds after that and take enough damage for 1500 armor again, I should emerge with a 1500 armor buff for 25 seconds.

I'm fully in agreement that Wukong shouldn't be able to refresh the duration of an existing buff, but it's simply too easy for teammates to (accidentally or otherwise) screw Wukong out of his buff, and that buff is a pretty big chunk of his ability to not be one-shot, so a change like this would be very much appreciated.

Conclusions: Excellent ability, but a bit too dependent on your team not using crowd-control or overwhelming amounts of murder to be truly effective.  It could do with being a bit less reliant on Wukong's team catering to him.

Primal Fury
High-Level Feedback: This is a really fun ability; the exalted weapon has roughly the same reach as God and the combos are a lot of fun, both to play and watch.  It's a treat all around, not to mention that it can be quite effective as well with the right build.  There's a good mix of damage and reach combos and, aside from a couple small niggles, the new combo system plays really well.  The rework has really brought it up to, well, par.  It's not an exceptional exalted weapon, but it's a solid B+, and I'm quite fond of it.

That said, Primal Fury is hampered somewhat by its anti-synergy with Celestial Twin, where Wuclone is rendered incapable of using guns while this is active.  In addition, there's a minor niggling annoyance with the right-click combos, as those always end with Wukong pulling his gun out, because you're aiming, and it just doesn't feel all that great.  It's not a huge problem or anything, but it's constant and that makes it an annoyance.  It will become something of a problem, however, if Celestial Twin is ever fixed, as that would change Wuclone's weapon unintentionally, and that could potentially cause problems, depending on the build.

TL;DR
Pros

  • Powerful exalted weapon that's been brought up to in-line with most other exalted weapons.  It's no Excalibur, but it's very solid and a good central pillar for the Warframe to rely on
  • New combo system is well-implemented and it's quite satisfying to use
  • Visually very nice, though it can be a bit spastic with a Volt or Wisp speed buff

Cons

  • Anti-synergizes with Celestial Twin, which discourages melee-focused builds from using it
  • New combo system has some minor QOL issues

Suggestions: Fix Celestial Twin to treat Primal Fury properly as a melee weapon and have Wuclone use guns while Wukong hits people with his big stick.  Primal Fury really needs to have that synergy and build-design space, as it's a big part of Wukong's new kit and it's endlessly frustrating to not have it on Wukong's defining weapon.

I'd also suggest an across-the-board change to the current melee system, where right-click/ADS while melee is out does not pull out your gun, and instead just zooms slightly with your melee weapon still out, while left-click/fire while melee is out behaves the way it currently does, and in addition, hitting F with your melee out will switch back to the gun you were using before entering melee, not switch to the other gun you weren't using.  It's not a huge problem, but melee as a whole, and with Primal Fury in particular, would feel a lot better with a change like this.

Conclusions: Very good rework on the whole.  It's great as a stand-alone ability, but is held back by anti-synergy with the other core element of Wukong's new kit.  Patching that hole would make it truly fantastic.

 

So there we are, my review after probably about 8-10 hours playing the new Wukong.  I think this was a really good rework that doesn't really have any foundational issues, but there are still a couple pretty big holes in the framework.  If DE can fill those in, Wukong will likely be by far my favorite Warframe, finally dethroning Nidus.  I hope this was helpful toward that end, if anyone from DE ever reads this.

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1 hour ago, NytemareRhosyn said:

honestly so far his change feels clunkier,  and i agree with you, while deff probably needed a change. i feel its current version is off. and cloud walker should not been touched

Yea, as much as I like DE, they make some baffling decisions sometimes. The defy rework for the most part has the foundation of being something decent, but it seems they want to reduce the usefullness of his other abilities as well for some reason.

1 hour ago, NytemareRhosyn said:

And one just seems odd. it costs energy to "sic" my clone on people when khora does it free if i recall. it scales off my hp like crazy... but if im gun its melee, enemies still aim me over it so why the huge hp pool??? 

Yea, the rework definitely needs more tweaks overall.

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Honestly the Clone needs to be changed to always use the gun you give him when summoning him. Like Equinox's Clone.

As soon as you use a gun yourself or go Ultimate the Clone becomes a useless onlooker because the AI just can not handle melee efficiently.

Basically forcing you to only ever use a meleeweapon if you want your clone to be useful which is sad since I was looking forward to having him give my Ultimate additional statusprocs for increased Condition Overload Carnage.

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53 minutes ago, Agayek said:

Cloudwalker
Cons

  • Has a small learning curve, as the raw speed can cause collision issues until you learn to adjust
  • Very buggy with regards to attacking out, to the point I don't even bother trying anymore
  • Very short duration that makes the ability less useful than it could be.

Suggestions: Just fix the bugs and duration, that's really it.  Maybe also consider adding a "slow" mode to it somehow (a sprint toggle is the first thing to come to mind) to allow for more precise maneuvering, but that's far from necessary, player skill will accommodate it soon enough.

Conclusions: Just a few more tweaks and it will be good.

FTFY.

Also why are you asking for a "slow mode" when;

1. That was Cloud Walker's original problem.

2. The low Duration will hardly allow you any time for precise maneuvering.

That seems to run counter to what you're praising the rework for.

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2 hours ago, KittySkin said:

Umbral Ember its not beefy. Umbral builds helps frames with already high armor. Wukong gains 1500 armor from his defy, that combined with adaptation makes him absurdly tanky, specially considering that he can heal with just a button and a few steps and his clone draws insane ammounts of aggro out of him. 

The thing is if you want a 'tank' frame there are frames out there that do it with so much less 'effort' compared with the convoluted process needed to keep wukong 'alive'. 

It wouldn't be 'as bad' if it was just a press 3 for armor and a radial damage buff but for some reason DE decided to make a 'burst' version of nyx absorb that gives armor based on damage taken.  

By the sounds of it the only reason they nerfed the old defy (I don't like this defy, I want the old one back) was because they wanted the frame to be more 'interactive'.... being able to go melee attacking head first isn't interactive enough for them for some reason...

 

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4 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

By the sounds of it the only reason they nerfed the old defy (I don't like this defy, I want the old one back) was because they wanted the frame to be more 'interactive'

It also effectively did nothing at all at lower levels except drain your energy. That's not good design.

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2 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

The thing is if you want a 'tank' frame there are frames out there that do it with so much less 'effort' compared with the convoluted process needed to keep wukong 'alive'. 

It wouldn't be 'as bad' if it was just a press 3 for armor and a radial damage buff but for some reason DE decided to make a 'burst' version of nyx absorb that gives armor based on damage taken.  

By the sounds of it the only reason they nerfed the old defy (I don't like this defy, I want the old one back) was because they wanted the frame to be more 'interactive'.... being able to go melee attacking head first isn't interactive enough for them for some reason...

 

The thing  with old defy is that it had A LOT of wukong's power on itself alone. That meant that wukong would never been able to reach any level of power on his other abilities because of that.
I agree that this defy needs some adjustments, namely increasing its armor buff duration and maybe reducing the armor gathering part in order to make the ability more quick to use, but aside from that, the ability its wonderfull for keeping him alive (unless you are planning to do lvl 200+ content with him, something thats not even intended in game as stated by the devs)

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3 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

It also effectively did nothing at all at lower levels except drain your energy. That's not good design.

Why do we care about lower level content exactly? Every frame thats been properly modded wipes the floor with lower levels.

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Just now, TheGodofWiFi said:

Why do we care about lower level content exactly? Every frame thats been properly modded wipes the floor with lower levels.

Because 90% of the game takes place at lower levels.

An ability that does nothing in 90% of content is a bad ability.

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11 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

Because 90% of the game takes place at lower levels.

An ability that does nothing in 90% of content is a bad ability.

Well there are enemies that can one shot you in certain missions if you stay there long enough and certain bosses have hard hitting attacks as well. Corpus and Sentient especially.

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1 minute ago, TheGodofWiFi said:

No thats all in the starchart in Higher level planets. Level 30 - 50 is 90% of the games content.

Oldkong could survive that quite happily without Defy, with proper modding ofc. I ran Sorties with him and didn't use Defy.

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32 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

It also effectively did nothing at all at lower levels except drain your energy. That's not good design.

At lower levels it still isn't needed, same as well pretty much any ability in all honesty.  The reworked one is in the same boat as the old one, in fact I'd argue the new one is worse because it needs to take enough damage from the enemies to get it's full armor buff.    Needing to take damage to get a duration based buff is a bad design, the reduction of auto revives to 3 is also bad design imo.

In all honesty it doesn't matter what people try to tell me on this, I feel this is a straight up nerf to his kit and is a far worse implementation of damage reduction/armor buffing than every other frame in the game with a similar ability.

edit: not to mention we have rage/hunter adrenaline and as a wukong fan I'm sure you know about the synergy between those life strike and the old defy...

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1 hour ago, DeMonkey said:

Oldkong could survive that quite happily without Defy, with proper modding ofc. I ran Sorties with him and didn't use Defy.

I used Defy for sorties. I personally found it easier. Also some of the bosses have pretty hard hitting attacks. The new Senitent boss one shots you with a lot of it's attacks.

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1 minute ago, TheGodofWiFi said:

I personally found it easier.

I get that, I'm just saying that via modding you were able to survive those levels just fine without using Defy. It was something that was only really useful at a Sortie level and beyond, a few bosses excluded perhaps. 

That's still not even remotely enough of the game to consider the ability well designed imo.

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25 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

I get that, I'm just saying that via modding you were able to survive those levels just fine without using Defy. It was something that was only really useful at a Sortie level and beyond, a few bosses excluded perhaps. 

That's still not even remotely enough of the game to consider the ability well designed imo.

Personally I found Defy to be useful in the starchart, especially on the Corpus levels. At level 50 some of those enemies can pack a mean punch. But, you have been using Wukong more consistently than I have so you have learned to not rely on Defy that much.

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2 minutes ago, TheGodofWiFi said:

But, you have been using Wukong more consistently than I have so you have learned to not rely on Defy that much.

I will admit to practising a decent amount, and nailing the timings and mobility with Primal Fury to reduce how often I was shot.

I wanted to prove to people that Defy wasn't the amazing or frame defining ability that many acted like it was.

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