(Quartz edition) Celestial Twin (Wukong rework) and other AI interactions

[Chatv71e]

With an upcoming Wukong rework and his new ability Celestial Twin, wukong will join the club of warframes that are able to create allied Warframe Specters.

There are currently 2 frames that are able to do that, that would be Equinox and Excalibur Umbra.

And there is a big list of issues that said created specters have. With Wukong rework, I hope that at least some of the will be fixed or at least noted and fixed after release.

Here is a link to previous topic 

Here I'm gonna list things that I think should be done to make gameplay smoother for specter summoners.

1) Let Equinox Duality, Wukong Celestial Twin and Exalibur Umbra passive to be targeted by player to press X to order specter to hold position. Just like you can do with craftable tenno specters. They perform much better when stationary, because most of the specters just can't shot and run. This would not fix the poor AI, but it will let player decide what areas they want to have covered by their pet. In case of Umbra let operator use the X option.

2) Remove ability to manualy block with melee weapons from specters. Right now when melee weapon is equiped specter will passively block bullets (due to recent melee rewokrs) and also actively block (with old block mechanics) making specter unable to attack. Since Wukon twin will use melee rather often, this should be fixed or specter will just stuck blocking.

3) Add weapon range calculation. Right now weapon ranges on  both ranged weapons (such as beam weapons, shotguns, etc) and melee weapons (high range polearms, whips, staves) are not accounted by secters AI.  In case of beam weapons, Specter will try to shot the short ranged beam at targets that are 300m away, locking Specter in place since they can't swith targets till the target they locked on is dead. In case of melee weapons, Specter will awalys attempt to run into point blank range as well as a stop any attacks if target moves a tiny bit away. Or Specter move away, pushed forward by weapon combo attacks. This is just frustraiting to see how AI performs a set of melee attacks and then stuck in place because their target is now out of their reach.

Range calculation for specters ALREADY exists in the game. You just need to spread it to other weapons. Specter with Castanas/New Loka specter dudes that you get in syndicate mission will not fire their weapons unless they get in proximity range to hit it. Please use this tech for other weapon with range limits with acount for mods that increases weapons range.

3) Fix already existing issues with weapons in hand of specter. You already did a great work fixing homing projectiles.  Use this thread to see the listof bugs. 

But I'm gonna mention it again, I really would love to see the Pox fix. Remove ability to detonate pox bullets from specters. Please.

4) With more and more weapons have their alternative fire button switch weapon to a different fire mode added into the game, I'd love to see specters created by warframe powers use the version of fire mode that was in players hands. There is no way to create a specter that would use Zarr shotgun mode. Hystrix will always be toxic. Tiberon Prime can be used with just 1 fire mode in hands of specter.

5) I don't expect this to be fixed any time soon, but I'd love to see some tweak to charge mechanics. In hands of specter weapons that needs to be charged do not benefit from fire rate mods (because AI thinks that there is a fixed time to fire a shot). Can be interupted by anything that blocks the view and then charging must be started again. This two things alone is enough to render ALL bows in the game usless in hands of specter. On top of that using some other weapons with charge mechanics is a pain on specters (for example opticor)

6) Double reload and bullets in magazine issues. This is one of the mose frustrating issues. Specters will realod gun twice if their reload time is certain value. Any gun can be affect by that. Slow realod gun will make 3 second reload into 6 seconds. Fast reload guns are also affected but not as noticable. Also modding weapons for extra bullets in magazine will render Specters stuck, unable to fire out those bullets or reload.(Cyanex / Sicarus Prime)

 

If at least one thing from this list get fixes it will pretty much double quality of life for existing and future Specter summoners.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Chatv71e

[Chatv71e]

So with Wukong rework core issues still was not fixed. 

Double reload and bullets in magazine issues is still as irritating as ever. 6 second reload for something like arca plasmor is not a good thing to have.

Range calculation for specters still not made and your monkey will be doing nothing trying to hit enemies that are too fer for your weapon to reach as well at try and come to melee range with its long range stick.

Already existing issues with weapons are not fixed. Things like Redeemer still deals no damage, Ogris still has range limit to fire of 25 m etc.

 

On a bright side, tweaked up AI no longer constnatly blocks with melee on making it much more enjoyable to supply with a good melee

You can't order your monkey to hold position but you can order it to attack certain enemy and that's a huge improvement to summoner gameplay.

 

Overall, minor issues fixed, core issues stays. 

 

[Naramor]

Actually wukong clone not blocking is nerf for him. Since he is stupid specter let him taunt enemies whit sword and shield statstick (since you will want to use gladiator mods why not shield and sword as statstick) he just wanders around enemies trying to get to them, with auto taunt he would at least do something....

[Chatv71e]

Still none of this is fixed. Adding up some more

7) Kills made by clones do not go into quest progression, thuse making you stuck in Nightwave would you prefer using Wuclone/Duality/Umbra passive as your primary skill of choice.
 

 

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

It's to stop people from AFK farming with clones. And good job nekros a dead thread.

[Chatv71e]

Newest weapon - Quartz is not working properly on Specters either. 

1) It starts firing as no aim version, then after first reload switches to aim version of fire untill clone dies or ressumoned. Pick one.

2) It's reload doesn't stun enemies when clone reloading it.