Dev Workshop - Revisiting Augments

[Shelusine]

3 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Magnetized Discharge - Magnetize Augment - Mag

• Include a passive benefit that increases power range for this Ability only 

What does power range means?

[Xemgoa]

I'm going to be honest - I would love to see the older, unused mods get some use. So some reworks and tuning would help get them up to snuff and see some use.

That being said, I gotta be front - I think I have a problem with the augments being just "modifications". Why not axe them being modifications, and instead--

Make them accessible "alterations" for a given Warframe? Players can only chose ONE at a time, and only one. Or they go with "None". And the "augments" you have to choose from unlock as you purchase them from whatever vendor has them available. Players then can have room for modifications that help better with survivability?

Just create a nifty "drop-down" in the upgrades UI when modifying a Warframe, displaying the available augments players have. Make it an "alteration" feature.

...That, or make all Augment mods be Exilus slot compatible.

 

[Thundervision]

3 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Fireball Frenzy - Fireball Augment - Ember
Freeze Force - Freeze Augment - Frost
Smite Infusion - Smite Augment - Oberon
Venom Dose - Spores Augment - Saryn
Shock Trooper - Shock Augment - Volt 

• Holding the casting button will send out a wave (much like similar, expanding Warframe Abilities) giving the elemental buff to every player it touches, including the caster

While I like this such little, yet very impactful change, I think the greatest QoL would be merging these augments with base power to encourage cooperation and team play in the coop-based game. Surely there are some neat «unreleased» versions of these augments that could interest more people. AFAIK, your plans were to «release an augment for every single ability before starting another wave of augments for the same powers», but at the current rate of «adding augments : releasing new warframes» this won't happen for a really long time.

[Nyrakav]

A lot of the augments shouldn't even be augments, they just need to be incorporated into the power.

[Rava9999]

I main Valkyr and I have mostly figured out how to use hysteria in melee 3.0 pretty well, but hysterical assault is really hard to use with the new system.  

Maybe you guys don't realize how it works right now but:

1. Aim to target disables invulnerability but does not turn off the ability

2. Once you arrive at your target invulnerability does NOT turn back on, even though your claws are still out.  Normally when you switch between melee and primary weapon hysteria will switch invulnerability on and off, but this does not happen when using hysterical assault to teleport.  

3. Result is that you have to double tab 4 once arriving at your target to turn hysteria off and then back on again.  

So if you're updating Hysterical Assault by making me have to just wait a little longer to double tap the 4 key, that really doesn't help much.

If there was a way for hysteria to turn off when aiming and then switch back on when I arrive at my target that would be ideal, but if that's not possible for some reason, honestly it would be better if teleportation using hysterical assault just turned off hysteria.  Then at least it would be obvious that I wasn't invulnerable anymore and I would only need to hit 4 once. 

In general Hysteria has been pretty janky since melee 3.0 stuff started coming out so I appreciate that someone is working on it but it would be nice for it to stop doing these weird things where it's turned on and draining energy but not actually doing anything.  I really don't need to switch to a ranged weapon without turning off the ability.

[RexDragon]

Please look into this Eternal War bug if you're doing an Augment pass:

 

[Swagernator22663]

3 hours ago, (XB1)RDeschain82 said:

😯Will range mods effect this? And will the blind open enemies to finishers? 

If so DADDY GONNA LOVE DIS!

You mean the same enemies who will be dead the moment peacemaker is live. Can't really blind enemies, if there are no enemies left.

[(PSN)VoidVox_]

Some of these changes are good, like elemental buffs becoming radial (was always difficult to hit an ally with the cast unless they stood still for it). Others however are just doubling down on poor design choices, or putting QoL updates into an augment instead of just the base ability. Rhino and his augments are a prime example of this. You're asking players to give up 2 mod slots just to be able to recast his 2 abilities that don't have recasting built in. 

The update to transistor shield isn't bad, it's just not that good either. Volt has fallen behind newer frame releases, so certain aspects of his kit that were once mildly annoying are now inexcusable. Garuda has a larger shield to carry which doesn't impact her equipped weapon or her movement speed, and doesn't drain energy over time. And that's just the first half of that ability. Her shield also absorbs damage without needing an augment. Meanwhile volt has a smaller shield that disables primary weapons, reduces movement speed, and drains energy over time. A drain that doesn't pause the duration of the shield either might I add. Plus he needs an augment to be able to absorb damage with the shield, and that bonus damage is capped to a miniscule limit. 1000 bonus damage cap is fair for his passive (though it really should be increased), but then we are using an augment slot for it with that same low cap? On top of that, these proposed changes will increase the damage absorption so you hit that low cap even faster. Volt was my starter frame and my first prime and has been my main for the majority of my time in the game, and while his last rework was good, it was overshadowed very quickly by new frames that can do what he does more effectively and with less penalties. The QoL updates he needs should not be locked behind augments.

Volt rant done, I will say that I don't think we need an augment slot, but existing augments should be made compatible with the exilus slot.

[Xemgoa]

Hm... actually. Another idea - why not take Augmentation Modifications, and allow them to be Modular Modifications?

They come with the augmentation as advertised, but they have room for one additional beneficial trait. Like Warframe or Warframe ability increasing stats? (Ability STR, RNG, DUR, EFF, increase to armor, health, shields, maximum energy capacity, etc).

And this benefit scales with the original mods effects by mod rank through upgrading it?

[danitot]

All we need is a dedicated augment slot:

which eliminates the cost of the augment if placed there

unlockable by exilus adapters (multipurpose for exilus adapters)

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

1 hour ago, Swagernator22663 said:

You mean the same enemies who will be dead the moment peacemaker is live. Can't really blind enemies, if there are no enemies left.

PM scales terribly. I do a lot of higher level stuff. 2 hour arbitrations, 1 hour indexs and stuff. A blind, opening lvl 200 hvys or techs to finishers would be nice. In theory: Kill all the garbo with PM, blind the VIPs, CL dagger. I'll have to play with it when it comes to console tho.

Also" For kills made by a player (self or ally) with Shooting Gallery activated"

That said the blind can be activated by teammates too, while SG is active. 

[SiewcaWiatru]

I like what i see with these augment changes but.. i do like nyx and nyxs' Mind Freak augment is not even an augment anymore as the skill does what the mod does by itself... Pretty please? 😉
Anyway, i'm good with waiting for the second part of augment revisiting if any ;).

[Fenr3r]

3 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Fireball Frenzy - Fireball Augment - Ember
Freeze Force - Freeze Augment - Frost
Smite Infusion - Smite Augment - Oberon
Venom Dose - Spores Augment - Saryn
Shock Trooper - Shock Augment - Volt 

1 hour ago, (PS4)LoisGordils said:

Why not give them something unique instead of copy-pasting the same functionality?

Yes! I've always hated the boring functionality of these augments. I was immediately disappointed the first time I saw them, not at all what I wanted from an augment. Here are some of my suggestions for replacements: 

Smite Infusion - suspends an enemy in the air, acting similarly to trin's one, generating orbs for the abilities duration

Shock Trooper - changes the ability to a channeled current of electricity, similar to wisps 4, having incremental damage and chaining between enemies

now you too can embody Palpatine

Freeze Force - generates a slow moving cloud to follow the projectile, acting as a shield it will freeze bullets and enemies that come in contact with it

I'm not quite sure as for Frenzy and Venom Dose, possibly being a spin on my shock trooper idea. Being either a channeled flamethrower/ torrent of acid, or a conal spray of corrosive acid and fire with a high chance to proc. Either way if anybody else has some other suggestions, in my opinion there's nowhere but up from the current state of these augments.

[(PSN)Gaelic-_-Flame]

I feel like Zephyr's Target Fixation augment wouldn't be used much still. On paper it sounds like an interesting augment, especially with the proposed change. However Tail Wind itself is a little bit too clunky in control for this augment to actually be usable for good results.

The main problem with Tail Wind is since it gets affected by Duration mods, the performance of Tail Wind changes too much based on the build you use. Usually it results in high Duration builds having basically an unusable Tail Wind for enclosed tilesets, because casting it will send you flying into the wall 99.9% of the time, with no actual control. But even without high duration, the slight recast delay it has sometimes prevents you from using it, which makes it very clunky. Ideally the distance you fly with Tail Wind should not be affected by Duration mods at all (or any other mods), but instead we should get some additional control inputs that you could make during the Tail Wind cast animation to control the distance you fly. For example, pressing crouch would stop Tail Wind immediately, along with all your momentum. Holding Aim (or maybe Primary Fire) would extend the duration of Tail Wind up to 2-3x or until you release the button. Also we should be able to recast another Tail Wind at any time, even during the Tail Wind cast itself, so we're able to change directions much more freely.

I know that it's now exactly an Augment feedback itself like you asked us to do, but I feel like the augment itself is not really a problem here. It's just it is too hard to control Tail Wind how you actually want to most of the time, so actually hitting enemies with it while also trying to stay airborne is not really a feasible option. Especially when you have high duration builds, which makes Tail Wind only usable in open worlds as a pure mobility. If we had tight controls over it, this augment would actually be pretty cool to use, being able to zip through enemies back and forth.

[Pfysicyst]

Titanic Rumbler's main issues are that the single rumbler has less overall health, does less overall damage, and draws less aggro than the two default rumblers. Its taunt is infrequent and has a short range. The augment has always been a straight downgrade. It was only good for the novelty of having a big stone boy. The taunt is the important part of the mod, so if the taunt becomes effective (useful range and decent automatic frequency, potentially scales with power range) and the other stats are only raised to equal the combined smaller rumblers' stats, then I can live with that. That's not as good as it should be, but then it'd at least qualify as helpful instead of the debuff it is now.

Also, Atlas Karst (deluxe Atlas) has very poor color matching on the rumblers. Every part of them is much darker and more washed-out than the player's colors, which is lame for golems made of fancy metal and gem ore. They're made from all the same bits as the player, so it's especially glaring how they look like far LOD models with 256x256 textures and normal maps like they're dipped in glaze.

Thanks for going over the augments, they're in dire need of it. Still, some are going to remain awful even when updated just because the base skill is no good or the augment doesn't address the shortcomings of the skill, and then that leaks into the issue of augments simply being bandages for bad skills. There aren't any Zephyrs out there using 1 and 2 for killing anything past enemy level 30, not that they even can unless they're in open worlds and waste substantial time and energy setting up the attack when they could've just used their gun and been done already. It's a huge bummer when augments seem like they were only tested to see if they do what they say, and not tested to see if what they do is worth it. It's a frustrating shame when time and effort are spent trying improve things but the methods were provably wrong from the start, and then it takes longer for actual improvement in that area - if it ever gets any again.

[ADirtyMonk]

By far the major downfall many augment designs is that the designer fails to acknowledge that augments have to be powerful enough to exceed the benefits of slotting a normal power mod (ex. intensify) up to a corrupted mod (ex. blind rage) or provide a significant effect that cannot be gotten anywhere else. Otherwise there is simply no competition. Mod space is tight on the vast majority of warframes. Furthermore Augments only affect a single ability whereas a standard mod will affect the entire warframe so make them powerful.

My thoughts on specific augments listed:

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Hysterical Assault - Hysteria Augment - Valkyr

• Let invulnerability linger for half a second when aiming to prevent getting downed immediately in high-damage areas 
• Increased Range 

• Proposal: I highly recommend porting the arch-melee auto targeting to this augment. I also recommend the augment also make Valkyr move faster and faster the longer she is in Hysterical Assault.
  • My problem with the augment currently is that in order to take full advantage of long range jumps, the mod requires pinpoint accuracy. Furthermore, the effect of the augment has effectively been replaced by targeted slam attacks. With the arch melee lock on cone using the mobility of the augment becomes much simpler as Valkyr now only needs to melee in the rough area an enemy is in and she will automatically dash to them. This would also remove another major deficit of Hysterical Assault which is its very short range melee on a non-mobile stance
  • Adding a ramping movement speed buff also opens up the possibility of using the ability as an expensive movement ability as Valkyr's 1 pull velocity is poor.
• Allowing the invulnerability to persist for a few seconds sounds fine to me.

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Rising Storm - Blade Storm Augment - Ash

• Attacks by clones will raise the combo counter 
• Include a passive benefit to extend the combo counter by a duration

• Sounds good to me. Wont say much about it since there has not been a peep about the melee 3.0 combo counter for months...

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Titanic Rumbler - Rumblers Augment - Atlas

• Increase to damage and speed 
• Re-triggering the power will activate the taunt, as well as cause a knockdown effect

• Proposal: Rumbler Mimic Atlas's abilities when he casts them.
  • Warframe AI is pretty S#&$. Especially at melee if the WuClone AI is anything to go by and unless the clone scales with weapon mods it will fall off by lv 70. Much sooner if against armored enemies. Being able to effectively increase power efficiency by 50% however is quite powerful.

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Hallowed Eruption - Hallowed Ground Augment - Oberon

• Additional passive ability that triples base duration

• Proposal: For each enemy killed on hallowed ground, the radius increases by "x" meters up to 150m and duration is extended by "y" seconds up to a limit.
  • Oberon is a staple on open world maps, however unless the player slots extremely high range (which gimps the rest of his abilities which requires strength and duration), the area the ground covers is actually quite tiny. Being able to enlarge the area affected to be significant in open world maps would absolutely make this worth slotting

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Furious Javelin - Radial Javelin Augment - Excalibur

• Increase duration and damage on the buff

• Sounds good to me.

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Tidal Impunity - Tidal Surge - Hydroid

• Increase the duration of the immunity buff

• The duration would need to be increased to base 20-30s. Its so hard to see when an ally is affected by a status debuff. The most important one like Rad you dont even know it happens until you get accidentally shanked.

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Magnetized Discharge - Magnetize Augment - Mag

• Include a passive benefit that increases power range for this Ability only 

• That's interesting. However I can also see giant magnetize bubbles being spammed everywhere being very disruptive to other players. 
• Proposal: Magnetize releases a pulse restoring 10 to 100 energy to all allies within 15-20m on detonation depending on how much damage was absorbed.
  • Mag gains a powerful support buff and can potentially become self sustaining with energy allowing her to spec away from Arcane energize/Rage/Hunter Adrenaline/Zenurik/etc

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Muzzle Flash - Shooting Gallery Augment - Mesa

• For kills made by a player (self or ally) with Shooting Gallery activated, generate a blinding AoE when threshold is met

• Sounds decent. The base range would need to be quite big though. Mesa usually does not build that much range.

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Explosive Legerdemain - Sleight of Hand Augment - Mirage

• Increase damage and status chance when triggered

• Havent used this skill in a very long time. Sounds good.
• Proposal: Casting Sleight of Hand inverts the light status within 50m of the jewel as long as the jewel persists which overrides all current lighting conditions on the map. If the jewel is cast in the light, it generates a dark field. If the jewel is cast in the dark, it generates a light field.
  • Eclipse is one of mirage's most powerful abilities. However the lack of control over lighting conditions on various tiles limits its use. Being able to control what buff is active is worth a slot.

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Piercing Roar - Roar Augment - Rhino

• Allow Roar to be recast when equipped
• Increase debuff duration based on equipped Mods
• Generate a stagger effect on enemies when the Roar hits

• Sounds good to me.
• However being able to recast Iron Skin and Roar should be part of the base ability. Augments ARE NOT BANDAID MODS stop designing them as such.
• Proposal: Additional effect. Each enemy hit by roar will increase the power of the next roar by 2%. This effect does not Stack. Ex. Roar gives 50% bonus at base. Rhino hits 10 enemies. The next roar gives 70% bonus and hits 2 enemies. The third roar gives 54% bonus.
  • This opens up the option for roar to be viable even with high range builds (which generally lack strength).
• The stagger effect needs to be significant. At least 5s base duration. A lot of abilities that "stagger" do so for around 3s. By the time the frame is done casting and can shoot the stagger is over.

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Contagion Cloud - Toxic Lash Augment - Saryn

• Allow buff to activate when enemy is killed by damage over time effects
• General increase on range and damage

• Sounds good to me

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Transistor Shield - Electric Shield Augment - Volt

• No additional energy drain when a shield is picked up by another player
• Increase damage conversion %

• Proposal: Augment removes energy drain on movement, drain per second, and movement speed malus for ALL SHIELDS, in addition to allowing teammates to pick up extra shields.
  • No one uses the riot shield currently because it QUADRUPLE punishes the user for using it. You have to 1. pay to cast, 2. pay to move, 3. pay to just hold the damn thing, 4. lose movement speed (so you usually have to supplement by casting Speed), AND after all that you're still limited by a timer.

 

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Target Fixation - Tail Wind Augment - Zephyr

• Remove buff after 2 seconds of being on the ground, instead of immediately
• Damage increase per target hit

• Proposal: Tail Wind (and Dive Bomb) now scales off of melee mods
  • even if the damage scales indefinitely it will still take a long time to ramp up to anything significant especially vs armor. Make the ability scale with melee mods and the combo counter.

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Fireball Frenzy - Fireball Augment - Ember
Freeze Force - Freeze Augment - Frost
Smite Infusion - Smite Augment - Oberon
Venom Dose - Spores Augment - Saryn
Shock Trooper - Shock Augment - Volt 

• Holding the casting button will send out a wave (much like similar, expanding Warframe Abilities) giving the elemental buff to every player it touches, including the caster

• Good change. However you have to add code that prevents the added element from combining with existing elements on the weapon. As they currently are, you can completely #*!% up your teammates builds by adding the wrong element. For example, it's not fun watching corrosive damage suddenly turn into magnetic.
• Proposal: Also Increase the bonus damage from 100% to 130%. Primed mods give 165%, pure elemental mods give +90%. 130% is a better middle ground.

[Doomsknightmare]

4 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Holding the casting button will send out a wave (much like similar, expanding Warframe Abilities) giving the elemental buff to every player it touches, including the caster

 Now we r talking baby !

Please dont forget Oberon's 4th augment Hallowed Reckoning which needs some buff too (:3 make it remove enemy's armor & buff ally's armor without duration restriction pls) 

[(NSW)CosmicChaos]

2 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Hysterical Assault - Hysteria Augment - Valkyr

• Let invulnerability linger for half a second when aiming to prevent getting downed immediately in high-damage areas 
• Increased Range 

Hi, long ago I began using a custom control scheme specifically to make Secondary Fire on guns and the augment Hysterical Assault easier to use on consoles. Ironically due to Melee 2.9 changes the augment became unbearable but I'm too used to my control scheme to go back now.

I understand that Secondary Fire is no longer an option so would you kindly use crouch + melee as an alternative activator?

It's not perfect but the drawbacks aren't severe plus I'm not asking for the default activation method for Hysterical Assault (aim + melee) to be removed or replaced so that should still be the standard of course. Drawbacks would include being stationary while using the ability (compared to the more mobile aiming method) and potential loss of the regular crouching melee swipe when all conditions for Hysterical Assault are fulfilled. The crouch swipe being its own thing not to be confused with the most excellent sliding attack that would be completely unaffected. Are these too negative for such a change?

[Voltage]

These are awesome changes. I wonder if Neutron Star on Nova will get a look at eventually as well. I'm curious to try out Saryn, and the Mirage Total Eclipse buff will be quite nice.

[(NSW)ohgodzilla]

The change to the elemental buff augments is huge! Really excited for this as it makes playing support styles way more viable not having to try and aim at your ninja-flipping teammates. 

 

Also really excited about Zephyrs augment change since it supports a niche build I like. 

[Fishyflakes]

Tidal Surge should just -not- take away any current instances of the Immunity upon a re-cast of the ability 😞

Duration doesn't matter cause currently, you can't Surge anymore unless you want your allies to lose the buff.

[DeMonkey]

1 hour ago, Chroia said:

Granted, but Wukong's the exception, not the rule.

Define the rule then, because all that's been stated so far on the matter is "Exalted weapon augments would allow for more build variety if they were weapon mods, not frame mods", which is not a rule, it's a guess.

I'd like to see actual proof of this, before/after builds that show a noticeable benefit and variation in the builds possible. Then you can say that Wukong will be an exception to it.

2 hours ago, Koldraxon-732 said:

What if, instead of taking up a normal mod slot on the Exalted Weapon, the Augment goes in the Stance slot since the stance slots on Exalted Weapons are currently useless?

That I could see working as it then wouldn't interfere with any builds at all, which is precisely the reason DE won't add it. There'd never be a reason to not equip it, it's a straight buff to the ability.

2 hours ago, Maka.Bones said:

It seems like they're just releasing these in waves

Could you clarify this? I see nothing in the OP to suggest that they're releasing these in waves.

The closest there comes to a mention of this lies here:

"For now, this Workshop only covers Augments that we felt we could improve fairly without major overhauls of the base ability as well."

Due to the fact that Cloudwalker was just overhauled it's not applicable to this statement, as it no longer requires a major overhaul, therefore isn't likely to be featured in potentially upcoming Workshops.

[Tarak]

Any chance we see a conversion of augments from mods to actual augmentation that can be slotted directly into the abilities?

Would really open up the limited space in builds and could also allow players to have one augment per ability, thus allowing for more than one augment per ability to be made.

Edit: you could even lock the slots like exilus slots requiring a new or existing forma type to unlock the augment slots, would give another thing people could grind for or pay to bypass...

[papry]

Il y a 4 heures, PerishedFraud a dit :

The number one issue with augments is simply finding room for them.

As it stands, you cannot really afford to augment any but the strongest abilities without seriously impeding your build. Ember is rolling in her grave.

Kindly consider an augment slot. Not given to us for free or anything. if it were an unlockable much like the aura forma or umbra forma, it would be optimal.

A thanks in case this is ever actually considered.

I would take two of that. I have been thinking about that for quite some time.

 

Il y a 4 heures, [DE]Bear a dit :

•  

Fireball Frenzy - Fireball Augment - Ember
Freeze Force - Freeze Augment - Frost
Smite Infusion - Smite Augment - Oberon
Venom Dose - Spores Augment - Saryn
Shock Trooper - Shock Augment - Volt 

• Holding the casting button will send out a wave (much like similar, expanding Warframe Abilities) giving the elemental buff to every player it touches, including the caster 

 

YES YES YES !!!!

[cookieknife]

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