Excalibur's radial blind might be broken?

[Kenoman]

This also includes radial howl, but previously the howl/blind stunned enemy for the duration it was set to IN PLACE, but now the blinded enemies move around freely as if nothing really happened after a brief moment of staggering. I don't remember seeing this in the changes log, Is it broken? Isn't blind and howl supposed to stun enemies? Because it's been that way for the 2 years I was playing and ever since around jupiter rework release it's been "broken" like this.

Edited August 9, 2019 by IKenofoxI

[shut]

It's intentional, sadly. 'Cause nothing says "blind" quite like "enemies still run around the usual way without ever colliding with obstacles", right?

I can kind of understand this change, as DE has intended this to be Blind's functionality for a long time now (I'm pretty sure "blind enemies running around still able to hear things" was literally in a dev workshop from several years ago, but it just never actually made its way into the game until recently).

A bit off topic, but I do wish they'd stop stealth-nerfing Blind... Especially in regards to stealth multipliers becoming less and less reliable with seemingly every major update. Such as (from oldest to newest):
- Blinded enemies inconsistently losing the stealth multiplier if knocked down or ragdolled
- enemies no longer taking stealth damage at all if they spawned within the last 5 seconds
- enemies no longer taking stealth damage at all if they're affected by a Blast proc (which ruined my glorious Ignis/Phantasma + melee builds)

I swear, DE's spaghetti code seems to have a personal vendetta against Radial Blind or something.

Edited August 9, 2019 by SortaRandom

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, SortaRandom said:

Blinded enemies inconsistently losing the stealth multiplier if knocked down or ragdolled

Fairly sure that falls under the actual established Stealth multiplier rules (since the last time they re-did them years ago) of 'only the first hit is affected by the multiplier' so them suffering any kind of knock-down, ragdoll or proc is the first hit. This means that after they suffer that first hit, they're 'aware' even if they're still blind, so they can't suffer further multiplied hits.

Don't think you're going to get that one changed, my friend.

[shut]

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Fairly sure that falls under the actual established Stealth multiplier rules (since the last time they re-did them years ago) of 'only the first hit is affected by the multiplier' so them suffering any kind of knock-down, ragdoll or proc is the first hit. This means that after they suffer that first hit, they're 'aware' even if they're still blind, so they can't suffer further multiplied hits.

Don't think you're going to get that one changed, my friend.

See, the thing about Blinds and Sleep moves and such is that they've always prevented enemies from updating their "awareness" state; i.e. they force a stealth multiplier and allow stealth multipliers for multiple hits. Any move that puts enemies in a similar "cannot-update-awareness" state (e.g. knocking down an enemy while they're unaware of you, like with a Rhino Stomp or a silent Blast proc or something) effectively does the same thing until the enemy recovers from this state. At least in terms of stealth damage.

My problem is that Blind/Sleep/etc still function this way (which is good), except it inconsistently stops working when a Blind enemy gets knocked down / ragdolled. Emphasis on "inconsistent". I'll often knock down a blinded enemy with Slash Dash or something, and sometimes the stealth multiplier stays, sometimes it doesn't. It feels buggy as hell, and if there's any rhyme or reason as to what causes the stealth multiplier to stay, I haven't been able to figure it out.
For comparison-- silently knocking down enemies while they're unaware (e.g. Stomp while undetected, or silent Blast procs while invisible) still allows for multiple consecutive stealth hits with 100% consistency. The fun part of this is that, even after the "Blast-procs-prevent-Blind-from-ever-giving-stealth-multipliers" stealth nerf, the silent-blast-proc-while-invisible tactic still works just fine.

 

Idk man, DE just seems to have it in for Blind in particular or something. I've mained a low-str Excalibur for literally years, but DE has been nerfing the viability of Blind and/or stealth damage mechanics bit-by-bit with each major update, with the changes being undocumented almost every time. Never an accidental buff of any sort to offset it, either.

I don't even know how many of these changes are intentional to begin with, but I'm a wee bit tired of my favourite playstyle being made less viable with each major update, and then receiving literally zero attention from devs or players due to how (apparently) obscure it is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edited August 9, 2019 by SortaRandom

[Birdframe_Prime]

24 minutes ago, SortaRandom said:

the thing about Blinds and Sleep moves and such is that they've always prevented enemies from updating their "awareness" state

That... isn't entirely right. Blinds and stuns that cause enemies to become 'unaware' like Chaos or Silence prevent the update for as long as the Animation of that stun is playing. The duration of the ability, however, is longer than the animation. Enemies that are no longer in an animation have, since that update to the Stealth attacks two years back, always updated their awareness state if hit.

What Radial Blind was actually buffed to do a while back was that enemies that become 'aware' of you, still cannot actively target you, only 'blind fire' in your general direction. This was a buff across the spectrum of frames that can inflict a similar blind or similar status, like Nekros' Terrify, where enemies would run but still target you while running.

It's the animation that's key in Warframe, until the animation is over, anything goes. Once you're back to just the basic ability effects, Radial Blind hasn't been a total prevention of enemies becoming 'aware' of you since before his Exalted Blade was added.

Radial Blind's last actual mechanic update was technically that buff I mentioned, although the one before it was the line-of-sight nerf, so...

I won't deny that DE has it out for Stealth Damage mechanics, though, that has particularly gone downhill and hit its current low point back when they changed it so that enemies do become 'aware' after either the first hit, or can actually remain in the 'aware' state despite being put to Sleep. All of these desired effects only work if the enemies are 'unaware' first, and have not even heard gunfire in the distance, and that's the only way they stay that way through the ability's initial cast, and then the actual Stealth attacks only work until that animation stops. Whether they're asleep or blinded or just stunned. 

[shut]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

That... isn't entirely right. Blinds and stuns that cause enemies to become 'unaware' like Chaos or Silence prevent the update for as long as the Animation of that stun is playing. The duration of the ability, however, is longer than the animation. Enemies that are no longer in an animation have, since that update to the Stealth attacks two years back, always updated their awareness state if hit.

I can confirm that this is 100% false. Radial Blind has always been able to prevent enemies from updating their alertedness status over its entire duration (not just the initial stun), in regards to both stealth damage and stealth affinity bonuses.

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

What Radial Blind was actually buffed to do a while back was that enemies that become 'aware' of you, still cannot actively target you, only 'blind fire' in your general direction. This was a buff across the spectrum of frames that can inflict a similar blind or similar status, like Nekros' Terrify, where enemies would run but still target you while running.

I can also confirm that this is 100% false-- at least, for Radial Blind (haven't played enough Nekros to testify here, although I don't recall Terrified enemies ever shooting back either). DE has intended for this to be the case for years (I faintly recall a dev workshop thread from... 2015? 2016? showing off this behaviour, and I even-more-faintly recall patch notes declaring its implementation not long after)... but the change never actually made its way into the game. Or if it did, it definitely broke before I was able to test it out.

What actually happened instead for several consecutive years (up until U25.0.0, at least) was that Blind enemies stood completely still for the full duration, even after the initial stun. They did not walk, they did not react to sound, they did not react to contact or damage. They absolutely sure as hell did not do "blind firing" of any sort. Their AI was basically disabled while the ability was active, as if you had just toggled it off in the Simulacrum or something.

 

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I won't deny that DE has it out for Stealth Damage mechanics, though, that has particularly gone downhill and hit its current low point back when they changed it so that enemies ... can actually remain in the 'aware' state despite being put to Sleep.

I haven't played a lot of Ivara/Equinox, but are their Sleep abilities not able to force stealth multipliers anymore? I know that the new Aero set's Sleep effect doesn't provide stealth multipliers (and, in fact, will actually disable stealth multipliers on Blinded enemies as well...), but I haven't tested either of the frames' actual Sleep abilities since then. Equinox's Rest was definitely working just fine (i.e. allowing multiple consecutive stealth multipliers, even on alerted enemies) several weeks before that, though.

 

EDIT: Found the threads that I mentioned.

"Blind Behaviours" dev workshop

Actual implementation of these blind behaviours (except for the part where it never actually worked)

Edited August 9, 2019 by SortaRandom

[Birdframe_Prime]

19 minutes ago, SortaRandom said:

DE has intended for this to be the case for years

Oh, they did intend it, they just weren't able to do it. 2016 was the buff that allowed them to actually pull it off.

I'm not sure where you're getting this from, because from my experience of it while Blinded enemies didn't always wander around, they certainly did notice being attacked and move around thereafter, and that definitely did update their alert status. They didn't if you did nothing, or if the enemies were not alert before you Blinded them, but they absolutely did become aware of being attacked, which removed the Stealth Bonus on attacks after that point. Also enemies that have walking as part of their animation sets, such as Ancients and Lancers have always walked around while Blinded, because that's part of their 'unaware' state, too.

So I'm not sure how you can say anything I've said is false.

[shut]

6 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Oh, they did intend it, they just weren't able to do it. 2016 was the buff that allowed them to actually pull it off.

My dude, Update 25.0.0 was the update that allowed them to actually pull it off.
Hence the existence of this thread, and OP's claims that Blinded enemies previously stood still, and my confirmation that Blinded enemies previously stood still, and literally this exact line from the U25.0.0 notes:

On 2019-05-22 at 3:31 PM, [DE]Megan said:

Fixed blinded enemies standing still and not doing anything after the animation finishes while still blinded. 

Once again, this behaviour has been the case for years. I've often taken advantage of the behaviour by scoring easy headshots once the initial "stun" animation ended (it was especially great against Noxes). In regards to your "damage = awareness if the stun animation ended" claim, I've literally used Excalibur's Blind for stealth affinity runs with both Exalted Blade (since 100% of affinity went to Excal before his EB became separate) and regular weapons (which, while not nearly as efficient as stealth-Rhino or something, still worked reliably for leveling weapons).

I don't mean to pull the whole "i MAIN this class, i know what im talking about, so bow down before my sagely knowledge of blahblahblah u scrub!!1" card or anything, but, uh, I'm pretty sure that like >90% of my total damage as Excal since late 2016 has been from stealthed melee damage (polearms, whips, pre-nerf TBoltace) against Blinded enemies. Blind giving multiple-consecutive-stealth-multipliers-even-after-the-initial-stun has been the backbone of all of my Excal builds since before his rework.  

^{Side note: I'm of the opinion that pre-nerf TBoltace made Excal the strongest he has ever been, or ever will be. Slash procs doing 64x damage and Gas procs dealing 512x damage across a ~25m spherical hitbox was absolutely hilarious.}

But yeah, to be completely blunt: I honestly haven't the faintest clue why you're insistently claiming that this behaviour isn't the case. We can't exactly test the "blind enemies used to stand still" thing right now, but if you have any doubts whatsoever about the "multiple-consecutive-stealth-multipliers-even-after-the-initial-stun" thing, you can literally go to the simulacrum this very instant and test it out yourself. ^{Spoiler alert: I just did that. It still works. Like it always has.}

Edited August 10, 2019 by SortaRandom

[Birdframe_Prime]

8 hours ago, SortaRandom said:

 I honestly haven't the faintest clue why you're insistently claiming that this behaviour isn't the case.

Okay, to explain without being confrontational, my insistence comes from the fact that in my experience, as in, me just playing the game, this behaviour is the case. I have not had enemies do what you are telling me you've had them do, I have only experienced what is the current since I saw notes on it back in 2016.

If your experience is different to mine, that is not only completely possible because of how inconsistent Warframe is known to be, it's also not going to invalidate either of our experiences.

So when I have Blinded enemies, after the actual stun animation played out, enemies did still do things on my play-throughs because while many stood still, others began their idle walks and idle stances. While the animation was playing, the stealth multiplier did function repeatedly, allowing me to bring down high level enemies easily, but it did go away the moment the animation stopped and the first hit after that animation would cause those enemies to be alert and stop taking multiplied damage.

That is exactly my experience of the game for years now.