Nullifier Fields 2.0

[Jax_Cavalera]

Nullifier Fields 2.0

Problem
Currently there are a number of abilities that warframes depend on to survive. Some examples of this being Mag's magnetize, Limbo's cataclysm, Frost's snow globe, Vauban's entire kit, etc. As it stands, when a nullifier field comes in contact with an ability, it is instantly removed diminishing the value of certain frames in end game content compared to other selections out there.

Context
It is important that nullifier fields are able to continue protecting enemies from player abilities and that they continue to remove abilities when they are overlapping.

Solution
Abilities deplete at increased rates while under the influence of a nullifier field.

See a diagram of how this looks below:

Impact to gameplay
Technically this doesn't really change all that much in terms of gameplay and enemy AI, it can really just keep working the way it already does where enemies gather inside those nullifier fields and abilities spammed have no impact on them. The main things this will change are:

• Gives warframes that need abilities to keep themselves safe a chance to shoot and clear the nullifier fields with their weapons without completely losing their protection from other enemies nearby.
• Prevents the annoying and crippling situation where a warframe is unable to cast their AOE ability because of some nullifier field blocking it from the other side of a solid wall in another room (above, below or beside the current room) from where the affected warframe is standing. Instead it casts but just doesn't last as long and only affects enemies outside the nullifier field's protection.

If you agree this needs to happen, please give it a thumbs up. 

If you have ideas on how it might be made better, please leave a comment  🙂

Edited August 21, 2019 by Jax_Cavalera
Reworked the proposed idea based on feedback

[(XBOX)XaipETiouaTa]

This would result in issues with Limbos Cataclysm. Because the warframes are in the rift, and both the nullifiers and nearby enemies are not, one would have to recast the ability anyways to deal with them. the nullifiers and enemies would also not be able to damage the warframes, creating no benefit to them. Other than that, I like this idea.

[Velothed]

While i'd like this for Frost and Mag, for Limbo it's really problematic:

3 hours ago, (XB1)Roman NumeralsV said:

Because the warframes are in the rift, and both the nullifiers and nearby enemies are not

Edited August 10, 2019 by Vethalon

[Klokwerkaos]

nullies need to be stronger, not weaker

[Jax_Cavalera]

19 hours ago, (XB1)Roman NumeralsV said:

Because the warframes are in the rift, and both the nullifiers and nearby enemies are not,

This is a good point you bring up, I will update the OP to cover this. When I was coming up with this idea, the way I saw it happening for limbo was:

• As enemy bullets leave the nullifier field, they would be entering the rift and would deal damage to players.
• If the player entered the nullifier field they would no longer be in the rift.
• Since the nullifier field is the barrier between both planes of existence, it would be partially in the rift and partially out of it, so in theory it should be taking damage from warframe weapons discharged inside the rift if it is also inside the rift.

 

54 minutes ago, Klokwerkaos said:

nullies need to be stronger, not weaker

This will only make nullifiers weaker against warframes where the current nullifier fields are overpowered.

For the majority of scenarios nothing would really change, though I'm always open to hearing a compelling case and updating the concept if required. I'm not sure of any scenarios in end-game content where we need even more powerful nullifiers considering it typically reaches a point where there are literally rooms full of nullifier fields with no place for a player to escape.

Edited August 11, 2019 by Jax_Cavalera

[Klokwerkaos]

6 hours ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

This is a good point you bring up, I will update the OP to cover this. When I was coming up with this idea, the way I saw it happening for limbo was:

• As enemy bullets leave the nullifier field, they would be entering the rift and would deal damage to players.
• If the player entered the nullifier field they would no longer be in the rift.
• Since the nullifier field is the barrier between both planes of existence, it would be partially in the rift and partially out of it, so in theory it should be taking damage from warframe weapons discharged inside the rift if it is also inside the rift.

 

This will only make nullifiers weaker against warframes where the current nullifier fields are overpowered.

For the majority of scenarios nothing would really change, though I'm always open to hearing a compelling case and updating the concept if required. I'm not sure of any scenarios in end-game content where we need even more powerful nullifiers considering it typically reaches a point where there are literally rooms full of nullifier fields with no place for a player to escape.

This is why at endgame your frame and abilities don't matter, nor do your primary and secondary.  All that matters is your melee and speed, anything else becomes irrelevant.

[auxy]

7 hours ago, Klokwerkaos said:

This is why at endgame your frame and abilities don't matter, nor do your primary and secondary.  All that matters is your melee and speed, anything else becomes irrelevant.

You're confusing "2 hours at Mot" with "endgame". "Endgame" is sorties and kuva floods. Anything beyond that is purely "for fun" territory.

As far as the actual topic of the thread goes, I don't have a strong opinion — I don't object to the proposed change — but I do feel a bit negative on it. If nothing else, this seems pretty difficult to implement, with a lot of edge cases.

Personally, I don't have a problem with the way nullifiers work right now. Again, personally, I think that if a nullifier wiping out your ability makes you unable to survive at endgame then you're just not playing very well, and/or you've built your character wrong. I don't have a problem taking Mag, or Frost, or Vauban into Kuva Floods or Sortie-3s against Corpus or Corrupted. I rarely use Snow Globe or Magnetize anyway.

I generally don't like "git gud" as an argument because even as one of the most-skilled players in the game I do feel like Warframe should be accessible to somewhat lesser-skilled players, BUT ... in this case I do think that's what it boils down to. Nullifiers are priority targets and there are already lots of ways to mitigate them.

Edited August 11, 2019 by auxy

[Klokwerkaos]

2 hours ago, auxy said:

You're confusing "2 hours at Mot" with "endgame". "Endgame" is sorties and kuva floods. Anything beyond that is purely "for fun" territory.

As far as the actual topic of the thread goes, I don't have a strong opinion — I don't object to the proposed change — but I do feel a bit negative on it. If nothing else, this seems pretty difficult to implement, with a lot of edge cases.

Personally, I don't have a problem with the way nullifiers work right now. Again, personally, I think that if a nullifier wiping out your ability makes you unable to survive at endgame then you're just not playing very well, and/or you've built your character wrong. I don't have a problem taking Mag, or Frost, or Vauban into Kuva Floods or Sortie-3s against Corpus or Corrupted. I rarely use Snow Globe or Magnetize anyway.

I generally don't like "git gud" as an argument because even as one of the most-skilled players in the game I do feel like Warframe should be accessible to somewhat lesser-skilled players, BUT ... in this case I do think that's what it boils down to. Nullifiers are priority targets and there are already lots of ways to mitigate them.

 

no, actually your assumption is not based on anything i said, nor is it true.  i don't do endurance almost ever because for the most part i find it boring.  want to do 5+ hours solo survival?  easy, just pick the right load out and you can practically afk it.  it's not worth it because rewards significantly diminish after 40 min when you stop one shotting everything (the difference between 1 SHOT and 2 SHOT is half the rewards vs time invested).

there is only one true endgame, and it's not fashion frame... that's late game.  true endgame is moon clan fully decked out dojo.  without that you will never truly understand what it means to participate in the most difficult content in grindframe/warfarm, which is to not lose your mind after grinding for literally hours upon hours to get enough to build one piece of decoration.  it's not a test of difficulty, but of patience and sanity.

also the game is accessible to lesser skilled players.  you can literally press a button to win on any frame, if you build your stuff properly.  don't have the right stuff??? no problem, just play more and you'll get it eventually.

in actuality warframe disencentivises skill as a measure of progression by placing time gates on mr tests, meaning their isn't a minimum level of skill, but rather, a skill cap.

technically there is a skill minimum... but in my clan we have someone who has a severe physical disability and is legally blind and yet somehow is mr 16, so i mean... if he can do it... there's is literally no excuse.  warframe is so easy... maybe a 4 year old might have a challenge here, but if you're over the age of 8 you probably have the fine motor skills to manage warframe at a base level... and again, if the severely disabled can do it... what's everyone else's excuse?

 

[Jax_Cavalera]

If the argument were about skill, it becomes difficult to accurately measure since everyone has a unique perspective on what they consider to be easy and what they feel is difficult. Sure there are ways a player can work around the limitations described, but what this change is designed to do would be to help support those warframes who's abilities are objectively at a disadvantage because of existing nullifier field mechanics.

By focusing specifically on how a nullifier field works up against Stomp (which can CC enemies outside the protection of a nullifier field long after it was cast) against something like Cataclysm which is dispelled the moment it clips a nullifier field regardless of being behind walls or other solid objects, it becomes more clear why there is a need to improve in this area.

When looking at why Saryn can do well, her abilities can proc through walls and she has malt to use as a defensive, offensive and utility ability, where in contrast, Mag has no decoy ability, her crush CC is basically over the moment she's finished casting it, her pull cannot go through solid objects and shield polarize doesn't deal dmg like it once used to, leaving her primary go to for survival as Magnetize which won't work if it clips a nullifier field, even if that field is on the other side of a solid wall.

[Steel_Rook]

I'd argue that just giving players some leeway would be enough. Instead of having a Nullifier bubble immediately destroy a Snowglobe or a Glass Barrier, begin dealing damage over time to it. The result is the same, but a quick-thinking player can react and only lose some health on their deployable, rather than losing the whole thing. The same goes for the Cataclysm - simply have a Nullifier bubble shrink its size and advance its clock, shortening the duration. In fact, I'd argue the same should apply to personal buffs, as well. Rather than losing the ability, massively accelerate its clock while inside the bubble so the player loses duration. For health-based abilities like Iron Skin and Iron Halo, deal damage to them as against a Snowglobe. Atlas and Nidus already don't lose their inherent ability inside a Nullifier bubble immediately, but rather see its decay drastically increased.

[(XBOX)Zweimander]

Nullifiers are in a perfect spot right now and donr need any change.

[Avienas]

On 2019-08-10 at 8:52 PM, Klokwerkaos said:

nullies need to be stronger, not weaker

Honestly it needs a mechanic design change overall.

Make it instead of instantly removing abilities with duration based effects, just have it greatly speed up the tick speed of those duration abilities like say to triple so an ability that would have 21 seconds left on the clock would become 7 soon as you get in a nullifier bubble. This would basically kill the ability extremely fast so its a threat, but it gives time for a player to actually react to quickly shoot the nullifier in the head or its drone OR they could quickly get out of the bubble, remaining duration goes back to normal tick & your not just instantly dead with a squishie frame. 

Field based ability interaction could just create a area of ignorance zone like the Topic opener said so anyone inside the bubble would not be affected by whatever effect it does, since it just popping an ability is kind of what ruins so many mission types, Least then a Frost`s bubble would still be active once the nullifier is not overlapping the bubble with its own bubble. Aka it protects its corpus brothers in the bubble, not just be the kills everything lawn mower soon as it just literally taps something.

As for Channel based abilities, namely Exalted weapons for the most part, those could really just stay the same on getting disabled soon as the bubble touches you. Makes sense at the very least compared to the other two.

It would be nice if instead of being nullifiers, they were Dampeners which were made to be effective in countering ability heavy warframes, not just be a, protect anyone in its bubble, f-u tenno type of foe. Should honestly be alot easier to pop with gun-fire, if its whole schmick is mainly to make a denial zone for abilities.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Avienas

[Klokwerkaos]

1 hour ago, Avienas said:

Honestly it needs a mechanic design change overall.

Make it instead of instantly removing abilities with duration based effects, just have it greatly speed up the tick speed of those duration abilities like say to triple so an ability that would have 21 seconds left on the clock would become 7 soon as you get in a nullifier bubble. This would basically kill the ability extremely fast so its a threat, but it gives time for a player to actually react to quickly shoot the nullifier in the head or its drone OR they could quickly get out of the bubble, remaining duration goes back to normal tick & your not just instantly dead with a squishie frame. 

Field based ability interaction could just create a area of ignorance zone like the Topic opener said so anyone inside the bubble would not be affected by whatever effect it does, since it just popping an ability is kind of what ruins so many mission types, Least then a Frost`s bubble would still be active once the nullifier is not overlapping the bubble with its own bubble. Aka it protects its corpus brothers in the bubble, not just be the kills everything lawn mower soon as it just literally taps something.

As for Channel based abilities, namely Exalted weapons for the most part, those could really just stay the same on getting disabled soon as the bubble touches you. Makes sense at the very least compared to the other two.

It would be nice if instead of being nullifiers, they were Dampeners which were made to be effective in countering ability heavy warframes, not just be a, protect anyone in its bubble, f-u tenno type of foe. Should honestly be alot easier to pop with gun-fire, if its whole schmick is mainly to make a denial zone for abilities.

this becomes a massively irrellavent thing, like all nullies.

the main issue i have with nerfing enemies in any way is that they are far too weak at present to present any kind of threat at all.

sure if you"re a newbie in your first 2K hours then yeah, wanting the game to be easier is a thing, but you still have another 3k hours of content ahead of you.

for the vets we have 0 hours of content in the whole game.  at best we get two hours on a weekly nightwave rollover to grind out the same stuff we can do blindfolded to get a new cosmetic, and cosmetics are not playable content.

what newbies need is not nerfs< they need stuff explained to them so they can succeed better, because the game is easy as hell when you know what you"re doing.

what vets need is playable content that isn't the same old same old grind we've already spent 5K+ hours doing.
 

Edited August 12, 2019 by Klokwerkaos

[Avienas]

1 hour ago, Klokwerkaos said:

the main issue i have with nerfing enemies in any way is that they are far too weak at present to present any kind of threat at all.

What NEEDS to occur is enemies have a method to tackle them and they are not just a ridiculous annoyance. Bursas & Noxes tend to be frustrating but they have a clear way to handle them, shoot the backside of the former (which unlike certain enemies actually will not spin turn and Noxes is just shoot them in the head), Even Ancients are tolerable because they may give damage reduction to allies, but its easy to spot them in a crowd and they do not just straight up negate all forms of dps for a good while. Nullies drone tends to float too close to the bubble to shoot it unless you want to bullet jump and aim glide shoot it or dive right in to shoot it, OTHERWISE enjoy spamming several clips of ammo to break the bubble before you can kill it when its a moderately high leveled nullifier. Nullifiers getting a field which negates any type of ability AND the bubble they have lets it act as a damage sponge tends to be rather strong, so it would kind of make sense for them to have a better vulnerability or said nullies were not such a ridiculous unit as much.

Plus if you are saying all enemies are weak, what kind of level are you doing them on? Because if they are low level, then obviously they will be `weak`. Especially since the game basically went from CC being a dominating factor, to everything can just be one shot with guns so best CC became death to some.

1 hour ago, Klokwerkaos said:

what newbies need is not nerfs< they need stuff explained to them so they can succeed better, because the game is easy as hell when you know what you"re doing.

Know what also is a good way to explain things? Learning by experience on how certain enemies work. Plus a actual tutorial that D.E. should be working on in these coming months. If enemies properly give an idea of WHAT they do by people seeing it, then they learn to handle things. But that might just be Dauntless getting into my brain again since i decided to play it again & Monster hunter-ish games do a rather good job of making one use experiencing things to learn HOW to handle them. Especially if one observes what the enemy is doing, to pull what ever b.s. it has.

1 hour ago, Klokwerkaos said:

what vets need is playable content that isn't the same old same old grind we've already spent 5K+ hours doing.

Fun content is honestly how its approached, variety would be much better but expecting d.e. to make a huge amount of content with alot of different variables is a bit too hopeful on ends. If they do it correctly, repeatable content can be fun when the right design is approached on it, sadly its 1:34am here so my brain is a bit too tired to be listing chunky examples right now on ways they could approach this kind of repeatable content at the moment. Though a good way would be to tweak bosses to allow multiple ways to approach them, such as taking the usual brute force approach, infiltrate a control room to cause some mayhem that ends up doing some equipment damage to the boss so they lose some action or even the good old sneak into the room thru say a vent & deliver a surprise backstab or sorts to chunk a large amount of health off them due to a rather mortal wound on them.

[Klokwerkaos]

1 hour ago, Avienas said:

What NEEDS to occur is enemies have a method to tackle them and they are not just a ridiculous annoyance. Bursas & Noxes tend to be frustrating but they have a clear way to handle them, shoot the backside of the former (which unlike certain enemies actually will not spin turn and Noxes is just shoot them in the head), Even Ancients are tolerable because they may give damage reduction to allies, but its easy to spot them in a crowd and they do not just straight up negate all forms of dps for a good while. Nullies drone tends to float too close to the bubble to shoot it unless you want to bullet jump and aim glide shoot it or dive right in to shoot it, OTHERWISE enjoy spamming several clips of ammo to break the bubble before you can kill it when its a moderately high leveled nullifier. Nullifiers getting a field which negates any type of ability AND the bubble they have lets it act as a damage sponge tends to be rather strong, so it would kind of make sense for them to have a better vulnerability or said nullies were not such a ridiculous unit as much.

Plus if you are saying all enemies are weak, what kind of level are you doing them on? Because if they are low level, then obviously they will be `weak`. Especially since the game basically went from CC being a dominating factor, to everything can just be one shot with guns so best CC became death to some.

enemies aren't annoying them when you can destroy all of them faster than you can see them.  this includes heavy units you mentioned.  if you build properly they are not a consideration at all.

level is any practical level you will encounter in the game.  Have/can i go for hours in endless?  sure, but why?  do it once to say you can, then go do something that actually yields rewards.  in practical application you won't ever see any enemies above level 120 for any given content.  if you can one shot any enemy at level 120 and they have no chances of damaging you, then the problem is with the fundamental challenge design.

fighting enemies at level 400+ just straight up isn't functional, not because it's hard but because the enemies straight up bug out and get even dumber than normal depending on your tactics.

 

 

1 hour ago, Avienas said:

Know what also is a good way to explain things? Learning by experience on how certain enemies work. Plus a actual tutorial that D.E. should be working on in these coming months. If enemies properly give an idea of WHAT they do by people seeing it, then they learn to handle things. But that might just be Dauntless getting into my brain again since i decided to play it again & Monster hunter-ish games do a rather good job of making one use experiencing things to learn HOW to handle them. Especially if one observes what the enemy is doing, to pull what ever b.s. it has.

I"m not sure you said anything here i wasn't directly referencing in my post.  they are at least making an effort with stuff like ability videos and such, but really all the systems for new players make no sense and that needs to be explained as it comes up.  i understand how big a task this is because i've already friggen done it.  my clan has a manual i wrote that does exactly this.

 

 

1 hour ago, Avienas said:

Fun content is honestly how its approached, variety would be much better but expecting d.e. to make a huge amount of content with alot of different variables is a bit too hopeful on ends. If they do it correctly, repeatable content can be fun when the right design is approached on it, sadly its 1:34am here so my brain is a bit too tired to be listing chunky examples right now on ways they could approach this kind of repeatable content at the moment. Though a good way would be to tweak bosses to allow multiple ways to approach them, such as taking the usual brute force approach, infiltrate a control room to cause some mayhem that ends up doing some equipment damage to the boss so they lose some action or even the good old sneak into the room thru say a vent & deliver a surprise backstab or sorts to chunk a large amount of health off them due to a rather mortal wound on them.

they just need to create enemies that are functional for higher power level play, but they have none.  instead they just tack on more health, armor and damage as if that actually makes any sort of challenge, which it doesn't.

but you don't have to tell me i'm asking for too much, de, in their silence, has told me the same thing for years at this point.

 

[Avienas]

8 hours ago, Klokwerkaos said:

need to create enemies that are functional for higher power level play, but they have none.

Welp back from a good rest and game binge. Going further on about Dauntless, one thing D.E. could do is redesign a number of enemies to unlock new actions after certain levels, with the more existing lower level ones may have a few actions taken out such as how noxes can charge at you or those annoying grapple gimmicks that grineer/infested units have that leave you vulnerable easily for several seconds.

Granted they would have to reach a certain level where they have all the actions back plus scale down some of this raw stat b.s. But it certainly would be nice if enemies had some proper difference like more training in deadlier armamaments then at higher levels. Which would be a better way to justify difficulty then as you basically said, is just plain enemies getting more raw stats.

Very least in the early levels you would not encounter enemies like noxes & bursas, which actually creates a challenge once you get pass that threshold and have to deal with more dangerous things. But its basically asking d.e. for too much to have some If Enemy (Name) is above X level THEN turn X action(s) ON. sort of coding put in place.

[Scar.brother.help.me]

I like the idea, but I'd also like the bubble to shut down buffs while inside but not remove it (it's just annoying). I'd be ok with any boost of Nullifiers like range of bubble, health pool and heavier damage of the unit itself but just so it doesn't remove every buff completely.

[Klokwerkaos]

3 hours ago, Avienas said:

Welp back from a good rest and game binge. Going further on about Dauntless, one thing D.E. could do is redesign a number of enemies to unlock new actions after certain levels, with the more existing lower level ones may have a few actions taken out such as how noxes can charge at you or those annoying grapple gimmicks that grineer/infested units have that leave you vulnerable easily for several seconds.

Granted they would have to reach a certain level where they have all the actions back plus scale down some of this raw stat b.s. But it certainly would be nice if enemies had some proper difference like more training in deadlier armamaments then at higher levels. Which would be a better way to justify difficulty then as you basically said, is just plain enemies getting more raw stats.

Very least in the early levels you would not encounter enemies like noxes & bursas, which actually creates a challenge once you get pass that threshold and have to deal with more dangerous things. But its basically asking d.e. for too much to have some If Enemy (Name) is above X level THEN turn X action(s) ON. sort of coding put in place.

Yup, same stuff I've been saying.  they don't though.  allergic to making any sort of challenge in their game.

[Jax_Cavalera]

23 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I'd argue that just giving players some leeway would be enough. Instead of having a Nullifier bubble immediately destroy a Snowglobe or a Glass Barrier, begin dealing damage over time to it.

This is an interesting concept. I do like the idea of it as well and based on additional feedback it seems there is appetite for something like this maybe?

So perhaps a tweak on the system to combine an element of this in there would be:

1. Warframe casts their AoE ability
2. Nullifier moves in rage of it
3. The nullifier field pushes in the warframe's AoE ability range
4. Player takes out the nullifier field
5. Warframe AoE range snaps back to where it would normally be again

It's a little more simplified i guess but ultimately it means the player has to still really be on their toes, it then removes all those other complications around edge cases like Limbo's cataclysm.

And on the second portion of this please let me know if there is interest in either of the following so i can gauge if it's a high demand change worth bundling up in this or not:

1. Buffs are temporarily disabled while inside a nullifier field
   • Duration continues to go down even while disabled
     
     OR
      
2. Buffs start depleting at 3x the normal rate while inside a nullifier field
   • When exiting the field, duration / buff strength remains at the now depleted levels

[Awazx]

My personal solution for nullifiers: I don't play against Corpus.

[Jax_Cavalera]

13 hours ago, Awazx said:

My personal solution for nullifiers: I don't play against Corpus.

Well yeah that has been the only option for some frames for sure. Ideally players would be able to bring their favourite warframe to fight against all the various factions

[Steel_Rook]

On 2019-08-13 at 12:06 AM, Jax_Cavalera said:

Buffs start depleting at 3x the normal rate while inside a nullifier field

• When exiting the field, duration / buff strength remains at the now depleted levels

 

This would be my choice, though I don't know what multiplier I'd go with. Again - that's precisely how Atlas' Rubble armour and Nidus' Mutation work. I see no reason why other buffs can't have the same happen to them. I'm also of the opinion that Nullifier bubbles should do a substantial amount of damage to buffs with infinite duration but also a health bar (Iron Skin, Iron halo). I'm also of the opinion that Nullifier bubbles should straight-up damage deployables, rather than "pushing" them. You can either give each ability its own DPS value that it takes when in contact with a Nullifier bubble, or else give the bubble a flat damage value to abilities and instead give each ability different levels of "Nullifier Resistance" to mitigate the damage dealt to it and the timer speed-up. In either case, this gives you a lot more values to tweak in order to balance abilities against Nullifiers, rather than the binary situation we have now.

As to depleting an ability faster - that should be doable in the same way that Duration mods on toggles improve energy efficiency. Assuming Warframe's logic is evaluated 60 times per second, let's say an ability lasts 10 seconds. That means that the ability will last for 600 ticks, and lose ~0.0167s per tick (i.e. 1/60th of a second). Now imagine you jump into a Nullifier field which triples the "decay" of your buff. Now all of a sudden, you're losing 0.05s per tick, meaning that you'd lose the ability in just 10/0.05 = 200 ticks, which comes up to 200/60 ~ 3.33 seconds. But that's an "idealised" case. Say you turn on your ability and run it for 2 seconds, then jump into the bubble for 2 seconds before leaving it again. How much of the expected 6 seconds do you still have? Well, you've lost 2*60*0.0167 = 2 seconds before entering the bubble. Once inside the bubble, you've lost another 2.60.0.5 = 6 seconds. Once you leave the bubble, you'll be left with just 2 seconds on the buff.

In other words, by modifying the "seconds per tick" in the above equation, you can artificially shorten or lengthen ability duration mid-way through and for only part of its duration. You can have portions where the ability times out faster and portions where it times out slower depending on other buffs and debuffs. I don't know if Warframe uses a system like that, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't if DE wanted it to. It's not that complicated or hard to code.

[_GoodLuck_]

I'd add one important thing. Bubble colliding

These Nullifier bubbles mustn't intersect each other, they must collide. I'm not against Nullifiers, but the fact that they can survive any damage makes them very overpowered. A group of them will force you to enter a bubble and kill them, but sometimes it's dangerous. In the future the same thing must be implemented for all game geometry.

Spoiler

The same distance, but the different sizes.

 

[Jax_Cavalera]

8 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I'm also of the opinion that Nullifier bubbles should do a substantial amount of damage to buffs with infinite duration

Currently we have a bar for iron skin up the top right that shows how much armor hp it has left, I'm not sure if all buffs now do this though.

So for

• Buffs that are duration based, the duration goes down at an increased rate TBD
• Buffs that are value / infinite duration based, the remaining value (usually ehp) goes down at an increased rate TBD 

and when they exit the nullifier field, their duration / buff strength remains at the now depleted levels

 

8 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I'm also of the opinion that Nullifier bubbles should straight-up damage deployables, rather than "pushing" them. You can either give each ability its own DPS value that it takes when in contact with a Nullifier bubble, or else give the bubble a flat damage value to abilities and instead give each ability different levels of "Nullifier Resistance" to mitigate the damage dealt to it and the timer speed-up. In either case, this gives you a lot more values to tweak in order to balance abilities against Nullifiers, rather than the binary situation we have now.

For deployables I am really hoping we could get it to be so their effective range is reduced where it collides with a nullifier field and could expand again when no longer under the effect of any nullifier fields. Then again if we can't get that one across the line because it's too much of a boost for deployables, I'd be ok with what you propose as well since it's a little closer to where the current system is at.

Right now though deployable abilities are hit quite hard by nullifier fields and probably need the most TLC especially for frames like Vauban who becomes practically useless and the upkeep on refreshing deployables as you get into those nullie heavy areas gets exhausting pretty fast.

 

9 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

In other words, by modifying the "seconds per tick" in the above equation, you can artificially shorten or lengthen ability duration mid-way through and for only part of its duration. You can have portions where the ability times out faster and portions where it times out slower depending on other buffs and debuffs. I don't know if Warframe uses a system like that, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't if DE wanted it to. It's not that complicated or hard to code.

Yep going with something like this would be pretty close to simply copying what happens when in range of an energy leech . but to your ability duration.. or what happens when you get toxin proc'd and applying it to the strength of a buff. As for collision range reduction they have code for this applied to nullifier fields already so it just needs to be added to other ranged abilities.

 

3 hours ago, _GoodLuck_ said:

I'd add one important thing. Bubble colliding

These Nullifier bubbles mustn't intersect each other, they must collide. I'm not against Nullifiers, but the fact that they can survive any damage makes them very overpowered. A group of them will force you to enter a bubble and kill them, but sometimes it's dangerous. In the future the same thing must be implemented for all game geometry.

This is true, once you start to get 4+ fields overlapping and they love to bunch up together as well, you can't really deal any damage even when inside a bubble due to other bubbles getting in the way.  I'd even be ok with them joining to form a single nullifier field when they collide. This would let them gain combined dmg resistance and range while in close proximity .. and become 2 separate fields when they move apart.

[TaylorsContraction]

these threads always devolve into an argument about strong vs weak.

here's the problem.  you can slap on a random load out and do just fine,  maybe enjoy some challenge.  you can also equip the most meta build possible and breeze through all game content.  these two states are incongruent in terms of balance.  you cannot balance such a system and DE knows it.  There is a reason why they wanted to do a damage rework and are currently working on the melee system rework.  But their approach is often of a band aid nature rather than a lasting solution.

I think these nullifier changes are unnecessary.