The blink cooldown is pointless, and fails to achive it's intended purpose

[PollexMessier]

The only reason blink spam was a problem is because only Itzal could do it, which made pretty much every other archwing obsolete in open worlds. With every archwing having blink now, there was no reason to nerf it, so why is it there? It accomplishes only 2 things, making the already long and tedious bounty missions even longer, and, quite counter intuitively, keeps Itzal in its position of beating out every other archwing in transport speed. with the cooldown, flightspeed is now a factor, and with the fastest flight speed Itzal is still objectively the best archwing for the one job archwings have in open worlds, being fast. I would LOVE to use Elytron in the open worlds for its large aoe abilities, or Amesha for it's defensive capacity, But I just can't, not when speeding through these missions as fast as possible is my goal, and Itzal is still simply the best way to do that.

TLDR: the cooldown on universal blink only keeps Itzal in power, and makes a mission type that many people hate, even worse. please remove it.

[Oreades]

Would probably help the rest of the AW a fair bit if Hyperion Thrusters wasn't inexplicably 20 heccin mod points

[(XBOX)CultLordKuva]

4 minutes ago, Oreades said:

Would probably help the rest of the AW a fair bit if Hyperion Thrusters wasn't inexplicably 20 heccin mod points

THISSSSS

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

If my amesha can't be shot down by missles, I would just stay in archwing for the whole bounty stages. But it seems DE decided that's too OP in so many cases, every enemy group has some way to get rid of archwing.

[Oreades]

1 minute ago, (PS4)jaggerwanderer said:

If my amesha can't be shot down by missles, I would just stay in archwing for the whole bounty stages. But it seems DE decided that's too OP in so many cases, every enemy group has some way to get rid of archwing.

Be thankful you're not Titania.... cause the game treats her just the same.... except it doesn't knock you out of Razorwing it just downs you. 

[DeMonkey]

Sounds like the solution is to make bounties better and travel more interesting, not give everyone a free "teleport to objective" button.

[PollexMessier]

45 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

Sounds like the solution is to make bounties better and travel more interesting, not give everyone a free "teleport to objective" button.

That's a more complicated solution that many changes towards could be highly subjective, that I don't see DE ever addressing at this point. Especially with their tendency to just abandon old game modes and focus on new ones. Bringing up a recent change, opposed to old issues that a recent change made worse, is more likely to get noticed and acted upon.

For instance this would be a complete non-issue if objectives in open worlds didn't consistently spawn 1-2 thousand meters away from you. something players have been complaining about since the plains released, but DE has done nothing to address.

Edited November 27, 2019 by PollexMessier
Spelling

[Voltage]

1 hour ago, DeMonkey said:

Sounds like the solution is to make bounties better and travel more interesting, not give everyone a free "teleport to objective" button.

Well in all honesty, the travel between objectives doesn't offer much. Both Orb Vallis and Plains of Eidolon are just large tilesets. Using Blink to get to objectives is like using Nova for a Capture mission. Imagine Nova's Wormhole had a 3 second cool-down because blazing past level 30 Corpus enemies on Neptune is boring. Blink was not "free". A first ability with System Reroute may not be expensive, and a Energy Restores are cheap, but the overall usage cost begins to show when you start using thousands from doing many Eidolons, Orbs, and general Plains/Vallis Bounties.

If reliable speed such as Cloud Walker, Speed, Haste Mote, Wormhole, Mach Rush, etc. are allowed to stay, why not Blink? Simple. If Blink was left the way it is, Empyrean wouldn't feel as deep on the Archwing aspect. Let's face it: If you can opt out of Archwing content by spamming Blink to the enemy ship you are boarding, 99% of people will smash the 1 key right off the keyboard. There is no hesitation to the question "Would you like to skip Archwing mode?". This whole Blink nerf is the cheapest way out to elongate Empyrean content without actually addressing why Archwing is so poor to use throughout the game.

DE could have fixed the way Slide Attack damage was calculated when Telos Boltace had the old slash AoE passive with a surge in usage for Maiming Strike. Instead of addressing core issues with Slide Attacks, they slapped a cool-down on Stormpath and created one of the worst melee passives in the game. This core issue would go on to be neglected for 4 years with heavy player investment before "ripping off the band-aid" which they applied in the first place. People tend to use a band-aid to cover a temporary wound while it heals, not allow infections to flourish for years before addressing. This is the exact situation Blink has been put into. Blink has been this way for years. This issue should have been addressed with the release of Plains of Eidolon at the latest!

The reason Blink is so popular is staring DE in the eyes:

• Moving all Archwing components to Dojo research and Syndicate Offerings gives absolutely no point to do any Archwing mission except for these 2 cases:
  1. Tiles that force you to use Sharkwing in the Sea Lab tileset on Uranus. These were just Blinked through because shocker, water is even slower than space.
  2. Salacia, Neptune to gain Affinity on Archwings and Arch-Melee (Arch-Guns as well if you don't Gravimag and level them in normal missions).
• The Jordas Verdict, the only mission that actually gave purpose to Archwings outside of Itzal was removed.
• Archwing Defense was removed for Archwing Rush (Blink, the gamemode) and Archwing Pursuit (We try to forget this node exists on the solar map). Archwing Defense was the only normal Archwing mode that heavily discouraged Itzal in favor for Elytron's nuke and Odonata's buff (If I remember correctly, Amesha was not in the game when Defense was a node).

This creates the following problem:

• Archwing is unrewarding. Aside from Salacia for Affinity, every single Archwing node now offers nothing. Back when I started playing, Caelus, Uranus was where I had to farm Elytron. Galilea, Jupiter was where I farmed the Rathbone Handle. The gear used to be acquired through these modes and allowed you to use a variety of Archwings for different gameplay avenues.
• Archwing has no purpose outside of transportation. Combined with the lack of rewards, there is actually not a single piece of Archwing content that requires Elytron, Odonata, or Amesha. Sure you can technically bring any of those to the only node: Salacia, but you can get away with Itzal exclusively without issue. The Jordas Verdict gave a nice use for Amesha and Odonata, Elytron and Odonata were great for Archwing Interception and Defense, and Itzal was great for fast missions. If we remove the entire point to all but one single Archwing, of course everyone is going to use it.

Universal Blink should not be free. In fact, the energy cost should be relatively high without the opportunity to benefit from System Reroute. Blink should have been nerfed if applied as universal to all Archwings. However, a nerf should respect the original usage and purpose for the ability in the first place. This cool-down as a nerf shows a complete disconnection from the purpose of Archwing in the last 2 years, the gameplay opportunities unveiled (higher end Eidolons/Orbs, Bounty speed, saving time/time efficiency, etc.), and the mechanics of the game with Blink's previous state. Attempting to mend this issue with Ripline is quite honestly laughable at this point.

Blink should only be nerfed if there is a clear understanding of why it is the only Archwing ability worth using, and core issues with Archwing are fixed within the same update. That scenario didn't happen, so I do not agree with nerfing Blink in the current state of Archwing.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Voltage

[Oreades]

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

• Moving all Archwing components to Dojo research and Syndicate Offerings gives absolutely no point to do any Archwing mission 

Oh god I remember coming back to that after a break and thinking great why would anyone ever play AW? 

I had no problem farming all my gear from AW missions, frequently finding myself soloing AW interception, all to build myself up to solo Jordas because no one was farming him. 

the change to syndicates legits made me kinda sad. 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Oreades

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

In any case, DE putting in Fast Travel points across the map would just make archwing redundent siine tenno can just teleport there in a jifffy without encountering obstecles. Though that would just make people complain why even have archwing or k drives in the first place.

[DrakeWurrum]

8 hours ago, PollexMessier said:

The only reason blink spam was a problem is because only Itzal could do it, which made pretty much every other archwing obsolete in open worlds. With every archwing having blink now, there was no reason to nerf it, so why is it there? It accomplishes only 2 things, making the already long and tedious bounty missions even longer, and, quite counter intuitively, keeps Itzal in its position of beating out every other archwing in transport speed. with the cooldown, flightspeed is now a factor, and with the fastest flight speed Itzal is still objectively the best archwing for the one job archwings have in open worlds, being fast. I would LOVE to use Elytron in the open worlds for its large aoe abilities, or Amesha for it's defensive capacity, But I just can't, not when speeding through these missions as fast as possible is my goal, and Itzal is still simply the best way to do that.

TLDR: the cooldown on universal blink only keeps Itzal in power, and makes a mission type that many people hate, even worse. please remove it.

The point of Blink is not map traversal, but in-combat mobility. That's why the cooldown. 

7 hours ago, Voltage said:

-snip-

You're forgetting that we're about to get Empyrean, which will heavily benefit from Archwing combat.

Also, personally, I enjoy Archwing combat. There just aren't enough missions or worthy rewards for it.

7 hours ago, Voltage said:

there is actually not a single piece of Archwing content that requires Elytron, Odonata, or Amesha.

How is this a problem? Not a single piece of content in the entire game requires any specific loadout. Just that you actually try and make your loadout work through skillful play and good mods.

Edited November 27, 2019 by DrakeWurrum

[Voltage]

47 minutes ago, DrakeWurrum said:

How is this a problem? Not a single piece of content in the entire game requires any specific loadout. Just that you actually try and make your loadout work through skillful play and good mods.

Trinity, Oberon, and other "supports" have a place in the game: Healing Lures, protecting team mates, resupplying energy, etc.

Saryn, Equinox, Mesa and other "DPS Warframes" have a place in ESO, Hydron, Arbitrations, etc.

Rhino, Eclipse Mirage, Chroma and other "buffers" have a place with DPS Warframes in various missions.

There is no real place for Amesha as it's quite difficult to die in Archwing if you just have the health mod on. There is no need for Elytron in almost all Archwing instances because the nuke is unnecessary. He has a small use in a very optimized Affinity farm so I'll give him that. Odonata is pretty useless in Archwing as a whole as the places where the buff might be interesting, you are able to be in your Warframe which employs Chroma, Volt, etc.

This leaves you with a scenario similar to a Capture/Deception mission. The objective hardly matters, enemies are a nonissue, and you can basically choose whatever you want. However even with said freedom, you gravitate towards the fastest setup. This is why Itzal was used. Because Itzal was the best transportation Archwing in a game mode where only transportation matters.

47 minutes ago, DrakeWurrum said:

You're forgetting that we're about to get Empyrean, which will heavily benefit from Archwing combat.

Will it though? That feels like the same argument people made before Plains launched in 2017. Unless Empyrean releases loads of Archwing objectives that discourage movement with an entire redesign of the mode, there's no reason to take something that isn't Itzal. People will go from their Railjacked and skip to the ship boarding unless required and/or punished for not playing the Archwing portion. Like I said previously: the Blink cool-down shows a clear disconnection between DE and gameplay.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Voltage

[Teridax68]

10 hours ago, DeMonkey said:

Sounds like the solution is to make bounties better and travel more interesting, not give everyone a free "teleport to objective" button.

This. Fast travel is desirable because it makes us run content faster, but with Archwing it does so at the cost of making us ignore the lavish, open maps DE created for us, and having them feel much smaller than they truly are, ultimately reducing traversal to this very boring experience we want to get over with, rather than a fun and essential part of gameplay as it is in the rest of the game. If we are to use a vehicle to fast travel, I'd much rather it be K-Drives, so that we'd get to interact at least somewhat with enemies, wildlife, and terrain.

I think what's being missed in the OP is also the fact that Archwing is only used for travelling in those big levels because Archwing combat is pretty much impossible: bounties have pointless range limitations that force players into close-to-mid-range combat, and the moment one tries to fight in Archwing, pretty much any enemy deploys massively damaging anti-air missiles that immediately knock us down to the ground. This is a tremendous wasted opportunity, not simply because it prevents us from fighting in Archwings and using their abilities, but also because those levels would be the perfect opportunity to develop on air-to-ground and air-to-air combat, giving us more flying enemies or just better anti-air weaponry to fight than instant knock-out missile turrets. If that layer of combat were reworked so that we didn't get automatically get knocked out of Archwing the moment we tried to fight in them, and could instead properly fight from the skies, every AW would have a purpose once more, even if they were no longer made good for fast travel.

[DrBorris]

11 hours ago, DeMonkey said:

Sounds like the solution is to make bounties better and travel more interesting, not give everyone a free "teleport to objective" button.

It is not even that hard, just make it so bounty stages spawn next to each other.

 

Or for extra points, make it so bounties have a "path" that takes you deeper into the open landscape. This isn't as much an issue on PoE, but you rarely get to see the outer regions of the Vallis during bounties.

[MonsterOfMyOwn]

You can now use amesha, odonata or elytron to travel in poe or fortuna, and are not "forced" to use itzal. Which ain't bad... and still better than k-drives.

What is still bad is that archwing are still useless appart from taxiing or some limited riven "challenges". Buff Elytron damages, lessen the AA missiles efficiency...

 

[ciTiger]

A great move by DE. /S

[Steel_Rook]

15 hours ago, PollexMessier said:

The only reason blink spam was a problem is because only Itzal could do it, which made pretty much every other archwing obsolete in open worlds.

That was FAR from the only issue with Blink. Being able to traverse entire 2x2 KM maps in seconds was the real problem, because it renders the whole "Free Roam" concept entirely pointless. I know not everyone wants to hear this, but having infinite-speed instant travel is not good for the game and isn't coming back.

 

15 hours ago, PollexMessier said:

With the cooldown, flightspeed is now a factor, and with the fastest flight speed Itzal is still objectively the best archwing for the one job archwings have in open worlds, being fast.

This is far from true. While YOU might only care about travel speed, some of us actually use our Archwings for combat, at least here and there. AA missiles are a pain, but Eidolons don't have any, making the Amesha the perfect tank for those fights, even if you're otherwise playing a squishy Frame. Moreover, the difference in flight speed between different Archwings is - in my experience at least - academic. Yes, some are faster than others but not by enough to matter. Not by enough to NOT take the Archwing with effectively infinite energy and guaranteed invulnerability.

Yes, the Itzal is still the fastest Archwing on the Market. However, the difference is now small enough that other considerations come up, as well. Not for everyone, probably not for speed-runners, but that doesn't represent the entire player base.

[Ein0r]

I hate this new blink. Especially with the combination of the new maneuverability. It feels terrible. It doesn't want to make me use the blink at all now. But it also doesn't want me to move away from the Itzal to another Archwing. 

If you speed across the map you need to roll again to blink. And chances are incredibly high that you also leave the "speed mode" after your blink is finished. Imagine that your car automatically brakes after you accellerated for three seconds and there is nothing you can do about it. And this happens every time you want to accelerate.

Combined with the new maneuverability it feels as if you are on an ice sheet. Breaking and turning doesn't feel crisp and on point.

And for most players this change won't break the dominance of the Itzal because AW are mainly used for traversing long distances. And why would I do this in an Amesha or an Elytron if the Itzal is exactly as good as the others now but with the major difference that it has a vacuum ability. An ability that is actually useful. It is slightly different in Archwing missions, but still, people even prefer the vacuum of the Itzal over the permanent invincibility that Amesha's kit has to offer. The 3-5 Tellurium or other resources you might pick up during archwing missions add up over time. Resources you might not have picked up because it would mean flying somewhere else just to pick it up, while your squad has all the fun killing enemies. Or worse: they fly out of affinity range while you pick up some loot.

Same goes for Eidolon hunt and some bounties too. I can jump/run around to get my loot before going to the next stage/Eidolon, where most of my squad is already waiting for me, or I do it will mounting the Itzal, press Vacuum once or twice and am done with it

To me it seems DE just took the blink away from Itzal, distributed it evenly to all the AW, while also making it choppy to use, taking every bit of fun out of moving around with it.

 

Edit: I would be fine if you could seamlessly weave the blink into your movement, while not having to exit your accelleration mode in archwing. That would make this blink change a whole lot more interesting and more importantly, enjoyable to use.

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Ein0r

[DrakeWurrum]

14 hours ago, Voltage said:

However even with said freedom, you gravitate towards the fastest setup.

I never did. I always stuck with Amesha because, while you claim "it's hard to die with the health mod", I still encountered Archwing scenarios where I felt way too fragile with the Itzal, and stuck with the Amesha's ability to absorb damage. Maybe I should stop playing to round 4 in Interception.

I used to enjoy the Elytron's ability to quick-clear with nukes, but the glass cannon design doesn't typically work for how I play even outside of Archwing.

Funny... this sounds exactly like what you described for different types of frames... where Itzal is all about speed and/or tactical control of the battlefield, Elytron is all about raw nuking damage, Amesha is about tanky-support, and Odonate is a sort of middle-road jack-of-all option.

Edited November 28, 2019 by DrakeWurrum

[--K--Sharkfin]

I believe the CP ratio of Hyperion Thrusters is too low right now, providing we rely on flight speed instead of energy now

27.5% doesn't worth 20 mod slot. IMO it should be at least 40%

[Rogunz]

On 2019-11-27 at 7:32 PM, DrakeWurrum said:

You're forgetting that we're about to get Empyrean, which will heavily benefit from Archwing combat.

Empyreon is just going to cement itzals position as the best archwing. It's the only one with a good vacuum by using cosmic crush and cosmic crush and the drones are easily in the top 3 combat abilities especially for open maps.

The only archwing that can compete with it now if you don't care about getting way less loot is Amesha. Amesha is almost certainly going to get nerfed with the release of railjack though because it's completely invincible with infinite energy and can prevent anything else from dying.

[DrakeWurrum]

On 2019-11-27 at 9:02 PM, SHArK-FiN said:

I believe the CP ratio of Hyperion Thrusters is too low right now, providing we rely on flight speed instead of energy now

27.5% doesn't worth 20 mod slot. IMO it should be at least 40%

Naw. It should be 100% and also apply to Blink distance.

18 hours ago, Rogunz said:

Empyreon is just going to cement itzals position as the best archwing. It's the only one with a good vacuum by using cosmic crush and cosmic crush and the drones are easily in the top 3 combat abilities especially for open maps.

The only archwing that can compete with it now if you don't care about getting way less loot is Amesha. Amesha is almost certainly going to get nerfed with the release of railjack though because it's completely invincible with infinite energy and can prevent anything else from dying.

If all you care about is loot, sure. Elytron as well will have its place for area control and heavy nukes. The third ability is great at keeping enemies from swarming an area, and it's augmented 2 is actually pretty nifty. I used to use it a lot for the AW Mobile Defense, and I'd just sit back "AFK" watching everything die on their own. It's 4th ability also was strictly overpowered on Pursuit.
It's a glass cannon, though, so I migrated to Amesha for the survivability.

Itzal was always fun, but constantly zooming around to use drones and crush as a sort of skirmish melee fighter doesn't work for me as well as Amesha does. I mostly used it for Interception maps, because Blink could get me from one capture point to the next almost immediately. The downside being that I often would die, because Itzal can't handle taking damage without Amesha protecting it.
It wasn't really that useful to me on Rush, simply because a lot of tight corridors are too small for the old Blink to NOT crash me into walls.

You people can stubbornly stick to playing Itzal if you want, but it's not "the best"

Edited November 29, 2019 by DrakeWurrum

[PollexMessier]

8 hours ago, DrakeWurrum said:

Naw. It should be 100% and also apply to Blink distance.

If all you care about is loot, sure. Elytron as well will have its place for area control and heavy nukes. The third ability is great at keeping enemies from swarming an area, and it's augmented 2 is actually pretty nifty. I used to use it a lot for the AW Mobile Defense, and I'd just sit back "AFK" watching everything die on their own. It's 4th ability also was strictly overpowered on Pursuit.
It's a glass cannon, though, so I migrated to Amesha for the survivability.

Itzal was always fun, but constantly zooming around to use drones and crush as a sort of skirmish melee fighter doesn't work for me as well as Amesha does. I mostly used it for Interception maps, because Blink could get me from one capture point to the next almost immediately. The downside being that I often would die, because Itzal can't handle taking damage without Amesha protecting it.
It wasn't really that useful to me on Rush, simply because a lot of tight corridors are too small for the old Blink to NOT crash me into walls.

You people can stubbornly stick to playing Itzal if you want, but it's not "the best"

if they add new drops to railjack missions, which they almost certainly will, as pretty much the only archwing that can pick up more than 10% of the drops without spending 80% of the mission skirting around drops trying to pick them up in a huge 3d space with a 2d map that's terrible at conveying depth and with loot detection that only works on the horizontal plane, itzal will be VERY relevant. They'll need to do something major about loot collection if they want the majority of players to use anything other than itzal. this is a loot game, loot is the entire point. if you're not picking up the loot you need you're wasting your time.

[DrakeWurrum]

On 2019-11-29 at 3:29 PM, PollexMessier said:

if they add new drops to railjack missions, which they almost certainly will, as pretty much the only archwing that can pick up more than 10% of the drops without spending 80% of the mission skirting around drops trying to pick them up in a huge 3d space with a 2d map that's terrible at conveying depth and with loot detection that only works on the horizontal plane, itzal will be VERY relevant. They'll need to do something major about loot collection if they want the majority of players to use anything other than itzal. this is a loot game, loot is the entire point. if you're not picking up the loot you need you're wasting your time.

Based on Devstream 134, the Railjack ship itself will be the fastest method. Rebecca had to tell Sheldon to stop moving the ship so she could get back to it.

[PollexMessier]

9 hours ago, DrakeWurrum said:

Based on Devstream 134, the Railjack ship itself will be the fastest method. Rebecca had to tell Sheldon to stop moving the ship so she could get back to it.

wow that sounds like a really horrible decision. Public matchmaking would be a nightmare if the pilot can just ditch anyone in archwing. And if there is no public match making for it, which I wouldn't be surprised about based on some of the things they've said about it, its ether gonna be solo only for me or I'm just gonna quit the game.

Honestly I'm over my initial outrage over the blink cooldown. I realized its actually faster for me as I use to spend half the distance waiting for energy to be able to blink before anyways cus I hate spamming energy pads ~~tho the little stagger if you try to use it again too soon now is annoying as hell and needs to be removed~~. But the raijack moving too fast for archwings to catch up with? that sounds like a true disaster. No one will ever want to leave the ship in fear of the captain being a $&*^. and their WILL be an inordinately large amount of $&*^ captains. Just look at the problems with elevators. Railjacks outpacing archwings would be that but much worse, only if there's public matchmaking of course but I imagine the outrage will be 1000x worse if there Isn't.