Dev Workshop: Healing Defendable Targets

[(XBOX)Duke DEFCON]

I would consider not doing base values of 500 over 5 seconds and such. At higher levels, with defense target health scaling, heals set to a fixed value would become increasingly less effective. As the game community progresses and development of content with higher level enemies becomes an issue, you will be forced to revisit these values. Perhaps the biggest problem with lots of these skills is their insane percentage values. A 60% heal is a LOT by any measure.

A defense target usually has around 10,000-20,000 health to start and scales up with enemies. A 500 over 5 seconds heal is 2500, or 25% of the full health of the defense target. Try that value instead of a fixed number.

[(PSN)BlightDragon89]

I would like clarification on what constitutes a 'defensible' target. I get that normal defense targets and excavators would be included in that, but what about moving operative defense targets (that constantly run right into harms way)? Oplinks? Will this work in all games modes including Arbitration? I hope as this plan develops we get a full link of what will be heal-able just to make sure there is not more confusion going forward.

If this information is already somewhere, can someone drop me a link? TY

[--DSP--Snap47]

Aside from all the scaling concerns already expressed by many others, on Garuda's "for flavor we think this shouldn’t": are you serious, DE?

For flavor, why should Hydroid work? For flavor, why should Nidus work? For flavor, why should Wisp work? For flavor, why should Harrow work?

This is absolutely nonsensical and I am truly baffled. 

[(PSN)BlightDragon89]

2 minutes ago, --DSP--Snap47 said:

Aside from all these concerns already expressed by many others, on Garuda's "for flavor we think this shouldn’t": are you serious, DE?

For flavor, why does Hydroid work? For flavor, why does Nidus work? For flavor, why does Wisp work? For flavor, why does Harrow work?

This is absolutely nonsensical and I am truly baffled. 

I'm guessing they mean that a blood sacrifice should not heal inanimate objects lore-wise? *shrug*

I mean it's their lore, so if they say that is what the ability should and shouldn't be able to do, that's about it on that.

[--DSP--Snap47]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)BlightDragon89 said:

I'm guessing they mean that a blood sacrifice should not heal inanimate objects lore-wise? *shrug*

I mean it's their lore, so if they say that is what the ability should and shouldn't be able to do, that's about it on that.

So a patch of water, an infested growth, an alien reservoir, and a similar self-sacrifice should heal inanimate objects lore-wise?

No need to point out the obvious, of course it's their "lore". That doesn't make the argument anymore valid. 

[(PSN)BlightDragon89]

15 minutes ago, --DSP--Snap47 said:

So a patch of water, an infested growth, an alien reservoir, and a similar self-sacrifice should heal inanimate objects lore-wise?

No need to point out the obvious, of course it's their "lore". That doesn't make the argument anymore valid. 

Dude, no need to get salty about the situation. It's one frame that can't heal defense targets now, and won't in the future. I'm not sure I understand the salt or the attitude.

And ya, this is a syfy game, so strange things do strange things. All I was trying to point out is that the argument does not need to be valid in the end. Sure I am curious as to the lore reason that the other stuff would work but that would not, but in the end i'm not going to be bothered by the way someone choice to tell their story.

I'm more happy that a lot of other things that cannot heal defense targets now will be able to, so it's still more a win then a loss.

[Evhel]

If the amount of healing doesn't scale on target's health you may aswell remove the healing, won't make any difference.

[Cicasajt]

can we have volt's capacitance charge the shields of sentinels too? it charges pet shields and ally shields, now defense target shields too but not sentinels.

[selig_fay]

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I have quite a few issues with these proposed changes:

• They introduce a whole lot more book-keeping for which abilities do what in which situation. An instant heal in some situations will heal over time in others, a percentage value will be flat, and a cap will vary depending on the mission. This isn't going to be friendly to new players, or even players who aren't keeping up to date with details such as this workshop.
• Allowing damage reduction steroids to apply to defense objectives will simply encourage certain frames to come in and spam those abilities for 100% uptime. I'm not sure that's really encouraging the best gameplay.
• Even with these numbers, I'm pretty sure the above changes are going to make defense objectives trivial to maintain with the right frame. If nothing else, it's likely to create one of those huge gaps in effectiveness based on just bringing the frame that happens to break the mission.

As such, I'd rather defense objectives in general were made immune to ally utility of all kinds, which would eliminate the above book-keeping and avoid pressure to bring only a certain few frames to those missions.

Let's also put a 20 meter nullifier dome that won't block projectiles, but will block all DPS/Tank abilities.

Really, I don't understand why healing/protective buffs shouldn't be used effectively on defeanse target? Because it's bad gameplay? And stack 100 Frost Dome is a good gameplay?

 

[(PSN)BlightDragon89]

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I have quite a few issues with these proposed changes:

• They introduce a whole lot more book-keeping for which abilities do what in which situation. An instant heal in some situations will heal over time in others, a percentage value will be flat, and a cap will vary depending on the mission. This isn't going to be friendly to new players, or even players who aren't keeping up to date with details such as this workshop.

 

I mean, isn't one of the main parts of the game keeping track of what Warframe abilities do want in each situation? That's kinda the point of having so many frames with so many abilities? Feel like I am missing something here.

[Teridax68]

5 minutes ago, zhellon said:

Let's also put a 20 meter nullifier dome that won't block projectiles, but will block all DPS/Tank abilities.

Really, I don't understand why healing/protective buffs shouldn't be used effectively on defeanse target? Because it's bad gameplay? And stack 100 Frost Dome is a good gameplay?

It isn't either, but just because one form of bad gameplay exists doesn't mean we should keep piling on more bad gameplay. I don't understand how people can argue with one hand that we should just keep introducing unhealthy mechanics just because some are already present, and then with the other complain that the game has too many layers of bad design for any of it to be resolved. It's like you're asking for the game to be made permanently worse.

[--DSP--Snap47]

31 minutes ago, (PS4)BlightDragon89 said:

Dude, no need to get salty about the situation. It's one frame that can't heal defense targets now, and won't in the future. I'm not sure I understand the salt or the attitude.

And ya, this is a syfy game, so strange things do strange things. All I was trying to point out is that the argument does not need to be valid in the end. Sure I am curious as to the lore reason that the other stuff would work but that would not, but in the end i'm not going to be bothered by the way someone choice to tell their story.

I'm more happy that a lot of other things that cannot heal defense targets now will be able to, so it's still more a win then a loss.

Please understand that my admittedly unfriendly tone is not directed at you specifically, I apologize in advance.

However, what you've said is exactly what I'd imagined their basic reasoning for the Garuda exception, and it's one of the cheapest cop-out in any fiction, especially when zero elaboration is made surrounding said "flavor". 

If you're not bothered, then I'd imagine you don't play Garuda much, so I get your tendency to defend such a weak attempt at "Lore-building". To me, this particular exception tells absolutely nothing of their "story", and is needlessly restrictive and unwarranted. 

My frustration, or "Salt" as you've put it, stems from the fact that these proposed Flat-numbered heals (meaningless in any of all content that's slightly higher level), and removal of the only utility of the entire Vazarin focus school are the way that DE is trying spin as a "positive" and "healthy" improvement on the game, while failing to realize the actual implications and impact on the game. This is same thing that happened to the status and shotgun revisions: in an attempt to allow more "build variety", they've effectively eliminated all "build variety". 

On top of all that, they are trying to spit this "flavor" nonsense at Garuda for no good reason. 

Yes, more things will be able to heal defense targets, but none would make any difference in any content besides star chart missions based on their proposed values.

As I see it, it's a lose lose all the way.

[(PSN)BlightDragon89]

1 minute ago, --DSP--Snap47 said:

Please understand that my admittedly unfriendly tone is not directed at you specifically, I apologize in advance.

However, what you've said is exactly what I'd imagined their basic reasoning for the Garuda exception, and it's one of the cheapest cop-out in any fiction, especially when zero elaboration is made surrounding said "flavor". 

If you're not bothered, then I'd imagine you don't play Garuda much, so I get your tendency to defend such a weak attempt at "Lore-building". To me, this particular exception tells absolutely nothing of their "story", and is needlessly restrictive and unwarranted. 

My frustration, or "Salt" as you've put it, stems from the fact that these proposed Flat-numbered heals (meaningless in any of all content that's slightly higher level), and removal of the only utility of the entire Vazarin focus school are the way that DE is trying spin as a "positive" and "healthy" improvement on the game, while failing to realize the actual implications and impact on the game. This is same thing that happened to the status and shotgun revisions: in an attempt to allow more "build variety", they've effectively eliminated all "build variety". 

On top of all that, they are trying to spit this "flavor" nonsense at Garuda for no good reason. 

Yes, more things will be able to heal defense targets, but none would make any difference in any content besides star chart missions based on their proposed values.

As I see it, it's a lose lose all the way.

Ok, I get where your coming from a bit better now. I get that the current reason of 'flavor' is pretty unsatisfying. I would hope it gets expanded on as well if that is how they choose to keep this change.

I did see that Reb said the numbers are not final as presented, just a statement of intention. So I would hope that feedback and/or balancing on that front would make this abilities work much better on star chat and high level missions. Percentage based values IMO would work better to make them properly scaling to both, but that's me.

[selig_fay]

14 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

It isn't either, but just because one form of bad gameplay exists doesn't mean we should keep piling on more bad gameplay. I don't understand how people can argue with one hand that we should just keep introducing unhealthy mechanics just because some are already present, and then with the other complain that the game has too many players of bad design for any of it to be resolved. It's like you're asking for the game to be made permanently worse.

I just cited the problem with your offer. The Frost/Gara defense does not affect the defense target directly, which means that they will be the only frames that will be effective after level 100 in defense. You completely exclude Limbo from defense and completely from the game, because rift is also an effect. The same is aimed at healers, who are actually excluded from the game, because warframes have many things to heal, and defeat targets are invulnerable to effects. 

And I didn't mention DPS for nothing, because DPS with quick kills reduces damage to defeance target and it's also not a direct effect. Yes, there is still CC, but here we already have a problem with immune to CC mobs. 

So what, we'll balance it using a 20-meter nullifier? Or do we still allow the ability to influence defeance target?

[Teridax68]

1 minute ago, zhellon said:

I just cited the problem with your offer. The Frost/Gara defense does not affect the defense target directly, which means that they will be the only frames that will be effective after level 100 in defense. You completely exclude Limbo from defense and completely from the game, because rift is also an effect. The same is aimed at healers, who are actually excluded from the game, because warframes have many things to heal, and defeat targets are invulnerable to effects. 

If everyone is excluded... who is excluded, exactly? What I just pointed out is that you are not even citing a problem with my point; you are simply bringing up other examples of frames that trivialize defense objectives as an excuse to have even more frames do the same. The solution should be to address those as well so that no frame can trivialize defense objectives, not to make every frame trivialize every mission just so they don't feel excluded.

1 minute ago, zhellon said:

And I didn't mention DPS for nothing, because DPS with quick kills reduces damage to defeance target and it's also not a direct effect. Yes, there is still CC, but here we already have a problem with immune to CC mobs. 

So what, we'll balance it using a 20-meter nullifier? Or do we still allow the ability to influence defeat target?

Or, perhaps, we could start reevaluating the design of warframes over the long run so that frames are innately healthy to play, and don't break entire parts of the game just by doing their thing. The only reason Khora and Limbo were hastily nerfed is because their design was never given that sort of evaluation when it was needed, and the result was a rushed hotfix that caused undue suffering to both frames. Nuke frames are already a hot topic for many more reasons than just defense objectives as well, so this topic isn't the only reason why they should be addressed.

[Thundervision]

  

Quote

Edit: «NUMBERS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE, the purpose of this post is to communicate our intentions». Well...

Just for the sake of comparison, Defense missions:

Earth

• Lv. 1-6
• Objective Health: 2,750

 

Mars

• Lv. 8-13
• Objective Health: 6,320

 

Jupiter

• Lv. 15-20
• Objective Health: 12,830

 

Saturn

• Lv. 21-26
• Objective Health: 20,750

 

Sedna

• Lv. 30-40
• Objective Health: 47,630

 

Eris (Dark Sector)

• Lv. 35-45
• Objective Health: 60,080

Tell me sweet stories about 3HP/s (12HP/s with the 4 aura mods) or 50HP or 500HP making a difference past low-tier regions.

 

And talk about the Arcane Pulse in general:

Just because it shares Energize mechanics doesn't mean it was good to begin with to deserve shared Cooldown punishment. It's only good under circumstances when you can make HP Orbs yourself (Broken Scepter, Nekros etc.), and even then it's pitiful when it comes to trying regenerate 1000+ HP by Orbs alone.

 

Quote

 

Health

• Red orbs refill 25 health.
• These are obtained from looting lockers, containers and by killing Drahks, Feral Kubrows, Hyekka or Feral Kavat.
• These drop less frequently than other orbs.
• Restores companion's health as well.

 

Why don't HP Orbs regen 25% of one's health instead? Or:

Why don't HP Orbs start regenerating one's health for 25 seconds instead? Or:

Why don't HP Orbs increase non-existent-yet passive HP regen by 25% instead?

Any other warframe ability, consumable or weapons' side-effect is much more efficient than this joke-pickup.

You still think this is a good game design? I think it's far from being «fine as is».

[Grim_ReeperS117_2]

Boy, radiation mobile defense sorties back to begging teammates not to kill the objective. at least with protective dash you could protect it.

[devildevil21]

For heals that would burst heal the defense target to full hp relatively quick, like trinity's blessing, a good idea for a fix is for it to heal about 15% or so of the target's hp in 5(or more?) seconds. The minimum is 500 hp in 5(or more?) seconds. This is just a measure to assure the healing scales with the defense target hp. 500 hp for a defense target with 2k hp is fine, but 500 hp for a defense target with 50k hp.... not really fine now is it?

[Urlan]

1 minute ago, devildevil21 said:

For heals that would burst heal the defense target to full hp relatively quick, like trinity's blessing, a good idea for a fix is for it to heal about 15% or so of the target's hp in 5(or more?) seconds. The minimum is 500 hp in 5(or more?) seconds. This is just a measure to assure the healing scales with the defense target hp. 500 hp for a defense target with 2k hp is fine, but 500 hp for a defense target with 50k hp.... not really fine now is it?

That is a great point, some form of scaling cap per life cap of the defense target would be very practical considering while 500 might be sufficient for starter level defenses, it would be a drop of water for a higher level defense with enemies doing more than that per hit.

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

While I appreciate the intent... (and I think all these abilities should have interacted with defense targets and allies and companions - sentinels, moas, pets... FROM THE START, and it's still not clear that they even would do that much... this is just listing effects on stationary defense targets, essentially)...

My goodness is Vazarin dead... even if the numbers are subject to change (how often have we heard, "subject to change"... but EXACTLY those numbers end up in the game... like Kuva survival, even when the numbers were joked about in the dev stream... among others) even if... I don't see it being far off, if that low amount is the INTENT, and it removes the invincibility phase... which is about the only thing that can save some targets from grenade damage.

Overall, the changes look like Star Chart changes, and ignore cases where the abilities actually make a difference. (making all these "options" mere fluff that don't actually contribute to success or failure.)

 

I'm feeling the fun drain from the game, reading the recent history of nerfs... like someone on the dev team has been biding their time and just waiting to destroy everything everyone is having fun with.

 

 

Edit: Minor point to add: Garuda... for lore reasons shouldn't be able to set up a blood altar from a Moa... or Bursa... or Grineer Roller ball... or... yeah... I don't think the whole garuda thing is dealing in physical blood. It's more a metaphysical force that the void is manipulating in a blood motif... otherwise, I guess all those mechanical enemies are really Dalek/Cybermen type enemies, with organics inside for some reason...

[kapn655321]

Speaking of healing... Mending Shot.

Unless you can shoot/consume those health orbs while at full health, my health orb centric build for Trin can't even use it.
Reason? Health Conversion and Arcane Pulse synergy.

Been sacrificing a primary to fire, reload, and put away Hema, in order to pick them (orbs) up.. and that is superbly impractical.

[Vitalis_Inamorta]

Oh, so you're just  going to reduce effectiveness of objective healing by 99% or more.

Let's be real, 500 heal is around a fifth of a single hit from any enemy at any level that matters.  500 over 5s is decent for a level one objective in a level one mission, maybe.  Also somewhat effective for sortie defenses since they only have something like 2k health to begin with.  Outside of that?  A level 40ish defense objective has like 30k health and it only scales up from there.

I get capping oplink heals to 500 or 1k a go, but ffs leave the other heals that already work alone.  Even with oplinks, it's not like they survive beyond five seconds anyway if anything manages to get to them later in the missions.

You know what happens if you change Vazarin's dash like that?  I quickfarm the shards to unbind its waybounds then ditch the school forever because it has nothing worth using.  I wouldn't even bother to use the +25 affinity radius to boost Trinity/Harrow ability ranges, because I can just get flares to do that better in the rare situation I care to, without wasting an entire school that has nothing else useful in it.  Instant revives?  Don't make me laugh, they're a limited bit of QoL that won't sell anything.  You have to be in op form literally every 5s anyway to keep anything invulnerable and no one wants to play like that.  Might as well not have a warframe or weapons because you don't have time to use them.

Here I'll make some predictions for changes as projected:

If you go through with this change people will use Wisp and Khora for defense objectives, with maybe some Inaros and Harrow thrown in occasionally.  All other heals will be disregarded as either worthless or far too energy expensive for the effect, or both.

Oberon will actually stop being used for any mission past low double digits for Defense and Mobile Defense missions, because the healing will suck his energy dry too fast even with good efficiency.

All other healing frames are DoA for healing outside of oplinks, since they'll only be healing something like 0.5-2.5% of an objective's health or shields over five seconds.  You know how many people can even look at the health bar and tell that a heal that small and slow is happening?  You literally can't even see that happening unless the health bar takes up two or more inches of screen real estate.  For Rescue/Sortie Def targets and extractors they'll heal more, but both of those still have like a fifth the health of other objectives at their level, so that's saying nothing useful.

Sancti Magistar is stone cold dead and will be dropped from 95% of builds that currently use it... which are probably already less than 5% of builds even on the potentially applicable missions.  Dead as a doornail.

Here are some recommendations:

Base healing done on a percentage of the targets health.  Make it scale with power strength.  If this is going to be 1% health/second over five seconds or something that's fine for some abilities.  That is not at all fine for the likes of Blessing and Mend.

-Blessing: should be able to heal at least 5% instantly with a further 5% nonstacking HoT, all scaling with power strength.  This isn't extreme even for Oplinks.  No one even can run around with north of around 350% power strength for any amount of time without stacking three quarters of a team just to make the one ability happen, and oplinks die in literally a couple of seconds at higher levels.  The vast majority of Trinities will never be running over 224% power strength though, and a lot don't run over 155%.  11% heal with 11% HoT is a non-issue in WarFrame pacing.

-Mend: should be able to heal to full if it's stacked enough, there I said it.  However, make Mend based on enemies killed, say in the range of 1-2.5% per enemy killed, otherwise there's no point in bothering to cast it, or no point in bothering to stack it up.  Do that and you'll at least have people stacking it up for an emergency heal.  It's not like it's exactly a spammable ability....

-Renewal: should be in the 0.5-1% health per second range, before scaling with power strength.  ~40 seconds of healing for 100% on a totally healing-focused build really sound like overkill?  Doesn't sound like overkill to me.  Sounds kinda slow given WarFrame's pacing.

-Vazarin Dash:  I can understand wanting to cap it to 15% heal over duration.  Other than that, leave it alone.  It already doesn't heal if the target's taken damage in the last 8 seconds or something.  Leave the invulnerability alone.  It's only 5s.  Come on, how many people use Vazarin anyway?  Most use Zenurik.  This will just seal that deal.  I'll personally sidestep to Madurai in a heartbeat, viva la cheesetacular healpizza spam for frame healing, it'll be nice to do some actual damage with my OP for once outside of Lockdown cheese.

-Sancti Magistar:  I can see dividing the heal amount between allied units.  Anything more than that and the weapon is absolutely dead.  Maybe decrease the healing range slightly if you have to.

I'm not going to talk about the other abilities and augments since I have little experience with them, other than to note that no one both serious and who knows what they're doing uses Mending Splinters.  It takes too many targets stacked and is too much of a pain to keep up with Vitrify refreshes even if most of the targets aren't dashing 50m back and forth willy-nilly.

As for the ability damage reduction, is that 50% damage reduction cap for one ability, or is that 50% global cap?  If the latter, expect no one to bother in 95% of missions with defense objectives.  It just doesn't matter enough to be worth it when setting up things like Frost's globe or just killing the enemies first is going to be so much more effective.

TL;DR:  There's a fine line between globally nerfing useful things by 99% or more (what you're suggesting) on a knee-jerk reaction based on an event-only issue, to the point where players will all internally go "Haha, that's cute, I'll never use it", with the excuse of leveling the stage (razed to the ground), and making reasonable and guided changes to the efficacy of things.

As you are so fond of saying, these changes are only prospective, and can be changed more if you didn't change them enough the first time.  The alternative is what you usually do, which is to absolutely terminate the usability of things, then never revisit them since "they're not a problem now and no one uses them anyway so no popular outcry", then start power-creeping on the ashes.  That's a large part of where burnout-city comes from when people realize that nothing they do actually matters, as anything useful that they bought or ground out will inevitably be reduced to worthless so that more power creep can be shoehorned in.

[Terminus-Est]

Intent:

Please don't specifically call out Garuda for suspicious lore in a sea of suspicious lore being overlooked for mechanical unity. Literally the next example is Inaros - Scarab Swarm; you want to say that blood sacrifices cant fix a building but a swarm of bugs can? Just let the player have fun with niche uses of their niche abilities.

 

Relative Value:

When you eventually settle on numbers, I think that rather than all defensives being more or less equal, expensive Warframe powers should be more effective than spammable Operator abilities or cheap/long lasting Warframe powers.

 

Which is to say, I totally understand how a 100% heal would trivialize a defense mission, but healing is sort of Trinities only thing so maybe she should be good at it. Also don't forget her Well of Life when it comes to healing.

[ForcestormX]

Look, all I'm going to say is that I would like it if healing was scaling (% heal or whatever) rather than fixed values. Not exactly groundbreaking insight but I wanted to cast my vote.

e.g, why not make Blessing 0.5 or 1% heal/s instead of 100 heal/s? That'd be much closer to intention, I'm sure.

You guys like to use flat values a lot in your balancing approaches, and maybe that's because it's easier to program or something - but this game just doesn't really respond well to flat values because all of its content runs on exponential curves.

[Vitalis_Inamorta]

16 hours ago, NekroArts said:

As an avid Vazarin player since its introduction, I highly doubt it.

Found a bald-faced lie.  The def heal, the affinity range, and the insta revives are the only useful things in the school.  The affinity range usually doesn't matter and is vastly inferior to flares when it does, and the revives are limited and not important given OP void mode anyway.  If the heal's gone, the school outside of the waybounds is gone, including the growing shield which is too small to stop a lot of AoE and straight up doesn't block even a lot of non-AoE.