What if Companions simply could not die/become downed? (Companion Immortality)

[(XBOX)Demon Intellect]

2 minutes ago, Voltage said:

???

You have just as little creativity on a companion as you do a properly built secondary or melee. If we baked in base damage into weapons, do you know what happens? Something replaces it and the amount of mandatory mods stays equal. You remove all eHP mods off companions, and there will be a mod to take it's place. You really think making them immortal makes them interesting to mod? If anything, you will just slot the mandatory utility mods, not bother using Forma, and Synth Mods to let you reload while holstered. Sounds way more boring to me than a pet that actually has something to manage.

And dies stupidly often. Pets have little survivability in decent level content unless you enjoy just spamming melee, which surprise! Some of us dont.

[Zahnny]

2 minutes ago, WhiteMarker said:

Things are build around the trade-off that companions can die. Making them immortal is a huge buff. Do I have to draw a picture?

The power creep is that the trade-off of dying is removed. This is quite the buff. Actually pretty easy to understand, isn't it?

And you speak for everyone in the game?
And is it really unintended? For now it isn't. If it was, it wouldn't be in the game anymore.

As described above:
Removing a balancing factor like the ability to die is a buff. And quite the big one if we take peoples words that their companion is always dead...

You asked for things to balance it, people offered balances and now you're saying you don't want them removed.

Legitimately curious, what do you want nudged to balance it out then?

[DrivaMain]

8 minutes ago, Voltage said:

???

You have just as little creativity on a companion as you do a properly built secondary or melee. If we baked in base damage into weapons, do you know what happens? Something replaces it and the amount of mandatory mods stays equal. You remove all eHP mods off companions, and there will be a mod to take it's place. You really think making them immortal makes them interesting to mod? If anything, you will just slot the mandatory utility mods, not bother using Forma, and Synth Mods to let you reload while holstered. Sounds way more boring to me than a pet that actually has something to manage.

Mindsets like these is why pets are in the bad state as they are now. Any changes that affects modding will inevitably change mandatory mods. You can already see this with Warframe Revised where it shifts the go to elemental from Corrosive to Viral.

Fixing AI right now is impossible. Operating A Smart and responsive AI requires strong computing power, which is something a lot of players do not have.

6 minutes ago, WhiteMarker said:

The power creep is that the trade-off of dying is removed. This is quite the buff. Actually pretty easy to understand, isn't it?

Call it a huge buff or power creep all you want. This one change will be widely accepted by a lot of players and probably for the good of the game wether you want it or not.

[Voltage]

7 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

Call it a huge buff or power creep all you want. This one change will be widely accepted by a lot of players and probably for the good of the game wether you want it or not.

This playerbase would praise DE if they tripled Sortie rewards, added Arcane Energize to Login Rewards, removed the need to level after using a Forma, or just straight up doubled the duration of Shield Gating. Just because this playerbase accepts something doesn't mean it's actually good for the game.

[DrivaMain]

Just now, Voltage said:

This playerbase would praise DE if they tripled Sortie rewards, added Arcane Energize to Login Rewards, or just straight up doubled the duration of Shield Gating. Just because this playerbase accepts something doesn't mean it's actually good for the game.

Tell me, how does not letting players have to baby sit their pets instead of experiencing the action worsened the state of the game?

[Zahnny]

Just now, Voltage said:

This playerbase would praise DE if they tripled Sortie rewards, added Arcane Energize to Login Rewards, or just straight up doubled the duration of Shield Gating. Just because this playerbase accepts something doesn't mean it's actually good for the game.

How are pets being only useful in endgame through the usage of a Link-Health Inaros good for the game?

[Voltage]

3 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

Tell me, how does not letting players have to baby sit their pets instead of experiencing the action worsened the state of the game?

It dumbs down the gameplay even more as I said earlier.

3 minutes ago, Zahnny said:

How are pets being only useful in endgame through the usage of a Link-Health Inaros good for the game?

If you need Inaros to keep a companion alive in a Sortie or upcoming Steel Path, you're the problem, not the game. They just got shield gating too....

[Zahnny]

1 minute ago, Voltage said:

It dumbs down the gameplay even more as I said earlier.

 

I'd honestly compare reviving pets to be about as fun as repairing the drill in Payday.

1 minute ago, Voltage said:

If you need Inaros to keep a companion alive in a Sortie, you're the problem, not the game.

Apologies. I'll just be more careful to tell my companion how to move and navigate around enemy fire as it charges into a fire eximus and gets yeeted.

[DrivaMain]

5 minutes ago, Voltage said:

It dumbs down the gameplay even more as I said earlier.

If you need Inaros to keep a companion alive in a Sortie, you're the problem, not the game.

I don't see this change will dumb down gameplay. If anything it will make the game more fun because it's less baby sitting, more action. There is a reason why Defection and Defense are one of the most unpopular mission types in the game. 

I can keep them alive in Sorties yes, but what about Arbitrations and the upcoming Steel Path where pets die in a few shot in those levels? Let's not forget Eidolons and Orb Mothers too where they have insane AoE strikes that annihilates pets.

[ReaverKane]

29 minutes ago, WhiteMarker said:

Things are build around the trade-off that companions can die. Making them immortal is a huge buff. Do I have to draw a picture?

The power creep is that the trade-off of dying is removed. This is quite the buff. Actually pretty easy to understand, isn't it?

And you speak for everyone in the game?
And is it really unintended? For now it isn't. If it was, it wouldn't be in the game anymore.

As described above:
Removing a balancing factor like the ability to die is a buff. And quite the big one if we take peoples words that their companion is always dead...

LOL...

So, you'd rather have content barely or not working, than risk power creep... You must be fun at parties.

[Reidenshi]

12 minutes ago, Voltage said:

It dumbs down the gameplay even more as I said earlier.

What's so smart about companion vulnerability? Is having to constantly stop to revive your pet smart? Is hiding behind the corner to save your sentinel in higher levels smart?

What really dumbs gameplay down is unrestricted AoE and some of our own means of survivability.

[ReaverKane]

3 minutes ago, Reidenshi said:

What's so smart about companion vulnerability? Is having to constantly stop to revive your pet smart? Is hiding behind the corner to save your sentinel in higher levels smart?

What really dumbs gameplay down is unrestricted AoE and some of our own means of survivability.

Nah, my favourite is getting your sentinel shot down while you revive someone in operator mode. That's fun AF, cause AI will target it while the warframe is invulnerable.
That's like big brain!

[Zahnny]

1 minute ago, ReaverKane said:

Nah, my favourite is getting your sentinel shot down while you revive someone in operator mode. That's fun AF, cause AI while target it while the warframe is invulnerable.
That's like big brain!

Don't forget DE arbitrarily make some Warframe abilities not apply to sentinels, such as Wisps motes.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

1 hour ago, Zahnny said:

What do you guys think?

Considering sentinels, they're equipment. My rifle has no HP, why should my sentinel have HP? In regards to pets, turning them entirely immortal is a bit more difficult to justify. The problem is, that over the years so much bandaid has been built to keep the companions alive that it would probably be unrealistic to expect all that luggage to just disappear at this point. Personally, I think buffing and standardizing companion survivability across the board, while also adding some way to revive a completely downed companion would be the better way of going about it. Perhaps with a gear item that has some gameplay requirement to be fulfilled or has a cooldown on it, so all that bandaid luggage I mentioned would still be somewhat relevant and you couldn't just spam companion revives.

[ReaverKane]

Just now, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Considering sentinels, they're equipment. My rifle has no HP, why should my sentinel have HP? In regards to pets, turning them entirely immortal is a bit more difficult to justify. The problem is, that over the years so much bandaid has been built to keep the companions alive that it would probably be unrealistic to expect all that luggage to just disappear at this point. Personally, I think buffing and standardizing companion survivability across the board, while also adding some way to revive a completely downed companion would be the better way of going about it. Perhaps with a gear item that has some gameplay requirement to be fulfilled or has a cooldown on it, so all that bandaid luggage I mentioned would still be somewhat relevant and you couldn't just spam companion revives.

Yeah, Companion Immortality won't happen, especially on sentinels (i mean Djinn's thing is his respawn thing)...
But QoL improvements, especially on non-sentinel companions would greatly improve their usability at higher levels.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

13 minutes ago, ReaverKane said:

But QoL improvements, especially on non-sentinel companions would greatly improve their usability at higher levels.

Especially considering that pets quite often just wander off and die on their own with no way of keeping them alive. And since most enemy weapons in the game are hitscan you can't pheasibly keep your sentinel alive either in the same situations where most warframes wouldn't be pefrectly comfortable.

And of course vacuum being a companion mod and not just a warframe-based utility function is a long-standing issue that a lot of people probably just gave up on at this point. 

[Chewarette]

As long as they have poor AI, yeah, please. Pets dying are just a major annoyance to your QoL (losing passives such as Vacuum or Radar), and once they're dead, they're dead (even worse in Arbis). And most of the time, you can't even do S#&$, poor pathing leads them to inevitable death, or sleeping in AoEs...

I don't see DE giving them full immortality though. I could see a "De-activated" or "Exhausted" status, which would work the same as Djinn's Reawaken mod: Upon "Death", pet goes into stasis / sentinels and Moas into auto-repair mode, rendering them "inactive" for 60-90 seconds.

When pets are "deactivated" or "exhausted", you lose active capabilities (like Charm, attacks/pewpew, or most Precepts), but you would keep Passive (vacuum, radar...).

I think this is the better compromise. Giving them straight immortality would mean DE has to remove/transform most of the Survival mods. But with a system like that, it's up to you, either you mod your Pet to be a bit tanky, so that your uptime of Charm or whatever active buff is optimized, or to maximize DPS, or you go full GTFO and build your Pet to be only a pure Utility tool.

[Rakosta_Kai]

I don't like the concept of invincibility as it would guarantee nerfs to functions. The goal should be making them tougher for tougher content 

Scaling their health/shields/armor to the lvl of the mission as opposed to scaling to the warframe in it would be a better idea imo.

Something like that in addition to any of the following:

• Lifesteal at low health
• The ability to re-deploy robot sentinels
• Revive periods for downed pets removed if mobs are getting killed around it
• Activity Pre-sets (Aggressive, Passive, Defensive)
• A combat camouflage separate from one able to be used by the Frame

Should dramatically increase ttl for companions in missions.

 

Also, at long last, give me my Zanuka pet.

That has nothing to do with what we are talking about of course...I just want my Zanuka.

 

[Reidenshi]

9 minutes ago, Padre_Akais said:

I don't like the concept of invincibility as it would guarantee nerfs to functions.

Exactly what functions make companion vulnerability necessary?

[Corvid]

2 hours ago, Zahnny said:

I honestly don't see why this is a controversial issue. It's not like it's a change that once done cannot be altered in the future. I don't like being unable to take sentinels into high level because an enemy with 3m of AoE can one-shot a sentinel.

This. I barely go into the new tileset because Elite Crewmen vaporise my sentinel, and I don't want to have to babysit a MOA/Pet. It's also a fairly large part of why I dislike fighting Sentients, as the vast majority of their ranged attacks are AOE (even the burst-fire guns used by Mimics and Symbilysts, for some reason). Having to essentially manage a second health bar is not my idea of a good time.

[SneakyErvin]

The only thing I think companions could use is an auto revive after X seconds if they bleed out, much like how Venari works. This mostly because the A.I of the companions is slightly too dum-dum, plus at times they bug out and get stuck in nothing and die. It would be a QoL in endless missions.

Making them immortal would just free up so many mod slots it would be silly.

edit: For sentients I could see 100% invincibility though in return for reduced mod slots.

[kevoisvevo]

2 hours ago, Voltage said:

This just dumbs down the game even more. What's next? Operators need shield gating?

No thanks.

You clearly haven't ever played over lvl 100 it seems. You didn't provide any good argument against it either seeing pets are mostly utility or else you are stuck with inaros and djinn for pet survivability.

[HoustonDragon]

I'd be perfectly fine trading any damage from my Sentinel by removing its weapon if it meant it would become immune to damage.

It's beyond annoying to have them killed and unable to be recovered, especially compared to the pets and MOAs.

[DrivaMain]

4 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

Making them immortal would just free up so many mod slots it would be silly.

I say reduce mod slots to 8 to make it inline with other stuff in the arsenal to trade with invincibility. Remove Link, Health, Armor, and Shield mods and refund the endo and credits. Maybe throw in a legendary core for the troubles.
 

Regarding MOA parts just swap the bonus stats from HP, Shield, and Armor to Damage, CC, and Status to the equipped weapon or just remove it entirely and make the MOA parts cosmetics only, Gilding MOAs just give them an extra bump in damage.

[Lutesque]

What if we got Universal Vacuum...

I mean... theres just certain things DE refuses to do or do Properly... For Example... Why is Tek Assault RNG Based ?

Why cant Tek Assault just work like Rolling Guard ?

Rolling Guard on Pets would be Fantastic but nope... DE's Hard on For RNG just adds to the Inconistency of Inconsistent COmpanion Behavior...

Just give me something I can Plan around... dont give me all this Anxiety on whether or not Tek Assault will trigger or not...