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

[Yamazuki]

2 hours ago, Voltage said:

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

No thanks.

I don't think you know what "dumbing down" actually means. Slotting in defense mods isn't complex or taxing on the mind. The same is true for keeping them alive, you aren't managing your companion at all, and some Warframes or Melee weapons in the case of Kavat/Kubrow or Arcane for Sentinel makes them never die unless they get 1 shot.

The decision making for companions all fall on deciding the actual companion, everything else is already dumbed down to the bare minimum.

I personally rarely have my companion/sentinel die, even multiple hours into a run, and yet, I would also support just giving them immortality. Removing defensive mods also doesn't mean eliminating forma sink of companions; just re-adjust the cost of existing mods, and introduce more mods with higher cost overtime to compete with existing mods to make modding them have actual choice.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

I fully agree.

We don't even have the option to protect them unless we use certain abilities and or mods.

A bomb will still one shot a sentinel no matter how strong it is

[PsiWarp]

I would welcome the idea. For Sentinels, Regen keeps them active longer, but have them respawn after a minute.

For Beasts and MOAs, keep as is and if they happen to die, a conservation Oxylus would beam them up to the Orbiter to recover, deploying them again after two minutes.

[SneakyErvin]

51 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

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.

There are so many mods they need to remove and refund if they do anything like that, not to mention a multitude of formas that need to be refunded on maxed out compansions etc. if suddenly 2 mod slots are removed. And which polarities would we get to keep on those 8 slots if we have 10 slots polarized?

[Rakosta_Kai]

1 hour ago, Reidenshi said:

Exactly what functions make companion vulnerability necessary?

Any function that provides utility, damage, or defense.

...I'm not sure how much more exact you need that to be since it comprises all of the ones that don't currently work when your companion is dead.

I would highly doubt DE would make companions invincible without nerfing the perks players have grown to expect from them (regardless if they are QoL or Combat related) because DE has always been a fan of the notion of "balanced trade-offs"— and there is no trade-off to consider if the companion is invincible.

[Reidenshi]

10 minutes ago, Padre_Akais said:

Any function that provides utility, damage, or defense.

So these functions become game-breaking if available throughout the entire mission? What do you feel when your companion dies? That the game suddenly becomes harder? Or is it just an annoying inconvenience? It's definitely nothing more than inconvenience to me.

17 minutes ago, Padre_Akais said:

DE has always been a fan of the notion of "balanced trade-offs"— and there is no trade-off to consider if the companion is invincible.

There's nothing to balance either. DE could make bullet-jumping only be available with a mod to have a trade-off for mobility. They could make our weapons break over time to have a trade-off for their power. Would it be fair? No, it would only be annoying and unnecessary. Just like companion vulnerability is. It's nothing more than a poorly thought-out game aspect.

[NinjaZeku]

2 hours ago, Chewarette said:

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.

Was gonna (once again, heh) say pretty much exactly this.

+1

[ZiIIion]

+1.

Should implement a built-in Venari/Djinn mechanic where the pet can just come back after a certain period of time.

[Rakosta_Kai]

2 minutes ago, Reidenshi said:

So these functions become game-breaking if available throughout the entire mission? What do you feel when your companion dies? That the game suddenly becomes harder? Or is it just an annoying inconvenience? It's definitely nothing more than inconvenience to me.

My game has never been broken by having companions survive the entirety of my mission. If that is happening to you it may be a PC issue.

The loss of vacuum or any perk provided by the companion is an inconvenience by definition...Given that the perk was a convenience to begin with.

Likewise, I think you are downplaying what you see as their value overmuch, otherwise, you wouldn't be advocating for invincibility.

If you are tired or protecting or reviving them then stop taking them on tough missions...That seems a reasonable course given your assertion that they provide no value.

11 minutes ago, Reidenshi said:

There's nothing to balance either. 

In your opinion... I obviously don't share your opinion—I don't think DE would either.

38 minutes ago, Reidenshi said:

DE could make bullet-jumping only be available with a mod to have a trade-off for mobility.

The current version of parkour is the replacement for what was being used before.

The old way, incidentally,  was both faster and an un-intended consequence of an entirely different limitation DE had imposed for mission traversal.

40 minutes ago, Reidenshi said:

They could make our weapons break over time to have a trade-off for their power.

Wouldn't make sense because weapons get forma'd and such a practice would make forma useless...If weapons didn't get Forma'd though it would likely be have been a discussion already.

41 minutes ago, Reidenshi said:

Would it be fair? No, it would only be annoying and unnecessary. Just like companion vulnerability is. It's nothing more than a poorly thought-out game aspect.

Or we could call it a "hoop" and DE has never been known to apply those in this game. /s

The list of conveniences companions offer can get pretty long tbh.

• Why give you invisibility for free when you could just use a frame and lose offense instead?
• Or luck when you could either use specific frames that have it or buy a booster?
• Or any number of status effects that you either compound with your own gear or use to augment condition overload?
• Or Ammo Mutation...
• Or CC...
• Healing...
• Shield restore...

Asserting "there's nothing to balance" is also asserting that you think that they (the company that took more than a year to be convinced that putting Vacuum wouldn't be harmful) won't see cause to modify the level of impact companions currently have in missions.  

With absolutely no offense intended... If you truly believe that then I think you are fooling yourself.

[BlueGuy13]

Hahahaha

[xcrimsonlegendx]

I'd actually give a damn about sentinels. I hate using them because sometimes they just get focused and nuked instantly.

[Hypernaut1]

I think sentinels need a consumer to refine them and pets should get more defense along with 4 lives. 

[kwlingo]

If anything they need to have a chance to be revived.

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

Assuming their having health and ability to die is to curb potential botting (letting the Sentinel or Pet kill everything while you AFK in low level missions) I'd take a mod that disables their ability to attack, for invincibility. If you want them to be combat companions, you'll still have to use the mods that provide defense/attack, but if all you want them for is their utility... this works.

Either that, or a new "Utility belt" on the Warframe itself that can use mods generally equipped on sentinels/companions for passive effects like Vacuum, Enemy Radar and Loot Radar.

 

(in Destiny, I'd equip the Mida Multitool just to have enemy radar, no matter how much I hated the weapon itself...)

 

[Reidenshi]

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

My game has never been broken by having companions survive the entirety of my mission. If that is happening to you it may be a PC issue.

The loss of vacuum or any perk provided by the companion is an inconvenience by definition...Given that the perk was a convenience to begin with.

Likewise, I think you are downplaying what you see as their value overmuch, otherwise, you wouldn't be advocating for invincibility.

Stop playing with words and answer directly: what about companions is too good to be kept throughout the entirety of any mission?

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

In your opinion... I obviously don't share your opinion

Yeah, the only difference is that you can't back your opinion up.

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

The current version of parkour is the replacement for what was being used before.

The old way, incidentally,  was both faster and an un-intended consequence of an entirely different limitation DE had imposed for mission traversal.

Coptering and flying with melee were unintended ways of travelling. So technically, the bugs were fixed and we've been given new moves with no trade-offs.

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

Wouldn't make sense because weapons get forma'd and such a practice would make forma useless...If weapons didn't get Forma'd though it would likely be have been a discussion already.

I'm not talking about permanent damage that destroys the weapon. After reaching zero durability, you can't use the weapon until you repair it. Black Desert, for example, uses this system. Sounds fun and fair, right?

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

The list of conveniences companions offer can get pretty long tbh.

• Why give you invisibility for free when you could just use a frame and lose offense instead?
• Or luck when you could either use specific frames that have it or buy a booster?
• Or any number of status effects that you either compound with your own gear or use to augment condition overload?
• Or Ammo Mutation...
• Or CC...
• Healing...
• Shield restore...

Once again, is any of these effects game-changing? They are small enough to never challenge warframe powers, and the only thing that balances them enough is the fact that you can't use them all at the same time.

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

Asserting "there's nothing to balance" is also asserting that you think that they (the company that took more than a year to be convinced that putting Vacuum wouldn't be harmful) won't see cause to modify the level of impact companions currently have in missions.

Did I say DE could never nerf anything? There's a chance they won't though. The same pet system gets better overtime by lowering and even removing annoying maintenance. The question is, why would people ask to keep things annoyingly inconvenient? Why are they here? Just to suffer?

[TheKazz91]

Of companions couldn't die they would be more worth trying to actually build and mod but the effects you get from companions would still not be great so they would still basically be over rated vacuums nothing more.

[0_The_F00l]

Instead of being immortal hows about they go on cooldown instead - works well enough on the djinn and Venari  there culd be additional mods to assist with faster recovery.

Or just a consumable that can repair or revive the pet if dead - i know i would keep a few handy every mission.

I feel the companions shouldnt just go down , they should get wounded but still kicking,

they can still move but will  disappear to repair themsleves/lick wounds if not quickly tended before timer runs out.

After which you will have to wait for them to auto return or use a consumable.

[Rakosta_Kai]

31 minutes ago, Reidenshi said:

bleh bleh

So, at the risk of wasting a page replying to your nonsense, let's just do this a faster route instead...

I am willing to formally wager you 500 plat that:

DE won't institute invincibility for companions without nerfing their abilities.

You game?

Put your money where your mouth is or stop running your mouth.

[Voltage]

7 hours ago, kevoisvevo said:

You clearly haven't ever played over lvl 100 it seems.

Which level 100? Old or new? Because new level 100 definitely won't get a chance to kill my companions.

I've seen hundreds of levels in endurance and Operations. However, I don't have companion issues except when AI breaks. Their survivability isn't a problem for me.

[Orokin]

34 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Which level 100? Old or new? Because new level 100 definitely won't get a chance to kill my companions.

I've seen hundreds of levels in endurance and Operations. However, I don't have companion issues except when AI breaks. Their survivability isn't a problem for me.

It is very clear that you do not do endurance. The fact of the matter is that if you don't have : invisibility, vazarin dash spam, or constant cc, then your pet will attack enemies putting them DIRECTLY IN LOS. They will then expend their 1 second shield gate, with no way for you to replenish it and they will die. So, please explain how you control your pet not to attack enemies, because that is the only way to keep them alive aside from what I mentioned before.

And just because you probably use tek assault, does not mean that all companions are good at surviving. You are just using a mod for pseudo invulnerability. If you use that mod then you too are an advocate for companion invulnerability, because it takes no skill on your part to use it. No amount of jumping around that you think you are doing is going to save your companion.

[DrivaMain]

4 hours ago, Padre_Akais said:

So, at the risk of wasting a page replying to your nonsense, let's just do this a faster route instead...

I am willing to formally wager you 500 plat that:

DE won't institute invincibility for companions without nerfing their abilities.

You game?

Put your money where your mouth is or stop running your mouth.

Nerfing all mods by 50% of their power just to have invincibility? I’ll take it. 

[sitfesz]

My reaction would be simple "nice".
I can't control how my charm/scan machine avoids damage, so nice indeed.
I only bother to wake up the cat if the kuva siphon is still alive or if I'm in an endless mission.

I only bring charm buff minion into long missions and I only bring self-revive vacuum machine into arbitration. Companions are not worthy to be named currently, because we only use them for their specific mods, because actually the mods are the companions.

[Lutesque]

2 hours ago, Orokin said:

It is very clear that you do not do endurance. The fact of the matter is that if you don't have : invisibility, vazarin dash spam, or constant cc, then your pet will attack enemies putting them DIRECTLY IN LOS. They will then expend their 1 second shield gate, with no way for you to replenish it and they will die. So, please explain how you control your pet not to attack enemies, because that is the only way to keep them alive aside from what I mentioned before.

This.... 

Anybody who claims their pets can survive Level 100+ Content is clearly Either using Link Inaros or just Flatout trolling especially now that that Arcanes no longer interact with The Link Mods.

I know.... i didnt spend 8 Forma and a bajllion endo on my companions for someone to tell me otherwise... i know exactly the threshold where pets just die and how much micromanaging it takes to keep them alive.... 

 

[Voltage]

2 hours ago, Orokin said:

It is very clear that you do not do endurance. The fact of the matter is that if you don't have : invisibility, vazarin dash spam, or constant cc, then your pet will attack enemies putting them DIRECTLY IN LOS. They will then expend their 1 second shield gate, with no way for you to replenish it and they will die. So, please explain how you control your pet not to attack enemies, because that is the only way to keep them alive aside from what I mentioned before.

My very first reply on the first page clearly outlined that this is a separate issue that is in fact a problem. Companion AI and Sentinel targeting should be looked at and addressed. Blatantly making them invulnerable is a cheap band aid and the wrong way about solving this.

And yes, you're right, I don't volunteer myself to get trade banned. I do however have experience going a few hours here and there. I honestly have no problem reviving a companion.

[(PSN)poloslash18]

In Bordelands 3 there’s a class named Beastmaster. When the pet dies it gets a timer of 1 min to come back. I’ll take a buff to their defenses and the Beastmaster timer over nerfing some aspects and making them invulnerable. 
 

The companion will be chunkier and it will not stay forever dead.