The Helminth: Dev Workshop

[iSiawPrime]

7 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

Burnout and lack of anything to keep people engaged is why the game is constantly losing players.

Know what causes burnout? Giving players everything with nothing to keep them mentally engaged. Know what doesn't keep players mentally engaged? 1shotting entire rooms full of enemies and having nothing challenging them.

inb4 Steel Path: Nobody's going to challenge themselves for nothing.

I'm not causing the game to lose players, DE and their lack of endgame content is doing that on their own.

By your logic everyone would love nerfs right? Then I wonder why nobody is using the Xoris anymore...?

[Pizzarugi]

2 minutes ago, (NSW)Siaw said:

By your logic everyone would love nerfs right? Then I wonder why nobody is using the Xoris anymore...?

Because glaives suck compared to most melees and the stances are just bad?

[iSiawPrime]

1 minute ago, Pizzarugi said:

Because glaives suck?

What about the Ember nerf? Or the catchmoon? Or the Vazarin nerf and so on.Did those suck too?

Suck so much that they were top pick for content and suddenly after the nerf the usage dropped mysteriously...

[Opyt]

3 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

Burnout and lack of anything to keep people engaged is why the game is constantly losing players.

Know what causes burnout? Giving players everything with nothing to keep them mentally engaged. Know what doesn't keep players mentally engaged? 1shotting entire rooms full of enemies and having nothing challenging them.

inb4 Steel Path: Nobody's going to challenge themselves for nothing.

I'm not causing the game to lose players, DE and their lack of endgame content is doing that on their own.

Nerfs are not engaging.  I can understand minor tweaks, but DE doesn't do half-measures.  DE would rather #*!% something into the dirt than wine and dine it for the desired result.  The Catchmoon is an example, everyone knew it was powerful, but DE went hamfisted on the nerf.  Everyone can accept that Protective Dash was overpowered, but jfc it went from percentage healing to flat amounts in a game where everything scales up from a base line.  Cryophon was another knee jerk where they didn't like what they were seeing so it had to be thrown out.  The Xoris wasn't "overpowered", it was just massively convenient.  Limbo's diminishing returns on Sentients (and only Sentients) adds very little to the game.

While we're at it: Op-links still exist, but do nothing outside of Scarlet Spear.  We still haven't seen remote foundry access in "peaceful areas" like Cetus or Fortuna.  We still haven't gotten the ability to queue up multiples of things, instead we got 100x blueprints and forma got dropped down to 23 hours instead of 24.  DE has been cutting corners for awhile, it was only natural that they'd cut corners here too.

I even took a break because of the nerfs to objective healing, and I'm still not going to give DE money after that awful design decision until they reexamine it and hopefully realize that there should be some kind of scaling to the healing in a game where everything else scales upwards.  I'm back, for now, but I'm not going to stay engaged when every time I find something I like or think I might like it gets ground into dust under the heel of DE in the name of balance.  I didn't even think the Helminth System should have been released.  I didn't think they were ready to release Deadlock Protocol.  Railjack obviously wasn't ready for release originally, but they wanted to have that cute moment on stage where Rebb nervously says "We were thinking ... now?".  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Railjack, even at launch, because I was able to look past the atrocious bugs, but even now you can get locked out of the Archwing Slingshot for the entire mission after someone else uses it.

[Fenrir121]

12 minutes ago, Opyt said:

but even now you can get locked out of the Archwing Slingshot for the entire mission after someone else uses it.

God every time I join a game with the pulse turbine objective in railjack that stupid door breaks.

[Pizzarugi]

17 minutes ago, (NSW)Siaw said:

What about the Ember nerf?

Ember got reworked and is now once more a popular nuke frame. What are you on about?

17 minutes ago, (NSW)Siaw said:

Or the catchmoon?

It was, according to DE in a stream, was 51% pick among all players compared to every other secondary. All it received was a range falloff nerf.

17 minutes ago, (NSW)Siaw said:

Or the Vazarin nerf

Don't know what it was nerfed over.

17 minutes ago, (NSW)Siaw said:

Did those suck too?

You're really trying to twist words, aren't you?

The Xoris wasn't nerfed because it sucked. It got nerfed, because its gimmick allowed frames whose abilities can scale off combo multiplier to not have to worry about their one limiting factor which was maintaining combo count.

17 minutes ago, (NSW)Siaw said:

Suck so much that they were top pick for content and suddenly after the nerf the usage dropped mysteriously...

And the community ignoring everything in favor of one weapon doesn't look like a problem to you?

[PsychoSunshine]

Just now, Fenrir121 said:

God every time I join a game with the pulse turbine objective in railjack that stupid door breaks.

There's a spot above the door where you can glitch around it using Razorwing. Not exactly a fix, but it's something.

[iSiawPrime]

1 minute ago, Pizzarugi said:

Ember got reworked and is now once more a popular nuke frame. What are you on about?

It was, according to DE in a stream, was 51% pick among all players compared to every other secondary. All it received was a range falloff nerf.

Don't know what it was nerfed over.

You're really trying to twist words, aren't you?

The Xoris wasn't nerfed because it sucked. It got nerfed, because its gimmick allowed frames whose abilities can scale off combo multiplier to not have to worry about their one limiting factor which was maintaining combo count.

And the community ignoring everything in favor of one weapon doesn't look like a problem to you?

Ok I got it, you’re either a troll or extremely delusional.

[Opyt]

1 minute ago, (NSW)Siaw said:

Ok I got it, you’re either a troll or extremely delusional.

Nah, he's just stuck on the issue of power creep being a very real danger to the game (which has some merits but not to the exclusion of everything else) and that it's somehow the players' fault that DE can't/won't manage their power creep properly with fine tuning but instead use the hammer because every problem (real or perceived) is a nail, with a reckless disregard for things that are screws.

[Pizzarugi]

5 minutes ago, (NSW)Siaw said:

Ok I got it, you’re either a troll or extremely delusional.

And you can't argue in good faith and prefer petty insults. Nice.

I'm just gonna put you on ignore now.

[Fenrir121]

9 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

Ember got reworked and is now once more a popular nuke frame. What are you on about?

She doesn't nuke high end content and its not a one button push. You have to pay attention to what you're doing on Ember. I honestly prefer her rework but she's no where near the power level she used to be. Push 4 and go cook dinner.

[iSiawPrime]

2 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

And you can't argue in good faith and prefer petty insults. Nice.

I'm just gonna put you on ignore now.

Oh no I’m being ignored I’m so sad I’ll go cry in a corner. /s

Multiple people explained to you the reason why the community stop using stuff that DE destroy with their nerfs and yet you still believe they are either top picks after the nerf ( which they aren’t) or you just say they “suck”.

[(PSN)KNoWaNDBe]

GReeTiNGS: The Helminth Subsume Takes 2 long. It would be faster & funner 2 use the Cysts that grow on your Neck for R&D. You could make a co-op mission or a random\specific mission that the 2 Warframes 2B subsumed 2gether do the mission 2gether. This will only need 2B done 1nce by the warframe 2B Subsumed. During the co-op mission the ability to be Extracted will B used by the WF 2B Subsumed & the WF with the cyst needs 2BN Range of the ability when its used. Either used on or used by, the Cyst will fill with Data everytime within range until the research is complete. Now back N the orbiter both WFs go 2 the HSR & The WF with the cyst will have it removed & It will B put on the WF 2B Subsumed Neck. All during this cutscene you see the operator (Whatever New Character or New Syndicate Leader) leave the WF 2B subsumed after it is put N2 the HS. The WF should slowly be Subsumed until only the head remains as a memento on the wall of the WFs Sacrifice. NE Way, after the (Skipable) cutscene is over the WF will emerge with the new ability & have 1 last Test that is 2Free the Subsumed WF in 1more mission using the Newly Gained Ability 2Free/Assist\etc... the Captured/Stranded|Lost\Corrupted etc.... WF. Last mission can B optional & should reward a Weapon/Glyph|Deco\Resource etc... :GoDBLeSS

[AnFangs]

This helminth system sure went from really interesting at Tennocon to utterly watered down disappointment in record time. Bravo, everyone involved.

[Misty_Valley]

I am so disappointed that a vocal minority of players got me from being excited about Helminth to barely caring. These nerfs just seem pointless - Warframe is a power fantasy PvE game, after all. Why nerf something that was only going to expand on this game's core draw (customisability)? I'm baffled that DE are acquiescing so easily on this. If anything, I was hoping that in future, we'd get more subsumable abilties from frames but the way things are going I can see them *removing* some of the subsumable abilities instead!

[Pizzarugi]

5 minutes ago, MistmanX said:

I am so disappointed that a vocal minority of players got me from being excited about Helminth to barely caring. These nerfs just seem pointless - Warframe is a power fantasy PvE game, after all. Why nerf something that was only going to expand on this game's core draw (customisability)? I'm baffled that DE are acquiescing so easily on this. If anything, I was hoping that in future, we'd get more subsumable abilties from frames but the way things are going I can see them *removing* some of the subsumable abilities instead!

Not entirely true about the vocal minority.

Popular streamers and youtubers who were okay or supported these skills being added are just as much responsible. They have a much wider reach than some nobodies posting on the forum. 😛

[-Augustus-]

5 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

Not entirely true about the vocal minority.

Popular streamers and youtubers who were okay or supported these skills being added are just as much responsible. They have a much wider reach than some nobodies posting on the forum. 😛

Incorrect. DE has full control of what is implemented in-game; DE bears sole responsibility for announcing (and, if they're short-sighted enough to follow through at this point) implementing this functionally-irrelevant, perceptively-negative approach. 

[Nox_Terminus]

8 hours ago, (PS4)thegarada said:

Does a frame like chroma use skills 1 or 4? No. Roar at full value (assuming 200% intensity) will double your damage. How is this not power creep? Even at fraction of its value, it still far more valuable than majority of the other skills in the pool and his skill 1 & 4.

Also in a squad of 4, you can have insane buffs. Just grab Volt with Roar, wisp with warcry. Empower on chroma before casting skill 3. Trinity or Harrow with dispenser. Few million damage per hit easy, while being nearly immortal. How is this not major power creep? Even at 5% of these skills value the damage in a group setting will go up by a significant amount. At full value, we can be looking at 5-10x. 

Having these skills in the pool, at all, is pretty generous. People complaining about not able to double their damage, solo, and even much more in group setting, is idiotic. Why do we need to go back to one shooting everything while taking close to no damage?

Chroma won't be able to use Roar without replacing Vex Armor. DE already thought of this 'issue'.

[dwqrf]

This is getting ridiculous. People complain about popular skills being too strong, and then, people complain abouth those over hyped skills being adjusted. That's beyond stupid. DE has EVERY RIGHTS to buff, nerf, adjust, anything in the game ; AND EVEN MORE SO on a system which isn't even out yet. I'm glad they nerf abilities that YOU hyped. I sure would prefer other abilities to be buffed, but I'll be satisfied nonetheless. It's a new system that will be fun to use. Period.

Every warframe has multiple builds, and in every build, there is always one ability that suffer from the min-maxed modding. The Helminth system will allow us to replace this "useless" ability by something else which will fit in the build, and benefit from said min-maxing. Learn to be happy with what you get instead of complaining about what you don't have. And that's a life lesson.

[Pizzarugi]

2 minutes ago, -Augustus- said:

Incorrect. DE has full control of what is implemented in-game; DE bears sole responsibility for announcing (and, if they're short-sighted enough to follow through at this point) implementing this functionally-irrelevant, perceptively-negative approach. 

Yes, I agree. DE shouldn't have added these overpowered abilities to the list in the first place.

However, the person I was responding to is claiming that a vocal minority was responsible for this happening, which isn't true. Yes their opinions may have had some sway on making DE nerf the subsumed skills, but that's ignoring the people who also wanted them also pointing out how much more chosen they would be over the others.

[(XBOX)Church367A]

There are more than just a few abilities that could have been buffed to have been somewhat useful and could have waited at least a month minimum to see if things really were overpowered instead of making an asinine reaction to hype over a handful of abilities.  This "nerf" mentality is getting extremely old and demoralizing and to do so before content even releases is about as ill thought out as can be, assuming any thought went into making that decision at all.  This is absolutely ridiculous, thanks DE for helping set the tone of disappointment for the upcoming content.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

This is the definition of the term "tone deaf".  You put out a bunch of hype at Tennocon, built the hype up with workshop posts, then decided to listen to a tiny fraction of whiners and Youtubers (some of whom you missed the point on entirely.) and pre-nerfed the thing that you built up all that hype for, and you can literally watch the hype die in this thread.

You remember one of the last times you decided to listen to a tiny minority of players on something and ended up making something useless?  Universal Medallions.  You literally made that item even more pointless than it already was because of literally one jackwagon with a Twitter account tweeting you one time.  This is what you're doing right now.  Some people said "These handful of abilities will be popular choices, especially considering how bad some of the other choices are."  And your immediate reaction:

"OMG DID THEY SAY SOMETHING WAS GOING TO BE POPULAR?  NUKE THAT S#&$ FROM ORBIT AND MAKE SURE NOT TO TOUCH DECOY OR PULL."

[Alira0Blexiera]

"now go get an extra set of every warframe so you can give warframes 1 nerfed or useless ability from any frame"  what?   DE, stop worrying about balance and "i want players to use everything equally" give US the option of choice, don't take it from us...sadly i know my words fall on deaf ears, warframe is dying and i'll be making a bet with my friend who's a founder that he'll stop wearing hes founder tshirt forever in 1-2 years from now out of shame for what it will become.
Warframe has been imperfect in every way, if i were to say one thing that's absurdly good its the Audio team.
DE is forgetting were it comes from, it was the community that saved them from shutting down, they have forgotten why they were saved, unique ideas and a will that said "get onboard or get out of the way"

[IgnitionPlays]

Another idea in addition to buffing the weaker choices or replacing them with more desirable abilities would be add a leveling system so lets say you subsoom you would have a choice to a) unlock the assigned ability from the list or b) level up the listed ability for the frame that its from lets use rhino as an example sure other frames could take the ability and use roar but with this system when rhino roars his roar does bonus stuff like lets say slowing down enemies with in the radius and have it level up to 3 times each time you add another unique effect to the ability this way other frames can still customize and use stuff from the list but the frame the ability is from will always be able to do more with the ability with out resorting to nerfing the ability on the list for everyone else.

I think that most people would be understanding and accepting if the release date of the chair update was pushed back a little bit to make something like this a reality.

[master_of_destiny]

Let's be rational here, DE is responsible for this, not a streamer.  The argument goes as follows:

 

Streamer [insert name here] has done a breakdown of what abilities are coming, and demonstrated that in their opinion certain abilities are going to be far more prevalent than others.  Their breakdown suggests that this will create an optimized path, and we want equality of outcome rather than to have optimized paths that people choose.

 

Here's the problem, DE chose what abilities are on the list.  People who saw this immediately came to the conclusion that the abilities were all going to be the less powerful on each frame.  Loki's Decoy, Zephyr's Air Burst, Limbo's Banish, all of these things were assumed and expected.  Now, fast forward to the reveal.  The unthinkable happened...there were genuinely great abilities.  Beyond Defy, everything on the nerf list is a completely capable power that was insane to think was going to be included in the system.  From the word go, Roar was an insanely good choice to replace any garbage ability on a frame because more damage is always better in a horde shooter.

 

The following announcement that you couldn't stack the same type of buff on frames was expected.  The whole dream of something like two percentage buffs to any one trait was going to be precluded because it absolutely broke the game.  That's fine.  If you've got MR 15 content completion, that's about 30% of all content in the game currently, you'll know what abilities you want and you won't be making a butchery of the balance.  Yeah, there's clear better options amongst the list.  At the same time, not all frames need to have themselves tweaked.

 

Flash forward again.  MR is now locked at 8, which is about 10% of the MR available in the game.  Any ability being offered that was cited with any enthusiasm is being nerfed.  Why even have enthusiasm to engage with this system?  

Let's be reasonable here, DE set this up for failure.  On some frames they chose garbage abilities, and their half hearted buffs are an insult.  Zephyr main here, and the "upgraded" air burst is still only useful consistently as an energy sink to boost her 4.  The truly useful in any circumstance abilities are going to be nerfed to an unknown extent, but based off of the desired plan for equality of outcome it's going to be bad.  How so, well Catchmoon secondary level of nerf.  I'm laughing here, because the nerf basically made most people give it up but it's one of the few weapons I've cared to install a pexilus adapter on to fix the range issues.  It still kills level 55+ dropships on PoE with 2 shots when a full clip from a riven heavy Opticor Vandal can't do the job.

 

 

Now, how to fix it without the stupid nerfs?  Well, let's get some competing powers out there that aren't garbage.  My suggestions are as follows:

Revenant and Zephyr both offer defensive measures, with Mesmer Skin and Turbulence.  Wukong remains untouched.  There has to be a nerf on Mesmer skin to be a percentage damage reduction rather than full invincibility.   This means Nova, Revenant, Zephyr, and Wukong provide parallel options for defense that offer unique quirks.

Rhino, Ash, and Valkyr become movement sources.  Rhino's Charge is added, instead of his Roar.  Ash gets his Teleport ability.  Valkyr's using Ripline instead of Warcry.  With the former you get quick movement in a line, Ash provides the ability to close distances, and with Ripline you get to be a spider (read: synergy with arcane arachne and the like).  You lose armor stripping, roar's increase in damage, and the problems with giving out Valkyr's boosting ability.

Mirage gets Sleight of Hand.  It's a direct competitor to Excalibur's Radial Blind and Wisp's Breach Surge.  The differentiation comes from the setup of the blinds, the associated damage potential, and difficulty in setup.

Protea and Nidus both become area control.  Protea loses dispensary, but gets Grenade Fan with only the shrapnel option.  Nidus keeps an unmodified Larva.  This gives us Mag to pull enemies in, Nidus and Khora to lump them together, and Protea to prevent enemies from going anywhere.  This would be the competing group of area control abilities.    

Loki gets his Decoy buffed.  Instead of being incapable of taking hits it works like Frost's Snowglobe.  Once cast it takes damage for x seconds and that value is added to its health.  It now competes with Octavia's Resonator, but instead of being mobile it controls a single area.  Loki and Octavia provide distraction abilities.

 

You'll note the only nerf required is Revnant, and it's only to put it in-line with Nova (Grenade Fan isn't a nerf so much as a functionality lock).  The difference is Nova builds off of Duration, so your damage reducers build off of duration (Zephyr), duration (Nova), or strength (Revenant).  The one buff is to decoy, which frankly has no scaling and thus is not useful when enemies simply look at it and it dies. 

This means all of the above abilities have direct competition, offer alternatives based upon how the ability works, but don't create any single situation where things are superior 100% of the time.  None of this is rocket science, so DE could quite easily have done all the above with less effort than it will take to sort through more than 180 pages of replies....assuming they even try.

 

 

 

Let me summarize; DE you failed because you didn't match powers and provide alternatives.  Rather than try to fit these square pegs into round holes with nerfs, how about you just change the powers?  It's funny to read that you want players to have alternatives, and then see a single controlled attack buff.  There's three options for grouping enemies, but one is statistically superior (Air Burst, Entangle, Larva).  You've got two of the exact same abilities, but one is incapable of high level play (Resonator and Decoy).  It's almost like different people chose the abilities, and nobody asked about simply lining up warframes with similar but competing abilities to offer that as choice.  

 

I'm not looking forward to Tuesday.  If this is coming out a week before such a complex system it's a bad indicator of what is to come otherwise.