The Helminth: Dev Workshop

[(XBOX)Th3BelovedSaint]

On 2020-08-22 at 5:52 PM, SordidDreams said:

I'll have you know actually using recruitment chat and/or having friends works wonders. You should give it a try sometime.

But that would require that he develop people skills! Which would require work! I will have you know that "work" is a four letter word! 😉 😄 To borrow a quote from NCIS Los Angeles, "Haters gonna hate!" And, seemingly, Trollers gonna troll!

[papry]

I'm late to that party but here I go.

I don't care about the MR reduction.

But nerfing ability based on potential usage doesn't make sense.

You are just prematurely killing a feature without letting it the time to shine.

Instead of buffing ability that need a bit of love : like decoy,

I know that ability will be gone on my loki as soon as I found something that I like.

Yet that was the one you choose for the helminth...

[master_of_destiny]

1 hour ago, IGN_Maverick said:

Dude at this point I can only tell you guys are pushing it a little bit too much. Every company has a structure. Those guys, even if they are the direct responsible for this mess, cannot address the issue of a forum post directly. The feedback has to be filtered by other people that are paid for that, and they need to receive the feedback polished and ready to use.

And this was my optimistic statement.

In reality I think they won't give a flying #*!% and just ignore all this feedback at once.  The update is out tomorrow. Let's see. I'm ready for another big thread of negative feedback if I have to restate all my points over and over. I have nothing better to do with my free time since I'm not playing the game. 🙂

Let me offer an alternative situation, and the repercussions.

 

Guild Wars 2 had a writer who had an extremely bad take on feedback from a fan.  They were respectful, and the writer immediately resorted to personal attacks and dismissal of the person.  The response from Arenanet was to review the response, determine that the response was bad, and they terminated their dealings with that writer.  As the story picked up the writer repeated their hot take, and eventually it became evident that whatever happened there was no lesson learned.

 

Let me be clear, the lesson here was not to make your social media the place where your job is talked about.

 

Now, let's consider some of the responses from DE.  There were multiple issues in the last several years where similar things happened.  I won't cite them, because there's generally a hair trigger from moderation when they're brought up.  Instead of any actions taken, the response has generally been that twitter shenanigans are acceptable.  Nothing matters as long as the cash is flowing, and the users are being bouyed on hype for the next big thing.  There will be no lessons learned, Heart of Deimos will release late night (EST) because it's still a bit messy, and we'll have patching until Thursday just to get functionality.  

With regards to this thread, 5 days of syndicate rep will be required, so Helminth is accessible on Saturday or Sunday.  It'll release buggy, we'll finally see the nerfs, and there'll be even more feedback that states this system had any good parts extricated because it's another exercise in wanting equality of outcome rather than equality of merit.  I see multiple rounds of nerfs about a month from now, when there's enough user data to start doing so.  It'll be hidden inside an update with a new feature, and everything will be just dandy as another promising system dies still-born.  No lessons learned.  Lather-rinse-repeat.

 

I also see this as the last open world for some time.  That's not because of success, but because after another promising demonstration turns out as ctrl+c ctrl+v people will not take four years of hype to be so consistently disappointed in open worlds.  That combined with more focus on tennogen, and it'll be The Sims.  To note, the version of the Sims with hundreds of paid DLC packs for cosmetics, not the better ones.

[(XBOX)SalTShAk3R]

I think... Im sick to my stomach after reading a few pages... Probably wont get read or replied to, but with me having thousands of things to suggest to DE and hope for DE and wish for and communicate to DE and the Warframe community about, with it all being incomprehensibly enormous, straight from the heart, genuine, with the least amount of unnecessary negativity possible.. I dont have a podcast or anything so Ill just stick to this for now.  This update will SHOCK the hell out of new players! They have so much to go through.. If I was MR8 and had 3 open worlds and 40+ frames and.. The immensity of this game!! Its unreal! Its a reason I love it! At. MR8 if this ability swapping and everything else just... Thrown slapped on the table i honestly think it's too much to handle. Im not being mean Im saying information overload brain failure is what I am afraid of happening to the MRs under 2 digits. You guys have done a better job over the years with information like the Q&A chat, leverian, codex,etc etc. Its still a LOT of information and a bunch of MR20+ still learn new things everyday ! At MR8 I dont even know what i had or where I was progression wise, but with a rough guess id say 1-5 prime items, if any? Maybe 3 or 4 quests done? Still didnt know how to change my glyph, ship, orbiter, appearances of things..where to acquire certain items...and on and on.. *Sigh*. Look im fine.. I believe in DE even if it looks a little iffy right now with all the bugs and this..helminth. I believe it will be revived!! It has to be, cuz im sick of my other games, lol. But guys guys guys!  This, I fear will overwhelm and scare/turn off your new players for giving them access to a system revolving around every frame, when they dont know whats going oh right now, if they havent quit after 'hidden messages' or another unfortunately overwhelming instance, I FEAR this will be the nail in the coffin. I hope Im wrong. I need the players! The community needs them! :.Wishing for the best, its never too late.

[IGN_Maverick]

1 hour ago, master_of_destiny said:

With regards to this thread, 5 days of syndicate rep will be required

It depends. I'm pretty sure most MR20+ players can have Rank 3 in like 3 days.

[(PSN)Eccles32]

Since this Helminth system has already taken a couple boots to the nethers and their seemingly ignoring all feedback that doesn't suit the narrative their going for. I had an Idea what the Helminth room could have been for, instead of trading abilities and nerfing others before hand on the bias that their already op, because some are.

What if this room was for pushing a warframe pass rank 30 to rank 40! But with a twist. For each 2 rank you add on to a warframe in this room, you get to buy an additional mod slot that I'll call Assimilated Mod Slots, which can only be mod in the Helminth room. Caveats for this system can be as follows:

This system cannot be access by anyone under MR 25. You need to use increasingly more resources to rank up the warframe and to equip more mods based on ranks. Mods can not be greater than rare and no aura mods. The mods in question is effectively removed from all warframe they were equiped to and are now part of this warframe and well no longer show up in mods window (well need to level a new mod and reequip them). These mods cannot be saved when removed from said warframe. Warfame must me max rank to gain an additional rank. You cannot put on a mod that is in an assimilated mod slot. Finally, you cannot put forma on an assimiated mod slot.

Now some benefits of this system can be:

You get more mod space with some rules. Each polarity will grant a progressive buff based on which are equiped (use case well be Additive or Multiplicative so something doesn't break ). Madurai "V" grants power strength at 5% for each madurai mod. Vazarin "D" grants armor, health and parkour at 5% for each vazarin mod. Naramon "-" grants improved effectiveness to all assimilated mods equiped at 5% for each naramon mod (Corrputed mods negitive effects also get improved). Zenurik grants base functionality improve to all abilities at 5% for each zenurik mod (duration, range, reduced energy cost and power strength). Assimilated mods do not count as mods during missions. All assimilated mod removal costs stay the same and can be done on any rank warframe. Mod level can altered at will. Equiping multiple of the same polarity reduces the cost of the mod by 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 and 1/1.5 if 6 mods are the same polarity (This would mean rank 42 warframe).

This idea came to me while wondering, what use will the infested room have. Maybe this could be something else added to the room as it's going to be now or something with some more flushed out core ideas. It comes with limitation, positives and negitives that you can work around, you would need to invest heavily into a single warframe to just gain benefits, there are limited variations of mods, every warframe would prioritize different mods, some wouldn't care about this system and would have some level of player choice on what they are willing to put in the assimilated mod slots. But I can already see a lot of negitives people would point out about this idea, so i'll just say, not every warframe is created equal and their well be one that can break this idea with the right combination. But could be fun to some.

 

[Circle_of_Psi]

11 hours ago, Zilotz said:

From twitter:

And i think that guy is fully right.

Ouch, how long ago was that from now?, did he get a respose?

Edit: Never mind, he did.. 

[Circle_of_Psi]

1 hour ago, (XB1)SalTShAk3R said:

I FEAR this will be the nail in the coffin. I hope Im wrong

I hope so too, but honestly they have been getting away with this for too long and as far as I recall, if their update turns out how Railjack did and their other update, if this update ends up like that, it chuold very well be that nail, due to gross income lost in the past. I won't go any more into detail, as that is a can of worms to not be opened, but I'm afraid you might right. I do't want to see WF go as much as you do, but this has been going on for too long. 

4 hours ago, MarrikBroom said:

I expect silence, or outright mocking. because that is how they respond to getting poked with the cold hard truth of their actions. See also how they treated Trainman.

[Jeancly]

27 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

Ouch.

harsh but fair

[krazox]

You know the worst part about this? Not that DE has taken a terrible decision based on 2 random posts on this forum, not that DE decided to kill the hype of their flashy new update days before the release.

The worst part about this is that they're ignoring +130 pages of comments, 90% of which are obviously against the new changes. They're not regretting and undoing the changes. They're not explaining clearer why they're doing them, when, based in the ratio of positive and negative comments of this workshop, almost every players dislikes them.

GG DE.

[SweetAnubis]

12 hours ago, Zilotz said:

From twitter:

And i think that guy is fully right.

i agree! the worst part about all of this is the silence... it's like a little child giving the silent treatment to their parents cause they're angry at them for saying the hot stove is hot....

 

seriously DE you guys promised buffs of the lackluster abilities. which was exciting when 80% of the abilities are lackluster. instead you nerf the 5 abilities that are worthwhile? i'm not saying they didnt need a nerf for helmynth but at least follow through on the buffing of lack luster abilities or at the very least let us know you're listening and working on it.

[GigabearPRIME]

Glad to hear the MR requirement was dropped down to something more reasonable. 

As to the power changes, kind of expected something to be done about the obvious abilities in the list. At this point I may actually go with some of the Helminth's innate abilities. 

[Culaio]

1 hour ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

Ouch, how long ago was that from now?, did he get a respose?

Edit: Never mind, he did.. 

what response did he got ? I checked his twitter and couldnt find his message nor their response.

[STUVash]

Oh people are still talking in here, let me put my 2 cents too.

It makes sense that infusing an ability, essentially a copy, would be weaker than the original. But we have it easier than that, only few abilities were nerfed and it might not be that much of a big nerf.
Most Tennos willing to pick these abilities for good reasons will still pick them. They'll obviously still be powerful enough to fit into the build you planned, if you had one.
We'll also check Helminth exclusive abilities, some might even be more interesting than what you had in mind.

So I don't see any problem there.

Révélation

[Circle_of_Psi]

3 minutes ago, Culaio said:

what response did he got ? I checked his twitter and couldnt find his message nor their response.

it should be in the comments here, Steve responded with a meme of some sort

[Culaio]

4 minutes ago, STUVash said:

Oh people are still talking in here, let me put my 2 cents too.

It makes sense that infusing an ability, essentially a copy, would be weaker than the original. But we have it easier than that, only few abilities were nerfed and it might not be that much of a big nerf.
Most Tennos willing to pick these abilities for good reasons will still pick them. They'll obviously still be powerful enough to fit into the build you planned, if you had one.
We'll also check Helminth exclusive abilities, some might even be more interesting than what you had in mind.

So I don't see any problem there.

  Reveal hidden contents

abiltiies are already naturally nerfed since different frames focus on different stats, like power strength, duration or range, putting power strengh ability on frame that ignores power strength will never be a great option.

whats more many ability combinations will only be possible on only one or two frames, like for example only rhino can combine roar with helminth unique ability empower which is pretty good combination, any ability combined with helminth ability will only be possible on the orginal frame, while combining any two abilties from the list will only be possible on only two frames that donated those abilties, like larva + roar could only happen on rhino or nidus, yes I know its not a good combination it was just example, there are much better combinations out there.

[(PSN)Deeceem]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb Culaio:

abiltiies are already naturally nerfed since different frames focus on different stats, like power strength, duration or range, putting power strengh ability on frame that ignores power strength will never be a great option.

whats more many ability combinations will only be possible on only one or two frames, like for example only rhino can combine roar with helminth unique ability empower which is pretty good combination, any ability combined with helminth ability will only be possible on the orginal frame, while combining any two abilties from the list will only be possible on only two frames that donated those abilties, like larva + roar could only happen on rhino or nidus, yes I know its not a good combination it was just example, there are much better combinations out there.

[Culaio]

3 hours ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

it should be in the comments here, Steve responded with a meme of some sort

thank you for the info, I found it, his response was....disappointing, after tennocon 2020 I started to think that warframe may be finally going in the right direction....now not so much.

[SordidDreams]

8 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

Xiphos provides actual gameplay. 

Techncially yes, but it's so irrelevant that I had completely forgotten it even exists.

8 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

It is also locked behind sub 1% drop chances on a find all three caches challenge.  Just calculating the drop chances, it's literal months of grinding to get all three pieces to construct.

Or you can do what I did, grind for something else to trade for plat, then trade that plat for the parts you want. Much faster that way. Trading is part of the game, so I find your argument a little disingenuous. It's like arguing that farming nitain is extremely hard because it's also locked behind the same challenge; that is true, but the argument ignores the fact that there's also another, much easier way.

8 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

It's funny that you don't care about the Hema and Sibear.  Funny in that you seem to not place any value in things unless they're great items.  The inherent value in both is content to grind and fodder for mastery rank even if they aren't your daily choice.  What's the endgame?  The difference between getting more trace capacity, initial mod capacity, warframe loadout slots, and the ability to get 1000 more syndicate standing a day.  It's not huge, but is definitely valuable.

Again, true, but again, as in the case of the Xiphos, so small as to be basically irrelevant. There's so much lower-hanging fruit that by the time you work your way up to these, the MR they provide is going to be a drop in the ocean and you're really not going to give a damn.

Also, I should point out that the rumors of Hema's cost are greatly exaggerated. Yes, the research is expensive, but it's meant to be a team effort by the entire clan; if everyone contributes, it's not hard at all. I understand the frustration of people who have had to grind a lot for it because everyone had not contributed, but in that case I think they should direct their anger at their lazy clanmates rather than at DE. In addition, the gun is only expensive to research, not to build, so you can always temporarily join a clan that has it for the sole purpose of buying the BP. So again there is an easier way.

8 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

 They're selling us a fix to a problem they caused.

Yes. Welcome to free-to-play.

Though on the subject of power creep, I am of the mind that it is necessary and good. Nobody would be excited for updates if all the new gear was guaranteed to be worse than what we already have.

8 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

Rivens are endgame.  They are the only endgame.  They are RNG based, so you can't get a perfect roll.  They're awarded based on RNG, so you can't choose a desired weapon.  On top of all of this, DE can constantly monkey with them to balance to usage outcomes rather than objective power.  Literally nothing else in this game functions as such.  It's not about their usage in a single game mode, it's about them being the only rewarding thing to do after you've gotten everything else.  For the record, grinding for stuff to sell for platinum isn't a game feature, it's an admission that one grind is preferred over the grind required to overcome the RNG in other modes.  

Objective power doesn't matter, only the perception of power, which is reflected in usage statistics. Game devs have figured that out a long time ago. Guns that make a loud bang are used more by players because they feel more powerful, even if they don't do any more actual damage, for example. Chris Wilson of GGG recently made an interesting point in an interview, where he said they've had to gradually creep drop rates in Path of Exile leagues, because players coming from the previous league felt the new one was less rewarding. It wasn't, the devs had the numbers to prove it, it was simply a case of players not having learned to farm the new content efficiently yet, but at the end of the day player feelings matter more than objective numbers.

Grinding for stuff to trade for plat absolutely is a game feature and a cornerstone of the game's business model. Every online game has a shadow economy of people selling farmed items for real money, and every studio that runs such a game tries and fails to stamp that out. DE did the exact opposite, they made it a feature. You can pay real money for farmed items no problem in WF. Except, because you do it via plat, the person getting paid that real money is DE, not the farmer. It's f*cking brilliant.

8 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

For Kuva weapons see above.  The benefit is MR.  If you don't value it, then DE isn't using the progression.  My entire point was MR is sunk time and not skill, but that the MR levels themselves have extrinsic rewards which make them worth pursuing to decrease grind in other areas.  An example, syndicate medallions.  Max out the rank daily with missions and an insignia, and then get the medallions.  Come release date for the new content you can have literal thousands of medallions to trade in and immediately accumulate relics.  With a boat load of relics in hand you don't have to grind through missions, only grind through fissures.  This is how you get access to primes 3.5 days after launch, instead of 4 days to a week.

Again, that is technically true, but again, that effect is so small as to be basically irrelevant. 1K MR for 5 forma and a boatload of your time is just not worth it. Yes, eventually you'll probably go for it if you continue to play the game long enough, but only after getting literally everything else and more for the sake of completionism than because you actually need the MR. Diminishing returns are a proven concept in game design, kuva weapons are simply an example of it.

As for syndicate medallions, yes, you could do that, but why on earth would you?

8 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

Maybe instead of more hexanon, an item used in Jupiter content then forgotten, you introduce one new thing and then tie in the old.  A good example would be heat based railjack weapons not using 4 railjack exclusive resources, but one railjack farm and three resources found on the regular map to tie the thing to older systems.  Nope, Railjack requires resources that exist only in railjack.  This neatly provides the content island borders.  Yes, new resources are a good way to prevent immediate content consumption, but they aren't a good excuse when you can incorporate them more organically by using disparate resources to encourage players to engage in other content.

Yes, that does create the content island borders, but you know what the complaints would be if DE did as you suggest? "Waah, waah, I want to play the new thing, why is the update forcing me into the same old boring resource farms again for the umpteenth time?" Content islands being separate from each other does have its upsides.

[selig_fay]

1 hour ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

I hope so too, but honestly they have been getting away with this for too long and as far as I recall, if their update turns out how Railjack did and their other update, if this update ends up like that, it chuold very well be that nail, due to gross income lost in the past. I won't go any more into detail, as that is a can of worms to not be opened, but I'm afraid you might right. I do't want to see WF go as much as you do, but this has been going on for too long. 

A bit of speculation on this topic.

Let's pretend that the DEs have learned their lesson. They presented the system, but this caused positive feedback from the players (apart from the small group of balance keepers and players below mr15) Positive reviews mean high expectations from players. And here railjack is a good example where it looked cool but turned out to be bad in practice.

Going forward, let's pretend the DEs are deliberately upsetting the players. Lots of negative reviews - low system expectation. The more players are upset now, the more players will get a good experience from the positive changes.

Let's imagine that DE has admitted a mistake and now does not want to inform us about all the changes that are coming in the future, so as not to cause resentment of meta couch analysts again. But when these changes hit frustrated players, it will generate a positive resonance.

And yes, hello from the world of pink ponies.

[RS219]

38 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

it should be in the comments here, Steve responded with a meme of some sort

A worded statement saying that a comprehensive response would be released prior to release would have been significantly better than this vague meme.

[IRVoidGuru]

7 hours ago, (XB1)MetalxPhoenix said:

Reminder to replace Roar with Charge. Ty

When charge augment gives armor,  and they just capped the armor gain from defy. Why do you think this will happen?

[Circle_of_Psi]

43 minutes ago, Culaio said:

thank you for the info, I found it, his response was....disappointing, after tennocon 2020 I started to think that warframe may be finally going in the right direction....now not so much, I started to think its the problem with (some) of devs.

Np!

25 minutes ago, selig_fay said:

A bit of speculation on this topic.

Let's pretend that the DEs have learned their lesson. They presented the system, but this caused positive feedback from the players (apart from the small group of balance keepers and players below mr15) Positive reviews mean high expectations from players. And here railjack is a good example where it looked cool but turned out to be bad in practice.

Going forward, let's pretend the DEs are deliberately upsetting the players. Lots of negative reviews - low system expectation. The more players are upset now, the more players will get a good experience from the positive changes.

Let's imagine that DE has admitted a mistake and now does not want to inform us about all the changes that are coming in the future, so as not to cause resentment of meta couch analysts again. But when these changes hit frustrated players, it will generate a positive resonance.

And yes, hello from the world of pink ponies.

Well, if they do "good" then it will slowly and slowly allow WF to become their high pedestal game it used to be, however time and plenty of proof (solid ones) have been shown that WF has been going under at an massive rate, if this update turns out to be terrible (and what ever update) is for the end of the year, this will be -yet- another yeah of Gross Income Loss (to  no ones srupise) 

Keep in mind, this is public kown how, as it's sated in where people are trying to buy DE (the compney, not "DE" themselves) due to this "issue". I won't be srupised if this makes or breaks WF.

21 minutes ago, RS219 said:

A worded statement saying that a comprehensive response would be released prior to release would have been significantly better than this vague meme.

Yup!

[GigabearPRIME]

I'm seeing a lot of people disagree with the nerfs.

 

However I do understand that making a system like this only to have 7 or so abilities actually used is suboptimal. That being said, I am wondering what abilities will get BUFFED to help balance usage rates? Right now it's entirely focused on nerfing overpowered abilities, and not buffing under powered ones.

 

Take the companion heal from the helminth itself. It feels quite underwhelming. There is an opportunity here I think for improvement. I just think it should do something unique, or different, which isn't already easily covered with existing options. As of now, though I run with a kubrow most often and have a weapon named "kubrow stat stick" as my primary, I don't see myself taking that ability. If I want to heal my pet, I just do a heavy slam.

[selig_fay]

3 minutes ago, GigabearPrime said:

Take the companion heal from the helminth itself. It feels quite underwhelming. There is an opportunity here I think for improvement. I just think it should do something unique, or different, which isn't already easily covered with existing options. As of now, though I run with a kubrow most often and have a weapon named "kubrow stat stick" as my primary, I don't see myself taking that ability. If I want to heal my pet, I just do a heavy slam.

The main question is whether we can resurrect a pet or sentinel. The use of the ability depends only on this.