Archgun Animation Improvement Needed

[Voltage]

This item should summon like Archwing/K-Drive/Synthesis Scanner: immediately; or atleast affected by holster speed mods/bonuses. It's anti-fun to watch a long animation for a gear item that most other gear items don't have. At-least when watching long animations like the Exploiter Orb, you aren't taking damage. This artificial detriment just hurt the experience of using this item, especially in the only place it's relevant: The Profit-Taker.

[Zahnrad]

Semi-unrelated but I wish we had an item to favourite gear items. So I won't need a bind for every open world vehicle.

[TheLexiConArtist]

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

This item should summon like Archwing/K-Drive/Synthesis Scanner: immediately; or atleast affected by holster speed mods/bonuses. It's anti-fun to watch a long animation for a gear item that most other gear items don't have. At-least when watching long animations like the Exploiter Orb, you aren't taking damage. This artificial detriment just hurt the experience of using this item, especially in the only place it's relevant: The Profit-Taker.

I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong with how things are, but that's still a very subjective perspective. It being a problem for survivability is what we got the band-aid of an Arcane to ease (which has been immediately abused for not using the Archgun purposes, per typical Warframe) but it's still possible that the animation in itself could be a 'hype moment' and not inherently anti-fun.

The bigger issue is the fact the weapon you get to wait for is.. not living up to that hype-moment. It's not "Look at this, now you're in for it!" when the only reasons you pull it out are because you have to when you can't use your other, generally better weapons at all.

[Voltage]

1 hour ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong with how things are, but that's still a very subjective perspective. It being a problem for survivability is what we got the band-aid of an Arcane to ease (which has been immediately abused for not using the Archgun purposes, per typical Warframe) but it's still possible that the animation in itself could be a 'hype moment' and not inherently anti-fun.

The bigger issue is the fact the weapon you get to wait for is.. not living up to that hype-moment. It's not "Look at this, now you're in for it!" when the only reasons you pull it out are because you have to when you can't use your other, generally better weapons at all.

I don't have survivability issues, but I know many players probably do. Arcane Tanker is a bandaid like you said and shouldn't be considered as anything else other than an irrelevant bandaid. 

There is no hype moment, and honestly I don't want them becoming K Drive or Mechas from Deimos. They are a gun. I should press a button and have it immediately in my hand or atleast allow Speed Holster to hasten this process. It's dumb to have this jank gear item that has bugs, softlocks, long cast time, grounded requirement, and only one single real use (Profit-Taker). Make it an instant cast (or affected by speed mods to be almost instant), remove the grounding requirement (especially with how much CC and knockups exist in the Orb fight), and make it easily swappable with normal weapons.

It's absolutely painful from a gameplay flow perspective to switch between Archgun for legs, weapons for Profit-Taker, then back to Archgun for legs. It's honestly so annoying that I just recruit people to only do the legs so I can ignore this eye sore mechanic that's been left to rot like most of Orb Vallis and Fortuna. Let me tap a hotkey for a gear to equip the gun, do my thing, press weapon swap or the hotkey to put it away, and have complete access to re-equip it without cool downs or nonsense so that you can have a streamlined Arsenal experience. This same issue has been said for years with a thread every now and again being called "universally buff weapon swap speed".

I'm sick of flashy animations and cutscenes to slow down gameplay for a "wow" factor that only exists for the first 1-2 mission runs when this will be experienced for tens or even hundreds of hours in the future. You can keep the really cool cutscenes and animations for arch-guns in Profit Taker stage 1-3 somewhere, but don't make it a staple feature when this is used for every Profit-Taker encounter. The Warframe experience becomes less streamlined as more of this "losing control but look cool" nonsense is pushed onto players.

Also on your second point, no amount of power/buff can make these weapons less clunky to use. Normal weapons already do the job extremely well. This is a gimmick mechanic for Profit-Taker like an Operator Amp is for Eidolons.

[TheLexiConArtist]

3 minutes ago, Voltage said:

 

Hey, I'm broadly with you on the current state of play, I just wanted to put a little devil's advocate into the mix. Something should almost certainly change with atmospheric Archguns, but I can see what the original intent might have been.

That leaves us with more than one option. One, as you said, make it responsive and 'just another weapon'. At that point you're also inviting the question of why not remove it from being Gear at all, and having its cooldown, and all that other fluff beyond just being a clunky Heavy Weapon slot with its own ammo type which works on a slightly-different type of full-restore/reset-cooldown drops than just being limited and replenished piecemeal as normal.

The other, is justifying that original intent and making it powerful. For more than just 'this fat gun is the only thing that can penetrate the Orb's plating' (because reasons). More powerful than your other guns, and hell, maybe even rivalling God Melee.

 

Both have pros and cons, but both are equally valid for discussing.

[Voltage]

17 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

Hey, I'm broadly with you on the current state of play, I just wanted to put a little devil's advocate into the mix. Something should almost certainly change with atmospheric Archguns, but I can see what the original intent might have been.

That leaves us with more than one option. One, as you said, make it responsive and 'just another weapon'. At that point you're also inviting the question of why not remove it from being Gear at all, and having its cooldown, and all that other fluff beyond just being a clunky Heavy Weapon slot with its own ammo type which works on a slightly-different type of full-restore/reset-cooldown drops than just being limited and replenished piecemeal as normal.

The other, is justifying that original intent and making it powerful. For more than just 'this fat gun is the only thing that can penetrate the Orb's plating' (because reasons). More powerful than your other guns, and hell, maybe even rivalling God Melee.

 

Both have pros and cons, but both are equally valid for discussing.

There is no devil's advocate. Archguns are a gimmick mechanic for Profit-Taker much like Amps are for Eidolons. This weapon should be specifically designed for this single use case because that's what it is for. If a player wants to use an Archgun on Hydron, go for it, but their usage of the weapon should not affect how it's used in the actual use-case.

It doesn't matter what DE intended it to be, it matters what it's actually relevant for. DE could go on and on about how they wanted it to feel like how you described, but at the end of they day, they've basically implemented it as a clunky gimmick that barely works for a single boss fight, and rotting in the rest of the game. Reality is leagues more important than intentions that weren't met.

It should just be another weapon, because that's all it is. It's a weapon with artificial restrictions to make it feel "heavy" when no matter how you buff or change it, an Imperator Vandal is just a clunky and worse Prisma Grakata. Archgun mods suck, you move slow, Primaries get Hunter Munitions and such, the fire mechanics feel the same, etc. Archguns have always just been "space normal weapons" for Archwings, and that can't be changed because of how the game is designed. If you want Archguns to compete with normal weapons, then it will end up firing % max HP scaling damage from the barrel, Tether shots from Railjack, or have massive AoE that invalidates our current arsenal. We already mop tilesets with what we have.

These weapons only see usage because like an Amp (and probably a Mecha in Deimos), it is shoehorned into some gameplay task to force you to use one.

Please list me the cons of all my suggestions I listed. I would like to hear the "downside" to making Archguns less clunky to equip and use for the entire boss fight they are used for.

[Marr]

1 hour ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

Hey, I'm broadly with you on the current state of play, I just wanted to put a little devil's advocate into the mix. Something should almost certainly change with atmospheric Archguns, but I can see what the original intent might have been.

That leaves us with more than one option. One, as you said, make it responsive and 'just another weapon'. At that point you're also inviting the question of why not remove it from being Gear at all, and having its cooldown, and all that other fluff beyond just being a clunky Heavy Weapon slot with its own ammo type which works on a slightly-different type of full-restore/reset-cooldown drops than just being limited and replenished piecemeal as normal.

The other, is justifying that original intent and making it powerful. For more than just 'this fat gun is the only thing that can penetrate the Orb's plating' (because reasons). More powerful than your other guns, and hell, maybe even rivalling God Melee.

 

Both have pros and cons, but both are equally valid for discussing.

1. You're just begging the question with your examples. Make the archgun be affected by holster or make it instant. Full stop.

2. You're being contrarion for the sake of being contrarion. There is a reason you listed no cons. This is because the system is objectively bad. Even in the case it makes you feel "epic" you'd feel way more epic if you got the gun faster.

[DrivaMain]

Make the animation twice as quick and buff archguns to oblivion against non vehicle units so it can compete with the arsenal.

Archguns are anti vehicle guns. Normal infantry shouldn't even be able to stand a hit against them. 

Maybe a small time of invulnerability during and after the animation so you won't get one shotted by some sniper during the animation.