Heart of Deimos: The Helminth System Feedback Megathread

[RivaAurelius]

1 minute ago, Traubenzuckr said:

helminth is for dedicated players, not casuals like yourself

If you could see my total gametime and playing habits, you would not be calling me a casual. I'm done with you, have a nice day. 

[Proscriptor]

Just now, RivaAurelius said:

If you could see my total gametime and playing habits, you would not be calling me a casual. I'm done with you, have a nice day. 

get some resources like everyone else and stop embarrassing yourself

[RivaAurelius]

Just now, Traubenzuckr said:

get some resources like everyone else and stop embarrassing yourself

Look at this whole entire thread. "Everyone else" is saying the resource costs are too high. Go back to no-lifing the game, like I said, I'm done with you. 

[Proscriptor]

you can't frame my being at least at the baseline level of performance in the game (i never actively grinded resources) no-lifing

i mean you can try, but that only goes to reveal your lack of ability at playing efficiently

[RivaAurelius]

Just now, Traubenzuckr said:

you can't frame my being at least at the baseline level of performance in the game (i never actively grinded resources) no-lifing

i mean you can try, but that only goes to reveal your lack of ability at playing efficiently

Done. With. You. Troll. 

[Proscriptor]

just look at all the players who already got to rank 10 (i haven't btw as i'm taking it real easy on myself so i'm sitting at rank 8), and call them trolls too

some aren't even terribly experienced players, there have been some almost new players in that group

[Chronozilla]

Reposting here because this is the right place:
Fresnels are BY FAR the worst resource in the entire system, Bracoids have the same issue but since they're not in the painful bile category, those are easier to overlook.

You need 1000 Fresnels for one helminth snack.


Okay cool, how many do you get as a mission reward?

So you're telling me i need to do 500-1000 missions to feed my helminth just once with fresnels? that's utterly unacceptable.
Now, i know this doesn't include in-mission drops, but as of right now i've done about a hundred veil proxima missions and i'm sitting on 600 Fresnels.

To quickly mention other railjack resources, an appropriate amount for the common ones would be 3000-5000, for the uncomon ones, 100-150 and for the rare ones (Such as Fresnels) 10-20.

Can you imagine if it took 1000 orokin cells just to fill bile 30%? That's what Fresnels are right now.

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The infusion system itself is good i guess, you usually have 10 or so options that are always relevant, another 10 that are super niche and then a bunch of obscure or useless things at the bottom. Nerfing the top 6 to be lesser-than-expected does hurt, but they're all still viable. buffing the bottom 40 to be on par with the top nerfed 6 would be power creep and not a good balance approach, that's a given, but buffing the bottom 8 (fire blast, ice wave, spectrorage, banish, decoy, mind control, reave, airburst) that currently have zero use cases across the board is absolutely needed.

[Zahnny]

Can we recieve a "Checklist" of some sort for Subsumed Frames? I'm bad at keeping track and I garuntee I'll forget which frames I have not subsumed as I get further down.

[Proscriptor]

don't feed it fresnels and you're fine

there were people in the past days reporting how they had thousands of fresnels and did indeed feed fresnels to the helminth

idk why, but they did it and so what? are they worse off in any way? do their remaining thousands of fresnels do not suffice for their crafting needs?

fresnels are there to paint the cost efficiency gradation to the player - it's supposed to make you think

[Chroia]

I get the rather high initial 'subsume' cost.

50%-70% Bile (Dispensary and Roar, respectively.) for an infusion, though, combined with the craving mechanic?
(And before you point it out, yes, I know that other abilities are cheaper.
I also know there's no way to see how much infusing (or subsuming, for that matter) will cost, aside from actually mousing over the specific ability/frame and looking at the popup.)

Not very 'rapid iteration' friendly, not conducive to testing on a single frame, nor across multiple frames, at a sitting.
Nor is it conducive to planning, unless you like juggling spreadsheets.

 

How to fix?
I'd increase the initial cost to subsume (which would necessitate lowering the gain from feeding Helminth) and significantly lower the infusion cost.

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Also, the Railjack resource costs are ludicrous.
I'm sitting at 10/10/10/10, and have (iirc) ~10 feedings for uncommon resources, 2-3 of common, and not enough for 1 feeding of Fresnels.

[(PSN)Boise_State_star]

It's fun to watch the warframe community tear itself apart.

[RivaAurelius]

8 minutes ago, (PS4)Boise_State_star said:

It's fun to watch the warframe community tear itself apart.

Grab your popcorn, it's gonna keep happening... Also eww, light mode *cries in dark mode user* 

[Proscriptor]

when the issue over helminth feeding costs is settled in the way of DE not substantially changing the costs (some minor tuning would be okay, but hardly worth the effort now, with people ranking helminth up en masse) in the next update or earlier, 

what you think is "happening" (nothing is happening but me disagreeing with you), will stop happening, as it won't be a current topic anymore. it will be a settled matter at that point and calls to nerf the costs won't be of any consequence 

[xcrimsonlegendx]

Shouldn't Protea's subsumed ability be grenade fan?

It was said that there would be no "signature" abilities, right? Well both her turret and dispenser are attached to her tool belt, I'd call those signature being as they're attached to her 3D model. Whereas grenade fan isn't. To be honest grenade fan was the only reason I made a second protea before the full list was revealed and is one of the only skills I wanted to transfer to another frame.

[fr4gb4ll]

the helminth system is basically ok, but you sure should re-analyze some of the more rare resources or rather their amount-2-worth factors. the way it is now, looks like you never played the game like a normal player does - else you would know at once the worth of some resources are totally off-score...

as for the some of the exchangable abilities... well, i'm sure there are some people that will make use of every single one of them, but imo, there are some that had little use in at their original frame and still does so in any other one too. i understand that you won't consider every ability exchangeable, but the ones we get from some frames are not really worth the efford (i still will feed them all to helminth since i already re-build modt of them).

oh, also, please lower the 'digestion' time of helminth... the bugger can eat tons of resources in one gulb, more than half a dozen frames worth of them, so let the whole frame being digested in maybe 8 hours, please.

on a sidenote: i loved the 'interaction' with helminth when he/she/it tried to eat my kavat... an spit it out after a few seconds, with the kavat looking not amused ^^)    more of that please...

[CopperBezel]

I think I have 10 abilities I've subsumed and found a use for so far, including things that are basically a lateral move like Fire Blast replacing Thermal Sunder on Gauss so I can strip armor without expending battery at the cost of the big freeze. Molt and Pillage have made the biggest changes in my play (replacing Protea's 4 and Nova's 1 respectively.)

Bile is certainly the only secretion I've had to farm for, but since the reduced values seem to decrease with time, and I'm interacting with the Helminth less frequently now, I've got used to being able to occasionally throw some argon at it in between thermal sludge balls, since the feeding cost for either of those is something I can get together in 15 minutes of solo farming.

[Larsurus]

Railjack resources are at least 10 times too costly. Bile resources are also incredibly costly and many of them are very rare unless you've been grinding specific mission types non-stop for multiple weeks. Whoever came up with these numbers need to sit down and play the game without dev mode on.

[CopperBezel]

Is it my imagination or weird play pattern, or are Gallos Rods the single exception? The quantity seems entirely manageable there....

[vaarnaaarne]

On 2020-09-08 at 9:50 PM, (PS4)Boise_State_star said:

Bruh, it's available at mr 8...

 

21 hours ago, _Tormex_ said:

But... but it is though. MR 8 isn't that high. You could get there in a week. I know, I did.

MR is not really my concern there (MR15 would have been too much, MR8 is probably the sweet spot), but the resource costs (even besides Bile). Raising them would without a doubt put Helminth out of reach for newer players, and I am not entirely sure if it's alright for them and permissive of experimentation on their part right now. I think it's important for Helminth to be easily accessible to people because of what it brings to the game (and because it gives a positive encouragement loop to obtaining new standard warframes instead of going straight for Prime).

[CopperBezel]

I have to set it next to Focus and Arcanes, though, and consider that if this is the level of grind required for systems like this, it certainly seems easier to swallow when it's based on something we've been doing all along, as opposed to a new separate progression. It's effectively something you can't rush all at once but players who've already invested that level of grind already have.

[Proscriptor]

1 hour ago, CopperBezel said:

Is it my imagination or weird play pattern, or are Gallos Rods the single exception? The quantity seems entirely manageable there....

gallos rods and isos seem the best from rj resources

[Vahenir]

Something i can add that isn't related to resources: Why aren't there more defensive abilities in here?

A lot of squishy frames really need more survivability badly and this system could have solved it. However since there are very few defensive abilities that can be subsumed it doesn't. I'm pretty sure the best purely defensive ability you can get right now is Novas null star, but that requires negative range to work well. Pillage can work decently too by abusing the shield gate, but burns a lot of energy and may need negative duration to work well.

Other than those there are the pre-nerfed eclipse and defy along with elemental ward. I think that's all pure defense abilities, discounting heals which aren't going to help if you get one shot.

[CopperBezel]

Yeah, that seemed like a very deliberate omission honestly. Null Star is such a pain to work with, needing high duration, negative range, and an augment to work, and not even getting the good augment option outside of Nova, that I've been pretty comfortable with having replaced it with Pillage on Nova herself. Warcry also has its armor buff but that's a % boost like a mod, so it's going to be pretty useless on frames that are squishy in the first place. 

I have to assume that the idea was, they didn't want a situation where some frames can stack yet another 90% DR on top of everything they've already got with existing DR abilities, Adaptation, Arcane Guardian, etc. It would be a very similar situation to the damage buff abilities that the Helminth only allows replacing with others in that category and won't allow two of on the same frame. I suppose they could have implemented something similar with DR, but I really wonder if the idea was specifically to avoid a situation where literally anyone can facetank with the right build.

[quxier]

On 2020-09-06 at 5:17 PM, S074 said:

The problem I percieve is with everything else after that: a structure that disencourages experimentation and works against the system itself.

 

On 2020-09-06 at 5:17 PM, S074 said:

Unlocked abilities on a warframe should be freely swappable in the orbiter

I was thinking about Simulacrum 2.0 aside some other stuffs you would be able to swap any (not only selected) abilities. That's what Simulacrum should be. When you leave it disappears.

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Calx seems to be more Open world/Railjack oriented... that's not good for me. But I guess I have to live with it.

Argon should be more valuable. I can even farm for 20 argons. Let this have some purpose. 3 argons seems very little. Rubedo/Hexennon farming might be ok.
The costs should be visible when you hover over a resource. For example:

Quote

Costs: 10
Gain:

- Liked 10% calx

- Neutral 5% calx

- Disliked 1% calx

I am glad that things that we don't use anymore like Detonite Ampule or Severed Bile Sac can be used. However what about things we build with them? Detonite injector or Pherliac Pod just asks to be used. Please include them as players took more effort to gather them. So they should give even more secretions (of course balanced). I bet there are many things that we build and don't use anymore.

[MsRogue]

So thoughts on the Helminth system... The main point is the system is an awesome idea and seems fun to play with but it is far far too expensive. More details below if someone at DE would be willing to consider my points and point-of-view.

The Good

• Experimentation: This one is obvious. Frames can have abilities that don't fit a play style replaced with ones that do. Damage frames can grab supportive abilities and the vice versa. I'd love to see this system pushed even further to allow for many more interactions.
   
• Graveyard of Non-Primes: The progression system of building a base frame, farming and building the Prime, and then feeding the base frame to Helminth feels like an interesting loop. The flower garden also seems like a cool way to remember the original frames I used.

The Bad

• Resource Costs: Pretty much every post has this brought up somewhere, but I do want to explain why this bothers me so much. I've seen a few people saying the system is meant for veteran players, but I have played this game for a while and spent a lot of time with resource boosts while maining Nekros. The costs are still a lot. If this system is meant for players with more resources than me, I find that odd. I want to experiment with this system and subsume every frame I can and jump in and out of Simulacrum to test certain interactions. I want a cheap and fast system to have fun with.
  
  The resource costs feel to me like there was a decision made to try and burn through the resources of veteran players to prevent inflation of resources. I find this disappointing and I hope this isn't the case. I get that new resources need to be introduced, but I already grinded for the Helminth segment. Let me play around with it now.
  
  What would I do? Reduce the subsuming costs to more trivial amounts but I don't mind requiring rare resources (like argon). Ditch Railjack resources altogether, because those costs are absurdly high. Let me switch out subsumed abilities in my arsenal with no cost!!! This makes the system 100x more fun to play with. I paid the costs now let me enjoy the results.
   
• Subsuming Limit: It becomes unlimited anyways. Like with the resource costs, the tiers feel like they were added for grinds sake and not at all for gameplay relevance.
  
  What would I do? Make it unlimited from the start. Reduce the tiers of Helminth or make them give something better. Allow for higher tiers to subsume multiple warframe at a time perhaps :D
   
• Grindy Warframes: Some warframes are easy to rebuild. Rhino, Valkyr, and others from quick missions don't worry me. They are more irritating to re-farm. Warframes like Harrow, Nidus, and Chroma bother me. These will take massive time investments to get and it isn't worth it in the slightest I feel. Harrow is well known as a grind to get, and I actually farmed up enough to build two of him with a friend. I then sold the spare blueprints because I never expected the game to required a second Harrow. Chroma has a similar problem. I need to go to Simaris and grind out standing to rebuild him. I already built and sold Chroma, because I built his Prime.
  
  What would I do? Allow for players who mastered a non-Prime warframe to recreate them with trivial resources. I already grinded out my warframe. I don't want to grind out two Xakus. Maybe Helminth could rebuild a warframe at the cost of 10k credits, 10 mutagen samples, and 5 Orokin cells or something?

Overall

I love the idea of the Helminth system. I believe the costs associated are deeply flawed though, to the point where the gameplay suffers. I don't normally write on forums but I truly hope that someone from DE is willing to resolve these problems with it. I was excited to play with this, built and rushed my Helminth, and then learned how it worked. This was crushingly disappointing to the point where I'm done with the game for tonight. The system is brilliant, but my time doesn't feel respected right now and that is exceptionally frustrating.