Whipclaw line of sight checks report false negatives in level geometry

[PublikDomain]

Note:

This bug report is for a SEPARATE ISSUE than Berzerkules' report about Khora's Whipclaw failing to hit enemies grabbed by Strangledome.

Bug:

A Line of Sight check (LoS) was added to Khora's Whipclaw in U29.5.0:

Quote

WARFRAME ABILITY CHANGES:

The first group in our “touch all Warframes” list! We aim to give each Warframe a little quality of life touch up and not laser focus on one Warframe at a time.

Khora

• There is now a minimal Line of Sight check on Whipclaw’s radial damage. 

This check frequently reports false negatives (a blocked LoS when there wasn't one) when interacting with a number of different types of level geometry.

Ironically this change has been grouped with the other "little quality of life touch up[s]", despite drastically reducing the quality of life of this frame.

This has been broken now for 17 hotfixes and 1 minor update.

Notable Examples:

LoS is blocked once by the ground and then a second time by the horizontal slats on the stairs (shown slowed down).

As far as I can tell, the little black box present on the floor at this location blocked the LoS. But as you can see the explosion was right on the Crewman and should have hit:

This tile in the Grineer Galleon tileset features this raised green floor section, which eats LoS no matter where on the floor you hit.

Examples:

These issues are so prevalent that I am able to produce them on any tileset in the game. Here are 65 examples captured across all 15 of the standard tilesets.

Spoiler

Corpus Ship Tileset:

This tileset is one of the newest and worst for reporting false negatives.

Spoiler

The small rectangular cutouts block LoS.

The orange trim and horizontal slats both block LoS.

The stairs and small ledges block LoS.

The orange band on the glass covering blocks LoS, and then a second time.

The stairs consume LoS.

A still, showing my reticle on the Moa's feet and a nearby container being correctly hit by the explosion.

An example of a failure and a success. The vertical edge of the walkway blocks LoS.

The small vertical railing seems to have blocked LoS when the explosion hit the raised floor in front of it.

An unknown failure, something blocked LoS for the Crewman.

A failure found within 6 seconds of loading into the map. The small dip in the floor was enough to block LoS.

Jupiter Gas City Tileset:

Like the Corpus Ship tileset, this one is pretty bad.

Spoiler

One whip is blocked by the slightly raised geometry on the raised area's floor, and the second is blocked by the stairs (seen in slow motion).

Corpus Outpost Tileset:

Despite being very old, this tileset also produces false negatives mainly around stairs and railings.

Spoiler

The stair geometry is detailed enough to allow Whipclaw to originate from the opposite side, and then the horizontal slats block LoS.

LoS is blocked by the stairs and then a railing.

LoS is blocked by a railing.

LoS is blocked by the crate. While technically a blocked LoS, it shouldn't have been.

Corpus Ice Planet Tileset:

The Ice Planet tileset can produce some errors, mostly around stairs and railings.

Spoiler

The shape of the ground geometry blocks LoS for one of the Moas.

A rock blocks LoS for the Crewman.

Whipclaw lands on the side of the raised panel and is blocked for the whole room.

The slightly raised floor geometry around the doorway blocks LoS.

Infested Corpus Ship Tileset:

The Infested Ship tileset isn't as bad as you'd think, but it can still produce the typical errors.

Spoiler

The raised floor details block LoS for the Charger.

It's a bit hard to see with all the screen clutter, but a group of 3 Infested are spared because of some stairs.

A great example. The small vertical floor strip blocks LoS for the Charger.

Grineer Sea Lab Tileset:

This tileset is also pretty bad, despite being much older.

Spoiler

The glass is placed lower than the struts, so the explosion originates from the glass and is blocked.

The raised but of walkway blocks LoS.

A small rock blocks LoS.

A railing blocks LoS, and then the floor blocks LoS.

The small elevation change appears to have blocked LoS.

A railing blocks LoS, then stairs block LoS, and then the floor blocks LoS.

Grineer Galleon Tileset:

Despite being pretty old, this one also produces false-negatives.

Spoiler

The walkways seems to block LoS.

The rim of the doorway blocks LoS.

The raised lip of the floor grate blocks LoS.

This one is particularly weird! The green floor section eats LoS, no matter where on it you hit or where the enemy is located.

Another example of the green floor section eating LoS.

A third example of the green floor section eating LoS. The green floor section fount on other parts of this tile don't seem to behave this way!

Grineer Asteroid Base Tileset:

This tileset doesn't seem to produce many significant LoS errors.

Spoiler

LoS blocked by floor geometry. This occurs on a newer tile compared to the others.

Whipclaw hits the top of the slope, which shadows the Runner and Charger. This is a typical way that the LoS can fail.

LoS blocked by a slope. Like the one before, this is not unique to this tileset and is a general mode of failure for the LoS checks.

Grineer Shipyard Tileset:

This tileset is also generally OK, but can still produce the general failures found everywhere.

Spoiler

The wall geometry eats LoS.

Grineer Settlement Tileset:

This tileset is generally OK except for some areas, but can still produce general failures.

Spoiler

Whipclaw's point of impact is related to the cast time, and can result in these kinds of annoying situations where some little boxes block LoS.

LoS blocked by the boxes on the left.

LoS blocked by a railing.

LoS blocked for two different enemies because of the floor geometry.

Grineer Forest Tileset:

Earth is generally OK, but rocks and differences in terrain can cause issues.

Spoiler

A rock blocks LoS for one Grineer but not the other.

One Grineer is hit but not the other.

Whipclaw hits the front vertical face of the raised floor detail and LoS is blocked.

Grineer Kuva Fortress Tileset:

The Kuva Fortress tileset is not great. It's a complicated set with a lot of rocks and strange terrain shapes, and produces a lot of errors.

Spoiler

One Lancer is hit, the other isn't.

The small vertical lip of the floor section blocks LoS.

The barrel blocks LoS. This is a technical failure: technically, LoS was blocked. But I still should have killed the Grineer.

LoS breaking on stairs.

The vertical lip of the floor section blocks LoS.

A small piece of the wall geometry sticking out blocks LoS for the Lancer.

The Lancer is blocked by the terrain geometry and then shadowed by the horizontal top surface of the same geometry.

Orokin Derelict Tileset:

The Derelict has issues with the broken terrain pieces, stairs, and the Orokin trees and roots.

Spoiler

The tan root is able to be walked inside of and blocks LoS.

Three repeat failures due to the roots blocking LoS.

A root blocks LoS.

Stairs eat LoS twice. The middle Whipclaw is a bit hard to see since it doesn't produce many particles but it's there.

Orokin Tower Tileset:

The Orokin Tower tileset produces a lot of technical failures. It also has the same issues with stairs and small bits of collision detail as other sets.

Spoiler

LoS is blocked by decorative plants.

LoS blocked by the horizontal top piece of stairs.

LoS blocked by the little raised bit of gold trim.

LoS eaten by stairs.

LoS blocked by the little raised floor detail.

Lua Tileset:

Lua isn't bad, but can produce errors around the broken rocks and odd level geometry.

Spoiler

The Crewman and Moa have LoS blocked by floor geometry.

LoS is blocked by the raised metal piece.

LoS eaten by stairs.

LoS eaten by a rock.

LoS eaten by rocks multiple times.

 

These examples can be found readily ingame and are trivial to reproduce. It takes far more time to turn them into gifs than it does to find them! In my gameplay I encounter these failures roughly every 30-90 seconds depending on the tileset, and they can occur several times per game.

I've split the different types of failures into three categories:

1. Technical Failures

When clutter objects like barrels, railings, etc. block LoS. Technically, LoS was blocked. But from the player's perspective nothing should have prevented damage.

This occurs because of:

• Railings and short walls
• Small rocks
• Trees, bushes, and other foliage
• And other clutter objects

2. Shot Traps

When overly-detailed collision geometry acts as a shot trap and consumes LoS.

This occurs because of:

• Overly-detailed floor and wall geometry
• Complicated stair/slope geometry
• And other bits of collision detail

3. Shadowing

Where the LoS check originates from the surface of a plane, and thus will always report a blocked LoS to objects behind the plane.

The closer the origin of the check is to the surface of a plane, the more the "field of view" of the check collapses to a 180° arc. The simple explanation is that "things look bigger the closer they are to you".

When a check originates from the surface of an object, the object is infinitely close and will appear infinitely large from the perspective of the check. This causes the surface of the object to cast a "shadow" on any object behind it, regardless of how small the object actually is.

In this example, hitting the vertical edge of the stairs blocks LoS for everything behind the plane.

This occurs because of:

• Shallow slopes and ledges
• And basically any piece of collision geometry

The LoS Elsewhere

The same type of LoS check also fails when used for projectiles elsewhere in the game for the same reasons. For example Bonewidow's Ironbride has a charge attack that shoots an explosive projectile. The projectile is subject to LoS and can fail to hit targets right in front of it:

From what I understand this also affects Ember's Fireball and primary Tombfinger Kitguns, though I don't have examples of these as I don't use either.

When the LoS check is used on non-projectiles, like on Exalibur's Radial Javelin, the origin of the check is lifted away from the ground and other objects and will therefore be much more reliable. Radial Javelin also has additional protections in place:

Quote

Radial Javelin will not target enemies behind obstacles in the environment unless Excalibur has line of sight, or unless the enemy is aware of Excalibur within a short period of time (e.g., an enemy that spots Excalibur and runs out of view can still be targeted by Radial Javelin if the ability is used within a small time frame).

This is why the LoS is not as egregious when used in that way.

But for projectiles where the check originates from the surface of the object they hit, the LoS will always be flawed and report false negatives.

Solution

You could probably find a way to resolve most of these issues, but I feel like it would be a lot easier to just replace the LoS when used in this way with some other sort of balancing tool, like the damage falloffs present in any other explosive weapon.

Spoiler

And to see if DE is actually paying attention, the LoS check also experiences false positives because it ignores doors entirely.

So you can still do the kind of camping that prompted this terrible idea in the first place.

[Stellar-Dawn]

Another possibiltiy is to add the LOS check from the explosion radius itself that way it can wrap around those smaller obstacles while this still gets it blocked by large things that should block it. It would probably require more work though.

[PublikDomain]

1 minute ago, Doom_Gaming said:

Another possibiltiy is to add the LOS check from the explosion radius itself that way it can wrap around those smaller obsicles while this still gets it blocked by large things that should block it. It would probably require more work though.

I'm not quite sure how that'd work, but there are a lot of things that could be done to soften the LoS check on Whipclaw (and other projectiles). Adding the same LoS protection Excalibur has would probably eliminate most of the really egregious errors where you get a direct hit and nothing happens, and better markup of small clutter objects so they're ignored by LoS checks would eliminate most of the technical failures that make the checks so frustrating in general. But you'd still have issues like this one:

In this example I knew there was a dude in the room because of my minimap, but he wasn't visible to me until after the hit so Excalibur's LoS protection wouldn't have kicked in. I hit level geometry, not clutter, so there was nothing to "fix", LoS was technically blocked by the bit of the wall. They could try and "bounce" the explosion's origin off the normal of the surface it hits so it gets lifted away from objects, but how do you know which way to bounce and how do you ensure that the bounced position won't have the same issue for a different enemy somewhere else? It's an awful lot of work to fix a system that will never be 100% reliable no matter how much they tweak it.

[Stellar-Dawn]

So anyway thats what I was thinking just so there's a visual
Wouldnt necessarily be every little tiny bit for it but having multiple spots would go a long way
Another thing could be to have the checks check the line of sight but also a bit of the area around to help minimize barely missing enemies.
what you could do is have it check what entities are in the area and specifically check for those to minimize performance issues (Points on the opposite side aren't going to be contributing what the others aren't already, if nothing is there to begin with, no sense checking)
Another possibility for it as well: Have AoE falloff in the radius but if it passes a check it gets the full damage amount (Can act as a failsafe while also not completely neutering the damage)

 

[Stellar-Dawn]

I wouldn't expect this to be a quick fix though as it would likely need a redesigning of how explosions are handled.

[PublikDomain]

1 minute ago, Doom_Gaming said:

Spoiler

 

So anyway thats what I was thinking just so there's a visual

That's one of the problems with checking LoS :) If you're checking a single point in space then that's just one raycast/trace/whatever, but a sphere has an infinite number of points on its surface so how do you know which points to start from? Humans are really good at intuiting this kind of thing, but computers not so much. You can simplify it by only using tangential points or points on the hemisphere facing the target, but you'd still have gaps.

Fixing up the LoS so it's both performant and reliable isn't going to be easy, and when it's only used this way in AFAIK 4 places in the entire game it's probably not worth it. We've already got simpler balancing tools being used elsewhere for AoE damage scaling.

[Stellar-Dawn]

Thats the hard part actually implementing it and having it be reliable, while not obliterating performance.
might be easier to have the rays come off the enemies in set locations if they are in range instead (Head, chest, arms, elbow, knees, legs, etc)

[[DE]Ruu]

Khora enthusiasts!

As you know, we made a change to Khora’s Whipclaw in Update 29.5: Deimos Arcana that added a Line of Sight (LoS) check to its radial damage (AoE).

Since then failure to damage enemies within LoS has been reported, which we cover below in this brief overview of what changed, what we know, and next steps.

 

What was changed and why:

We made a change to Khora’s Whipclaw that added a minimal Line of Sight (LoS) check on its radial damage (AoE). Meaning enemies within line of sight of the explosion are damaged/affected, while those outside of it are not. The change was made to encourage a more active play style with Whipclaw. Moving away from whipping at walls to damage enemies on the other side with more incentive to 'seek and snipe.'

 

What is the issue with the change:

As has been reported (and is explained in the next section), certain conditions have made it difficult (if not impossible) to land AoE damage with enemies in LoS. In other words, enemies that don’t appear to be out of LoS of Whiclaw’s attack take no damage. Which no doubt has caused some frustration while using the ability.

 

What we know has been reported and confirmed about the change:

Thanks to your thorough reporting and investigation skills (thank you!), we were able to deduce and confirm through internal testing that certain environment elements seem to completely block Whipclaw’s AoE damage. Specifically:

• Small objects blocking line of sight (railings, small rocks, trees)
• Geometry (Floor/Wall detailed geometry and complex stair/slope)
• Slopes/vertical terrain variations (For example: Casting Whipclaw at the base of stairs to damage enemies at the top of stairs)

 

What’s next:

We are reviewing our options to address the obvious gaps listed above. We’ve also noticed that in addition to Whipclaw, Bonewidow’s Ironbridge charge attack projectile and Primary Tombfinger Kitguns are equally affected. They are also being looked at.

We’ll update this thread once we have a solution and possible fixes. Thanks for reading!

[_Akasha]

Thankya kindly.

[PublikDomain]

On 2021-01-27 at 11:01 AM, [DE]Ruu said:

--SNIP--

Thank you! This was unexpected.

On 2021-01-27 at 11:01 AM, [DE]Ruu said:

The change was made to encourage a more active play style with Whipclaw. Moving away from whipping at walls to damage enemies on the other side with more incentive to 'seek and snipe.'

Strangledome does far more to encourage this kind of play than Whipclaw, and the overall game design does far more to encourage this kind of play than Strangledome. You can't solve this kind of playstyle by nerfing Khora, people who want to do this will simply move to the next best thing. Many frames can do this, look at Volt or Saryn.

On 2021-01-27 at 11:01 AM, [DE]Ruu said:

We are reviewing our options to address the obvious gaps listed above.

If you want to maintain the LoS:

• You'll need to address small clutter objects blocking LoS. They technically should, but it feels really bad from a gameplay perspective.
  • This should be as "simple" as combing over every asset to make sure it doesn't actually block LoS, but I wouldn't want to be the guy to get that task...
  • ETA: Another possible solution being to add "punchthrough" to the LoS as mentioned elsewhere. If the endpoint of the LoS raycast/trace/whatever is within a certain distance of the target, assume that you hit the target. A target hiding behind a thin wall or corner will be hit, but a target behind a thick wall will not. This avoids the need to adjust clutter objects manually, but isn't a one-size-fits-all solution so there would still be some props that need manual review.
• You'll need to address LoS being captured by shot traps and other little pockets of level geometry.
  • You could smooth out collision/LoS geometry for things with complex geometry like slatted stairs by simplifying the collision mesh or replacing it with eg a box. But you'll need to make sure that you don't affect the usual collision, because shooting through the slats with other weapons is a neat and not-uncommon scenario. Warframe has really good collision geometry, which is a feature to keep.
  • You could swap Whipclaw's raycast (or whatever you call it) for a spherecast (or whatever you call it). This would keep Whipclaw from getting into small gaps, but would make targeting around corners and ledges spotty. This would also create issues with the other types of projectiles currently using the LoS, see the Catchmoon's old issues with getting caught by corners.
  • You could "bounce" the endpoint of Whipclaw by moving it backwards along the raycast (or whatever you call it) and pulling it up along the normal of the object you hit. But this might have weird behaviour with shot traps, where it could either hit another surface and still dud or bounce through a surface and create new issues. This also wouldn't work for things like Bonewidow, etc.
• You'll need to address LoS being blocked by things like shallow slopes.
  • LoS protection could solve this, eg Excalibur, but this won't fix cases like this one:
    
    where the enemy was never seen but was known of because of the minimap.

If you want to do something else:

• A simple damage falloff works for all other explosive weapons, and should do just fine here. This also addresses Khora's damage output, which is the larger issue with the frame. I'd be perfectly happy with even a 90% damage falloff; it'd encourage using her 2 and 4 to spread damage more without heavily affecting her ability to clear fodder or low-level enemies or her ability to kill high level enemies - if she aims or uses her other powers to group them up. It would still allow the kind of sewer camping this change was meant to prevent, but it would make it far less efficient and with basically nowhere in the game left to sewer camp right now I don't know if that's really a problem.

On 2021-01-27 at 11:01 AM, [DE]Ruu said:

We’ve also noticed that in addition to Whipclaw, Bonewidow’s Ironbridge charge attack projectile and Primary Tombfinger Kitguns are equally affected. They are also being looked at.

I would do a deeper audit of these LoS checks, it seems to affect Ember's Fireball as well or so I've heard. Any case where LoS is used on projectile-type attacks will cause these issues.

For now.

[Oorel]

thanks @[DE]Ruu

[kyori]

48 minutes ago, [DE]Ruu said:

Small objects blocking line of sight (railings, small rocks, trees)

Not really about this but then a lot of these 'insignificant' objects(like hanging wires etc) are given detection geometries(not sure what is the correct term), making players blocked by them while bullet-jumping etc. We should be able to go past those objects without them blocking us. 

If those 'detection geometries' are removed, I'm sure the game will lesser a few GBs. lol

[Crevab]

Is Fire Blast also being checked? That's been noted to be overly easily blocked as well.

Still, thanks!

[Drachnyn]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb [DE]Ruu:

What was changed and why:

We made a change to Khora’s Whipclaw that added a minimal Line of Sight (LoS) check on its radial damage (AoE). Meaning enemies within line of sight of the explosion are damaged/affected, while those outside of it are not. The change was made to encourage a more active play style with Whipclaw. Moving away from whipping at walls to damage enemies on the other side with more incentive to 'seek and snipe.'

I hope someone at DE realizes that the core problem was always boring mission design that innately encourages camping and not any single frame or weapon. With how spawning enemies in survival works, camping is always the most efficient way. Compare this to more engaging missions like disruption, eidolons, orbs or the scarlet spear ground mission. Their higher complexity automatically makes camping like in survival not an option. Khora is not bad in disruption but even with LoS ignoring whipclaw she was never broken-op there because the mission design wasnt the most simplistic thing ever. Khora only ever broke boring missions, instead of trying to defend them you should make more interesting missions.

[LillyRaccune]

2 hours ago, [DE]Ruu said:

What’s next:

We are reviewing our options to address the obvious gaps listed above. We’ve also noticed that in addition to Whipclaw, Bonewidow’s Ironbridge charge attack projectile and Primary Tombfinger Kitguns are equally affected. They are also being looked at.

We’ll update this thread once we have a solution and possible fixes. Thanks for reading!

Beautiful! Thank you. Even though there may be not a change in the immediate future, just knowing that the team at DE also agree about the current situation is a comfort. I'll try to be patient waiting for future news. I admit I'm not thrilled with the change, I liked whipping enemies through the wall, but I'm glad you don't want to leave it the way it is right now.

Just wanted to ask/chime-in about how Whipclaw is supposed to interact with with Strangledome?

• When I smack the Strangledome with Whipclaw, are all the enemies currently attached to the Dome supposed to receive damage from Whipclaw?
• Is this function separate from the AOE attack of Whipclaw? Or is it an interaction with Strangledome?
• Does this require the same Line of Sight check? Or should enemies "hooked" throught the walls receive damage from this source?

Thanks for the update! I'm looking forward to seeing how your investigation progresses, since a few other sources of damage are also struggling from this situation. Keep up the good work! 💖

[PublikDomain]

12 minutes ago, LillyRaccune said:

• When I smack the Strangledome with Whipclaw, are all the enemies currently attached to the Dome supposed to receive damage from Whipclaw?
• Is this function separate from the AOE attack of Whipclaw? Or is it an interaction with Strangledome?
• Does this require the same Line of Sight check? Or should enemies "hooked" throught the walls receive damage from this source?

Hitting an enemy grabbed by Strangledome with Whipclaw causes half of the damage from Whipclaw to be applied to all other enemies in the dome. Status and crit are rerolled for each enemy when they take the damage. It doesn't require LoS for a grabbed enemy to be hit by the propagated damage, but there can be an interaction with Strangledome where - I least I think - ragdolled enemies are getting pulled into geometry and aren't able to be seen by Whipclaw to begin with. This would be the issue @Berzerkules outlined in their bug report.

[(PSN)iuvenilis]

3 hours ago, [DE]Ruu said:

--snip--

Firstly, thanks.

Secondly, not to sound too ungrateful, any chance this will affect other abilities not mentioned? Last I recall, I think Ember's Fireblast suffers from this quite a bit. Tiny objects etc. breaking line of sight such that enemies quite close are unaffected by the ability.

Fingers crossed any changes have positive implications for other frames.

[Berzerkules]

3 hours ago, [DE]Ruu said:

Khora enthusiasts!

As you know, we made a change to Khora’s Whipclaw in Update 29.5: Deimos Arcana that added a Line of Sight (LoS) check to its radial damage (AoE).

Since then failure to damage enemies within LoS has been reported, which we cover below in this brief overview of what changed, what we know, and next steps.

 

What was changed and why:

We made a change to Khora’s Whipclaw that added a minimal Line of Sight (LoS) check on its radial damage (AoE). Meaning enemies within line of sight of the explosion are damaged/affected, while those outside of it are not. The change was made to encourage a more active play style with Whipclaw. Moving away from whipping at walls to damage enemies on the other side with more incentive to 'seek and snipe.'

 

What is the issue with the change:

As has been reported (and is explained in the next section), certain conditions have made it difficult (if not impossible) to land AoE damage with enemies in LoS. In other words, enemies that don’t appear to be out of LoS of Whiclaw’s attack take no damage. Which no doubt has caused some frustration while using the ability.

 

What we know has been reported and confirmed about the change:

Thanks to your thorough reporting and investigation skills (thank you!), we were able to deduce and confirm through internal testing that certain environment elements seem to completely block Whipclaw’s AoE damage. Specifically:

• Small objects blocking line of sight (railings, small rocks, trees)
• Geometry (Floor/Wall detailed geometry and complex stair/slope)
• Slopes/vertical terrain variations (For example: Casting Whipclaw at the base of stairs to damage enemies at the top of stairs)

 

What’s next:

We are reviewing our options to address the obvious gaps listed above. We’ve also noticed that in addition to Whipclaw, Bonewidow’s Ironbridge charge attack projectile and Primary Tombfinger Kitguns are equally affected. They are also being looked at.

We’ll update this thread once we have a solution and possible fixes. Thanks for reading!

Thx for looking into Khora. I have about 800 hours on that frame and had completely abandoned her since LoS was added to her Whipclaw. I'm not some filthy afk wall whipper, I had about 1 mil kills on Khora from kuva survivals before SP was released. 

As you know LoS check is totally scuffed across the board for many weapons and frames. Another reason that adding LoS check to Khora is a bad solution IMO is she can't hit enemies stuck in her dome through walls. She can pull enemies up against walls from the other side but she has no effective means to dispatch those enemies. With how complex and detailed some maps are (Kuva Fortress) you can CC enemies in dome but have to run all over the place trying to get LoS to whip them. 

It creates really annoying situations where Khora is no longer a benefit to the team but a hinderance instead. Just like a high range Vauban spamming vortex she slows down kill per second on some maps and it becomes difficult to maintain life support. She can still excel on open maps but I feel she is completely gimped in many situations.

It's a difficult situation with no clear solution. I understand why you don't want people to use macros to afk camp with Khora and whip enemies through walls.  At the same time the way many maps are designed, an active Khora player could strategically drop a dome in a more complex portion of a tile to efficiently clear hard to reach areas. 

Addressing game wide LoS check fails is a good start but, LoS on Khora just feels terrible to play. She's not the same frame she once was and I miss my girl. 

 

[-CLM-Joker]

5 hours ago, [DE]Ruu said:

Khora enthusiasts!

As you know, we made a change to Khora’s Whipclaw in Update 29.5: Deimos Arcana that added a Line of Sight (LoS) check to its radial damage (AoE).

Since then failure to damage enemies within LoS has been reported, which we cover below in this brief overview of what changed, what we know, and next steps.

 

What was changed and why:

We made a change to Khora’s Whipclaw that added a minimal Line of Sight (LoS) check on its radial damage (AoE). Meaning enemies within line of sight of the explosion are damaged/affected, while those outside of it are not. The change was made to encourage a more active play style with Whipclaw. Moving away from whipping at walls to damage enemies on the other side with more incentive to 'seek and snipe.'

 

What is the issue with the change:

As has been reported (and is explained in the next section), certain conditions have made it difficult (if not impossible) to land AoE damage with enemies in LoS. In other words, enemies that don’t appear to be out of LoS of Whiclaw’s attack take no damage. Which no doubt has caused some frustration while using the ability.

 

What we know has been reported and confirmed about the change:

Thanks to your thorough reporting and investigation skills (thank you!), we were able to deduce and confirm through internal testing that certain environment elements seem to completely block Whipclaw’s AoE damage. Specifically:

• Small objects blocking line of sight (railings, small rocks, trees)
• Geometry (Floor/Wall detailed geometry and complex stair/slope)
• Slopes/vertical terrain variations (For example: Casting Whipclaw at the base of stairs to damage enemies at the top of stairs)

 

What’s next:

We are reviewing our options to address the obvious gaps listed above. We’ve also noticed that in addition to Whipclaw, Bonewidow’s Ironbridge charge attack projectile and Primary Tombfinger Kitguns are equally affected. They are also being looked at.

We’ll update this thread once we have a solution and possible fixes. Thanks for reading!

Thanks for taking interest in fixing the issue.

I'm gonna make an uneducated guess (since i don't know Warframe's hit detection code) and suggest that a straightforward way to fix it could be to make the LoS check also include the camera's perspective.

More specifically, i'm referring with how Mesa's Peacemaker works, which targets any enemy within the circle even if Mesa herself is down a slope.

That way Whipclaw would still not target enemies behind walls, but won't get stuck under weird geometry.

[KitMeHarder]

8 hours ago, [DE]Ruu said:

The change was made to encourage a more active play style with Whipclaw. Moving away from whipping at walls to damage enemies on the other side with more incentive to 'seek and snipe.'

I greatly appreciate the response to this issue, and I would like to weigh in on this conversation. I hope when you consider your options, that completely removing the LoS check is one of them. 

Khora is a very active frame... when she's not being abused in looong Steel Path survivals. And once you all reworked the AI in survival, she even became highly active in this very same farm once it moved to Odin (interception). And now that farm is completely removed all together.

Even a small LoS check is very punishing for this frame, as it makes her very inconsistent. Now, with no reason to fight high level enemies again, and with plenty of high radial damage in this game that goes through walls (Glaives, Ogris, Bramma, Atlas, Hildryn, Exodia Contagion, etc...), I hope you favor the everyday play over the fringe farm.

I heard you did the community proud in Vivergate, I hope for my girl you do it here as well. 

[Zeke]

The lack of transparency with intentions on nerfing is wild. If there's anything that came out of this, it's hopefully a wakeup call to hold off nerfs as impactful as this for test servers to get actual feedback, rather than shoving them half-heartedly into a mainline update to be downplayed.

Khora by nature is a glass cannon, literally no inherit survivability, through and through she was an active frame, any mission needing you to hop from objective to objective was putting you in danger, a clip of someone going AFK in steel path (a game mode that was told wouldn't influence game balance btw) shouldn't paint such a black and white picture on a frame that seems to always have a laser sight on her forehead (by both in-game enemies and the dev team).

My two cents? Nobody should be reduced to the state Khora is in right now, I'd rather have no nerfs and let her be, but I'd take a damage reduction/damage fall-off any day of the week over LoS on a tissue paper warframe.

[Xaero]

14 hours ago, [DE]Ruu said:

Khora enthusiasts!

As you know, we made a change to Khora’s Whipclaw in Update 29.5: Deimos Arcana that added a Line of Sight (LoS) check to its radial damage (AoE).

Since then failure to damage enemies within LoS has been reported, which we cover below in this brief overview of what changed, what we know, and next steps.

 

What was changed and why:

We made a change to Khora’s Whipclaw that added a minimal Line of Sight (LoS) check on its radial damage (AoE). Meaning enemies within line of sight of the explosion are damaged/affected, while those outside of it are not. The change was made to encourage a more active play style with Whipclaw. Moving away from whipping at walls to damage enemies on the other side with more incentive to 'seek and snipe.'

 

What is the issue with the change:

As has been reported (and is explained in the next section), certain conditions have made it difficult (if not impossible) to land AoE damage with enemies in LoS. In other words, enemies that don’t appear to be out of LoS of Whiclaw’s attack take no damage. Which no doubt has caused some frustration while using the ability.

 

What we know has been reported and confirmed about the change:

Thanks to your thorough reporting and investigation skills (thank you!), we were able to deduce and confirm through internal testing that certain environment elements seem to completely block Whipclaw’s AoE damage. Specifically:

• Small objects blocking line of sight (railings, small rocks, trees)
• Geometry (Floor/Wall detailed geometry and complex stair/slope)
• Slopes/vertical terrain variations (For example: Casting Whipclaw at the base of stairs to damage enemies at the top of stairs)

 

What’s next:

We are reviewing our options to address the obvious gaps listed above. We’ve also noticed that in addition to Whipclaw, Bonewidow’s Ironbridge charge attack projectile and Primary Tombfinger Kitguns are equally affected. They are also being looked at.

We’ll update this thread once we have a solution and possible fixes. Thanks for reading!

Nice! LoS is a great balance tool provided it works properly. Once it's completely fixed and works as intended, it should be applied to many AoE capabilities.

[vegetosayajin]

Finally.

[SneakyErvin]

18 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

 

Strangledome does far more to encourage this kind of play than Whipclaw, and the overall game design does far more to encourage this kind of play than Strangledome. You can't solve this kind of playstyle by nerfing Khora, people who want to do this will simply move to the next best thing. Many frames can do this, look at Volt or Saryn.

They cant really be compared to whipclaw though since they cannot pull nearly the same damage. Even Saryn who is massively powerful has a cap that is far below what whipclaw can produce when it comes to aoe dps. Khora simply outperformed all other aoe options for Steel Path levels and above. Though I do think all AoE frames should recieve LoS requirements on their abilities.

[PublikDomain]

3 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

They cant really be compared to whipclaw though since they cannot pull nearly the same damage. Even Saryn who is massively powerful has a cap that is far below what whipclaw can produce when it comes to aoe dps. Khora simply outperformed all other aoe options for Steel Path levels and above. Though I do think all AoE frames should recieve LoS requirements on their abilities.

The only difference with Khora is the level she can work at; at lower levels frames like Saryns and Volts are much more effective at killing large swathes of enemies without moving around. ESO, for example: a Khora can catch up and surpass a Saryn or a Volt in terms of damage dealt, but only if they get to the higher waves where the Saryns and Volts drop off and can't oneshot the map from one position. The only reason Khora got picked up for Steel Path farming is for that crazy damage output - which is completely unchanged by the LoS. She still has a crazy damage output, it's just that it occasionally doesn't work and you have to push the button a second time. That's all that the LoS does.

If DE could produce a robust, reliable LoS check that only blocks LoS when it actually should then sure, that'd be fine if it were used elsewhere. I don't really think that's doable without a lot of complexity and/or a lot of work, so I'm skeptical about them trying to salvage it. But even if they could, it still wouldn't address Khora's damage output nor would it really address sewer camping. With a perfect LoS that only prevents hitting through walls without any annoying side-effects, sewer camping groups could just get some Limbos and camp out in the open. No walls, no problem. This is really what I was getting at, there are so many other ways to get around a LoS restriction that why bother? The people that want to play that way are going to do so. You can't prevent that by attacking their tools, you can only reduce it by making that play unnecessary to begin with. It's the underlying design of the game which promotes sitting around doing nothing for hours on end.