Warframe Dodging Controls, Feel, & Balance

[-Bluhman-]

TL,DR summary
_{for people who didn't come to a forum to read walls of text}

• Don't have dodges interrupt a reload
• Have dodges be performed relative to camera, not to the player's model, and don't bind them to only 8 possible directions you can move.
• Dodging without directional input should perform a quick backstep or air dodge that mostly keeps the player's position (or momentum if they're in the air).
  • This could be applied to Limbo's mechanics as a way to shift planes without making portals, as well as allowing other players to escape the Limbo Plane without committing to a long-distance roll.
• Have it consistently move them based on where the camera's facing, not which way the player's model is facing.
• Allow it to mitigate more damage when used:
  • Potentially a 0% damage taken window?
  • Don't take knockback
  • Ignore Debuff applications (could be an inverse of how melee blocks work)
• Use it as a basis to start making battles that involve 1v1 feel more organic. Don't have to incorporate so many puzzle boss elements if you have this in place!

---------------

The current situation with dodging as a mechanic, in this one player's opinion, is... not good, across multiple factors. To lay some groundwork, let's just list out the traits that doing dodges currently has:

• Moves the player's warframe a set distance across the ground or through the air at a constant speed.
• Interrupts other actions the warframe is taking, such as changing or reloading weapons.
• During this animation, the warframe takes only 25% of the damage they'd normally take, from all sources:
  • This also includes damage taken from damage-over-time effects such as from slash, electric, fire, or toxic effects.
  • Appears to also stop some degree of knockback and pushback, but not all.
• Can remove certain effects or projectiles that are stuck to the warframe, such as Seeker mines, Nox goop orbs, or the Banish effect caused by Limbo
• Can be augmented heavily by the Rolling Guard mod, offered via gaining Vitus Essence from Arbitrations (will get back to why this is so important later on!)

Overall, seems like a pretty sweet deal all things considered, especially in the early game. Before the player has attained access to warframes that specifically have heavy-duty abilities for avoiding damage (when all that's really available are Excalibur, Mag, or Volt without shelling out Plat or farming Jackal for Rhino), this is the lifeblood for allowing them to survive assault from lots of foes at once. Thing is, though, the collective traits of the dodge mean it's not sustainable as a survivability tactic for many warframes due to the limitations it has:

• Its set movement speed and ground coverage means that it's a very risky maneuver to use in situations where the player is on narrow footing. Dodges also seem to have 'dead-zones' in terms of directions they can be executed, so if you're trying to do a dodge in a very specific direction (namely to prevent falling off of a narrow passage) well, hope that the dead-zone the dodge picked relative to your frame's facing is lined up with that passage!
• The fact it interrupts things such as reloading or changing weapons means it's prolonging the amount of time taken to be ready to attack again. If you're trying to reload and a dangerous explosion is heading towards you, you're better off attempting to just parkour away from it rather than use the dodge, because at the very least you'll still be preparing yourself to fire your weapons again.
• This is more to do with the game and enemy design than anything (and especially boss design, there's huge opportunities here), but there's also a lack of really readable attack or projectile effects where the dodge can apply. Situations where I'd imagine gaining the most benefit from using them are also situations where it's the most difficult to tell what the heck is even going on (i.e. my foolhardy attempts to solo the Profit-Taker Orb, I have no idea what the timing is on this giant blue column of death from the sky that keeps hitting me for like 30% of my iron-skin health. What animation did Orb do to initiate these weird orbital or mortar strikes? How do I know when it's going to hit me? I look to the sky and I don't see anything, I look at the ground and don't see anything, what is going on???)

This overall means there isn't inherently a way to utilize the dodges in any way that would be pertinent or tactical to 'mix-in' with my attack phases - in other words, there's situations where I'm either forced to dodge at all times constantly because I'm not sure what's going to one-shot me, or I'm just sliding, jumping, and blasting my way around with no regard for the dodge mechanic at all because it's more effective to just use all my abilities together to stop CC-vulnerable enemies from attacking by... You know, killing them first.

Further exacerbating this, there's a bunch of game mechanics that become piled-on later that begin to then further reduce the effectiveness of the dodge, basically serving as ways to help sidestep the 'inconvenience' of using it:

• As mentioned before, there's a whole set of frames that make their entire point around just not having to do this - Rhino, Nidus, Inaros, Gauss, Atlas, Nezha - An entire family of frames specifically designed to have abilities that limit either the need or benefit that defensive maneuvers such as rolls provide. The big draw of that: this means they can then just devote more time to returning fire or doing parkour and running around, than having to spend time doing dodges.
• As soon as you complete 'The War Within', you gain access to the ability to explicitly enter Operator Form and Void Mode. Now, that's a big deal, because now you have a way to immediately make your Warframe, specifically, entirely invulnerable for the duration you're transferrenced outside of it, as well as your own operator. This is a big 'problem' in a sense, because now you have a way to mitigate otherwise unavoidable damage from DoTs on yourself with an option that now just cleanly avoids almost every downside associated with normal dodging:
  • You no longer have to worry about how you're displacing your own position when you do this. Void Mode doesn't require the Operator to move at all to resist damage.
  • Instead of taking 25% damage from all sources, your warframe's now taking 0% damage from all sources, including from DoT effects on themselves! The only disadvantage is that you can't see the DoT's status/duration on your UI and instead have to watch your warframe's model for when it stops bleeding or burning, so now it doesn't even feel like a way to avoid damage that even feels deliberate!
  • It's also a defense mechanism that doesn't require precise timing - and specifically, precise timing in response to a bunch of enemy attacks that can be chaotic to even read what's going on because of the indistinctness and confusion of different visual effects on screen. Granted it's an entirely different set of muscle-memory that has to be engaged to pull it off, but once you have it? You don't need to time it in response to anything. It's just 'press 5, hold ctrl to survive'.
  • Lastly it doesn't require any kind of modding commitment from the player for their warframe. This means that the benefits of Rolling Guard, especially at the point where you'd gain access to it (after completing the whole star-map, guaranteed to be after finishing The War Within because of the Ropalolyst node occurring after a later quest) is even further drawn down because you already have an answer to what the mod does that then strips out the inconvenience of having to time it, on top of the access to invuln-mode on demand that doesn't even require the user to commit to moving with a roll - let alone an entire mod slot for something that can only be used once every few seconds.
• To a lesser degree, melee blocks also provide incredibly consistent defenses that make dodging less than necessary, but of course blocking still induces debuffs from attacks and doesn't protect you from all angles. Even so, it also doesn't require the player to explicitly displace themselves to take effect.

So the bottom line: there's just no reason to use dodges at all in late-game, and certainly no reason to commit to enhancing it either. I feel that's a big problem, because there isn't a good answer in the game currently (especially for non-tanky frames) that hits a sweet spot between the all-out offense of just parkouring and firing at enemies, and full-defense of hunkering down as a void ghost next to your rigid A-posing frame. Right now, it's just a sub-optimal alternative to the clunky but still 100% effective tactic of void mode+transferrence. It's an afterthought.

What do I think should be done to fix this?

The dodge mechanics just need an overhaul in terms of feel, control, and actual operation. Mainly to make them fit in more fluidly with actual, warframe-integrated combat (instead of constant transferrence between different forms) and allow for balanced offense/defense in phases. Here's my deal:

• Bake elements of Rolling Guard into default dodges. 0% damage should be consistent when you're doing this, and I believe this could be a big deal especially when considering situations when you're up against throngs of enemies.
  • Removing all debuffs on a dodge would mayyyybe be too much, but what I think could be more reasonable is reducing the duration of debuffs on a dodge. That alone I feel could be a massive benefit, especially considering how most debuffs that inflict damage tend to do A LOT, especially at high levels, and outside of transference, using Warframe-specific status resistances, or doing a bunch of precisely-timed rolls in time with the ticks of damage dealt (yes seriously this does reduce the damage, no it makes no sense, and yes I think this should be changed), there isn't a way to mitigate it.
  • In contrast of having it act as damage resistance, have it act as hitbox removal. To 'dodge' something pretty specifically refers to 'having an attack not hit you', so all the negative effects of an attack that might be coming in - not just the damage, but the debuffs, knockback, screenshake, whatever - would be negated if you pull off a dodge correctly. I'd be willing to shake on this clause for some specific cases (nullification orbs, mainly) but outside of that? Should be fully reasonable to roll through the otherwise impenetable wall of flame made by a Caustic Eximus, or the shockwave of a Moa, without being shaken and knocked back. Precision and Timing should be rewarded.
  • So what would happen to the existing Rolling Guard mod? Having it extend those benefits on a dodge a bit longer after a dodge is done would be big. That'd open up a bunch of offense-oriented usage of dodge in the middle of chaotic combat. And because the effects this implementation of a dodge would have on debuffs isn't a full removal, that benefit could be relegated to this mod. In any case, there needs to be use cases for this mod to still exist in the face of a massive Dodge buff like this, because, again, this is an entire mod slot being taken up by something that's augmenting a game feature that, up until now, most players and frames either take steps to explicitly avoid, or heavily minimize the amount it's being used because of how inconvenient it is. In tune with that, that leads us to other changes that'd be put in:
• Dodging should not interrupt reloading. This is a feature I found while playing the game Remnant: From the Ashes (Which in of itself I think takes a couple cues from Warframe, the Primary/Secondary/Melee loadout was pretty striking to be sure). What that game managed to achieve was baking its dodge mechanics into the flow of ranged combat, specifically by allowing the player to keep reloading while focusing on defensive maneuvers. That made a pretty clear pattern of offensive firing and defensive reloading+dodging flow of gameplay, and while some of that could be attributed to its other influences (it's a Soulslike at heart, so you know that dodging is a big deal in that game), the fact is that they managed to make it fit in basically perfectly with the shooter/gunplay elements of the game. Maybe that's part of the reason why so many players say Melee is OP over here, huh?
  • And from a thematic standpoint, having a dodge not interrupt your reload cycle makes sense here as well - all you're doing really is just rolling on the ground in most cases, and that doesn't take any more hands or limbs than doing a somersault in the air. Otherwise, double-jumping in this game would also be interrupting your reloads! Grabbing ledges would also be interrupting reloads as well, and I'm pretty sure they actually don't. So, basically, there's no reason from a balance, nor thematic, standpoint that doing a dodge should prevent you from continuing to reload your guns.
  • This'd also be a first step for potentially giving the dodges a BIG leg-up on transferrence+void as well - no matter what, doing that is going to wrest control from your frame. You're not in control of the warframe so there's absolutely no way you'd be able to reload weapons while doing that.
• Improving the feel and control of dodging:
  • Scratch the 8-direcitonal thing and linear movement pattern. Seriously, it feels so much more stilted and clunky than the parkour maneuvers. The distance and movement pattern of doing a roll in this game feels like it came straight out of Oblivion, which is not exactly a crowning gem of good control schemes or avoiding jank.
    • In lieu of using a linear movement-speed, I'd probably even go so far to perhaps take some influence from the dodges of God of War which seem to use some manner of parabolic deacceleration math to adjust position. It'd be just like how sliding in this game works right now, easing to a stop instead of just suddenly stopping after some fixed distance. Would at least make it easier to tell when and where you'd end up while doing a dodge.
    • To help with controlling your dodge direction, and also maintaining the full distance it can cover, maybe introduce some temporary directional modifiers to your roll while it's in action? A dodge is already committing to a long-distance movement to avoid attacks, but what if you could hold down directions to curve it slightly as it played out? Is your backflip heading for a cliff? Hold down left to make it curve that direction! Compare this to the process of steering a necramech whilst using its dash.
• Nondirectional Dodge: Bringing back Remnant again, this should be something of an in-place or quick backstep dodge. Now, traditional experience with that maneuver in 3rd person action would dictate that it wouldn't be effective, but it mostly has to do with control scheme here. Because both Remnant and Warframe are, in some parts, made to be played with M+KB as shooters, this means that there's inherently control of which way you're facing without having to move a direction. A nondirectional backstep like this could be really good against tanky melee enemies that are charging directly at you - Fighting a juggernaut, you could be firing at its front when it flies directly towards you, and with a single button, could backstep to avoid the damage and then switch to engaging it in melee.
  • Also, can be applied to Limbo to allow people to escape planes without committing to a long-distance roll, and to allow Limbo to change planes without creating a portal.
• Aerial Dodging: this shouldn't even be a roll. I'd take influence from Smash Bros. and have it just be a somersault or twirl or something that grants dodge effects without even influencing the trajectory of your jump. I say this because its current implementation doesn't even look good or make sense, what am I even rolling or handspringing on that's allowing me to cover this much ground when I'm... not on ground? But since the Aerial dodge does help enable perhaps the fastest movement across maps for most frames, however, it does have a use case. An in-place twirl could be usable as the nondirectional dodge in midair, whereas for air dodges, heck maybe borrow animations from Wisp or Hildryn to turn it into an air dash dodge - just don't make it look like I'm Gymnast Wile E. Coyote doing my routine on a cliff that ended 50 feet behind me.
  • The Timing: It probably shouldn't be the entire animation, but I'm conflicted a little on that point considering just how often Tenno are facing off against massive armies of enemies that are all constantly shooting them at once. Thing is, if it's going to be balanced in such a way that it's pertinent and feels deliberate to use especially in showdowns against assassination targets that, ideally, should encourage and balance their fights with these dodge mechanics in mind, giving it that precision requirement and limitation might be a big consideration.

The next steps: Based pretty directly off that last point I put there, this would be grounds on which to make a lot of the assassination missions, and fights, feel... Well, better. More fair, less waiting around, less reliance on having players just hammer very specific weakpoints on targets, and more on balancing the offense and defense against their targets with attacks that encourage and facilitate dodging. Right now I think the bosses that come closest to this paradigm, in some elements are Post-Second-Dream Shadow Stalker (His War-slash projectiles are VERY easy to read and see where they're going, in contrast with a lot of other projectiles, and his health scaling feels a little better than most bosses... That might just be by virtue of his Sentient-resistances stopping outright one-shots though) and Exploiter Orb's second phase (Her flamethrower attack and her mortar shots don't feel nearly as unreasonable to avoid as other open-world fights, but she still falls victim to some weakpoint gating.) To really drive the point home, though, I'd encourage DE to use some of these changes to really help improve on boss design:

• Moving away from forcing players to aim precisely or figure out 'puzzles' to damage bosses. Make them feel like actual fights rather than just waiting for the target to become damageable.
• Inversely, help avoid fights from just being curbstomps by adding tangible threats that facilitate and require dodging. These changes will help establish a rhythm to fights. Make them engaging and require attention without hamfisting it with many of the current tactics used in currently-implemented assassination fights or open-world battles.
• I'm begging DE, please make future fights have projectiles and attack effects that are easier to read and distinguish, I'm so tired of being killed by weird, fuzzy beams that I have no idea where they're even coming from aradsklhf

So hopefully my diatribe I just wrote here makes some sense and seems agreeable to other players, thanks for reading.

[Teliko_Freedman]

(walks in, sees huge text wall.)

wha

(dodges out of the thread)

[quxier]

2 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

Its set movement speed and ground coverage means that it's a very risky maneuver to use in situations where the player is on narrow footing. Dodges also seem to have 'dead-zones' in terms of directions they can be executed, so if you're trying to do a dodge in a very specific direction (namely to prevent falling off of a narrow passage) well, hope that the dead-zone the dodge picked relative to your frame's facing is lined up with that passage!

Do you mean "invisible walls' that stops you or teleport you? If yes, then yeah, it happens.

2 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

As soon as you complete 'The War Within', you gain access to the ability to explicitly enter Operator Form and Void Mode. Now, that's a big deal, because now you have a way to immediately make your Warframe, specifically, entirely invulnerable for the duration you're transferrenced outside of it, as well as your own operator. This is a big 'problem' in a sense, because now you have a way to mitigate otherwise unavoidable damage from DoTs on yourself with an option that now just cleanly avoids almost every downside associated with normal dodging:

Sadly companions (pets, moa, sentinels etc) are not immortal and just aggro enemies and wait to die.

2 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

Lastly it doesn't require any kind of modding commitment from the player for their warframe. This means that the benefits of Rolling Guard, especially at the point where you'd gain access to it (after completing the whole star-map, guaranteed to be after finishing The War Within because of the Ropalolyst node occurring after a later quest) is even further drawn down because you already have an answer to what the mod does that then strips out the inconvenience of having to time it, on top of the access to invuln-mode on demand that doesn't even require the user to commit to moving with a roll - let alone an entire mod slot for something that can only be used once every few seconds.

Sadly operator-mode breaks the flow of combat in some cases. Sure Zenurik dash or resetting Sentients resistance is not bad but more operator will break a flow. It's not for me.

3 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

So the bottom line: there's just no reason to use dodges at all in late-game, and certainly no reason to commit to enhancing it either. I feel that's a big problem, because there isn't a good answer in the game currently (especially for non-tanky frames) that hits a sweet spot between the all-out offense of just parkouring and firing at enemies, and full-defense of hunkering down as a void ghost next to your rigid A-posing frame. Right now, it's just a sub-optimal alternative to the clunky but still 100% effective tactic of void mode+transferrence. It's an afterthought.

I would still roll with my mods.

3 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

but what I think could be more reasonable is reducing the duration of debuffs on a dodge.

If you have enemy that constantly proc something on you then reducing duration is meaningless.

3 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

•  
• In contrast of having it act as damage resistance, have it act as hitbox removal. To 'dodge' something pretty specifically refers to 'having an attack not hit you', so all the negative effects of an attack that might be coming in - not just the damage, but the debuffs, knockback, screenshake, whatever - would be negated if you pull off a dodge correctly. I'd be willing to shake on this clause for some specific cases (nullification orbs, mainly) but outside of that? Should be fully reasonable to roll through the otherwise impenetable wall of flame made by a Caustic Eximus, or the shockwave of a Moa, without being shaken and knocked back. Precision and Timing should be rewarded.

I don't remember all things but I think I can roll through many things (almost) unharmed.

3 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

Dodging should not interrupt reloading.

That ok but

3 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

And from a thematic standpoint, having a dodge not interrupt your reload cycle makes sense here as well - all you're doing really is just rolling on the ground in most cases, and that doesn't take any more hands or limbs than doing a somersault in the air.

this reasoning is stupid. Have you tried roll & reload at the same time? It would be hard. Sure frames like Xaku or Protea might have easier but normal roll isn't easy for reloading.

3 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

In lieu of using a linear movement-speed, I'd probably even go so far to perhaps take some influence from the dodges of God of War which seem to use some manner of parabolic deacceleration math to adjust position. It'd be just like how sliding in this game works right now, easing to a stop instead of just suddenly stopping after some fixed distance. Would at least make it easier to tell when and where you'd end up while doing a dodge.

I would hate it. Bullet jumps are long distance and not so precise movements. Rolls on other hands have low distance but are very precise. "Deacceleration" or something would make it not so good. Of course small changes won't affect too much (protea's change) but huge one... would break some games. In general... I don't need it.

3 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

Overall it should cover less distance. The more positional control you can retain while not being hit, the better.

• This could be grounds to potentially introduce mechanics for adjusting the dodge-distance of different frames, i.e. a weight class. I could picture frames like Wisp, Mirage, or Titania having long-distance dodges that match their fickle nature, and meanwhile others like Rhino, Grendel, or Atlas having much shorter dodges that help them stand their ground and precisely control where they're going. These could even be further tweaked with introducing new mods? Maybe some new usage for that Rolling Guard mod, or a variant of it? Consider this very much a grain of salt, though, this would probably be very difficult to implement in a balanced way.

 

There are things that affects maneuvers distance (rolls as well) in positive aspect (= more distance/speed) but there are not things that make it in negative way. There should be mod, arcane or something that make rolls smaller or slower(and give some other buff maybe?).

And distance is "ok" in general. Sure, I would like to have little less distance on my Xaku but other frames... distances are fine.

3 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

Aerial dodging: this shouldn't even be a roll. I'd take influence from Smash Bros. and have it just be a somersault or something that grants dodge effects without even influencing the trajectory of your jump. I say this because its current implementation doesn't even look good or make sense, what am I even rolling or backflipping on that's allowing me to cover this much ground when I'm... not on ground? This would also help to allow it to be a viable alternative to the ground dodge - if you want to maintain roughly the same position while still avoiding attacks, this means that doing a short jump followed by a dodge would let you keep the same horizontal position easily. Inversely, if you did want to cover a lot of ground, you could instead just pair this with a bullet jump, where doing a dodge would just persist your current momentum.

I like current version because you can do the same things on the ground & in the air.

Smaller rolls... just doesn't click with me. Game is not meant for such precise movement. And you can already do it. If you want to stay (more or less) in one position just block damage (using melee). There is no need to roll.

 

In general rolls needs some love like Bullet jump. Let me link them for you - maybe you will find them interesting:

 

And you have forgotten about Amalgam +60% to doge speed. It's nice combinations for rolls mod.

[Acos]

This is very nicely formatted, but there is an art to getting your point across with respect to time. Game developers do not have time to read essays like this, and most of the player base isn't going to engage in discussion with you either, which automatically weakens your argument simply due to reasons of brevity. 

Very quickly: 
1) Making dodging cover less distance or be slower is BAD, and anti-purpose to what dodging wants to achieve. It is not simply damage reduction; enemies have a harder time hitting moving targets so the net gain is actually much higher than a simple 25% DR. Furthermore dodging is a core part of the movement system and making the animation quicker or resulting in less distance traveled would be seen as a nerf by many as our movement becomes less powerful as a result. As you mention, sliding already accomplishes the task of a more controlled method of evasive movement that still allows offensive actions. Dodging is about quickly displacing yourself to presumably get out of danger and move to a more tactically advantageous position, and making it slower at accomplishing that task, whether on the ground or in the air, removes its viability. 
2) I like the idea of reloading not being interrupted by dodging. Revenant From Ashes has a LOT of bad gameplay decisions, but that one would be welcome here. 
3) Messing up your dodges is, honestly, a case of the player needing to get better with the controls. Dodging is a set distance, consistent speed, and I have very little issue controlling myself while doing it. Even if you *do* slide off of things, the myriad of movement options we have is plentiful enough that its easy to correct a mistake, and the game is not terribly punishing for making them to begin with. 

[Tiltskillet]

That's...a lot of words to devote to something that, honestly, works pretty well as is.  Anyway, there's a couple of things you touched on I'd like to see addressed. 

Quote

Dodging should not interrupt reloading.

I do wish it didn't make us start completely from the beginning.   However, I don't mind it pausing reloads.  I think that's ok, as it gives us a choice.  I need to reload, but do I need to dodge even more?  If it doesn't have some sort of negative effect on the reload, there's no real choice:   the sensible thing is to just always do both. 

Semi-related:  I'd like an exilus mod with a dodge effect that reloaded weapons (probably with a CD) or gave a short buff that drastically shortened reloads and weapon swaps.

 

9 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

there's also a lack of really readable attack or projectile effects where the dodge can apply.

Agreed.  Increasing the opportunities for actual dodging  by a few notches would be a good thing.   I wouldn't get my hopes up about Warframe making us much more dependent on dodging projectiles though.  (And maybe that's not what you're looking for either, I'm not sure.)   But as a supplemental way to succeed in the game and to make some things easier?  Absolutely.

[PhiThagRaid]

I see multiple mentionions that seem to imply rolls are unmoddable in distance and speed. This is false. Amalgam barrel diffusion gives you roll speed at the cost of roll distance. All mobility increasing mods/arcanes increase the speed of these rolls.

[quxier]

3 hours ago, PhiThagRaid said:

I see multiple mentionions that seem to imply rolls are unmoddable in distance and speed. This is false. Amalgam barrel diffusion gives you roll speed at the cost of roll distance.

Amalgam barrel diffusion doesn't change distance too much.

4 hours ago, PhiThagRaid said:

All mobility increasing mods/arcanes increase the speed of these rolls.

Speed and distance. As fair I remember only ABD won't change distance (at least difference isn't huge).

[PhiThagRaid]

20 minutes ago, quxier said:

Amalgam barrel diffusion doesn't change distance too much.

Speed and distance. As fair I remember only ABD won't change distance (at least difference isn't huge).

Thanks for clarifying, I use these, but have never directly compared them. People using Ivara seem to complain that ABD really shortens a roll, though.

[quxier]

3 minutes ago, PhiThagRaid said:

I use these, but have never directly compared them.

When I have farmed ABD I compared (with and without mod) and I haven't seen huge difference (speed/distance). However when I used it for some time and changed builds I have seen difference (especially in speed).

In general, ABD isn't huge change.... not like something like Arcane agility where you bullet jump ~2x farther.

 

[PhiThagRaid]

3 minutes ago, quxier said:

When I have farmed ABD I compared (with and without mod) and I haven't seen huge difference (speed/distance). However when I used it for some time and changed builds I have seen difference (especially in speed).

In general, ABD isn't huge change.... not like something like Arcane agility where you bullet jump ~2x farther.

 

Yeah, same, at the start I didn't see a difference, but I ran it anyway since then, removing it one day made it feel like I was stuck in super slow rolling animation. I would think Arcane Agility and ABD would have the same effect on rolling, though, just with Agility also affecting bullet jumping. Since both are +60% to dodge speed in effect, AA just gets there through parkour velocity. Also if you want true x2 bullet jumps, try proton pulse.

[quxier]

10 minutes ago, PhiThagRaid said:

Yeah, same, at the start I didn't see a difference, but I ran it anyway since then, removing it one day made it feel like I was stuck in super slow rolling animation. I would think Arcane Agility and ABD would have the same effect on rolling, though, just with Agility also affecting bullet jumping. Since both are +60% to dodge speed in effect, AA just gets there through parkour velocity. Also if you want true x2 bullet jumps, try proton pulse.

The thing is... I didn't wanted more distance for my Xaku.

For Lavos (as it doesn't need Energize) I tried Agility (afair) and it's nice. You just need to play to get a buff. Proton mods break flow of my game.

[-Bluhman-]

15 hours ago, Acos said:

This is very nicely formatted, but there is an art to getting your point across with respect to time. Game developers do not have time to read essays like this, and most of the player base isn't going to engage in discussion with you either, which automatically weakens your argument simply due to reasons of brevity. 

I don't know, it's a forum. There's room for this much elaboration.

What I think is key though is that I'm highlighting the main points I'm making in bold. If someone agrees, great, they can skip over that point because they don't need an argument made in its favor. If not, they can follow the line of thinking that lead me to that decision. Pair that with less possibility of misinterpretation as well.

15 hours ago, Acos said:

Making dodging cover less distance or be slower is BAD, and anti-purpose to what dodging wants to achieve. It is not simply damage reduction; enemies have a harder time hitting moving targets so the net gain is actually much higher than a simple 25% DR. Furthermore dodging is a core part of the movement system and making the animation quicker or resulting in less distance traveled would be seen as a nerf by many as our movement becomes less powerful as a result. As you mention, sliding already accomplishes the task of a more controlled method of evasive movement that still allows offensive actions. Dodging is about quickly displacing yourself to presumably get out of danger and move to a more tactically advantageous position, and making it slower at accomplishing that task, whether on the ground or in the air, removes its viability. 

There's a variety of fights and mission types that require precise positioning - what if you need to stay on an interception point with a squishy frame? What if you're volt and you need to avoid something that's not on the right side of your shield? If a player needs to actually move to get out of the way of an attack, they already have that option, it's called bullet-jumping. As you pointed out, the fact that enemy's projectiles aren't as good at hitting a parkouring target means that it's already effective for that purpose, and certainly more flexible in terms of what you can do whilst jumping about.

The dodge has never been about giving more mobility. Escape maybe, but it's frankly never felt like a good control scheme to use for actual movement, partially because the way you activate it isn't immediately directionally influenced (if you're standing still and you tap the sprint/dodge key, which way will you move?)

15 hours ago, Acos said:

I like the idea of reloading not being interrupted by dodging. Revenant From Ashes has a LOT of bad gameplay decisions, but that one would be welcome here. 

Curious what you think are bad decisions on it's part; most of the ones I can think of are frankly things that Warframe also does, ironically.

15 hours ago, Acos said:

Messing up your dodges is, honestly, a case of the player needing to get better with the controls. Dodging is a set distance, consistent speed, and I have very little issue controlling myself while doing it. Even if you *do* slide off of things, the myriad of movement options we have is plentiful enough that its easy to correct a mistake, and the game is not terribly punishing for making them to begin with. 

Falling into a pit means losing all your buffs. After getting into high-tier missions, that begins to be a big deal, especially if I just happened to have really low energy at that point.

This is also partially what I'm talking about with the '8-directional' feel of dodges. So, I can tap the sprint button to dodge and hold down a direction, but most of the time when I do this, it's not precisely matching up to the direction I'm moving or facing. Yes I could learn the ways of how this directionality works, all the quirks of precisely how far I travel with it. or, I could use any number of the easier options for avoiding damage that are available to me, or don't require me to commit to not counterattacking and/or potentially flinging myself off a cliff.

EDIT: In fact... Hey, actually, here's a use case where both the 8-directional nature of dodges and its movement combine to make for something undesirable. Say I want to dodge to start with to get out of the way of an attack, which then displaces me off of an objective. Ok, so I immediately want to double-back and return to where I just was safely, except now the player model isn't exactly lined up with the direction of the first roll so then I end up dodging somewhere entirely different. Maybe it's just a couple of degrees off of where I first was, or maybe it's an entire 90 degrees off. Was it because my player model was mid-turn and it misinterpreted where I wanted to go? What would this cause if the place I was trying to maintain my position was a narrow bridge in a Grineer mine? I really hope people can understand how inconvenient this is.

20 hours ago, quxier said:

And you have forgotten about Amalgam +60% to doge speed. It's nice combinations for rolls mod.

Legitimately forgot about that. I haven't taken a close look at it since dodges in their current state aren't something I use often (who would've thought), its unclear tooltip on what dodge speed precisely does, and that it's tied to a primary weapon mod.

[Teridax68]

The topic may be highly specific, but both the critique and the proposed solutions are well-explained and well worth the read. Perhaps a TL;DR summarising each section may help, but to be honest, those who don't feel like taking the time to thoroughly read a properly formulated discussion topic are probably not suited to a discussion forum to begin with.

Regarding the main criticism, I agree completely with the fact that dodging in and of itself doesn't really serve much of a purpose, both because the dodge itself is awkward and only partially effective, and because the game in general tends to surround the player from all sides with enemies whose attacks are barely, if at all telegraphed. Personally, the only time I've found myself rolling at all has actually been in mid-air, and so because the move generates momentum in the bullet jump->roll->slide->bullet jump combo. I'd gladly trade that in for a dodge maneuver I could actually find myself using for its intended purpose.

With this in mind, I think having dodge no longer interrupt reloading easily makes sense, as otherwise, as mentioned in the OP, the player only ends up being as vulnerable as they were when they needed to dodge in the first place. Giving the maneuver some invincibility frames, if only at the beginning, would also help significantly in letting the player give themselves a small window of safety. Most games that emphasize quick, reactive movement tend to make their dodge move grant full i-frames, because that makes it responsive and intuitive against incoming attacks. They also tend to make said attacks telegraphed and easily visible to the player: while this may not be entirely possible in a third-person shooter, given that enemies can attack from behind, I definitely agree that there's room for improvement, as few enemies actually telegraph anything, and what is telegraphed is either done so confusingly, or just hits us through our dodge regardless.

Because of the latter, I'm also not entirely sure just how useful a dodge move truly is in Warframe: originally, our main line of defense was to just stay on the move, but that's never really worked when a lot of enemies have hitscan weaponry, and now movement isn't even counted as a factor when evaluating survivability. The fact that enemies can always attack us from our blind spots means we'll always be at risk of taking a telegraphed hit, and if those are balanced to severely harm us if we don't dodge, that'll inevitably create gameplay problems, as is the case now with often spammy knockdowns and staggers. More than just be able to dodge, I think if we're supposed to be able to move out of harm's way, it's going to come down to how enemies respond to our movement: currently, enemy accuracy is based on this arcane formula of aim graphs and effective ranges, where different units are more accurate at different ranges (seemingly irrespective of our movement) and ramp up to max accuracy over time. This likely ought to change, and I think enemies should instead have a degree of aim lag, where they'd constantly be trying to hit us where we were a fraction of a second ago. Effectively, the faster and more unpredictably we'd move, the less likely enemies would be to shoot us, and given the range of parkour options at our disposal, all of those should let us dodge. After that, it would be a matter of reducing the amount of gratuitous enemy AoE in the game, and combat would likely feel a lot less messy as a result.

[cute_moth.npc]

I find that my only real complaint with any of the movement systems and their effects is trying to bullet dodge into the ground to fly straight up but for some reason you fly to the right for no reason..

[-Bluhman-]

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

Regarding the main criticism, I agree completely with the fact that dodging in and of itself doesn't really serve much of a purpose, both because the dodge itself is awkward and only partially effective, and because the game in general tends to surround the player from all sides with enemies whose attacks are barely, if at all telegraphed. Personally, the only time I've found myself rolling at all has actually been in mid-air, and so because the move generates momentum in the bullet jump->roll->slide->bullet jump combo. I'd gladly trade that in for a dodge maneuver I could actually find myself using for its intended purpose.

 

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

Because of the latter, I'm also not entirely sure just how useful a dodge move truly is in Warframe: originally, our main line of defense was to just stay on the move, but that's never really worked when a lot of enemies have hitscan weaponry, and now movement isn't even counted as a factor when evaluating survivability. The fact that enemies can always attack us from our blind spots means we'll always be at risk of taking a telegraphed hit, and if those are balanced to severely harm us if we don't dodge, that'll inevitably create gameplay problems, as is the case now with often spammy knockdowns and staggers. More than just be able to dodge, I think if we're supposed to be able to move out of harm's way, it's going to come down to how enemies respond to our movement: currently, enemy accuracy is based on this arcane formula of aim graphs and effective ranges, where different units are more accurate at different ranges (seemingly irrespective of our movement) and ramp up to max accuracy over time. This likely ought to change, and I think enemies should instead have a degree of aim lag, where they'd constantly be trying to hit us where we were a fraction of a second ago. Effectively, the faster and more unpredictably we'd move, the less likely enemies would be to shoot us, and given the range of parkour options at our disposal, all of those should let us dodge. After that, it would be a matter of reducing the amount of gratuitous enemy AoE in the game, and combat would likely feel a lot less messy as a result.

Yeah a lot of this is also why I bring up dodges in specifically the context of assassinations/boss fights. Inherently, the nature of Warframe's gameplay in general is less 'Dark Souls' and more 'Dynasty Warriors' - The whole point is being overwhelmed by literal armies of enemies and still winning. In terms of making a boss fight actually engaging without resorting to making a puzzle boss, giving them gated health, adds, or invulnerability periods, though? The first step would be moving towards giving players more incentive to mesh together offensive and defensive maneuvering. Then a developer can begin engaging a player through encouraging actual pattern recognition and rewarding timing and awareness with their opponent. While the base gameplay of Warframe isn't currently a match to that, the theming of 'space ninja-warriors' I'd say lends itself well to the potential to have that time and place for duels like that.

[Teridax68]

8 minutes ago, -Bluhman- said:

Yeah a lot of this is also why I bring up dodges in specifically the context of assassinations/boss fights. Inherently, the nature of Warframe's gameplay in general is less 'Dark Souls' and more 'Dynasty Warriors' - The whole point is being overwhelmed by literal armies of enemies and still winning. In terms of making a boss fight actually engaging without resorting to making a puzzle boss, giving them gated health, adds, or invulnerability periods, though? The first step would be moving towards giving players more incentive to mesh together offensive and defensive maneuvering. Then a developer can begin engaging a player through encouraging actual pattern recognition and rewarding timing and awareness with their opponent. While the base gameplay of Warframe isn't currently a match to that, the theming of 'space ninja-warriors' I'd say lends itself well to the potential to have that time and place for duels like that.

I completely agree with this, and what you're proposing I think is the exact way out of that dilemma -- a dodge maneuver isn't a good fit in a third-person shooter against hordes of enemies, because there are too many attacks at any given time for a single dodge roll to account for, ,and there'll inevitably be enemies shooting us in the back, which we won't be able to dodge. However, when the focus is on a single, important enemy, that's when such a move would make more sense, because there's only one, or some other very small number, of units to watch out for.

I also agree that our offensive and defensive maneuvers ought to be more of a cohesive set of movement, and I think there are currently a bunch of obstacles to that -- most of our abilities force animation locks upon us, for example, which stop us in our tracks, and most of our abilities are still rather obviously meant to be cast while on the floor, rather than in mid-air or while latching onto a wall. With that in mind, though, I feel that we probably already have the tools to manever defensively without necessarily resorting to a defensive move geared specifically towards bosses: if a boss's attack involves throwing a delayed bomb, merely jumping out of the way would satisfy our defensive needs. Already, the Jackal's rotating laser walls can be dodged by bullet jumping and aim-gliding, and Kela de Thaym's missile strikes originally made us run around for our lives before The War Within let us cheese the whole segment altogether. Typically, dodge moves are the fastest mobility option in games designed around them -- in Hades, our dash is both our main form of mobility and our dodge, and in Soulsborne games, dodging is our quickest move because we can barely even jump. Meanwhile, not only is dodging not our quickest move in Warframe, it's actually quite an awkward little maneuver, as pointed out in the OP, especially compared to our usual jumping or sliding at high speed. It may therefore be possible to either eliminate rolling or combine it with another move (e.g. sliding) without losing any real depth to our movement options.

[taiiat]

i wouldn't mind Rolling not interrupting Reloading, and i have no opinion on changing the Damage protection Rolling provides.
but i like Rolling exactly as it is currently, it's a great Mobility tool in conjunction with all of the others.
all of our Parkour tools are great, and even greater together, they don't replace each other! they compliment each other.

 

 

Rolling has very fine control, it's better as it is rather than being clamped to your Camera orientation(which is what it sounds like you want) - it's a big boon in Combat to be able to look at something important while being able to maintain Mobility. and currently, we can Roll in any direction while facing our Camera towards something important.
and, it's faster to Roll in a direction than to turn your Camera to a direction in order to move to it. what you're asking for is literally slower and less reactive.
this is a big deal.

i don't want Rolling to move shorter distance. being able to have more positions relative to the Character is.... idk ok i guess except i can already do literally any degree relative to the environment.

i don't want air Rolling to not impact my Movement. it's great that it does, it lets the Player move faster and with more Agility.

 

i like my existing Parkour tools that let me flow like water through the game, able to maintain a consistent speed almost irregardless of the Terrain. it's a big feature of the game.
i don't like people asking to take that away under a false pretense of making Player Movement "better".

[-Bluhman-]

One thing I'll give to the dodge roll as a mobility option: it's one of the fastest ways to move around social zones and relays without jumping, which is quite useful in places with low ceilings. That's the one thing I'll give it, and frankly that's probably more an issue of just how slow the player runs in these areas rather than a legitimate benefit of the roll.

While I totally see the benefit of the dodge's current implementation in terms of movement (its long distance lateral coverage and especially how it can benefit aerial movement and distance without expending a jump), it really does not feel good to utilize in terms of actual controls, which has personally lead to me not bothering to really use it. This is probably due to my control scheme of choice (mouse and keyboard) but activating the dodge to begin with is clunky when it's bound to the same key as sprint: even after changing options to have sprint be a toggle, I still fear the input won't be detected right and I might just end up toggling my sprint off instead of doing the roll.

I've experimented with the dodge maneuver as is and alternate control schemes with that in mind, as well as looking at other games I've played for comparison. After checking, Remnant gets around the issue of sprint/roll ambiguity by having the luxury of having the two actions bound to separate buttons/keys (which it can do because you can't even jump in that game, go figure). Warframe does have options for separate bindings for sprint and dodge, but they aren't set by default and also it doesn't allow you to have the Sprint/Roll action completely unbound. I'm still experimenting a bit with how it might feel with that setup... Regardless, the bigger issue I feel on top of this is it's unlike any of the other parkour maneuvers, in that there is no directional influence on your speed or momentum after you activate the dodge.

As a bit of a compromise to the dodge's mobility purposes and its defense application, how about this: doing a dodge without directional input activates a short backstep that has the defensive traits of a dodge, but only moves your warframe slightly? This could open some nice use cases for that on frames without defensive abilities: activate it while firing at an enemy charging directly at you, and that'll allow you to avoid most/all of the damage, and immediately be in a maintained position to start melee-ing your target in retaliation.

[-Bluhman-]

On 2021-02-03 at 9:45 AM, -Bluhman- said:

As a bit of a compromise to the dodge's mobility purposes and its defense application, how about this: doing a dodge without directional input activates a short backstep that has the defensive traits of a dodge, but only moves your warframe slightly? This could open some nice use cases for that on frames without defensive abilities: activate it while firing at an enemy charging directly at you, and that'll allow you to avoid most/all of the damage, and immediately be in a maintained position to start melee-ing your target in retaliation.

Just had an epiphany: this can be applied to Limbo's mechanics as a way to shift between normal and limbo realms without leaving a portal, as well as a way for other players to escape the realm without massively displacing themselves.

Binding dodge to a different key than sprint (alt) has made it a lot easier to mix in with parkour and other maneuvers, and I can really see why people do like the distance it can cover. I feel like my feedback on the dodge's directionality still stands: having it more closely align to where the player is actually trying to face or move would be a massive help. Right now, the directional alignment of the dodge only really makes sense when you're using it while aiming a gun. Also timing a roll in midair before/after/with a bullet jump is weird, don't know why there's such a big timing gap between when I can start rolling (in midair... still think it looks silly) after doing the jump.

[TheMostFrench]

A lot of ideas, a lot to consider.

 

On 2021-02-02 at 4:53 AM, -Bluhman- said:

• Scratch the 8-direcitonal thing and linear movement pattern. Seriously, it feels so much more stilted and clunky than the parkour maneuvers. The distance and movement pattern of doing a roll in this game feels like it came straight out of Oblivion, which is not exactly a crowning gem of good control schemes or avoiding jank.
  • In lieu of using a linear movement-speed, I'd probably even go so far to perhaps take some influence from the dodges of God of War which seem to use some manner of parabolic deacceleration math to adjust position. It'd be just like how sliding in this game works right now, easing to a stop instead of just suddenly stopping after some fixed distance. Would at least make it easier to tell when and where you'd end up while doing a dodge.
• Overall it should cover less distance. The more positional control you can retain while not being hit, the better.
  • This could be grounds to potentially introduce mechanics for adjusting the dodge-distance of different frames, i.e. a weight class. I could picture frames like Wisp, Mirage, or Titania having long-distance dodges that match their fickle nature, and meanwhile others like Rhino, Grendel, or Atlas having much shorter dodges that help them stand their ground and precisely control where they're going.

This one confuses me a bit, at first you seem to be saying that rolling distance and movement is no good, and that it's hard to tell exactly when your frame will stop, but then in the next bullet point you suggest adding weight classes? This would mean needing to adjust play style for a series of different frames and remembering which ones belong to which class; just one more system to keep in mind for movement that applies to rolling and nothing else. Every frame can have precise control in most situations by bullet jumping or doing a ground slam - both moves allow you to almost completely reverse your momentum, and some frames also have abilities to get around the limitations of these moves.

 

On 2021-02-02 at 4:53 AM, -Bluhman- said:

Should be fully reasonable to roll through the otherwise impenetable wall of flame made by a Caustic Eximus, or the shockwave of a Moa, without being shaken and knocked back. Precision and Timing should be rewarded.

Isn't this already possible? Maybe it just prevents the knockdown animation... I imagine the dev perspective might be that this would be too powerful - everyone can roll from the start of the game, and it would be a bit much to allow a basic roll to render eximus enemies' power attacks almost completely ineffective with a maneuver that has no cost and nearly no cool down.

 

On 2021-02-02 at 4:53 AM, -Bluhman- said:

Dodging should not interrupt reloading.

Agreed

 

On 2021-02-02 at 4:53 AM, -Bluhman- said:

• Nondirectional Dodge: Bringing back Remnant again, this should be something of an in-place or quick backstep dodge. Now, traditional experience with that maneuver in 3rd person action would dictate that it wouldn't be effective, but it mostly has to do with control scheme here. Because both Remnant and Warframe are, in some parts, made to be played with M+KB as shooters, this means that there's inherently control of which way you're facing without having to move a direction. A nondirectional backstep like this could be really good against tanky melee enemies that are charging directly at you - Fighting a juggernaut, you could be firing at its front when it flies directly towards you, and with a single button, could backstep to avoid the damage and then switch to engaging it in melee.
  • Also, can be applied to Limbo to allow people to escape planes without committing to a long-distance roll, and to allow Limbo to change planes without creating a portal.

Warframe is definitely missing something like this, and in the case of shifting between limbo planes it would be useful. Tapping the dodge key without moving at all currently makes us roll forward even if we are standing still. A standing dodge could also tie in nicely with some new melee combos, specifically setting you up for situations where you need to dodge out of the way then get into a close fight. This is a simple enough suggestion with enough practical uses that it could have its own thread.

 

Quote

• Aerial Dodging: this shouldn't even be a roll. I'd take influence from Smash Bros. and have it just be a somersault or something that grants dodge effects without even influencing the trajectory of your jump. I say this because its current implementation doesn't even look good or make sense, what am I even rolling or backflipping on that's allowing me to cover this much ground when I'm... not on ground?
  
  If you want to maintain roughly the same position while still avoiding attacks, this means that doing a short jump followed by a dodge would let you keep the same horizontal position easily. Inversely, if you did want to cover a lot of ground, you could instead just pair this with a bullet jump, where doing a dodge would just persist your current momentum.

They've probably left the animation as it is mid air because it transitions nicely to the ground if you happened to land mid roll.

As for maintaining position - holding an aim glide mid air decreases enemy accuracy against you even when not moving (at least that was the benefit last time I checked). Just have to float for a while, no dodge required.

 

 

[-Bluhman-]

On 2021-02-07 at 2:45 AM, TheMostFrench said:

This one confuses me a bit, at first you seem to be saying that rolling distance and movement is no good, and that it's hard to tell exactly when your frame will stop, but then in the next bullet point you suggest adding weight classes? This would mean needing to adjust play style for a series of different frames and remembering which ones belong to which class; just one more system to keep in mind for movement that applies to rolling and nothing else. Every frame can have precise control in most situations by bullet jumping or doing a ground slam - both moves allow you to almost completely reverse your momentum, and some frames also have abilities to get around the limitations of these moves.

The point on weight-classes was meant to be taken with a grain of salt, since I got almost no idea how it would be moddable into specific frames. Also, roll-distance is kind of a stance I've changed a bit on since learning to use dodges as a separate binding.

The core point here about 8-directionality still absolutely stands however. Even more now in the face of retaining dodge distance. A couple of examples/exercises that demonstrate the control issues around them:

• Without moving, press the dodge button to do a forward roll. Which direction do you expect to move in? Should it be the direction your camera is facing (i.e. most of the other parkour maneuvers like bullet jumping, or even the dodges/dashes used by the operator and necramech) or the direction the player's model is facing?
• Here's something you can do, especially if you have a frame that can leave a stationary structure to mark your starting point (wisp's motes or protea's dispensiary are good for tracking this): Run forward and roll. As soon as you're done with the roll, immediately double back and roll. How close are you to where you started? Shouldn't it be directly on top of where you began?
• Attempt to use rolls, constantly with no breaks, in your orbiter to get all the way from your navigation console to the back rooms (behind arsenal where the doors to your operator/helminth/railjack are). Can you get there without hitting a wall? Even with the current distance, it should be possible if facing precision was improved.

On 2021-02-07 at 2:45 AM, TheMostFrench said:

Isn't this already possible? Maybe it just prevents the knockdown animation... I imagine the dev perspective might be that this would be too powerful - everyone can roll from the start of the game, and it would be a bit much to allow a basic roll to render eximus enemies' power attacks almost completely ineffective with a maneuver that has no cost and nearly no cool down.

Preventing the knockdown animation is the main benefit it seems to be giving right now, and the damage reduction is already well-high enough to help as well. If anything, its Arson Eximus' and Shockwave Moas that train new enemies to use rolls to avoid their spherical blasts. But it has a couple of caveats:

• The visual feedback for a successful roll isn't good. Despite the fact you pull off the dodge roll correctly, you'll still have your screen shake and your roll's momentum get changed, and it doesn't feel great. You avoid almost all the damage and don't take the main penalty of falling on the ground, but even so you still somehow don't manage to slip through the blast or hop over the shockwavey line on the ground.
• Stronger alternatives exist that can be easier to utilize. In the case of an Eximus Blast, you could use any number of Frame powers to gain resistance to knockback and damage, or transference out. Avoiding a shockwave, meanwhile, can much more intuitively avoid all negative effects of the attack by... just jumping over the line on the ground.

So because the process of doing a dodge roll through something like a blast or knock attack still feels a little disorienting, and while it can be powerful for the early game, it's not something that sets itself up to be a mechanic that new players can perceive as reliably usable for defense.

On 2021-02-07 at 2:45 AM, TheMostFrench said:

They've probably left the animation as it is mid air because it transitions nicely to the ground if you happened to land mid roll.

As for maintaining position - holding an aim glide mid air decreases enemy accuracy against you even when not moving (at least that was the benefit last time I checked). Just have to float for a while, no dodge required.

Still doesn't make much sense to roll in midair, and while yes it transitions well to landing, I can get a more easily approachable soft landing by using a slide/jumpkick with crouch that doesn't require a sudden burst of midair speed. I will say, in the current state, the air roll is probably the fastest method of movement when you're combining it with your bullet jumps - but it's a tradeoff for looking kind of silly and a big lack of precise control.

I feel like I have experienced an element of the accuracy-debuff when using stationary aim glides, but it certainly doesn't have the benefit of reduced damage taken on those stray hits.

[quxier]

4 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

The visual feedback for a successful roll isn't good. Despite the fact you pull off the dodge roll correctly, you'll still have your screen shake and your roll's momentum get changed, and it doesn't feel great. You avoid almost all the damage and don't take the main penalty of falling on the ground, but even so you still somehow don't manage to slip through the blast or hop over the shockwavey line on the ground.

Hmm... can't you just disable screen shake?

[shut]

On 2021-02-01 at 1:53 PM, -Bluhman- said:

• Have dodges be performed relative to camera, not to the player's model, and don't bind them to only 8 possible directions you can move.

I didn't read the full thread, but this alone gets a big fat +1 from me.  Warframe's movement feels very imprecise compared to what you'd expect in nearly any other game, and our awkward pseudo-camera-dependent 4-directional dodging system is one of the most glaring reasons for that.

We should roll in exactly the inputted direction, and then have the warframe's somersaulting/siderolling/backflipping animation selected based on that direction. Not the other way around.

[-Bluhman-]

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Hmm... can't you just disable screen shake?

Well how about that, yes you can. Much appreciated for pointing that out!

I'm surprised it's available, because it has legitimate gameplay effects when trying to, say, aim a mining laser while explosions are happening nearby you.