what new frames need (ie, how to avoid another Yareli)

[sunderthefirmament]

Yareli is set to receive another round of buffs.  They look promising, and may somewhat address her core issues of frustrating mobility in cramped tilesets.  But she still is going to be plagued by problems like Sea Snares popping on walls, a lack of meaningful scaling in her damaging abilities, resistance to modding, inability to use Helminth abilities while on Merulina, and no engaging synergies.  So with Yareli and her many problems in mind, how can this be avoided in the future?  I don't think anyone wants the next frame, Caliban (by all accounts), to be as underbaked as Yareli on release, especially with crossplay eventually arriving (meaning waiting longer for updates).

 

Some points to consider:

• Is it fun to play?
  • This is subjective, but does anyone enjoy smacking their head on doorways or falling through floors as Yareli?  Does anyone like throwing out Sea Snares and then watching them try to hit enemies on the other side of a wall?
• Does it fit well into groups?
  • Yareli isn't a big offender here, as her only griefing potential is in spreading enemies out with her limp Riptide, or in dying so much due to her lackluster defenses that other players have to spend more time reviving her than they'd like.  But it is my hope that DE would avoid adding more grief-frames to the game.  Limbo has his uses (solo, smallbo for excavation/kuva survival, and index blocking for NW).  But his rift mechanic adds frustrating wrinkles that are only magnified by how repetitive this game is.  On the other side of this are Nidus and Harrow.  They don't disrupt others, but playing with other frames often means their kits don't have any time to get off of the ground.
• Do its damaging abilities have enough scaling to be at least somewhat helpful into Steel Path?
  • Scaling needs to start taking defense-stripping and/or enemy level into account.  It cannot just be the number of enemies.  Saryn's spore damage falls off in Steel Path, but her spores are still helpful for Condition Overload proccing and for reducing enemy armor.  Meanwhile, Yareli's damage barely outlasts the base level star chart.  DE might not have ever intended Steel Path to be balanced, but Acolytes and Steel Essence are valuable.  So here we are.
• Does it do enough things well enough to be relevant in a variety of game modes while also not immediately making an older frame irrelevant?
  • No one wants a new frame to be a worse version of an old one (Yareli is, in many ways, a worse Grendel or Nezha with weird mobility and CC).  Similarly, no one wants a new frame to completely outclass an older one (like how Khora's farming augment ate Hydroid alive).
• Do its abilities have engaging synergies, and not just dependencies?
  • Good synergies should feel natural, like how Ivara's sleep arrow lets her easily take advantage of prowl's headshot multiplier.  They can also be more rigid, like Wisp's increased breach surge range when teleporting to a reservoir.  Dependencies are harder to define, but think of Sevagoth's Reap and Sow.  I almost never cast Reap without Sow.  The abilities could almost be merged, or given some more independent identity.  Above all, a frame needs a cohesive kit that works well together.  Ideally, a frame should feel complete without the Helminth.
• Does it mesh well with existing content?
  • It is possible that after 5-10 years DE will have replaced most of the older, more cramped tilesets in the game, and Merulina will feel a lot better to use.  But that's not existing content.  It is also possible that they will eventually introduce enemies that are stronger when bunched together, so the scattering power of Riptide will have some use.  But again, that's not existing content.
• Do mods have a meaningful effect on it, leading to a variety of viable builds?
  • This is tricky, because we clearly have very different schools of thought on this in Warframe.  Look at Xaku, who scales to absurd heights with range and power strength.  Then look at Equinox, who can be an incredible nuker just by focusing on range and completely forgetting about power strength.  Sweet spots and breakpoints should not be so difficult to achieve that players have to polarize every slot, locking themselves into a build that might change with buffs or nerfs.  Yareli is in a weird spot here because mods that you think would fundamentally change her abilities just don't at all.

 

Respectfully, I like this game quite a bit.  It is repetitive, though, and having more effective frames assuages the repetitiveness a bit.  I want Yareli to be a useful part of my arsenal.  Though I am withholding final judgment on her until at least her next round of changes, I am not optimistic that she will have much use even then.  And I don't want DE to release a frame in a state like Yareli ever again.  I imagine DE must have some sort of internal process for planning and releasing frames, but if Yareli made it out the door in her launch state, something might be worth changing, especially if reworks are prohibitively expensive.

 

What about you?  Do you have other parameters for what makes a frame good?  Do you agree or disagree with any of mine?

[Quimoth]

I mostly agree, I do however feel like the most annoying parts of yareli are definitely going to be improved/fixed.

In the end i feel like Yareli and Grendel are in the same place, they are somewhat fun because of their special mobility abilities. But those same abilities are nowhere near actually useful at the end of the day.

[sunderthefirmament]

5 minutes ago, Quimoth said:

I mostly agree, I do however feel like the most annoying parts of yareli are definitely going to be improved/fixed.

In the end i feel like Yareli and Grendel are in the same place, they are somewhat fun because of their special mobility abilities. But those same abilities are nowhere near actually useful at the end of the day.

And for Grendel, I feel like I could add another parameter/question:

• Does it reward investment into high level mods and arcanes but not depend upon them?

 

Not to get off topic in my own thread, but I think Arcane Energize Grendel is a very good frame.  He's got good buffs, great utility, and can nuke reasonably well (exceptionally well against Corpus).  And that's all without his 4.  Yareli doesn't really bring anything like that to the table.  Her nuking powers might get a bit better with this upcoming update, but I don't see it being enough to take her beyond sorties.

 

I agree that it looks like Merulina will be a bit better to use in regards to verticality.  I'm not seeing any indication that getting through doors or turning radius are going to be improved though.  Before I gave up on her current form, I had a lot of bad experiences trying to get through a door only to be too far to the left, then too far to the right when I tried to adjust.

[Test-995]

2 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

• Do its damaging abilities have enough scaling to be at least somewhat helpful into Steel Path?
  • Scaling needs to start taking defense-stripping and/or enemy level into account.  It cannot just be the number of enemies.  Saryn's spore damage falls off in Steel Path, but her spores are still helpful for Condition Overload proccing and for reducing enemy armor.  Meanwhile, Yareli's damage barely outlasts the base level star chart.  DE might not have ever intended Steel Path to be balanced, but Acolytes and Steel Essence are valuable.  So here we are.
• Does it do enough things well enough to be relevant in a variety of game modes while also not immediately making an older frame irrelevant?
  • No one wants a new frame to be a worse version of an old one (Yareli is, in many ways, a worse Grendel or Nezha with weird mobility and CC).  Similarly, no one wants a new frame to completely outclass an older one (like how Khora's farming augment ate Hydroid alive).

Those 2 are most important for me, as long as I can use an ability for SOMETHING, I'd be fine.

Like combination of decent tankiness/cc, damage buff, scaling damage and such.

The worst part of yareli is the fact her 3/4 is pretty much nonexistent, no frame should have lackluster AoE damage ability with almost no scaling.

[Unimira]

For me they need to not be annoying to get too since I always feed the first one to Helminth, if the grind is awful there is no way I'm getting a second one unless it's really good.

[sunderthefirmament]

33 minutes ago, Unimira said:

For me they need to not be annoying to get too since I always feed the first one to Helminth, if the grind is awful there is no way I'm getting a second one unless it's really good.

The acquisition method is also worth discussing, for sure.  Honestly, I kind of enjoyed getting Yareli.  But on the other side of the spectrum you have current state Ash.  I farmed up my standard Ash long ago while also farming Harrow on Defection.  I pity newer players who have to sit through 20 waves of defense on the worst defense tile in the game for a 10% chance at 1/3 of his parts.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

On 2021-08-20 at 9:54 AM, sunderthefirmament said:

It is also possible that they will eventually introduce enemies that are stronger when bunched together

I like this whole post a lot,, good job

but this... this right here... I just gotta praise it

That's what thoughtful looks like! Yes this would make ragdoll meaningful, and it's certainly how the design of frames should be thought about, not just abilities slapped on to the frame risking a waste of content, but actual thoughtfulness as to what use the effects will serve in the games current state

Very freaking good!

Its like, You don't give people the option between a scoped sniper and a no scope pistol and place them in missions with long range and spread out enemies, if you people to consider using the pistol lol

But yeah this whole post has really good points, I be sometimes thinking DE tries to review warframes with a mental checklist instead of a physical/electronic one, and it causes the whole "we don't know how good these things will be until it's in the game". DE has seen us hate on ragdoll many times, kills me the way they keep adding it. It's like a troll lol

[Steel_Rook]

On 2021-08-20 at 4:54 PM, sunderthefirmament said:

Do its damaging abilities have enough scaling to be at least somewhat helpful into Steel Path?

I don't want to go into another massive discussion on damage-dealing abilities so I'll just drop this and move on: ability damage shouldn't scale. Damage dealing abilities should be Exalted Weapons instead, so they can be modded like weapons in order to keep up.

 

On 2021-08-20 at 4:54 PM, sunderthefirmament said:

Do its abilities have engaging synergies, and not just dependencies?

Agreed on this point wholeheartedly. So many recent Warframe ability sets seem to work on hard dependencies, to the point where multiple abilities might as well be merged for how they're used. I'm personally of the opinion that even synergies are overrated, but they CAN work if done correctly. Sevagoth is an example of doing synergies wrong, because he basically has classic Ember Accelerant. Do an ability that does little on its own beyond enabling full use of another ability. Could have been one ability at that point and saved me the keypress. Maybe given me an ability that's actually fun to use.

There's nothing wrong with Warframe abilities assisting each other, per se... as long as they don't outright require each other.

[sunderthefirmament]

10 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

I don't want to go into another massive discussion on damage-dealing abilities so I'll just drop this and move on: ability damage shouldn't scale. Damage dealing abilities should be Exalted Weapons instead, so they can be modded like weapons in order to keep up.

 

I am in favor of all statstick using abilities getting converted to exalteds (with needed buffs/nerfs/tweaks alongside them).  But I don't think every damaging ability needs to get an exalted.

 

12 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

 

There's nothing wrong with Warframe abilities assisting each other, per se... as long as they don't outright require each other.

I think Harrow is a decent example of Warframe abilities assisting each other but not necessarily requiring them.  The shields from his 1 fuel his 2, the invulnerability from his 4 lets him safely use his 2, his 3 gives him energy to use the other abilities, and his 4 increases the headshots that his 1 enable.  He could still use some QOL, but he is fun to play, and quite effective.

 

Back to the main topic, I think that if we don't hear anything about Yareli at the next devstream it's probably safe to assume she's going to stay as she is.  And that would be a shame.