Abuse of the "Shield gate" mechanics

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

29 minutes ago, DeckChairVonBananaCamel said:

 

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1. it is not a no-skill tanking method, and requires a fair bit of tlc and situational awareness to maintain.
2. DE themselves have said that abusing the shield gating via decaying dragon keys is 100% endorsed.

We already know that...

The issue is new people "just discovering" things and thinking they're whistleblowers that are telling us about some devastating infraction that's going to destroy the gaming community.

I believe some people call this "concern trolling".

Anyone that was here for the feedback asking for shield gating knows it's a valid idea. 

[kgabor]

Damn, i forgot Banshee was an unkillable immortal Super Saiyan with that 1.3 second invulnerability and completely doesn't get killed by the next shot from a mob-s burst with a Supra or similar if it stays close-completely wasting the benefits of said invulnerability in that case, also Nox should get the memo and stop oneshotting low hp frames through shields.

You should really try these things, Decaying+shield gate+Rolling Guard only grants invulnerability ('invulnerability')if your timing is right.

Try this in a relatively easy and simple mission with less ability spam (instant knockdowns, visual bloat, oneshot AoE, invulnerability-ye, they can do that too, etc.) from mobs, like Mot/Steel Path Mot or a T3 Isolation Vault.

These things alone don't keep you alive the way some other game mechanics would in some cases, you can't melee with this without pauses which hurts your sustained damage numbers-this means a fail in a SP Survival and a very long ass game in Iso with you and mechs spamming at each other, except their knockdown spam actually works unlike most of your frame's abilities.

In Banshee's case Sonar+Redeemer solves this but you have to put the efforts in and it's still not an oneshot.

Nidus f.ex. is much more consistent than any of this or all combined for current content in terms of survivabilty.

The really broken thing is the way shield gate+Adaptation synergizes with each other on already tanky frames and 90% dr. subsumables on top of all that.

It's an Adaptation buffer for meta frames, basically a mini-Defy for frames that can't take benefit of Nidus-s passive but still aren't paper like Banshee.

For Banshee, it's merely a balanced (but flawed)survivabilty tool.

I used to 'main' Banshee pre-shieldgating, it wasn't really a viable build for ESO without an Ignis with cc effects or similar. (or a very minmaxed Silence+void dashes maybe)

[fo3nixz]

14 minutes ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

I wouldn't mind an Alternative to the dragon key....

 

how about a new corrupted mod that does: -50% shields, +50% shield regen rate? 

make the whole thing "official"

 

(isn't there a RailJack shield house that basically does this?, they have lower max but faster regen?)

 

or convert some conclave mods for pve also

for example:

[(PSN)rexis12]

Personally, I think it would be better if there was an alternative to Decaying Dragon + Shield Gating, maybe in the opposite direction so that people can chose to use this one or the other version so that people are told to use and... abuse? Fully Optimise it. I've survived longer with a weaker Shield Gating due to Ember and I do think that it takes more skill than advertised.

I've always had the thought that a good game should have multiple METAs so that you can pick and chose.

[(XBOX)AMONGTHEWEAK]

6 hours ago, siriusvirt said:

Many players abuse the "Shield gate" mechanics using it with the "Decaying Key", creating immortal warframes.

I suggest making a small change to the mechanics of the "Decaying Key" - so that it also disables the Shield gate. This will remove the abuse of Shield gate at high levels.

Easy make the decaying key remove all shields. Thus no way to exploit it, or just make it work in another way beside removing shield. 

[DeckChairVonBananaCamel]

35 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

We already know that...

The issue is new people "just discovering" things and thinking they're whistleblowers that are telling us about some devastating infraction that's going to destroy the gaming community.

Ahhh... the bit you quoted is literally contains a point by me countering that exact thing... using information that has not been said yet as far as I can see, so... cool, I guess?

[AegidiusF]

il y a une heure, DeckChairVonBananaCamel a dit :

With the above, ive seen people basically make themselves unkillable, and is a viable method of survival vs lv9999 enemies

I agree with you, but there is also Toxin damage and shield gating is useless against it, so even a Dragon key can't turn a frame into an unkillable one. As others said above, Hyldrin has a much better shield gating mechanic (with Toxin damage resistance when with overshilds) and she is not unkillable at all.

 

il y a une heure, DeckChairVonBananaCamel a dit :

1. it is not a no-skill tanking method, and requires a fair bit of tlc and situational awareness to maintain.

So true. You have to train yourself a lot to be a good shield gater, even with Decaying Dragon key.

Il y a 1 heure, DeckChairVonBananaCamel a dit :

2. DE themselves have said that abusing the shield gating via decaying dragon keys is 100% endorsed.

This is nice ! I didn't know this. It's a very interesting information to share.

Do you know where we can find the source of this information ?

[DeckChairVonBananaCamel]

1 minute ago, (NSW)AegisFifi said:

I agree with you, but there is also Toxin damage and shield gating is useless against it, so even a Dragon key can't turn a frame into an unkillable one. As others said above, Hyldrin has a much better shield gating mechanic (with Toxin damage resistance when with overshilds) and she is not unkillable at all.

 

So true. You have to train yourself a lot to be a good shield gater, even with Decaying Dragon key.

This is nice ! I didn't know this. It's a very interesting information to share.

Do you know where we can find the source of this information ?

toxin damage is mostly found in the infested faction, outside of that i think it is just the nox/ghoul death cloud?
Also hildryn has the strongest shield gate, but has the worst ability to abuse it, due to not being able to utilise energy->shield conversion and not being able to use shield regen abilities whilst out of shields (because she needs shields to cast).

As for the "DE endorsing shield gate abuse" claim... this is super embarrassing, but i actually cant find it. I found it whilst looking up/double checking info for my post, but i cant seem to actually re-find it... I think it was a tweet from a year or so ago saying it was intentional?
Though now that I think about it it may have just been a meme posted by rebecca, but given how old it is I'd take it as a "DE have known about it for a very long time, and given how quickly they usually stomp hideously abusable exploits they are likely ok with this one due to how difficult it is to keep going and how it's certainly not the only method of achieving survivability against lv9999 enemies" situation

[The_Royal_Elf_Mika]

my main thing is i hope they actually balance and even rework survivability stats for frames and i hope they dont think "there is shield gating, so we dont need to"

i am someone who doesnt want to do shield gating and i hope they make it more valuable to use Defensive stats than just leaving it to Gloom and Shield gating to fix every survivability issue.

[B.P.Emma]

hey not trying to be rude but genuine question have you ever spent just 10 minutes in any corpus/grineer (since infested just telepathically proc and instant kill you lol) steel path mission, or even arbitration? if not, you have exactly 4 choices: have huge dr through adaptation/high str wisp etc. (even inaros struggles majorly and wisp would need to spam ghost for invincibility), abuse the shield gate, use some form of mass (reliable) cc such as invisibility or a cautious limbo… or die

the fact is, people need the ability to shield gate like this as to not be vaporised by a directional sneeze, and even then it hardly helps you much unless youre being hyper attentive and reactive. the game de has created is the direct result of shield gating- not the players. people  wouldnt exploit it if they didnt feel it was necessary, and the only way to reasonably quell it is to somehow make high level content less impossible to play as a frame that doesnt meet the aforementioned criteria… or is good at gating

hope this helps if you didnt know it already 😊

 

for anyone curious too, this is the main critique against the new eximus enemies and overguard (that new white bar that coats eximus/thrax health) as a whole. as someone who doesnt play much steel path (since being evaporated by a glare isnt my idea of fun…), theyre actually quite a joy to fight and are exceedingly better than they used to be in pretty much every conceivable way, despite maybe being too attuned for experienced players and being very new/low player unfriendly. as soon as you enter steel path though, not only are they capable of 2shotting you like everyone else, but they can also tank significantly more damage, use abilities that outright ignore some cc (they literally ignore limbos rift… yknow, the guy whos gimmick is to be immortal from the other plane is… no longer immortal from the other plane…), and simply dont care about most others… meaning having effective cc is almost null in steel path now, reducing your options to just 3. one of them being die 😒

[AegidiusF]

à l’instant, DeckChairVonBananaCamel a dit :

toxin damage is mostly found in the infested faction, outside of that i think it is just the nox/ghoul death cloud?

Nox' ranged weapon, the kind of false "Stug", does Toxin damage, so a high level Nox can one shoot any shield gater frame.

You're right : it's almost only Infested and Grineer (I thought there was a Corpus drone that could do Toxin damage, but I can't find it, perhaps I'm confusing it with the Infested Osprey). But even though Corpus don't do Toxin damage, they can have some Leech Eximus and some Energy Eximus, and those (even before the Eximus Rework) are the worst enemies for shield gaters.

il y a 53 minutes, DeckChairVonBananaCamel a dit :

As for the "DE endorsing shield gate abuse" claim... this is super embarrassing, but i actually cant find it.

Don't worry, it happens a lot to me. I remerber once I quoted an Tweet from DE and I just couldn't find the source some days after, and I thought it was removed. And then, almost 5 months after this, I found it.

[(XBOX)Ampathetiic]

The dragon keys are meant to be detriments to the player, and every single one of them has achieved that goal since they were introduced. However, the introduction of shield gating has made the Decaying Dragon Key a beneficial item for most of the cast. No changes were made to the key itself, but a universal change to the game has caused an item to do the opposite of what it is intended to do, so this is clearly an unintended interaction. 

I assume this is going be a similar case as the Helios Gladiator mods: DE doesn't fix it for ages, then when they do, people lose their minds for a few days and move on. Don't get too attached.

[BiancaRoughfin]

10 hours ago, siriusvirt said:

Many players abuse the "Shield gate" mechanics using it with the "Decaying Key", creating immortal warframes.

I suggest making a small change to the mechanics of the "Decaying Key" - so that it also disables the Shield gate. This will remove the abuse of Shield gate at high levels.

There has been other Topics complaining about the same thing. I really think DE should change it so Dragon Key's effects only work in maps where an Orokin Vault is present.

10 hours ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

And why is this a bad thing?

Because its not the intended use of the Dragon Keys thus is an Exploit. DE could be sending Bans left and right because of it if they wanted and their silence regarding it isnt because they agree with its use, they are often busy with other priorities and some bugs/exploits may take years to get fixed.
**Point`s at Chroma`s Vex Armor`s wrong formula**

[Tiltskillet]

I'm totally up for DE tweaking Decaying keys so that they're not a survivability asset, but it should come with suitable replacements.  And/or major improvements to shield tanking generally. And/or an overhaul to the huge spread between the tankiest and squishiest frames.

4 hours ago, (NSW)Vampire_Mika said:

my main thing is i hope they actually balance and even rework survivability stats for frames and i hope they dont think "there is shield gating, so we dont need to"

Exactly this.

3 hours ago, B.P.Emma said:

hey not trying to be rude but genuine question have you ever spent just 10 minutes in any corpus/grineer (since infested just telepathically proc and instant kill you lol) steel path mission, or even arbitration? if not, you have exactly 4 choices: have huge dr through adaptation/high str wisp etc. (even inaros struggles majorly and wisp would need to spam ghost for invincibility), abuse the shield gate, use some form of mass (reliable) cc such as invisibility or a cautious limbo… or die

Well that's not true, lol.  Yeah, there are plenty of challenges with taking a frame like Banshee into SP, but let's not act like they're completely insurmountable.  Really good players were taking Quick Thinking Banshee into ultra high level content before shield gating (or Helminth) was a thing.  And for 10 minutes of SP, [ Vitality + Constant Movement + Awareness + Not Being Drunk ] is enough for me.  (Sometimes barely enough :P )

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

4 hours ago, (NSW)Vampire_Mika said:

my main thing is i hope they actually balance and even rework survivability stats for frames and i hope they dont think "there is shield gating, so we dont need to"

i am someone who doesnt want to do shield gating and i hope they make it more valuable to use Defensive stats than just leaving it to Gloom and Shield gating to fix every survivability issue.

They already did. 

You're not meant to face tank level cap enemies.

Armor and survival modding works for most of the game. 

[kgabor]

As for Banshee, i was already thinking about a new 4. ability years ago that involves invisibility triggered by accurate hits with an exalted weapon. (a sniper/dmr/gauss rifle or soundwave emitter would both work)

For this particular frame, a damage resistance wouldn't make sense (unless it's some kind of spectral dr, which i wouldn't know how could be made unique and interesting)and invis would be in theme, but considering they made Wisp since then, idk..

Meanwhile they also reworked old Saryn and for a fragment of its energy cost it's more broken than old Resonating Quake ever was, but somehow for some reason we still have to keep the current RQ instead of something useful.

But i hope whatever it would do it wouldn't turn Banshee into another afk tank, there's so many of those already.

[NezuHimeSama]

Should just remove the fixed 15/s rate and make it entirely down to % of max shield capacity per second.

I suspect that is the solution that will be employed in 8~16 or so months.

[DeckChairVonBananaCamel]

9 hours ago, (NSW)AegisFifi said:

Nox' ranged weapon, the kind of false "Stug", does Toxin damage, so a high level Nox can one shoot any shield gater frame.

wow I cant believe I forgot that! I was thinking it was corrosive like the stug

[AegidiusF]

Il y a 15 heures, BiancaRoughfin a dit :

Because its not the intended use of the Dragon Keys thus is an Exploit. DE could be sending Bans left and right because of it if they wanted and their silence regarding it isnt because they agree with its use, they are often busy with other priorities and some bugs/exploits may take years to get fixed.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. There is nothing non intended on the Shield Gate + Dragon Key method.

A non intended mechanic is something that is sopposed NOT to happen, it's something the game excludes, but that happens anyway. Or, Decaying Key is working perfectly as it is intended to work and the same goes for Shield gating. Taking advantage of two INTENDED mechanics is not a bad thing and it is not a non intended mechanic at all. Nobody will get banned because of shield gate + Decaying key method.

Here are some exemples of true non intended mechanics I've taken from some recent fixes :

Hyldrin (and Grendel) being able to use ranged weapons while their 4th ability is on (they were not supposed to be able to use normal weapons).

Yareli being able to use primary weapons while on Merulina (she is supposed to use only secondary).

Combat Discipline not taking 10 HP points at each kill, but still regenerating squad HP (and also Necramechs).

Nyx Absorb making tons of damage over an area much bigger than what's on her stats.

(the difference between these exemples and the Shield gate+Dacaying key method is very clear)

DE is perfectly aware of it and never tried to fix it. DE is "Sciente et tacente", a latin expression that was used when the authority was aware of something and did nothing to prevent it, letting things be. In French, we would say 'Lassez faire" : let them do.

That's DE actual position : they did not say it's a bad thing, they did not say it's a good thing and, at the same time, they did nothing to fix it, they just let players use it. And, please, do not say they are too busy with other things, because when something is a real problem, they fix it in less than 24 hours. If they wanted, Shield Gating + Daceying Key would not be possible anymore.

And even Rebecca made a little joke on Twitter :

https://twitter.com/rebbford/status/1434923441442918405?s=20&t=DBHc9kXBepW29ewyx5Pmyw

[Sojufueled]

If you want to kill the key you just change it from max shields to shield recharge. In any case though, shield gating is still quite an interactive playstyle, so I don't think it's necessarily unhealthy for the game. Shields in warframe are odd in that they're essentially cover shooter mechanics without the requisite cover to use them.

[(NSW)freedycurie]

Il y a 2 heures, (NSW)AegisFifi a dit :

DE is perfectly aware of it and never tried to fix it. DE is "Sciente et tacente", a latin expression that was used when the authority was aware of something and did nothing to prevent it, letting things be. In French, we would say 'Lassez faire" : let them do.

That's DE actual position : they did not say it's a bad thing, they did not say it's a good thing and, at the same time, they did nothing to fix it, they just let players use it. And, please, do not say they are too busy with other things, because when something is a real problem, they fix it in less than 24 hours. If they wanted, Shield Gating + Daceying Key would not be possible anymore.

I agree. DE is aware and they let players use it.

People should stop saying that it's a bad thing. If you don't like it, it's ok, you can ask it to be changed, but do not say it's an unintended thing or a bad thing, because DE themselves let players use it !

There is no exploit with shield gating with a dragon key equipped, just normal game feature (with NO NEGATIVE impact on other players gameplay).

[Vahenir]

How to fix the shield gate cheese:

Step 1: Make it cooldown based. So you get one shield gate every 10 seconds or something like that. 
Step 2: Add the effect of reducing this cooldown to shield recharge mods.
Step 3: The dragon key doubles the cooldown in addition to reducing shields.

This should solve the problem of lower shield capacity being better along with the shield gate making any frame immortal and actually give a use for recharge mods. The downside is of course that non tank frames get massively shafted again and will be reduced to irrelevancy in high level content. Which means there needs to be some balancing of enemy damage scaling to actually make it work and not screw people over.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

2 hours ago, Vahenir said:

How to fix the shield gate cheese:

Step 1: Make it cooldown based. So you get one shield gate every 10 seconds or something like that. 
Step 2: Add the effect of reducing this cooldown to shield recharge mods.
Step 3: The dragon key doubles the cooldown in addition to reducing shields.

This should solve the problem of lower shield capacity being better along with the shield gate making any frame immortal and actually give a use for recharge mods. The downside is of course that non tank frames get massively shafted again and will be reduced to irrelevancy in high level content. Which means there needs to be some balancing of enemy damage scaling to actually make it work and not screw people over.

So you created a bigger issue that you know doesn't have a solution?

[NezuHimeSama]

After trying to shield gate with decaying key, it honestly doesn't need attention. It's not that great.

[kgabor]

7 hours ago, (NSW)AegisFifi said:

Combat Discipline not taking 10 HP points at each kill, but still regenerating squad HP (and also Necramechs).

Avalanche Frost?