Veilbreaker: Launch & Hot Topics Week 2

[Silligoose]

On 2022-09-16 at 10:42 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

We’ve kept a close look on Archon Hunts, and still have plans to iterate these fights based on Community Feedback. Nira is on deck next week, we’ll be keeping an eye out to see how the Final Archon fight fares. We have some experimental changes we’re testing out related to damage attenuation but don’t want to rush it out the door too early. We want to make sure we have stats for each fight and how we can apply rules holistically. We will share the stats in our upcoming Devstream (which of the three Archons had what type of success rates, etc), and will provide deeper explanations of the challenges in using damage attenuation vs. having ‘single digit second’ boss fights. It will be an open discussion, and we will invite you to join us when we announce our next Devstream. 

Rebecca, I honestly thought you were looking to make actual changes for the better in Warframe, but I'm not seeing evidence of it yet and this topic really exemplifies that. I suppose I'm still hoping you will, otherwise I wouldn't make this post.

Why does DE keep clinging to this Damage Attenuation (DA) methodology that continues to frustrate and confuse players, all the while not even working properly? That's right - it still doesn't work properly, because players destroy Archons in seconds, or, after prep, one-shot it anyway. DA has never been a good substitute for proper balance. It continues to result in wonky play, to the point where setups that should be more powerful than others, at times exceedingly so, perform worse than the inferior setups.

There are no deep explanations required in the challenges of using damage attenuation vs having extremely fast fights. Players aren't confused by that. They understand why boss fights aren't meant to be over in seconds, even if some don't want to accept that is the goal. The real question is why do you continue to choose Damage Attenuation instead of balancing mechanics properly so that Damage Attenuation isn't needed in the first place? Why do you continue to waste time and resources on working on this inferior methodology in gaming, instead of using that time and resources to balance things properly so you do not have to go back and do double-work, triple-work+ to tweak the formulas every now and then because you don't ensure power creep doesn't completely run away? Why do you keep introducing mechanics you cannot possibly balance content around? x10 damage for activating Void Strike? Ridiculous. x20 damage 50% of the time through mechanics such as Devastating Attrition? Ridiculous. x10+ damage increases due to stacking mechanics associated with Galv mods and Weapon Arcanes? Ridiculous. You cannot balance around that and all that happens with DA formulas is you basically saying "psych you can't really get that much extra".

How about a deep explanation on why you want to give players ridiculous damage multipliers against fodder, where those multipliers have little practical value and basically amount to "a higher number on your overkill", but when it comes to the enemies where players would actually see value, the value advertised isn't there due to Damage Attenuation? Why, if you never actually plan for players to be able to have and x10 multiplier against many bosses or mini-bosses or even against priority targets, when it actually matters, do you pretend that is what you are giving them?

Along those same lines, why do you have clearly broken multipliers pertaining to something like Sonar, or even Blazing Charkam, if you know they are imbalanced to the point where you prevent any sort of value from those abilities against something like the Archon? Why not balance those mechanics properly and allow them to work even against bosses, instead of keeping them broken and invalidating them against a boss like this? All it results in is the majority of gameplay being an imbalanced mess where players steamroll content, whilst resulting in diversity in gameplay vs the Archon being extremely lacking.

Let's go further: If cc is so broken to the point you have to invalidate it against bosses and Eximi, why haven't you addressed the upper limits of potential power pertaining to cc? I know the standard answer is "we don't want to devalue players' progression", but that is exactly what you are doing anyway. The only difference now is, players are making the majority of the content lackluster and boring, whilst invalidation mechanics make the encounters vs higher-threat targets more one-dimensional and less tactical. If DE doesn't want to address power creep associated with cc directly (we really don't need to be able to stun enemies for 10 seconds for infinity), why do you go the lazy route of invalidating it vs Eximus and bosses, instead of having good (much better than found on Demolishers) CC Adaptation system that not only ensures cc still has value, even if curbed, but can't switch off these enemies for prolonged times? The issue was never the mere fact that players can cc an enemy, but for how long and how often they can do it. Are you happy with the game devolving from a tactically- and strategically rich experience at earlier levels of progression, into a fairly generic, one-dimensional experience at higher levels of progression?

I would much rather be able to use a Blazing Chakram with a max damage multiplier of x1.5 and be able to use it against bosses, than having the potential for x4, but not be able to use it against bosses, because we don't need that x4 damage multiplier in encouraged missions and given the amount of different stacking multipliers, x1.5 is plenty. I would much rather have a Sonar that can increase damage x2, than have one that increases damage x100+ (not an exaggeration), but not be able to use it against bosses, because we don't need the x100, or x15, or even base x5 in encouraged content. An x2 multiplier is plenty. I would much rather be able to use Frost's Avalanche to freeze an Archon, if only for 3 seconds, and then have the boss be adapted to that for an amount of time, having it be slowed instead, the effect of which also degrades if I continue to try and spam Avalanche, than just see it not have any cc value at all.

You seem to continue taking shortcuts to address symptoms of imbalances instead of wanting to address the root causes of the imbalances and these shortcuts lead to frustration, confusion and distrust of the game and the devs. On top of that, it erodes the depth of this game far more than it should at higher levels of play. Your endgame boss, Boreal, boils down to "shoot boss, shoot weakpoint of whatever invulnerability mechanic was activated, shoot boss". No real diversity, regardless of the frame chosen. Are you really happy with that? Do you really look at that and think it is good or even close to the type of gameplay that could've been offered? I really hope not, because the Boreal boss fight could've been far, far better. Far more engaging. Far more diverse and playing it with different frames could've been a vastly different experience, but to me it seems you were more than happy to throw all of that away for no real good reason.

Hopefully the deep explanation will dive into these topics, because they matter.

Edit: Based on the OP, it seems the intention for DA was to prevent boss fights from being over extremely fast. If you are going to go into explanations, please ask someone from the balance team how they did not pick up the DA formula being used wasn't accomplishing the goal, since players are steamrolling the Archons anyway. If they start going into some explanation of there being so many different variables to account for and sometimes some hidden interactions are missed, you can make the stream spicy and cut them short, because that is not a viable excuse and a cover for poor work - players aren't making use of some hidden mechanical synergies to steamroll the Archon. They are simply using mechanics everyone within the balance team should be extremely familiar with.

[Circle_of_Psi]

On 2022-09-17 at 10:18 AM, nicolajtheking2 said:

DE's general mentality towards what the community finds fun is something like this: "Hey that looks fun! now let's remove it and blame it on it being a "bug" and "unintentional" this way the community can't complain!"

Yet they still do it seems and it falls on deaf ears until they poke their personal twitter

[Yrkul]

9 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

poke their personal twitter

Well... That place brings the worst out in people, so.....

[(PSN)Zer0-Rama]

On 2022-09-16 at 4:42 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Tenno, 

 

It’s been a week since our last Friday Update post and we wanted to shed some light on where the development team is at. At this point, Tenno have had the chance to take down both Boreal and Amar and may have even completed Kahl’s first weekly ‘Break Narmer’ Mission to reach Encampment in his Garrison.
 

As this content continues to roll out over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking for ways to improve the player experience, and we already have a few concrete actions we will be taking:

 

Kahl’s Bonus Challenges are getting some quality-of-life improvements. Firstly, we’re working to ensure that progress in these Challenges will be cumulative. Tenno will be able to partially complete a Challenge (ex: only removing 3 of 5 Veils) and then have that progress counted towards completing the challenge when repeating the mission (i.e. only 2 more Veils would need to be removed). Additionally, we’ve already improved the visibility of Chipper’s Tools and added a sound to the K-Drive parts as a result of player feedback. Another week brings another Mission to take on with Kahl, Veils need breaking - and we’ll be watching to prepare tweaks and improvements in upcoming hotfixes. 

 

We’ve kept a close look on Archon Hunts, and still have plans to iterate these fights based on Community Feedback. Nira is on deck next week, we’ll be keeping an eye out to see how the Final Archon fight fares. We have some experimental changes we’re testing out related to damage attenuation but don’t want to rush it out the door too early. We want to make sure we have stats for each fight and how we can apply rules holistically. We will share the stats in our upcoming Devstream (which of the three Archons had what type of success rates, etc), and will provide deeper explanations of the challenges in using damage attenuation vs. having ‘single digit second’ boss fights. It will be an open discussion, and we will invite you to join us when we announce our next Devstream. 

 

A hot topic this week is our most recent changes to Styanax. We made a couple of changes to his Final Stand, one to avoid him casting in the air indefinitely and another to make the ability non-interruptible. We had no intentions to remove the fun after his launch, and these were truly unintentional mechanics that required fixing. It’s on us that it wasn’t changed before launch. We also made a couple of key fixes to using Rally Cry in squads to ensure the strongest Styanax buff applies and fixed the Vortex effect on his Axios Javelin not functioning for Clients.

 

Next week we have Archon Nira on deck and a whole new ‘Break Narmer’ Mission to take on - it’s important to note that we’ll be organizing a bigger Hotfix for the next round, so it’s unlikely we’ll have a Hotfix out at all next week. We’ll give you a heads-up on what’s coming and when.

With all that said, once again, thank you for everyone’s feedback
Have a wonderful weekend, Tenno!

-[DE]Rebecca
 

 

So are we going to get buffs for styanax?

[OrkydBlack]

Thank you for this update Rebecca, got word of it through LeyzarGamingViews YT channel.

I support the change to keep cumulative achievement progress through multiple runs of the Kahl mission until it's completed. I'm not a "pro gamer" so it took me days & more than one walk thru video to even understand what I was supposed to do in order to finish the mission, much less worry about the side stuff. Once I did understand though, they all became much easier to accomplish except the K-Drive parts which is still tedious as hell LOL.

I think if Styanax had been allowed to function for a longer period with a "bug" DE knew had to be fixed anyway the outcry, sturm und drang, renting of garments & gnashing of teeth would have been louder, uglier, longer and even less productive. You dropped a stitch & took responsibility for it as soon as logistically possible. That in and of itself is a rare practice in business. Just reinforces the positive image I already have of DE.

[BrendanatorX]

Still no mention of Prime Resurgence accessory prices needing to be adjusted.. -_-

[Circle_of_Psi]

1 hour ago, Yrkul said:

Well... That place brings the worst out in people, so.....

Yeah. sadly

[Circle_of_Psi]

36 minutes ago, BrendanatorX said:

Still no mention of Prime Resurgence accessory prices needing to be adjusted.. -_-

Prices will never be adjusted, when it comes to greed and money, it's always going to be non-negotiable.

 

Either pay up or vote with your wallet, is always the way, I'm afraid.

[Do_High_Go]

Two Weeks from now............ that is when we can expect any meaningful changes for the hellish torture Kahl missions are? You cannot be serious, but sadly you are.

The Misson itself is not bad, but god, searching for the stuff has absolutely NOTHING to do with it AND RnG has to be on your side for the objects to even spawn. And yes i have checked all corners of the map multiple times and given DE over 4 hours of gametime for literally ZERO progression, like the good boi I am. That is what we are supposed to do in that mission right? Farm gametime for the Statistics to look good.

Playing it the first time to complete it was fine, rest of the runs felt like god damn purgatory. You know those looping Hellscapes? Yeah it literally felt like one. Three runs in a row, 4/5 genecodes and 1/4 K-Drive parts. In the end I had to do what I personally hate doing, but every person that respects their time did, so I went and looked up the "Possible locations". Several runs later, and it was finally done. Why several runs? Am I an idiot that cannot read text and pictures? Maybe, but the objects not spawning surely helped me loose a good chunk of my mind.

Oh, Did you know that "If you die or get veiled, the K-Drive parts despawn", cuz I didn't, many others did not know too. It is not even remotely implied, and I assume it is a bug but still, it FORCED me and many others to Literally waste Hours of our time, searching for something that does not exist. Great move DE;RP, masterfully crafted time wasting machine! What is DE;RP? That is what I will call the Rebeca and Pablo's crew that handles Warframe from now on, I mean it has their initials, and helps differentiate the change of operation so I think it is reasonable. Also it perfectly captures the spirit of the updates made by that team - Angels of the Zariman and Veilbraker are both DERPy in therms of execution.

You say a a lot, very nicely. But what you said in the end sounded like "We are right, you cry for nothing, we will fix it, now praise us and suffer 2 more weeks and farm us some better gametime numbers". Veilbraker is not a "Story Quest" Update, it is just a Glorified Operation! Infact i think "Operation Veilbraker" has a better ring to it.

I predicted that the update will be out on 27th September, I was wrong, but maybe by that date, it will be in a playable and tolerable state....... or maybe not.

And people from the community, yes You, a life lesson from me free of charge - Do not be so quick to Praise people for telling you sweet nothings. especially if they are from Corporate!

[Freyjah]

I am not very happy with the Styanax changes myself, but I am disappointed in the part of you that goes "Waah waah they removed the infinite airtime for Styanax! Remove it for Titania and Zephyr too DE!! So it's fair!" 

Do you hear yourselves? Your behaviour is like kids on the playground. If I don't have my toy, nobody else deserves theirs, too! Get real. Titania is a butterfly/bug; her entire point is to FLY. What is Zephyr? A bird, a plane? Either way, she is supposed to have air time, too. I am waiting to see a flying spartan/hoplite. 

Point is, stop trying to return something by getting everything else nerfed (like other people mentioning to remove the Speed Nova interaction with negative strength, too). Trust me, I wasn't happy when I found the Styanax "nerf/fix" or whatever you want to call it, and I do agree that being able to recast without touching the ground was fun. But throwing other frames under the bus so it is "fair" is not okay. 

Also, you do realize that it's not about the "infinite flying" only, you can spam a massive amount of slash in Final Stand with zero to no effort. 30 javelins x [1,500 slash + 1,500 blast with 6m radius each], yes? Now imagine infinitely casting it while hovering, companion sucking in energy from the enemies you just demolished. Slap an Aviator and/or an Aerodynamic aura, and voila, immortal too. 

-------

I have a lot of negative feedback about the Kahl missions, too - but I don't wanna waste my day, so I will be short. For all the people saying they are supposed to be "hard" and "challenging" and "for veterans", they are neither of these things - they are just annoying, and "not-war" and "not-frame" at all. And it doesn't matter if you are a veteran or someone who has played for less than a week - it feels the same, as none of the stuff you have matters.

I hoped they would be at least a little bit like the Veilbreaker tutorial quest thingy at the start, where you save Grineer from the Murex. I still hope that this will be for the "sentient" week of Kahl missions (as it seems like we are in the "corpus" week now). 

All in all, yeah Kahl mission was fun when you did this and that, and I liked hacking the doors and stuff without going into spoilers, but maybe if the challenge timer was 20 minutes? So you can actually do everything at once? It gets mega repetitive and boring after the third time, especially when you have to pick to do either the "find the stuff" or "do it within the time limit". 

Also, was anyone gonna announce that the K-drive parts dispawn if you die/get veiled once, or are we supposed to magically know that? 

[ABlindGuyPlays]

12 hours ago, Hawk197 said:

Rebb, we don't really care about words, we care about action. Apologize all you want about Styanax, words are words, and we can't barter with words. Either take action to improve Styanax, or don't bother "apologizing" since it'll all ring hallow. You claim these bugs were suppose to have been fixed before release. We don't care. We've been through this same song and dance with the old team. We're tired of the whole "We're sorry, we'll do better next time" shtick. You released Gyre in a "bugged state", but waited till you got your Partners to do videos on her before "fixing" her. Now Styanax is released, Partners did their videos, and he's "fixed" There's a reason we aren't the most friendly community as of lately. Either revert the changes completely, adapt the "bugs" in ways that can be added to Styanax, or buff him in other ways that makes him not only viable for levels beyond 200 but also fun. Or, you know, leave him as is and risk people not giving two cents about any more Frames you release because you'll just betray our trust again. You guys got a Werewolf coming out soon. Would be a shame if all this betrayal you guys keep doing made us take a second and third look before buying her week 1, along with a fourth and fifth look before deciding to put effort into her beyond feeding her to the Helminth.

Does give that feel of 'oh we want the partners to make all these videos then OOPS bugfix. Sooory!'

But that's indulging in paranoia, and given I literally have mental conditions where paranoia is a thing. I try real hard t onot see zebras in the weeds everywhere.

So. Give them benefit of the doubt it really was an oospiedoodle.

At the same time you are absolutely correct that apologies mean little when the thing that's being apologized for is still an issue. They didn't like him infinicasting in the air? Fine. Give us some surviveability options or some wayof rolling out of his 4 in exchange please.

Attinuation is being examined? That's fair to wait a full rotation for the sake of data points, but this is something that can't be handwaved away. 

Personally i'd like deacons rush in DURING the fight that you have to kill to steal their masks to insert into arena devices to start the next phase of the fight. 

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

11 minutes ago, ABlindGuyPlays said:

Does give that feel of 'oh we want the partners to make all these videos then OOPS bugfix. Sooory!'

But that's indulging in paranoia, and given I literally have mental conditions where paranoia is a thing. I try real hard t onot see zebras in the weeds everywhere.

So. Give them benefit of the doubt it really was an oospiedoodle.

It's impossible for it to have been a bug they caught in development...
It was literally one of Styanax's ability tips (written by DE) to use abilities during his 4.
An interaction was built into using his 1 while his 4 is active, to give an altitude boost.

This is the same kind of "fix" as Venari being able to heal defense targets.
In other words, a nerf - the removal of a programmed and built-in feature, because "reasons"... and Styanax isn't really all that strong with his spears, and being in the air leaves him super vulnerable without being able to use abilities that rebuild his shields/health... so it wasn't because of balance either.

[(PSN)Luke_Zakalwe]

33 minutes ago, (PSN)AyinDygra said:

It was literally one of Styanax's ability tips (written by DE) to use abilities during his 4.
An interaction was built into using his 1 while his 4 is active, to give an altitude boost.

Hah! So it was there! I didn't remember it wrong!

I scrolled through the tips after the update and couldn't find it anymore, so I thought I must've read it in his wiki or something...

Damn... so how was the feature "unintentional" when it was clearly advertised?

[zydiz]

On 2022-09-17 at 12:54 AM, (NSW)Master2873 said:

I'm almost convinced the boot lickers, and simps for these devs, and game itself, have no clue what an actual balanced and engaging boss fight is.

yes I don't. dark souls bosses?

[(XBOX)Abherration]

So many whiners about a free game. Devs actually owe you nothing, even if you chose to donate your cash(plat/cosmo's). They could of gone "well New War done. Sign off full release. Lets all go make Soulframe, and fund it off the donation"

[quxier]

3 hours ago, (PSN)AyinDygra said:

3 hours ago, ABlindGuyPlays said:

 

It's impossible for it to have been a bug they caught in development...
It was literally one of Styanax's ability tips (written by DE) to use abilities during his 4.
An interaction was built into using his 1 while his 4 is active, to give an altitude boost.

Interesting. Do you have screenshot?

5 hours ago, Freyjah said:

Also, you do realize that it's not about the "infinite flying" only, you can spam a massive amount of slash in Final Stand with zero to no effort. 30 javelins x [1,500 slash + 1,500 blast with 6m radius each], yes? Now imagine infinitely casting it while hovering, companion sucking in energy from the enemies you just demolished. Slap an Aviator and/or an Aerodynamic aura, and voila, immortal too. 

Can you gain energy while in Final stand? If not you will cast e.g. 5 times and you have to regenerate.

 

[Scorpin99]

58 minutes ago, quxier said:

Interesting. Do you have screenshot?

Can you gain energy while in Final stand? If not you will cast e.g. 5 times and you have to regenerate.

 

you can regen energy in final stand as it isnt a channeled ability,

honestly i didnt like the nerf at first too but....just dont jump so high in the air, you can literally spam it just as much as before but not from the heavens, its still perfectly fine and honestly people need to get over themselves

[Gamesense_0]

On 2022-09-17 at 4:42 AM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Kahl’s Bonus Challenges are getting some quality-of-life improvements. Firstly, we’re working to ensure that progress in these Challenges will be cumulative. Tenno will be able to partially complete a Challenge (ex: only removing 3 of 5 Veils) and then have that progress counted towards completing the challenge when repeating the mission (i.e. only 2 more Veils would need to be removed).

I got a much more direct and practical solution for you guys. If you can have so many places, which are all so far from each other and also being easily missable, for these collectibles to spawn, why not just increased its amount spawned in a run instead of making them "cumulative", like us having to make a second or third FULL MAP RUN is intended?

[Gamesense_0]

God, new Kahl mission has me malding right now. You guys put a whole new area, which is no where on the route to our objective, for these collectibles to spawn in? Excuse me? We can't even SLIDE playing as Kahl.

[(NSW)Gamer-Steve]

On 2022-09-16 at 2:14 PM, LightOfDuskandDawn said:

Loving most of the update so far, though I think I've gotten lucky on empowered frames on the hunts that've made them much more bearable (last week was Gyre, this week was Xaku).

I do have a request: can we get Narmer Isoplasts from either Kahl's missions, Chipper, or from the Archon Hunt missions? x2 Caliban and his scythe and helmet need a lot of those things and bounties/open worlds can be rough on a lower/mid end PC. Of course, the amount of standing they reward could be lessened, but it would be nice to be able to get those from somewhere other than bounties and this is Narmer related content.

Coincidentally, I was thinking it would be great if the Anasa Ayatan sculpture could be replaced with a reasonable bundle of Narmer Isoplasts! Perhaps 4-5 at least, considering that it would be once per week (Unless Archon hunts were made to be every few days?) and that it'd take the Ayatan's place rarity-wise among the possible rewards.

• Perhaps it could even be a rare resource dropped by any Narmer faction enemy?

 

Not only would this bridge Archon Hunts with the Narmer bounties (Another way to acquire Isoplasts for Caliban and the Archon's weapon blueprints!), but it would also allow you to earn standing with the Quills or Vox Solaris, thus bridging them with it too. At the very least, I really hope that the Anasa sculpture could be replaced with some Isoplasts, since there's already 8,000 endo in the potential rewards; It would be good to have more variety in that regard, and those sculptures could already be found in Sorties daily as things are.

 

Aside from that, someone had an excellent idea regarding the Archon shards:

 

As I mentioned on that thread, I think it would be a good trade-off to use some existing shards to get a Tau-forged one. That would be a nice addition in the future too, and would still be earnable over time :)

[Chroia]

On 2022-09-16 at 11:42 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

It’s been a week since our last Friday Update post and we wanted to shed some light on where the development team is at.

As always, the communication is appreciated.

[peq42]

How hilarious that you say you hear community feedback when archon hunts are still WEEKLY and archon shards have only one chance in 5 to be the best roll, once a week. 

 

What a joke

[CephalonCarnage]

On 2022-09-18 at 5:31 PM, Silligoose said:

Why does DE keep clinging to this Damage Attenuation (DA) methodology that continues to frustrate and confuse players, all the while not even working properly?

Because everything else they tried is just as bad.

If they give it lots of health - players can one-shot it.

If they give them damage attenuation - players can one-shot it.

If they give it armour - players can one-shot it (or 2 shots, lets be fair)

If they give it invulnerability stages - players can one-shot it after a short wait.

etc.

The real problem is the damage numbers are so great, the multipliers and features are too high, and the combinations too many. I think they are trying very hard to fix the problem, but I also think they are doing all they can to avoid the real problem - because players will complain vociferously if they do. At least they are communicating what they're trying, so eventually even the most "muh Wukong with bramma" player will understand they have to cut deep into the end-game damage mechanisms and numbers we have all gotten used to.

[peq42]

39 minutes ago, CephalonCarnage said:

Because everything else they tried is just as bad.

If they give it lots of health - players can one-shot it.

If they give them damage attenuation - players can one-shot it.

If they give it armour - players can one-shot it (or 2 shots, lets be fair)

If they give it invulnerability stages - players can one-shot it after a short wait.

etc.

The real problem is the damage numbers are so great, the multipliers and features are too high, and the combinations too many. I think they are trying very hard to fix the problem, but I also think they are doing all they can to avoid the real problem - because players will complain vociferously if they do. At least they are communicating what they're trying, so eventually even the most "muh Wukong with bramma" player will understand they have to cut deep into the end-game damage mechanisms and numbers we have all gotten used to.

All they gotta do is look at other games with high damage and multiple possibilities: Path of Exile

 

Players can do anywhere from 100k damage to 10 MILLION damage, and yet, late game content is always challenging, and doable even to those on the lower end. Copy their formula, apply it to warframe, boom.

[Comandante_Chorizo_Prime]

On 2022-09-16 at 3:42 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

We had no intentions to remove the fun after his launch

-[DE]Rebecca
 

 

No, actually you did, no more fun with Styanax.

"Another frame that goes into oblivion"