About clones and specters consuming the players ammo.

[Traumtulpe]

This seems like a terrible Idea to me. You wanted people to stop using Wukong, so a change of this kind was expected, but specters and Duality too?

You ARE aware of the fact that specters DONT USE MODS, right? Them wasting your ammo is never a good idea, so I guess we'll have to create specters without weapons now?!

You ARE aware of the fact that Duality is NOT permanent, but in fact has a VERY short duration? And severely interferes with the use of other abilities? It really isn't comparable to wuclone at all.

Just saying, you made another pretty obvious blunder. Just ask me next time, I don't even need a testserver - these kinds of mistakes are easily avoidable.

[Voltage]

Limiting offensive Specter use is good. They are vastly overtuned and only ever used to replace a player. Let's be honest, nerfing them only hurts players seeking a more AFK experience. If you want to get around this restriction you can just use Tenet Cycron or another powerful battery weapon.

This isn't about Wukong either. Specter abuse has been a thing for ages now.

[Traumtulpe]

4 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Limiting offensive Specter use is good.

Maybe, but that's not what they did. They limited the players weapon use (if they have a specter active). To achieve your stated aim, you'd give specters their own ammo pool.

[(PSN)FunyFlyBoy]

24 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

You ARE aware of the fact that specters DONT USE MODS, right? Them wasting your ammo is never a good idea, so I guess we'll have to create specters without weapons now?!

Can't make weaponless Specters. It forces you to fill every weapon slot on their creation. 

Are Specters using up your ammo pool in the case of using the same weapon, or always even with different weapons? I rarely use them so wouldn't know how they are affected. 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

You are aware specters are still OP, correct? You'll be ok.

[Tiltskillet]

In the Simulacrum, an Oberon specter with Probo Cernos isn't using up my ammo.  It doesn't matter whether I use Probo too, or a different weapon.  I couldn't get it to use its sidearm, so I don't know about that.

One thing that does seem different is it's much more reluctant to attack with weapons than I remember. It occurred to me maybe it has its own ammo pool now, because  it seems to get to a point where it won't shoot at all.  However melee attacks are pretty sparse too.

I do think its very possible the "specters" note in the patch was a case of poor wording / miscommunication.   It's hard to see how it makes sense with different weapons being used by the specter and the tenno, unless they intended to convert the amount used somehow.  Which all seems rather complicated and opaque to the player.

I did test Duality and it's acting the same as always, other than the archgun.   It's quite lethal...when its AI doesn't bug out.  Which happens a fair amount, but not remotely as bad as the Oberon specter.

It is sharing ammo. Which I thought it was before, but perhaps I'm misremembering testing this.  I haven't retested it, but Twin definitely was.  Never tested Umbra.

 

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

Limiting offensive Specter use is good. They are vastly overtuned and only ever used to replace a player.

I agree, but doing it through shared ammo pools would be a terrible way to go about it.

[BiancaRoughfin]

1 hour ago, Traumtulpe said:

This seems like a terrible Idea to me. You wanted people to stop using Wukong, so a change of this kind was expected, but specters and Duality too?

You ARE aware of the fact that specters DONT USE MODS, right? Them wasting your ammo is never a good idea, so I guess we'll have to create specters without weapons now?!

You ARE aware of the fact that Duality is NOT permanent, but in fact has a VERY short duration? And severely interferes with the use of other abilities? It really isn't comparable to wuclone at all.

Just saying, you made another pretty obvious blunder. Just ask me next time, I don't even need a testserver - these kinds of mistakes are easily avoidable.

The Wukong clone im ok with it draining ammo from the player`s Pool because the clone has no limited duration and can be kept alive perpetually.

As for Specters and Duality i really find it unnecessary as Specters often have substantially lower power than players and abilities, they also are a consumable with limited uses in a mission, duality lasts very little to be of any substantial usefulness and even i have made topics asking DE to increase its duration so players could make builds around it.

[Tyreaus]

Personally, if Wukong's clone is at a good spot now, I'd sooner see other forms of spectres boosted closer to that level. I certainly wouldn't complain about Duality becoming indefinite. And other spectres getting to use mods seems more like a parity fix than a balance patch. So that probably wouldn't hurt either.

It's the perfect excuse to improve those things.

[Tiltskillet]

1 minute ago, Tyreaus said:

Personally, if Wukong's clone is at a good spot now, I'd sooner see other forms of spectres boosted closer to that level. I certainly wouldn't complain about Duality becoming indefinite.

Duality is waaay better at killing things than the Twin.  Unless the targeting mechanic is used, and then the Twin is way better.  Personally I'd want to fix that by giving  Duality its own targeting multiplier...on top of a longer or fixed duration.  I'd like it to be undisputed Queen of the Lethal Minions, but at the cost of an augment slot and impermanence.

But I'll defer to people who are more invested in Duality than I am.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

Wait so Specters consume current ammo pool if they use the same exact weapon we have equipped? I can't see why this is ever a problem. It's not like we have a tiny ammo pool to start off with unless one use an AOE weapon. (yeah DE futureproof that idea as well). Before the change Specters had infinite ammo. This is to make it so they're inline with current non player combatants. Though DE does need to make it so the Specter does us the Secondary weapon from time to time. It never does currently.

[----Legacy----]

As someone who really likes Excalibur, this change made me go back to want either a way to remove umbra's sentience or access to that one upgraded version that doesn't have it already (wouldn't mind the Umbra formas)

Taking my favorite frame to any mission with operator segments (like void angel hunts) and run out of ammo just because of a passive i dislike but can't disable is a big annoyance, even more since the only workarounds are either "play any other frame" or "go back to the downgraded version" and give up the appearance i like the most.

[Tiltskillet]

9 hours ago, (PSN)jaggerwanderer said:

Wait so Specters consume current ammo pool if they use the same exact weapon we have equipped?

It's not happening with my Probo Cernos Oberon even when I have the same weapon equipped.  I tested earlier in the Sim, but took it out in a mission just now to confirm.  I set the specter to hold in place, shot a few arrows to put me under the ammo cap, and then watched my ammo count as the specter shot.  No effect.

Unless this particular combo is bugged for some reason, it's either something that didn't make it into the patch or they intended to mean the ability specters: Twin, Duality, and Umbra.  I haven't tested Umbra, but the other two do share ammo with the player.

[SprinKah]

11 hours ago, (PSN)jaggerwanderer said:

Wait so Specters consume current ammo pool if they use the same exact weapon we have equipped? I can't see why this is ever a problem. It's not like we have a tiny ammo pool to start off with unless one use an AOE weapon. (yeah DE futureproof that idea as well). Before the change Specters had infinite ammo. This is to make it so they're inline with current non player combatants. Though DE does need to make it so the Specter does us the Secondary weapon from time to time. It never does currently.

The specters (vapor, force, etc...) do not have an ammo pool, they pretty much got infinite ammo, I dunno what the OP's really on about xD. I think it's to compensate the fact that their weapons are unmodded. Unlike warframe clone abilities which use our mods and builds. 

[Tiltskillet]

7 minutes ago, SprinKah said:

I dunno what the OP's really on about xD.

...

On 2022-11-02 at 8:00 AM, [DE]Megan said:

Fixed ammo pools not being shared properly across NPCs (Specters, Wukong’s Clone, Excalibur Umbra on Transference, and Equinox’s other half while using the Duality Augment Mod). 

Now you know.

[SprinKah]

11 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

...

Now you know.

The Specters (Phase, Vapos, etc...) still got infinite ammo on their weapons, even AoE ones.

I just tested in a mission, used a Phase Specter of mine just for that, Volt, Kuva Zarr, the whole shuh-bang...

It was spamming bombs like crazy, exactly like how it was before. Still does no damage though, in Steel Path Mercury bc of its unmodded nature. 

Then again, COULD BE that it's not properly implemented, I just assumed the Specters part is related to something else and not the deployable ones. BUT HEY, it's on you if DE catches wind of this bc of this post and properly implement this, you probably should've tested it before making the post xDD

I couldn't care less though, I mostly use Nyx and Exergis (probably should change to a different one) for my Specter, so don't care if they apply the ammo pool thing to them, would spare my eyes some torture tbh. 

[Tiltskillet]

12 minutes ago, SprinKah said:

 you probably should've tested it before making the post xDD

If you're talking about the OP, that's not me.  If you're talking to me, I already did test it and found it not to be working with conventional specters.    Both posts where I explain that are in this thread.

If they -do- make it work on specters, I think it will be a pretty crappy mechanic.  I think it's already pretty crappy on the Twin and Duality too, where it does work.   But the idea of keeping things secret and hoping DE doesn't notice is a little repugnant.

I think it's more likely just miscommunication in the patch notes anyway.  It would be kinda tangled if the specter and player shared ammo across different weapons.  And if it's only when they're using the same weapon, it hardly seems worth implementing.

[Tyreaus]

23 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Duality is waaay better at killing things than the Twin.  Unless the targeting mechanic is used, and then the Twin is way better.  Personally I'd want to fix that by giving  Duality its own targeting multiplier...on top of a longer or fixed duration.  I'd like it to be undisputed Queen of the Lethal Minions, but at the cost of an augment slot and impermanence.

But I'll defer to people who are more invested in Duality than I am.

To get more detailed, since I am one of the people fairly invested in Equinox:

Like Tramtulpe points out, Duality has a rhythm conflict with the rest of her kit. Because of Mend and Maim, she doesn't tend to want to switch back and forth on the regular. She wants to stay in one form most of the time, even with Energy Transfer (which usually enables staying in Night form rather than Day—yay for shield generation). Indefinite duration can help stave that off. Albeit, it's not exactly the most durable spectre, so that's probably not the best solution either. And the ammo concerns also don't work well with that: unlike Celestial Twin, so without some short-circuit, there's no way to recall the Duality spectre early, meaning a longer duration entails more ammo drain.

A way to circumvent that is to set the spectre generation on a hold function. It can spawn the spectre without switching forms. However, there's a slight caveat: you can either have a targeting multiplier, triggered by a hold-press while the ability is active, or can recall the spectre on the hold-press while the ability is active. You can't get both due to input space. Personally, I don't think it needs the targeting multiplier: it already gets 300% bonus damage, which should match Celestial Twin's targeting multiplier, minus the targeting. (Strange that you're getting performance differences then...) However, if you take out a major incentive to recalling the spectre—namely, conserving ammunition, hint-hint-nudge-nudge-thread-thread—that targeting multiplier becomes a little more enticing. I still think it's unnecessary, but if recalling the spectre early is equally unnecessary, why not? I believe the saying among youngsters is "YOLO".

Of course, my favourite option is to retool her kit altogether. For example, putting day/night abilities on tap/hold functions, have her switch forms / gain Metamorphosis buffs based on last-casted ability, making Duality her 1, and basically pulling Celestial Twin but inverse. I.e., where the twin uses the weapon you aren't using and copies your abilities, Duality uses the ability you're not using and copies your weapon. But that is, well...getting a bit off-track.

[Birdframe_Prime]

This simple fact is this, OP:

If they make the change to Wukong for the explicit function of reducing AFK play by virtue of the ammo pool consumption, what good is it at all if players can just use another function the game has (specters) to do what is functionally the same thing? Even if it's not as effective...

[Tiltskillet]

51 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Personally, I don't think it needs the targeting multiplier: it already gets 300% bonus damage, which should match Celestial Twin's targeting multiplier, minus the targeting. (Strange that you're getting performance differences then...)

So I just retested both Twin and Duality and nothing has changed.  Using a very bad vanilla ninkondi build (~3500 radiation/cold, 1.35 aps, base crit stats) against a L150 CHG in the sim, I get

Twin unmarked: 56-62 seconds TTK

"" marked:  10-11s

Duality:  29 -32s (Fudging a little bit with this one, as it doesn't quite make it to 31 seconds.)

(Strength isn't supposed to make a difference with any of these, and AFAICT it doesn't.)

When I originally tested the Twin, I was only interested in the mark bonus, and whether it was 3x its current damage, 3x its old damage, or something else.  It sure looks like it's 3x its old damage, as it's approximately 6x its current...although I don't have tests of its -old- damage to compare. Later I tested Duality against it, and didn't think through the implications.   Because you're right, Twin against marked target seems like it should be about the same as Duality at best.  Possibly 50% worse than Duality.  But certainly not 3x better in any case.

One possible explanation is that DE cut Duality's damage in half too, intentionally or unintentionally.  It'd be interesting to hear if you or anybody else thinks it's  weaker than it used to be.  Or if the Twin isn't actually weaker in unmarked mode, or if it feels much more than  50% stronger now against marked targets.

 * * *

As far as my suggestion about adding targeting to Duality goes, I forgot to mention that I would want it to stay out after the initial cast of 1.  i.e., one is free to change forms as much as one wants, but the specter lasts its new improved  or fixed duration.

  I guess this doesn't work if people really need an unsummon control, but I don't know I'd have a use for that if I had a sic 'em control instead.  And if DE gave up the idea of minions sharing ammo.  Balance them in other ways if needed, but shared ammo is a lame way to do it.

 

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, Tiltskillet said:

One possible explanation is that DE cut Duality's damage in half too, intentionally or unintentionally.  It'd be interesting to hear if you or anybody else thinks it's  weaker than it used to be.  Or if the Twin isn't actually weaker in unmarked mode, or if it feels much more than  50% stronger now against marked targets.

I suspect, based on those TTKs, the 300% bonus isn't applying at all with Duality. The Twin unmarked deals 50% of its original damage, and the TTK is about double that of Duality. That's what you'd expect if it's dealing half damage. Meanwhile, Twin marked deals 600% damage, or 300% of its original base. Lo and behold, the Twin marked TTK is 3x the speed of Duality.

If the 300% bonus damage were halved, it would lead to 150% damage. But a 1.5x multiplier ought to mean that the Twin marked TTK is, assuming my mental math still works (I'm old), something like 2x, not the 3x your testing shows. So it'd be ~15s not ~10s.

That definitely smells like something for the bugs forum, especially since DE can probably see spectre damage numbers like we can't.

1 hour ago, Tiltskillet said:

As far as my suggestion about adding targeting to Duality goes, I forgot to mention that I would want it to stay out after the initial cast of 1.  i.e., one is free to change forms as much as one wants, but the specter lasts its new improved  or fixed duration.

I suppose that makes sense, though given how Duality spawns the spectre on each cast of Metamorphosis anyway, and Metamorphosis always costs energy, I don't think it makes a big difference, beyond the spectre's positioning. (And in that sense, wouldn't it almost be better to re-summon it anyway, so you can force it to reposition?)

1 hour ago, Tiltskillet said:

And if DE gave up the idea of minions sharing ammo.  Balance them in other ways if needed, but shared ammo is a lame way to do it.

Agreed. When it first came out, my initial thought was, "just give them a smaller ammo pool independent from the player". Player still has to pay attention to up-keep the spectre via resummoning, but their own performance isn't impacted. Something like that can also sort out the mess with battery weapons, given this entire "ammo sharing" system doesn't affect their performance with spectres much if at all.

[Tiltskillet]

22 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

(And in that sense, wouldn't it almost be better to re-summon it anyway, so you can force it to reposition?)

A mechanic something like the Twin has covers most of that role for me.   Not all of it, but enough. 

 

34 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

I suspect, based on those TTKs, the 300% bonus isn't applying at all with Duality.

Oh yeah, that does seem like the simplest explanation.    Dang it, I'm feeling like I need to do a bug report now.

 

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

3 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

So I just retested both Twin and Duality and nothing has changed. . .

Marked Wuclone and Duality both do the same damage with a Zhuge in the Simulacrum.

A +177.1% CC +149.4% CD Riven with Crit Delay pushes me to near 100% CC on Zhuge. Together with Serration and Vital Sense puts me at ~1957 damage per shot, so Marked Wuclone and Duality should do ~5,871 damage. A level 25 CHG Eximus has ~5,983 Overguard, so Duality and Marked Wuclone should both almost oneshot the Overguard, and on testing, both do just that.

If they aren't doing the same damage, maybe the issue is related to Duality's damage buff somehow not applying to melee.

[Tiltskillet]

10 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

If they aren't doing the same damage, maybe the issue is related to Duality's damage buff somehow not applying to melee.

Got it!  You're posting this made me wonder what aura mods I had equipped.  I don't know Steel Charge is supposed to affect these units, but fortunately both builds were using it and not just one.

I'll test a ranged weapon and another melee (without Steel Charge) and see what happens.  Umbra too, which I've never looked at.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

1 hour ago, Tiltskillet said:

Got it!  You're posting this made me wonder what aura mods I had equipped.  I don't know Steel Charge is supposed to affect these units, but fortunately both builds were using it and not just one.

I'll test a ranged weapon and another melee (without Steel Charge) and see what happens.  Umbra too, which I've never looked at.

Follow up to this. Marked Wuclone with an unmodded Zenistar is shredding through lvl 190 Eximus CHG at an alarming rate. Like he actually kills them with no assistance. They are unpaused. If he gets a ground finisher, the slash proc one-tics them from full health. It appears that he gets the stealth damage bonus even on alerted enemies, at least in the simulacrum.