Pet/Companion survivability in "high level" content (A short essay)

[AbyssalSerpent]

I'm onboard with all this, and I'd also add companion AI onto the list as well. I can't emphasize how many times I bring a companion to a SP Survival such as a Smeeta Kavat when farming resources just for it to get itself annihilated time and again because its AI keeps reading "ooh, heavy enemy fire in one spot. I must jump in!" Which happens even if you don't have any attack mods on your companion. Frankly, non-sentinel companions seem to have the intellect of a walnut.

16 hours ago, ShogunGunshow said:

In before someone inevitably pops in with the very helpful 'well if you cater to your companions and stuff them full of survivability they can sometimes survive on steel path so it's fine.' 🙄

Also inb4 these same people also say "it's a skill issue, git gud"

[Skoomaseller]

9 minutes ago, AbyssalSerpent said:

I'm onboard with all this, and I'd also add companion AI onto the list as well. I can't emphasize how many times I bring a companion to a SP Survival such as a Smeeta Kavat when farming resources just for it to get itself annihilated time and again because its AI keeps reading "ooh, heavy enemy fire in one spot. I must jump in!" Which happens even if you don't have any attack mods on your companion. Frankly, non-sentinel companions seem to have the intellect of a walnut.

Also inb4 these same people also say "it's a skill issue, git gud"

the inner workings of the AI's mind in warframe are simply too great and convoluted for mere mortals like ourselves to understand 

[SneakyErvin]

They should imo be 100% seperated from frame stats and mods that link with that. All companions should instead be given the Specter treatment along with either the Djinn or Vulp self res mechanics as a universal mod. Old link mods or the basic hp/armor/shield mods could be removed and have endo/credit investments refunded, or they could be merged/reworked into mods that add "stars" to the scaling mechanic, so with 3 equipped your pet would scale like a Cosmic Specter.

With such a change a Panzer on Mag would have the same potential for survival as on Inaros, and a Taxon would have the same survival potential as the Panzer on either of those frames aswell.

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

13 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

They should imo be 100% seperated from frame stats and mods that link with that. All companions should instead be given the Specter treatment along with either the Djinn or Vulp self res mechanics as a universal mod. Old link mods or the basic hp/armor/shield mods could be removed and have endo/credit investments refunded, or they could be merged/reworked into mods that add "stars" to the scaling mechanic, so with 3 equipped your pet would scale like a Cosmic Specter.

With such a change a Panzer on Mag would have the same potential for survival as on Inaros, and a Taxon would have the same survival potential as the Panzer on either of those frames aswell.

I'll admit that I like this idea the most, just directly converting them into Specters. Of course Pets need a lot more than a few survivability tweaks though. It makes more sense to just give them a flat amount of really high Armor, Shields and Health for instance while maybe converting Link Mods into something that gives the Warframe extra stats instead. I wouldn't really bother with the star mechanic.

- Beast attacks still have completely awful ranges and damage instances, making their damage seemingly random and ineffective due to tiny hitboxes. There's also no way to increase their speed and they seemingly have no Follow-Through.

- No inherent damage reduction to compensate for the AI being really bad, which is something most AI in the game should have by default. I don't think every companion should be invulnerable, but I do feel that they need some serious defense buffs.

- Most Mods and Precepts are horrifically balanced. Stupid high capacity costs, unimportant discrepancies between companion types, missing overall features introduced from one pet type, hilariously ineffective or overly niche Precepts, etc.

- Missing features overall from each companion type. Deimos pets have their Mutagens that don't actually work, regular Beasts don't have the separate weapon modding Hounds have, Kavats have range Mods but no other companion type does, Sentinels have no direct form of healing unlike Beasts, etc.

- The insane differences in effectiveness between companions as a whole. Vulp is obviously busted and needs to be toned down, Sunika needs an entire overhaul, Diriga still has no real reason to be used, Verglas should be the baseline for Sentinel weapons, etc.

The list really just goes on and on.

[Skoomaseller]

14 minutes ago, (XBOX)Graysmog said:

I'll admit that I like this idea the most, just directly converting them into Specters. Of course Pets need a lot more than a few survivability tweaks though. It makes more sense to just give them a flat amount of really high Armor, Shields and Health for instance while maybe converting Link Mods into something that gives the Warframe extra stats instead. I wouldn't really bother with the star mechanic.

- Beast attacks still have completely awful ranges and damage instances, making their damage seemingly random and ineffective due to tiny hitboxes. There's also no way to increase their speed and they seemingly have no Follow-Through.

- No inherent damage reduction to compensate for the AI being really bad, which is something most AI in the game should have by default. I don't think every companion should be invulnerable, but I do feel that they need some serious defense buffs.

- Most Mods and Precepts are horrifically balanced. Stupid high capacity costs, unimportant discrepancies between companion types, missing overall features introduced from one pet type, hilariously ineffective or overly niche Precepts, etc.

- Missing features overall from each companion type. Deimos pets have their Mutagens that don't actually work, regular Beasts don't have the separate weapon modding Hounds have, Kavats have range Mods but no other companion type does, Sentinels have no direct form of healing unlike Beasts, etc.

- The insane differences in effectiveness between companions as a whole. Vulp is obviously busted and needs to be toned down, Sunika needs an entire overhaul, Diriga still has no real reason to be used, Verglas should be the baseline for Sentinel weapons, etc.

The list really just goes on and on.

smeeta offering hard-to-turn-down gifts from god himself, adarza red crits, in comparison to kubrows doing uhhhhhhh

[Skoomaseller]

on the topic of pets I think beast pets could also maybe have another way of doing damage instead of being pure melee because it's kinda inconsistent (warframe AI partly takes the blame).

guns mounted on my kavat... 🤔

[DebrisFlow]

No to companion invincibility. That would take away engagement in building defense vs offense and gameplay interactivity.

Yes to defenses scaling with enemy level. This would be already enough to allow for actual gameplay interactivity besides constantly reviving.

Make kubrows actually useful. Total rework. Their current utility is laughable.

Stop with band-aids that are stupidly build-specific like Repair Dispensary or just blatantly impractical like Arcane Bodyguard.

 

[Kaiga]

On 2023-01-18 at 2:35 PM, sunderthefirmament said:

bUt My VeRgLaS dJiNn AbSoLuTeLy ShReDs StEeL pAtH...

The verglas having the stats of the stock galaxion, likely through an oversight is absolutely hilarious. 

It's the one source of usable damage from robotic sentinels, almost by accident.

[MqToasty]

This topic again in less than a week?  While I am all for more mods (more options), OP, I honestly do not see the survivability problems you and several others are seeing.  I do bring my Vulpaphyla to the hardest, non-farming content like Archon Hunts, but that is her raison d'etre and her uptime is actually pretty good.  My Smeeta survives pretty well for any other SP mission that has farmable resources I want, and even my Oxylus can survive fine for the earlier planets on SP, where I use it to scan plants for apothics.

I do agree that many companions seem like MR fodder now, but I think the correct perspective is that they already served their purpose at an earlier stage in our journey with the game.  The best example is Helios -- it was great and I used it all the time when I still had missing scans, but I haven't as much as looked at it in ages.  The same goes for Oxylus.  Now that I'm basically done with my Silver Grove mod collection, back in the closet it goes.

Now I do feel bad for dog lovers, as it seems like both Kubrows and Predasites got the short end of the stick without any unique purpose (well, except roam my orbiter as a puppy -- the Pharaoh Predasite puppies are so cute!).  But at this point I don't know what DE can give them to compete with Smeetas and Vulpaphylas without turning them into clones of Smeetas and Vulpaphylas.

As for a full rework for all companions, I have a feeling DE won't go there -- developer resources are much better spent on new stuff that can attract new players and bring back lapsed players.  "Fixing" a problem that not everyone has is probably not that high on their TODO list.

[SneakyErvin]

17 hours ago, (XBOX)Graysmog said:

I'll admit that I like this idea the most, just directly converting them into Specters. Of course Pets need a lot more than a few survivability tweaks though. It makes more sense to just give them a flat amount of really high Armor, Shields and Health for instance while maybe converting Link Mods into something that gives the Warframe extra stats instead. I wouldn't really bother with the star mechanic.

- Beast attacks still have completely awful ranges and damage instances, making their damage seemingly random and ineffective due to tiny hitboxes. There's also no way to increase their speed and they seemingly have no Follow-Through.

- No inherent damage reduction to compensate for the AI being really bad, which is something most AI in the game should have by default. I don't think every companion should be invulnerable, but I do feel that they need some serious defense buffs.

- Most Mods and Precepts are horrifically balanced. Stupid high capacity costs, unimportant discrepancies between companion types, missing overall features introduced from one pet type, hilariously ineffective or overly niche Precepts, etc.

- Missing features overall from each companion type. Deimos pets have their Mutagens that don't actually work, regular Beasts don't have the separate weapon modding Hounds have, Kavats have range Mods but no other companion type does, Sentinels have no direct form of healing unlike Beasts, etc.

- The insane differences in effectiveness between companions as a whole. Vulp is obviously busted and needs to be toned down, Sunika needs an entire overhaul, Diriga still has no real reason to be used, Verglas should be the baseline for Sentinel weapons, etc.

The list really just goes on and on.

Beasts could really use some added abilities to their combat. Pounce could for instance get turned into a slam attack around the impact area of pounce, and Kubrows could likely use some pinball charge attack that knocks down or stuns enemies. I also like your link mod idea, aslong as all companions can equip them and have about the same stats to allow the mods roughly equal value on any pet, they could easily be a solution to help low health or low armor frames to scale better than they currently do. And as you point out they also lack speed. I think it would be good if DE gave all beasts dashes to engage targets faster.

DE should really normalize companion stats so they are all equal, then base their differences on what type of abilities they bring, which should be what players base their choice on when deciding which pet to use. And hopefully each pet should fill a role that might actually be useful to the player or better for some frames compared to others. Pets that provide health sustain, energy, status debuffs, combat buffs, extra loot, armor strip, CC and so on all to fit individual needs between builds.

[mysty]

the pets could need a adaption link mod too

[Kaiga]

On 2023-01-21 at 9:41 AM, mysty said:

the pets could need a adaption link mod too

Or just adaptation for pets, that would certainly help

[Berzerkules]

On 2023-01-21 at 10:41 AM, mysty said:

the pets could need a adaption link mod too

Another band aid that does not address the fact that pets can't stand on their own.

1 hour ago, Kaiga said:

Or just adaptation for pets, that would certainly help

With their low base stats adaption wouldn't accomplish anything because they would never be able to build up damage reduction.

If anything it would further the gap of companion survivability between naturally tanky frames and squishy ones. It wouldn't fix the problem, it would make it worse.

Only way I see a companion adaption mod working is if they scale with enemy level. They would need to be able to take hits for adaption to stack or else they take one hit to shields and get 10% damage reduction and the next hit still taps them. 

[Liquidushime]

Easy Fix:

Universal Companion Revive System (NOT tied to mods) --- Set # of Kills = Revive + invincibility for a certain time period and aggro + damage absorb that scales with enemy level. (Revive + iron skin type thing?)

+Buff to all companion survivability mods

+Possible Companion Arcanes (I didn't even want to put this in their minds, but it could be a cheaper way to add it and fill more content with stuff.)

+Buffs to all companions across the boards + New passive/Companion Augments

We need better everything. It's time for Companions 4.0

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

On 2023-01-20 at 4:39 AM, SneakyErvin said:

Beasts could really use some added abilities to their combat. Pounce could for instance get turned into a slam attack around the impact area of pounce, and Kubrows could likely use some pinball charge attack that knocks down or stuns enemies. I also like your link mod idea, aslong as all companions can equip them and have about the same stats to allow the mods roughly equal value on any pet, they could easily be a solution to help low health or low armor frames to scale better than they currently do. And as you point out they also lack speed. I think it would be good if DE gave all beasts dashes to engage targets faster.

DE should really normalize companion stats so they are all equal, then base their differences on what type of abilities they bring, which should be what players base their choice on when deciding which pet to use. And hopefully each pet should fill a role that might actually be useful to the player or better for some frames compared to others. Pets that provide health sustain, energy, status debuffs, combat buffs, extra loot, armor strip, CC and so on all to fit individual needs between builds.

Yeah the idea would be for all pet types to get the Link Mods, I don't really see why their stats should be any different honestly. If you added some of the basics like a high amount of DR, complete ignore to certain effects (like Stagger, or Knockdown) and just made them immune to certain environmental effects (like AoE) they'd be the same defense-wise. Unless my pet is directly getting attacked, I don't see why it should be taking damage when it can't actively avoid hits.

That would be the end goal for sure, Pets aren't Warframes, so I don't see why they have all these differing stats and values. You could easily keep their identity by changing their Precepts and maybe some small supplemental stats, like the DR they receive and move/attack speed, but that's all I'd ever do really.

Man, now I want to write up a whole Companion Rework thread to see if I can balance them out.

[Hayrack]

Pet AI so bad, that most of the time they appear to be accompanying my enemies, not me. They can't actually land direct hits, unless the target is standing perfectly still. And don't get me started about their affinity for toxic clouds and grenades...

[Kaiga]

On 2023-01-23 at 2:41 PM, Liquidushime said:

It's time for Companions 4.0

Judging by the length of time, that number sounds about accurate. There have been some changes, but nothing like a substantial overhaul that's needed.

[mysty]

hm or the archon shards system for pets too

[KernelWizard]

I'm finally giving up on my Carrier Prime and is grinding to get Panzer right now lmao. Damn I do wish they improve on companion durability already. 

[(XBOX)MarineDawg]

I switched from the Panzer to a Sister hound.  I have linked health and armor on, pack leader, maybe hunter recovery (the app doesn't show the build) but on the weapon I have healing return on there so this thing heals itself (slowly) and rarely goes down.  This can be due to my occasional melee use but also one of the precepts I run makes it invulnerable. 

I use this companion 99% of the time now but mainly because it uses vacuum and having the original carrier functionality that is sometimes invulnerable also can stun and disarm enemies.  It took a ton of forma between the hounds (I duplicated the build on two hounds and might do the third) and its weapon but SP, Archon, it is pretty decent considering anything else that I have brought (by accident forgetting to unequip after riven unviel) 

I know this speaks nothing of the setinals, bots, or kubrows but I think the hounds have a good run when modded 'properly' If this is the case perhaps a new mod or two will make other companions more viable in SP and beyond opposed to a full on rework. 

[_Anise_]

have personally revived a smeeta that was standing in white puke only for it to not move from the white puke and instantly die again

it happened in world of warcraft in one of the patches once scaling got a bit higher companions were randomly getting one hit kill to a lot of area of effect skils.

What the devs ended up doing was eventually adjusting companions I think so they either took 90% less from AOE effects, similar it would go some to helping in warframe!

  

4 hours ago, (XBOX)MarineDawg said:

I have healing return on there so this thing heals itself (slowly) and rarely goes down

I really wanted to try that mod out to see how it performs on helious but after 2000 hours or something seems like it's unicorn poop, never seen it drop ever

[Surbusken]

I use a pet I don't care about visually because of locked abilities. Haven't even bothered to get the prime version.

Like I could actually see myself caring and investing in a kubrow I get to decide what looks like, but since it's 1:3,000,000 chance to get a specific one, and on to top of that, can't equip the abilities I want anyway, I just don't care.

Player choice and customization is video gaming to me.

 

The only reason I can come up with for it being like that, is to increas the grind, at the expense of quality. Same as railjack or operators, I wanted to want to care but then the developers got in the way, lol.

[Berzerkules]

8 hours ago, (XBOX)MarineDawg said:

I switched from the Panzer to a Sister hound.  I have linked health and armor on, pack leader, maybe hunter recovery (the app doesn't show the build) but on the weapon I have healing return on there so this thing heals itself (slowly) and rarely goes down.  This can be due to my occasional melee use but also one of the precepts I run makes it invulnerable. 

I use this companion 99% of the time now but mainly because it uses vacuum and having the original carrier functionality that is sometimes invulnerable also can stun and disarm enemies.  It took a ton of forma between the hounds (I duplicated the build on two hounds and might do the third) and its weapon but SP, Archon, it is pretty decent considering anything else that I have brought (by accident forgetting to unequip after riven unviel) 

I know this speaks nothing of the setinals, bots, or kubrows but I think the hounds have a good run when modded 'properly' If this is the case perhaps a new mod or two will make other companions more viable in SP and beyond opposed to a full on rework. 

Link mods work on some frames/builds and do next to nothing on others. 

I almost never play tanks but was messing around on Lavos yesterday in SP mot and panzer had no problems for 40 minutes with link health and armor. Today 3 minutes into same mission with same panzer build but playing Xaku and it's dead in <3 minutes. 

When the frame you choose is the deciding factor to companions survival I think it's time for a rework. 

edit: just tested full forma hound and weapon with Xaku. 2:15 into mission and first eximus it came across downed it. 

[BethTheBean]

Never had a problem with pets being downed in any mission - except Vulpa, since they're supposed to "die".

[L3512]

17:59:41 - <Smeeta Kavat> downed at 41,406 health by a level 133 Narmer Lancer using a PNWNarmerMaskPowerSuit