Reminder: Eximus Still Nuking Crew in Railjack

[Drasiel]

Natively Railjack does not have eximus units.

It has been 1 year and 9 months since adding fissures to railjack accidentally allowed corrupted eximus spawned from fissures to appear in Railjack

It has been 9 months since the Eximas Updated that made eximus nearly a gauranteed death for NPC Crew who cannot react to their massively damaging AOE effects and cannot kill guardian eximus preventing them from even dealing with the non eximus units.

This makes Solo Railjack Fissures a miserable experience and crew nearly useless for fissure missions unless you teleport back to the ship every time you are boarded.

Please do something to fix this.

[(PSN)ElGringoFuerte]

while i agree you could easily avoid this (and i've been playing railjack a lot lately trying to get Sevagoth)

dont get boarded and i'm not trolling thats always the first thing i worry about when i play railjack

with at least 2 gunners + yourself , those pods shouldnt get anywhere near your ship anyway

[Drasiel]

11 hours ago, (PSN)ElGringoFuerte said:

while i agree you could easily avoid this (and i've been playing railjack a lot lately trying to get Sevagoth)

dont get boarded and i'm not trolling thats always the first thing i worry about when i play railjack

with at least 2 gunners + yourself , those pods shouldnt get anywhere near your ship anyway

I'm curious do you play many grineer veil proxima fissures solo? Unless you want to park the railjack really far away from the objectives and destroy radiators yourself that's Just not a viable option. The missile platform and ship killer objectives can quite easily kill a fully modded and upgraded railjack in a few hits. They also send out boarding parties within 5000m.

When the railjack is standing still because you have to go complete objectives and because you cannot leave the ship while in voidstorms without an engineer, 2 gunners quite often fail to shoot down the boarders. With only 1 engineer if the boarders get in they kill the engineer because engineers focus on repairs first. 

What I normally run is 1 pilot/gunner (they pilot when I'm not on the ship) and 2 engineers. This leaves 1 engineer to repair and the other to act as defender if boarded or when there are no enemies and multiple issues they fix the damage swiftly.

The pilot position is mostly incapable of shooting down boarding parties. The pilot will also "follow" the player to a certain extent. If you are inside an objective they fly the railjack into the danger zone for ship killer and missile platform. If your railjack is suffering a critical failure it limits the railjack's movement speed enormously. This is what normally allows ram sleds to catch the railjack, in my experience. 

Unless I want to park the ship over 5000m away and do everything myself thus defeating the entire reason for crew being added in the first place just "not getting boarded" doesn't work. 

I guess I also didn't make this clear enough:

It's not the boarding parties killing the crew.

When you are struck by a boarding party they are the normal non eximus enemies. When those enemies corrupt there is a chance that non railjack corrupted spawn as well. Those corrupted are where the eximus are coming from. Prior to the eximus changes if you got unlucky a toxic eximus would spawn and kill your crew but outside of that the old eximus were not a threat to elite crew with properly modded weapons. Because AI in warframe can not and do not respond to area damage the new eximus kill the crew with zero effort in the same way Kubrow and kavats die to eximus. 

 

 

[L3512]

2 hours ago, Drasiel said:

I'm curious do you play many grineer veil proxima fissures solo? Unless you want to park the railjack really far away from the objectives and destroy radiators yourself that's Just not a viable option. The missile platform and ship killer objectives can quite easily kill a fully modded and upgraded railjack in a few hits. They also send out boarding parties within 5000m.

I solo farm Grineer veil regularly for Holokeys and have not had any issues with what you describe, depending on spawns and AI piloting I can pretty consistently complete runs in 5-6 minutes. If your RJ gets boarded than you have messed up somewhere.

[Drasiel]

50 minutes ago, L3512 said:

I solo farm Grineer veil regularly for Holokeys and have not had any issues with what you describe, depending on spawns and AI piloting I can pretty consistently complete runs in 5-6 minutes. If your RJ gets boarded than you have messed up somewhere.

*pinches bridge of nose* The boarders are not the problem. The crew can handle all of the normal borders with zero issues, yes even in a void fissure on veil proxima if you let every single ram sled hit you 2 engineers with good defensive stats and well modded weapons can deal with them. The unintentional introduction of eximus to a game mode that had no eximus prior to fissures combined with the eximus update that grants them attacks that AI crew, specters, and pets literally have no programmed response to is the problem.

• The crew members will stand in the health drain spots until they die
• the crew will remain in the path of every lightning ball
• the crew will always take the full head on hit from blitz eximus
• they will always be knocked down by fire eximus
• They will let venomous eximus close the distance and stand in the aura until they die
• They cannot even hit guardian eximus between it's rotating shields except by pure chance.

I literally cannot stop my railjack from being boarded when encountering the missile platform or the ship killer platform unless I park it outside the range of the POI and don't utilize my crew. When the objectives are missile platforms or the ship killer If your pilot is flying your ship when you go inside he will drag your railjack into the danger zone of those objectives and once your ship takes enough damage for a critical breach it is too slow to escape ramsleds. The pilot does not successfully shoot down ramsleds and when I last used a high ranking gunner they didn't stop all the ramsleds either.

I can certainly play in a way that means I won't get boarded, but that playstyle from my experience just means parking the railjack at the ass end of the mission after clearing out fighters and creswships and doing everything yourself defeating the entire point of having crew.

[L3512]

2 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

*pinches bridge of nose* The boarders are not the problem. The crew can handle all of the normal borders with zero issues, yes even in a void fissure on veil proxima if you let every single ram sled hit you 2 engineers with good defensive stats and well modded weapons can deal with them. The unintentional introduction of eximus to a game mode that had no eximus prior to fissures combined with the eximus update that grants them attacks that AI crew, specters, and pets literally have no programmed response to is the problem.

• The crew members will stand in the health drain spots until they die
• the crew will remain in the path of every lightning ball
• the crew will always take the full head on hit from blitz eximus
• they will always be knocked down by fire eximus
• They will let venomous eximus close the distance and stand in the aura until they die
• They cannot even hit guardian eximus between it's rotating shields except by pure chance.

I literally cannot stop my railjack from being boarded when encountering the missile platform or the ship killer platform unless I park it outside the range of the POI and don't utilize my crew. When the objectives are missile platforms or the ship killer If your pilot is flying your ship when you go inside he will drag your railjack into the danger zone of those objectives and once your ship takes enough damage for a critical breach it is too slow to escape ramsleds. The pilot does not successfully shoot down ramsleds and when I last used a high ranking gunner they didn't stop all the ramsleds either.

I can certainly play in a way that means I won't get boarded, but that playstyle from my experience just means parking the railjack at the ass end of the mission after clearing out fighters and creswships and doing everything yourself defeating the entire point of having crew.

So you may have missed it but you will not get fissure spawns on your RJ until it gets hit by boarders, stop the ramsleds and you will stop your eximus problem.

Once you have killed all fighters and crewships, get close to the POI to trigger ramsleds, as this isn't old RJ anymore there is a fairly conservative timer on launches. If it is the ship killer park the RJ underneath it though will probably still cause a ship breach under the AI piloting. get into the POI and hack the first terminal and than switch your pilot from gunner to piloting.

This method is generally reliable and can finish missions quickly and without drama, you can use Intruder Statis in case the RJ is boarded to buy time and if the pilot is not destroying radiators, switch their role to something else and back to pilot.

[Drasiel]

Just now, L3512 said:

So you may have missed it but you will not get fissure spawns on your RJ until it gets hit by boarders, stop the ramsleds and you will stop your eximus problem.

Once you have killed all fighters and crewships, get close to the POI to trigger ramsleds, as this isn't old RJ anymore there is a fairly conservative timer on launches. If it is the ship killer park the RJ underneath it though will probably still cause a ship breach under the AI piloting. get into the POI and hack the first terminal and than switch your pilot from gunner to piloting.

This method is generally reliable and can finish missions quickly and without drama, you can use Intruder Statis in case the RJ is boarded to buy time and if the pilot is not destroying radiators, switch their role to something else and back to pilot.

I am aware of how the fissure spawns work but saying don't get hit by ramsleds as a solution to a complete and utter failure of the AI's programming doesn't address the root issue. AI crew are the worst offenders but literally every Ai companion specter, and even mind controlled enemies behave this way with eximus.

"generally reliable" except when I've tried to do that I still end up getting boarded. I'm probably not able to clear the POI as quickly as you or you enjoy speed clearing as fast possible and I don't. I already know about cycling the pilots role to fix it forgetting about the radiators. The pilot will destroy every radiator eventually except the first radiator on the secret ship hanger for some reason.

so what's your magic bullet for the missile platform then? Since we're choosing to focus on the idea that Broken AI is clearly a symptom of me not playing well enough go on, tell me what I'm doing wrong with the missile platform.

[L3512]

1 minute ago, Drasiel said:

"generally reliable" except when I've tried to do that I still end up getting boarded. I'm probably not able to clear the POI as quickly as you or you enjoy speed clearing as fast possible and I don't. I already know about cycling the pilots role to fix it forgetting about the radiators. The pilot will destroy every radiator eventually except the first radiator on the secret ship hanger for some reason.

Yeah "generally reliable" because sometimes the AI pilot just does whatever and you might have to destroy the radiators yourself, this takes longer and the RJ has a chance of getting boarded.

 

1 minute ago, Drasiel said:

so what's your magic bullet for the missile platform then? Since we're choosing to focus on the idea that Broken AI is clearly a symptom of me not playing well enough go on, tell me what I'm doing wrong with the missile platform.

Trigger ramsleds and destroy them, slingshot to the missile base and hack the first terminal, get the AI pilot on the job to destroy the radiator. The missile base is rather short range and the missiles themselves are slow travelling, as long as the RJ is moving it is mostly fine.

If you play solo the AI is just something you have to work around, recruiting is also hit and miss though and you have to recruit so I play solo. 

[Drasiel]

1 minute ago, L3512 said:

Yeah "generally reliable" because sometimes the AI pilot just does whatever and you might have to destroy the radiators yourself, this takes longer and the RJ has a chance of getting boarded.

 

Trigger ramsleds and destroy them, slingshot to the missile base and hack the first terminal, get the AI pilot on the job to destroy the radiator. The missile base is rather short range and the missiles themselves are slow travelling, as long as the RJ is moving it is mostly fine.

If you play solo the AI is just something you have to work around, recruiting is also hit and miss though and you have to recruit so I play solo. 

so your solutions to not getting boarded are: do this stuff and then get lucky and hope the AI doesn't do something to screw it up, but if they do screw it up it is your fault for not compensating enough. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's an insane perspective. I'm not sure if you're trying to offer solutions to be "helpful" or are actually against reporting AI problems.

I'm not here looking for solutions, I have a garbage solution of my own that solves the entire issue already, I'm here talking about this because I want the goddamn miserable excuse for NPC AI to be improved so eximus aren't a death sentence for everything but the player or if that's not possible just remove the eximus from a mode they were not intended to spawn into in the first place.

[L3512]

2 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

so your solutions to not getting boarded are: do this stuff and then get lucky and hope the AI doesn't do something to screw it up, but if they do screw it up it is your fault for not compensating enough. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's an insane perspective. I'm not sure if you're trying to offer solutions to be "helpful" or are actually against reporting AI problems.

No I'm saying it's possible to quickly and fairly reliably clear voidstorm RJ missions but there are issues that need to be worked around.

You have an issue with Eximus, I don't. I do however have an issue with enemy ship spawns sometimes. We both have issues with the AI, current RJ is a mess but I'm not sure DE will touch it.

 

2 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

I'm not here looking for solutions, I have a garbage solution of my own that solves the entire issue already, I'm here talking about this because I want the goddamn miserable excuse for NPC AI to be improved so eximus aren't a death sentence for everything but the player or if that's not possible just remove the eximus from a mode they were not intended to spawn into in the first place.

You know what annoys me about RJ eximus the most? When you do corpus missions and there is that hacking part that just wastes time, any eximus in the entire tileset can target you from potentially hundreds of metres away, that I would be certain of saying is a bug or unintended feature. Eximus existing in RJ at all though could well be intended.

[Drasiel]

1 hour ago, L3512 said:

No I'm saying it's possible to quickly and fairly reliably clear voidstorm RJ missions but there are issues that need to be worked around.

You have an issue with Eximus, I don't. I do however have an issue with enemy ship spawns sometimes. We both have issues with the AI, current RJ is a mess but I'm not sure DE will touch it.

 

You know what annoys me about RJ eximus the most? When you do corpus missions and there is that hacking part that just wastes time, any eximus in the entire tileset can target you from potentially hundreds of metres away, that I would be certain of saying is a bug or unintended feature. Eximus existing in RJ at all though could well be intended.

I think you're taking my complaint to mean that because my crew is dying I'm having problems completing these missions. That's not the case at all, I have no issues finishing the missions by myself and even if all of the crew die it maybe adds an extra 3-5 minutes at most depending on POI's. The crew is a convenience, not a requirement, for my success. I've been soloing these missions since well before the crew were added and I can go back to that method any time. I'm not annoyed the crew die, I'm annoyed that the crew dies because they can't respond to eximus.

I'm sorry your statement is incorrect, your crew  would have the exact same problem with eximus mine have if you got boarded. Not entering into the situation that causes the problem isn't the same thing as not having the issue. You don't experience the issue but regardless the issue is still present.

Which annoying hacking part in corpus railjack? The one where you have to hack the POI and deal with the ospreys that disrupt the scan or how if you hack the reactor in a crewship you have to wait for a frustratingly long animation to play in it's entirety before you can blow it up?

Eximus existing in Railjack isn't intended. If it was intended there would be eximus version of railjack enemies. There are no railjack eximus, the only eximus that have ever appeared have been since fissures were added to railjack 1 year 9 months ago because they are using the same fissure code for spawning in enemies as the normal missions and because corrupted can spawn as eximus we now get eximus. This is exactly the kind of oversight that happens all the time in warframe. They apply something old to something new and suddenly we have weird interactions and unintended consequences. The eximus from fissures are an unintended consequence.

[L3512]

On 2023-01-23 at 4:34 PM, Drasiel said:

I think you're taking my complaint to mean that because my crew is dying I'm having problems completing these missions. That's not the case at all, I have no issues finishing the missions by myself and even if all of the crew die it maybe adds an extra 3-5 minutes at most depending on POI's. The crew is a convenience, not a requirement, for my success. I've been soloing these missions since well before the crew were added and I can go back to that method any time. I'm not annoyed the crew die, I'm annoyed that the crew dies because they can't respond to eximus.

No I fully understand that you can complete these missions.

 

On 2023-01-23 at 4:34 PM, Drasiel said:

I'm sorry your statement is incorrect, your crew  would have the exact same problem with eximus mine have if you got boarded. Not entering into the situation that causes the problem isn't the same thing as not having the issue. You don't experience the issue but regardless the issue is still present.

So the only statement of mine that I think applies here is "You have an issue with Eximus, I don't." which is in no way incorrect. It's there in black and white and I'm not sure how you could misconstrue such a basic sentence.

Whatever, as I have said before, I personally have not notice the issue that you have presented and will need to purposely test it next time I'm doing RJ. I do believe there would be an issue with eximus as crew AI is very basic.

 

On 2023-01-23 at 4:34 PM, Drasiel said:

Which annoying hacking part in corpus railjack? The one where you have to hack the POI and deal with the ospreys that disrupt the scan or how if you hack the reactor in a crewship you have to wait for a frustratingly long animation to play in it's entirety before you can blow it up?

POI with ospreys, pretty sure most eximus can do it but you should notice leach eximus spamming strait away, even from the opposite end of the tileset.

 

On 2023-01-23 at 4:34 PM, Drasiel said:

Eximus existing in Railjack isn't intended. If it was intended there would be eximus version of railjack enemies. There are no railjack eximus, the only eximus that have ever appeared have been since fissures were added to railjack 1 year 9 months ago because they are using the same fissure code for spawning in enemies as the normal missions and because corrupted can spawn as eximus we now get eximus. This is exactly the kind of oversight that happens all the time in warframe. They apply something old to something new and suddenly we have weird interactions and unintended consequences. The eximus from fissures are an unintended consequence.

Again, I'm not 100% sure this is correct, I don't work for DE and don't know their motives, look at past examples like the gladiator vs vigilante set mods on sentinels, nonsense changes that were contradictory. 

[Drasiel]

On 2023-01-24 at 2:02 AM, L3512 said:

No I fully understand that you can complete these missions.

 

So the only statement of mine that I think applies here is "You have an issue with Eximus, I don't." which is in no way incorrect. It's there in black and white and I'm not sure how you could misconstrue such a basic sentence.

Whatever, as I have said before, I personally have not notice the issue that you have presented and will need to purposely test it next time I'm doing RJ. I do believe there would be an issue with eximus as crew AI is very basic.

 

POI with ospreys, pretty sure most eximus can do it but you should notice leach eximus spamming strait away, even from the opposite end of the tileset.

 

Again, I'm not 100% sure this is correct, I don't work for DE and don't know their motives, look at past examples like the gladiator vs vigilante set mods on sentinels, nonsense changes that were contradictory. 

I had typed out a response to this but between writing it out and hitting submit the forums logged me out and it was lost, so let's try this again.

Okay, let's use an analog to explain this better: Someone has created a pit in the middle of your room and filled it with spikes, the pit is the problem. Falling into the pit will kill you, that is the consequence of the pit. You walk around the pit and don't fall into it, you have now avoided the consequences. Walking around the pit does not remove the pit nor cover it with anything, the problem still exists even though you have experienced no consequences.

The AI's inability to respond to AOE is the problem, the consequence is that Eximus who do AOE kill your crew. You are avoiding this consequence by not getting boarded but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. The AI has had this problem since Sapping ospreys (then called scorching ospreys) were added to the game back in U15. You can watch this same behaviour happen with all Player affiliated NPC's non sentinel companions, Specters, crew, rescue targets, syndicate allies, etc. I'm specifically bringing up the issue with Railjack crew because the issue could be solved by removing the eximus rather that recoding the AI for NPC's which would be a much bigger and more labour intensive job (although that still needs to happen eventually anyways).

No one can be 100% sure anything is correct. All we can do is take the information on hand and try to come to the most reasonable conclusions with as little personal bias as possible. So I'll lay out what led to my assertions:

• Railjack is added to the game on November 22 2019
  • Proxima Grineer units have no eximus versions.
• Corpus Proxima was added to the game on March 19 2021
  • Proxima Grineer units still have no eximus versions.
  • Proxima Corpus units have no eximus versions.
• Fissures were added to Railjack on April 13 2021
  • Proxima Grineer Units still have no eximus versions.
  • Proxima Corpus Units still have no eximus versions.
  • Corrupted versions of Proxima Grineer and Proxima Corpus have no eximus versions.
  • The corrupted that spawn as part of the fissure mission modifier do spawn eximus.
• Eximus Reborn was added to the game on April 27 2022
  • Proxima Grineer still have no eximus versions.
  • Proxiima Corpus still have no eximus version.
  • Corrupted versions of Proxima Grineer and Corpus still have no eximus units.
  • The corrupted that spawn from the fissure mission modifier do spawn eximus
  • Archwing Eximus are explicitly called out to not be receiving overguard.

If eximus were intended to be added to railjack:

• Why do none of the proxima enemies have eximus versions even now? You can check the codex entries on the wiki to confirm the lack of eximus.
• Why is any mention of eximus being added to railjack missing from the patchnotes especially from the eximus reborn section that calls out archwing specifically?
• Why do only the corrupted copy pasted from ground missions that spawn in during fissures have eximus units in railjack?

The Occams razor hypothesis would be that eximus are not supposed to be in railjack and the corrupted spawns from fissures was an oversight copied from ground missions.

The devs took out the crew taking damage from void fissure explosions because it was killing them without the AI being able to do anything about it. I don't see why eximus abilities are any different as they also kill the crew without the AI being able to do anything about it.

The vigilante and gladiator set changes were a completely different kind of issue. It was an exploit in the way set mod bonus' appear to be handled globally rather than tied to individual weapons. The exploit was in our and favour and once stat sticking your sentinel became the defacto best option for modding your sentinel the exploit was patched out just like every other exploit that gained too much popularity or notoriety. Eximus spawning in railjack are neither an exploit we can take advantage of nor is it in our favour.

[L3512]

4 hours ago, Drasiel said:

Okay, let's use an analog to explain this better: Someone has created a pit in the middle of your room and filled it with spikes, the pit is the problem. Falling into the pit will kill you, that is the consequence of the pit. You walk around the pit and don't fall into it, you have now avoided the consequences. Walking around the pit does not remove the pit nor cover it with anything, the problem still exists even though you have experienced no consequences.

Ah but the core contention here is more like you rent a room and the death-pit suddenly appears when you are out. Now we discuss if the landlord installed the pit as an intended feature or some contractors got the wrong building and installed a death-pit where there shouldn't be one.

 

4 hours ago, Drasiel said:

If eximus were intended to be added to railjack:

• Why do none of the proxima enemies have eximus versions even now? You can check the codex entries on the wiki to confirm the lack of eximus.
• Why is any mention of eximus being added to railjack missing from the patchnotes especially from the eximus reborn section that calls out archwing specifically?
• Why do only the corrupted copy pasted from ground missions that spawn in during fissures have eximus units in railjack?

• DE haven't done the work to make eximus versions of new units, the codex entries on the wiki also list no Narmer eximus and I'm unsure if they exist ingame.
• Archwing being called out for eximus lacking overguard is inline with SP archwing enemies only being 50 levels higher instead of 100 IMO. Archwing is pretty small in scope and DE wanted to maintain what balance there is.
• Because as point one, DE hasn't made RJ eximus versions and the fissures are copied from normal missions and have normal unit spawns.
•  

5 hours ago, Drasiel said:

The vigilante and gladiator set changes were a completely different kind of issue. It was an exploit in the way set mod bonus' appear to be handled globally rather than tied to individual weapons. The exploit was in our and favour and once stat sticking your sentinel became the defacto best option for modding your sentinel the exploit was patched out just like every other exploit that gained too much popularity or notoriety. Eximus spawning in railjack are neither an exploit we can take advantage of nor is it in our favour.

Looks like you need to brush up on your set mods, the only reason that I brought it up is because you can still use a Vigilante statstick sentinel, Gladiator was nerfed because DE wanted to nerf melee. The set mod was out for five years and had multiple fixes before it was suddenly deemed unintended, Vigilante did something very similar and got ignored.

[Mazifet]

It's been almost 2 years since the railjack rework?

sheesh i feel old

[Drasiel]

On 2023-01-25 at 7:13 PM, L3512 said:

Ah but the core contention here is more like you rent a room and the death-pit suddenly appears when you are out. Now we discuss if the landlord installed the pit as an intended feature or some contractors got the wrong building and installed a death-pit where there shouldn't be one.

 

• DE haven't done the work to make eximus versions of new units, the codex entries on the wiki also list no Narmer eximus and I'm unsure if they exist ingame.
• Archwing being called out for eximus lacking overguard is inline with SP archwing enemies only being 50 levels higher instead of 100 IMO. Archwing is pretty small in scope and DE wanted to maintain what balance there is.
• Because as point one, DE hasn't made RJ eximus versions and the fissures are copied from normal missions and have normal unit spawns.

You're mixing up the pit and it's consequences:

The "Pit" or rather the problem is that NPC AI cannot respond to AOE, that's not in question at all, that's been a fact since 2014 when Scorching Osprey (now called sapping) were added to the game and we started having massive issues with kubrows and rescue targets. It has never been addressed and more and more enemy AOE as been added to the game which contributes to other long standing issue like pet survivability.

The consequences of that "Pit/problem" are falling into the pit and dying. Falling into the pit and dying is The eximus appearing in Railjack. I doubt anyone even noticed the eximus from the corrupted in Railjack until eximus reborn when the eximus almost all acquired AOE abilities because the only eximus that could kill your crew before that was the toxin eximus and only if the crew didn't kill it before it closed the distance which was very rare.

DE has done the work to create new eximus units for the Narmer faction but the codex in game is missing the eximus so they are not on the wiki either. The Narmer eximus were added with the Archon Hunt missions. There's non eximus enemies still missing from narmer faction as well. Considering archon hunts were only added 4 months ago their information missing from the codex isn't abnormal. If it's missing after 4 years that would be unusual. From my experience the Railjack Entries are up to date minus a few bugs like how one of the roller sentry turrets in the codex doesn't actually spawn in the game. I have not encountered Proxima faction eximus, nor are there blank entries in the codex for them, nor are there other missing units to the degree of the newest narmer faction.

I mentioned DE calling out eximus for archwing because archwing like railjack has different scaling. Level for Level Railjack enemies hit harder and are more durable than their counterparts, archwing is the opposite with weaker enemies to match the weaker mods available there. It's weird to specifically call out changes to archwing eximus but not to mention railjack at all if the eximus existing there is intentional and not an oversight.

Spoiler

Proof of Narmer Eximus

Proof of Full codex scan

Eximus missing from Narmer codex

Now, if eximus are intended to be in railjack, why have none of the Proxima units been given eximus? Narmer as a faction came out a little over a year ago (Dec 15 2021 New War) Grineer Proxima was added over 4 years ago, why would Narmer get eximus before them if Railjack is supposed to have eximus?

On 2023-01-25 at 7:13 PM, L3512 said:

Looks like you need to brush up on your set mods, the only reason that I brought it up is because you can still use a Vigilante statstick sentinel, Gladiator was nerfed because DE wanted to nerf melee. The set mod was out for five years and had multiple fixes before it was suddenly deemed unintended, Vigilante did something very similar and got ignored.

I'm flattered that you expect me to remember the interactions, statistics, and changes done to over ~985 (as of 2019) mods. I Know that Gladiator and a large slew of other mods were changed to prevent statsticking, since you brought up the vigilante set in the same sentence I assumed it was also changed, not excluded from said change. If you don't statstick there's not much reason to hold onto that information because it's just not important to you. So my bad on that but rather than assuming everyone will know what you are talking about maybe add a few more descriptive words to help other players? Warframe is a big game with lots of changes, no one will be able to remember them all without an eidetic memory.

Here's the list of the other mods changed at the same time as the gladiator set in case you or anyone else are curious. I'm honestly surprised vigilante was overlooked or not considered.

Spoiler

update 30.5

the following Mods will be incompatible with the upcoming three Hound weapons and retroactively will no longer work with the Deconstructor and Deconstructor Prime:

    Amalgam Organ Shatter
    Corrupt Charge
    Enduring Strike
    Body Count
    Blood Rush
    Dispatch Overdrive
    Drifting Contact
    Energy Channel
    Finishing Touch
    Focus Energy
    Focused Defense
    Guardian Derision
    Killing Blow
    Life Strike
    Maiming Strike
    Parry
    Quickening
    Reflex Coil
    Relentless Combination
    Seismic Wave
    True Punishment
    Weeping Wounds
    Gladiator Might
    Gladiator Rush
    Gladiator Vice
    Carnis Mandible
    Jugulus Barbs
    Saxum Thorax
    Motus Impact
    Proton Snap
    Tek Gravity
    Strain Infection

 

[L3512]

4 hours ago, Drasiel said:

You're mixing up the pit and it's consequences:

The "Pit" or rather the problem is that NPC AI cannot respond to AOE, that's not in question at all, that's been a fact since 2014 when Scorching Osprey (now called sapping) were added to the game and we started having massive issues with kubrows and rescue targets. It has never been addressed and more and more enemy AOE as been added to the game which contributes to other long standing issue like pet survivability.

The consequences of that "Pit/problem" are falling into the pit and dying. Falling into the pit and dying is The eximus appearing in Railjack. I doubt anyone even noticed the eximus from the corrupted in Railjack until eximus reborn when the eximus almost all acquired AOE abilities because the only eximus that could kill your crew before that was the toxin eximus and only if the crew didn't kill it before it closed the distance which was very rare.

DE has done the work to create new eximus units for the Narmer faction but the codex in game is missing the eximus so they are not on the wiki either. The Narmer eximus were added with the Archon Hunt missions. There's non eximus enemies still missing from narmer faction as well. Considering archon hunts were only added 4 months ago their information missing from the codex isn't abnormal. If it's missing after 4 years that would be unusual. From my experience the Railjack Entries are up to date minus a few bugs like how one of the roller sentry turrets in the codex doesn't actually spawn in the game. I have not encountered Proxima faction eximus, nor are there blank entries in the codex for them, nor are there other missing units to the degree of the newest narmer faction.

I mentioned DE calling out eximus for archwing because archwing like railjack has different scaling. Level for Level Railjack enemies hit harder and are more durable than their counterparts, archwing is the opposite with weaker enemies to match the weaker mods available there. It's weird to specifically call out changes to archwing eximus but not to mention railjack at all if the eximus existing there is intentional and not an oversight.

When RJ first came out enemy stats still scaled on an exponential curve (changed in 27.2), they also had beefed up base stats and spawned at higher levels so I would concede that in this system DE probably thought eximus would be too tanky and hence the lack of RJ eximii units.

As for Narmer eximus units, seemingly I paid little attention to Archon hunts as I didn't even remember the eximus in them till you mentioned it.

 

4 hours ago, Drasiel said:

I'm flattered that you expect me to remember the interactions, statistics, and changes done to over ~985 (as of 2019) mods. I Know that Gladiator and a large slew of other mods were changed to prevent statsticking, since you brought up the vigilante set in the same sentence I assumed it was also changed, not excluded from said change. If you don't statstick there's not much reason to hold onto that information because it's just not important to you. So my bad on that but rather than assuming everyone will know what you are talking about maybe add a few more descriptive words to help other players? Warframe is a big game with lots of changes, no one will be able to remember them all without an eidetic memory.

Here's the list of the other mods changed at the same time as the gladiator set in case you or anyone else are curious. I'm honestly surprised vigilante was overlooked or not considered.

Gladiator and Vigilante set mods are a good example of knee jerk band-aid fixes that make WF what it is, I'm sort of surprised that people forget or don't know about it.

As for the complete list, no I am not curious because I know that the only mods on the list that got nerfed and were used for statsticking was the Gladiator set. You mention a large slew of mods but all the other mods were changed because they did not function with companion weapons, this is from memory so feel free to look it up or read the complete patchnotes if you wish.

As for the Vigilante set, many people pointed out the hypocrisy at the time and DE forged on in silence, happy to ignore it until they randomly deem it an unintended feature at some point in the future.

[Drasiel]

On 2023-01-28 at 1:26 AM, L3512 said:

When RJ first came out enemy stats still scaled on an exponential curve (changed in 27.2), they also had beefed up base stats and spawned at higher levels so I would concede that in this system DE probably thought eximus would be too tanky and hence the lack of RJ eximii units.

As for Narmer eximus units, seemingly I paid little attention to Archon hunts as I didn't even remember the eximus in them till you mentioned it.

Gladiator and Vigilante set mods are a good example of knee jerk band-aid fixes that make WF what it is, I'm sort of surprised that people forget or don't know about it.

As for the complete list, no I am not curious because I know that the only mods on the list that got nerfed and were used for statsticking was the Gladiator set. You mention a large slew of mods but all the other mods were changed because they did not function with companion weapons, this is from memory so feel free to look it up or read the complete patchnotes if you wish.

As for the Vigilante set, many people pointed out the hypocrisy at the time and DE forged on in silence, happy to ignore it until they randomly deem it an unintended feature at some point in the future.

It's not surprising at all that people forget or don't know about it. I've been playing warframe for 10 years, and I remember a lot of stuff but remembering a decade of changes most of which don't impact how I play would be incredibly impressive but unlikely. If you weren't stat sticking why would you retain the information about what stat sticks were removed or allowed to remain.

Did you miss the hyperlink I included to those exact full patch notes? Here's the full info on the mod changes before the affected mods are listed

Quote

The Sisters of Parvos update will bring three new Modular Hound Companions, each with a unique Melee weapon. While reviewing these Companion Weapons, we noticed the Helios-old problem that there’s a lot of Melee Mods that you can equip, but don’t really function on companion Melee. There’s also some ‘invisible gear hopping’ where if you put Mods on your Deconstructor (or Prime), they carry over to your Melee which is a many-year-old oversight we’ve lived with, but are approaching changes more thoroughly with this Update and as a result we’re patching up this behaviour. 

These are mostly Mods that deal with combos or heavy attacks, since Companions do not have these features as well as other certain outliers. As a result the following Mods will be incompatible with the upcoming three Hound weapons and retroactively will no longer work with the Deconstructor and Deconstructor Prime:

Okay so here's the thing, every mod on that list of removed mods? They were melee mods. Every single one either used a mechanic that didn't exist for the companion, could be used to stat stick, or granted additional set bonus from having 2 of the exact same mods equipped (one sentinel melee weapon and one warframe melee weapon although I think that interaction was actually patched out earlier). The reason they were changing specifically the melee mods is because hounds were coming out who all equipped a "melee" type weapon. So this exploit would go from 1 specific sentinel and 1 specific weapon to 4 different companions with 4 different weapons. The vigilante set is is a primary mod so it wasn't included because that was beyond the scope of the fix.

Is that kind of dumb because it will eventually cause the same issue and require the same kind of fix? Probably, but if you follow the logic of both the intent and the scope of the change it does make sense why you wouldn't include a non melee mod at this point. The Vigilante set bonus of 30% (at most) chance to enhance a crit is also a lot less powerful than the guardian set or other double dipping from some of those other listed mods.

[L3512]

3 hours ago, Drasiel said:

While reviewing these Companion Weapons, we noticed the Helios-old problem that there’s a lot of Melee Mods that you can equip, but don’t really function on companion Melee. There’s also some ‘invisible gear hopping’ where if you put Mods on your Deconstructor (or Prime), they carry over to your Melee which is a many-year-old oversight we’ve lived with, but are approaching changes more thoroughly with this Update and as a result we’re patching up this behaviour. 

These are mostly Mods that deal with combos or heavy attacks, since Companions do not have these features as well as other certain outliers. As a result the following Mods will be incompatible with the upcoming three Hound weapons and retroactively will no longer work with the Deconstructor and Deconstructor Prime:

Red is the explanation as to why most mods were changed, as I said before it was not due to statsticking.

Green is the lies of DE, lived with? BS, they patched Gladiator set multiple time over past years and never fixed it. By that standard, invisible gear hopping is both acceptable and not acceptable at the same time and I don't buy you scope of patch argument either. 

 

3 hours ago, Drasiel said:

or granted additional set bonus from having 2 of the exact same mods equipped (one sentinel melee weapon and one warframe melee weapon although I think that interaction was actually patched out earlier).

Set mod double dipping was patched more than two years before the change in question.

 

3 hours ago, Drasiel said:

The reason they were changing specifically the melee mods is because hounds were coming out who all equipped a "melee" type weapon. So this exploit would go from 1 specific sentinel and 1 specific weapon to 4 different companions with 4 different weapons.

Hounds were dead on arrival and the use of Helios is now only scanning, what a great change. Offering a substantial melee buff allowed Helios to compete with Smeeta and Panzer as a companion choice but instead it gets thrown in the trash bin like the other sentinels, hounds and MOAs.

[Drasiel]

1 hour ago, L3512 said:

Red is the explanation as to why most mods were changed, as I said before it was not due to statsticking.

Green is the lies of DE, lived with? BS, they patched Gladiator set multiple time over past years and never fixed it. By that standard, invisible gear hopping is both acceptable and not acceptable at the same time and I don't buy you scope of patch argument either. 

 

Set mod double dipping was patched more than two years before the change in question.

Why are you quoting back to me information I literally just typed to you, I understand the meaning of the words I wrote my dude. You can certainly claim and think those are lies but from my experience "bugs" and "unintended mechanics" that stick around for years, even with other related bug fixes going in are not proof positive that the mechanic in question is going to exist forever as is or of some diabolical plot to screw over players. The only bugs as mechanics that live on are the ones that get removed and brought back as intended and under control mechanics.

I've been here for a lot of these instances and that mod change isn't any different from so many that came before.

• Coptering was around for 2 years before they removed the physics bug that allowed it and introduced bullet jump. There were many bug fixes for issues with coptering that improved it but those fixes didn't remove it before it was patched out forever.
• Self damage nuking enemies through link abilities existed for 5 years before it was patched out for Trinity, Nidus, and Nekros yet self damage continued to provide a benefit for Chroma for a further 2 years after that until self damage in its entirety was changed to self stagger.
• Back in the long long ago the first truly widespread abusive farming combination that resulted in "Vivergate" led to nerfs for mag and excalibur, changes to Defense Map 3 (which was the same map used on viver, sechura, and Xini Defense and only exists now as a modified interception map), and the introduction of the despawning mechanism for loot drops. That mechanism was not applied to all "special" future loot drops such as Riven slivers, vitus essense, or steel essence and resulted in a new abusive loot behaviour revolving around smeeta buffs, sewer camping, and never picking up your items until the buff popped.

Those are the big three that are easy to remember but my point here is you are assigning intentional malice when time and time again DE are shown to just miss things, leave things in for years to see how abused they get or  how the mechanic shakes out in widespread use, or forget to apply past lessons learned to something new because the situation is just different enough they didn't expect the consequences to be nearly the same.

1 hour ago, L3512 said:

Hounds were dead on arrival and the use of Helios is now only scanning, what a great change. Offering a substantial melee buff allowed Helios to compete with Smeeta and Panzer as a companion choice but instead it gets thrown in the trash bin like the other sentinels, hounds and MOAs.

All companions are dead on arrival except immortal ones and el cato boostero. Making a pet that randomly acts the same as a plat only booster is entirely it's own kettle of fish but pets as whole have suffered massively from survival issues, AI issues (one of which is the same AI issue that is currently a problem in Railjack for crew members, oh hey would you look at that! we've gone full circle back to the topic), and pathing issues. Combined all of that with increased enemy density, higher level caps, a plethora of AOE attack additions, and steel path existing and Pets that were struggling more than 5 years ago when these issues were gaining prominence are now facing a death knell. Viable pet choices are reduced from 33 options to only 5, whether something can stat stick or not doesn't affect it's usefullness if your stat stick dies near the start of the mission or you have to revive it constantly.

 

[L3512]

7 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

Those are the big three that are easy to remember but my point here is you are assigning intentional malice

Not Malice no, dishonesty.

DE could have said strait up that Gladiator set was up for the chop because they thought it was too powerful but they were fine with how the Vigilante set worked, and I would have been perfectly happy with that.

Instead they choose to make set mod statsticking sound like an unintended interaction despite it being around for years and getting multiple patches, oh and Vigilante statsticking is still totally fine.

 

7 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

(one of which is the same AI issue that is currently a problem in Railjack for crew members, oh hey would you look at that! we've gone full circle back to the topic)

I was starting to wonder where this conversation was going with set mods and came to the realisation that you want the last word and so we will be here a while.

[Drasiel]

2 hours ago, L3512 said:

Not Malice no, dishonesty.

DE could have said strait up that Gladiator set was up for the chop because they thought it was too powerful but they were fine with how the Vigilante set worked, and I would have been perfectly happy with that.

Instead they choose to make set mod statsticking sound like an unintended interaction despite it being around for years and getting multiple patches, oh and Vigilante statsticking is still totally fine.

 

I was starting to wonder where this conversation was going with set mods and came to the realisation that you want the last word and so we will be here a while.

Link nuking via Self damage was an unintended interaction that lasted for 5 years. Duration doesn't seem applicable to whether emergent game play is eventually patched out or embraced and made it's own mechanic.

Isn't it somewhat obvious that interaction was unintended though? You've got a mod that increases crit chance by combo count, You have combo count, and your sentinel does not have combo count. You would expect that your sentinel being unable to gain combo count would mean that a mod equipped on their weapon would forever be set to 0% bonus but it is not because of some code shenanigans we aren't privy to. Instead it takes the combo count value from your melee or exalted and uses that, not to grant the sentinel higher crit chance, but you higher crit chance and to top if all off you do not even have to equip a copy of that mod set on the weapon that is gaining the combo to benefit from it.

The conversations just going where ever it's topic flows towards. You brought up set mods as an example of the mysterious or dishonest nature of DE and how due to that behaviour we can't assume accidental interactions and weird additions aren't intended, so we're talking about set mods interactions now. From where I'm sitting the logic behind the melee mod changes are logical, with vigilante set mods either being an oversight (like I consider the eximus in railjack to be) or outside the scope of changes focused on melee mods only. I would expect that other stat stick interactions like the vigilante mods will eventually end up on the chopping block too. Unfortunately it taking several years longer for that to happen wouldn't be strange either. I do want to mention that I don't actually like how long it takes DE to change a lot of this stuff and how inconsistently the results end up for us as players. Ripping off the bandaid earlier would probably be healthier for both DE's mental health and the moral of the community.

I don't really care about having the last word but I'm going to keep responding as long as I have a response to make, generally that's how conversations go unless there is some time pressure or one of the parties leaves. I will not deny feeling pleased as punch that I was able to work in a reference to the failure of NPC AI to deal with AOE.

[L3512]

7 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

Isn't it somewhat obvious that interaction was unintended though? You've got a mod that increases crit chance by combo count, You have combo count, and your sentinel does not have combo count. You would expect that your sentinel being unable to gain combo count would mean that a mod equipped on their weapon would forever be set to 0% bonus but it is not because of some code shenanigans we aren't privy to. Instead it takes the combo count value from your melee or exalted and uses that, not to grant the sentinel higher crit chance, but you higher crit chance and to top if all off you do not even have to equip a copy of that mod set on the weapon that is gaining the combo to benefit from it.

Do you play Baruuk? Exulted and pseudo-exulted behave in a similar manner for statsticking, Baruuk has a unique issue.

So no I don't consider this idea as obviously unintended as DE has had the opportunity to change it and yet only Gladiator set on companion weapons was touched.

 

8 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

The conversations just going where ever it's topic flows towards. You brought up set mods as an example of the mysterious or dishonest nature of DE and how due to that behaviour we can't assume accidental interactions and weird additions aren't intended, so we're talking about set mods interactions now. From where I'm sitting the logic behind the melee mod changes are logical, with vigilante set mods either being an oversight (like I consider the eximus in railjack to be) or outside the scope of changes focused on melee mods only. I would expect that other stat stick interactions like the vigilante mods will eventually end up on the chopping block too. Unfortunately it taking several years longer for that to happen wouldn't be strange either. I do want to mention that I don't actually like how long it takes DE to change a lot of this stuff and how inconsistently the results end up for us as players. Ripping off the bandaid earlier would probably be healthier for both DE's mental health and the moral of the community.

Yes there are issues that I would like DE to address for consistency, leaving things as they are for years certainly doesn't make anything easier.

 

8 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

I don't really care about having the last word but I'm going to keep responding as long as I have a response to make, generally that's how conversations go unless there is some time pressure or one of the parties leaves. I will not deny feeling pleased as punch that I was able to work in a reference to the failure of NPC AI to deal with AOE.

Fine with me, you are sticking to your points and backing up your arguments with facts and logic, something the forums sometimes lack.

[Drasiel]

On 2023-01-30 at 1:49 AM, L3512 said:

Do you play Baruuk? Exulted and pseudo-exulted behave in a similar manner for statsticking, Baruuk has a unique issue.

So no I don't consider this idea as obviously unintended as DE has had the opportunity to change it and yet only Gladiator set on companion weapons was touched.

 

Yes there are issues that I would like DE to address for consistency, leaving things as they are for years certainly doesn't make anything easier.

 

Fine with me, you are sticking to your points and backing up your arguments with facts and logic, something the forums sometimes lack.

I am aware of, although not utilizing, what you can do with set mods and baruuk. Although that case is kind of funny because people *only* talk about baruuk. The practice can be applied to every melee exalted but baruuk is the most effective because of desert winds stats. The only issue I know that is unique to baruuk is losing his crit chance bonus based on combo and being unable to regain it (even when at appropriate combo levels) unless you restart the mission.

Gladiator mods on companions were probably the only one touched because those were the ones that were the current problem. I think there's 2 reasonable reasons exalteds utilizing similar behaviours weren't hit at the same time but they only make sense when both are considered together.

1. I think DE overlooked it, not intentionally or maliciously but because it wasn't even on their radar.
2. They probably overlooked it because usage data didn't show a problem until after the deconstructor changes. The deconstructor stat stick was FAR superior, as far as stat sticks go, there is zero reason to use a weaker and more cumbersome method as long as that exists. I'm sure there were a handful of people using baruuk that way before the deconstructor changes but I bet the numbers increased dramatically afterwards and haven't stopped rising as it permeates the forums and build guides.

Chasing exploits can be a pain. Sometimes the next "problem" is easy to see, we saw this with the Wukong changes where they didn't just change Wukong's 1, they changed Excal Umbra, Equinox Duality Augment, and all of the Tenno warframe gear specters (and for some strange reason clem specters broke). Realizing that you could pull the same kind of trick with exalteds would requires you to understand that the set bonus' appear to be a global stat for some reason, how it interacts with combo counters explicitly, what you need to do to manipulate that interaction, and the actual mods to make it happen. The community due to our size has a lot better chance of brute forcing the next location that kind of interaction might be exploitable, and then we tend to try to hide it to the best of our abilities until content creators start spreading the word.

I don't like pulling the pseudo exalteds into the discussion about set mod exploits mostly because they are set up intentionally to be stat sticks and any fallout resulting from that is justly earned for what I think was an incredibly stupid decision after several examples of why stat sticks in other areas of the game were bad decisions and removed (archwing used to stat stick off your frame). I am firmly in the camp that stat sticks are a mechanic that should be removed with a balance pass on true exalteds to bring the oldest up to modern performance metrics.

About the only way to get any exploits or bugs fixed is to manage to get enough attention or usage of it to trip DE's metrics so they notice what's going on, the game has too many moving parts to stay on top of everything. It's why I started this thread. If DE turns around and goes "Yes we want eximus in railjack" that's how it goes but if it was an accident? The only way to get it fixed, or at the very least find out, is to make enough noise, and very few people seem to have noticed that this happened. Hell, I didn't even notice it had happened until the eximus update a year after fissures were added to railjack because the eximus couldn't kill the crew before the AOE was added to them.

[L3512]

11 hours ago, Drasiel said:

what you can do with set mods and baruuk. Although that case is kind of funny because people *only* talk about baruuk. The practice can be applied to every melee exalted but baruuk is the most effective because of desert winds stats. The only issue I know that is unique to baruuk is losing his crit chance bonus based on combo and being unable to regain it (even when at appropriate combo levels) unless you restart the mission.

Ah so the reason I mention Baruuk in particular is that desert has a hard time building combo because only the fists physically striking an enemy will do it. As you point out if desert wind gains and than loses combo you will break your statsticking link. One way to deal with this is to use Melee Guidance as an Aura so desert wind has a combo of -1 second and so desert wind can never gain it's own combo.

Point is, we have theoretical unintended set mod hopping breaking that is then fixed with a probably unintended use of an aura, all because desert wind has a unique bug and trouble building combo.

11 hours ago, Drasiel said:

I think DE overlooked it, not intentionally or maliciously but because it wasn't even on their radar.

Agreed.

 

11 hours ago, Drasiel said:

I don't like pulling the pseudo exalteds into the discussion about set mod exploits mostly because they are set up intentionally to be stat sticks and any fallout resulting from that is justly earned for what I think was an incredibly stupid decision after several examples of why stat sticks in other areas of the game were bad decisions and removed (archwing used to stat stick off your frame). I am firmly in the camp that stat sticks are a mechanic that should be removed with a balance pass on true exalteds to bring the oldest up to modern performance metrics.

I personally like statsticks on one hand for the power they offer but they are undoubtedly problematic, even archwings still pulls some mods, passives and arcanes from your frame and it's just another layer of obfuscation.

 

11 hours ago, Drasiel said:

About the only way to get any exploits or bugs fixed is to manage to get enough attention or usage of it to trip DE's metrics so they notice what's going on, the game has too many moving parts to stay on top of everything. It's why I started this thread. If DE turns around and goes "Yes we want eximus in railjack" that's how it goes but if it was an accident? The only way to get it fixed, or at the very least find out, is to make enough noise, and very few people seem to have noticed that this happened. Hell, I didn't even notice it had happened until the eximus update a year after fissures were added to railjack because the eximus couldn't kill the crew before the AOE was added to them.

Agreed, I personally haven't experienced this issue and still want to see how it goes but voidstorms are just not lining up with Grineer nodes when I am playing, like I said before though I can fully imagine the resultant AI eximus clash.