Why Isn’t Merulina Moddable?

[(XBOX)KikoTheKat]

Sorry if this has been answered or asked before, still a fairly newer player but how come we can’t mod Merulina?

[Birdframe_Prime]

As far as we know, it's specifically because of what the K-drive mods actually do.

While a fully modded K-Drive can be faster than Merulina, that's not really a thing unless you're spending dedicated time in K-Drive races, which are such niche content that... why? Merulina's base functions are better than all but a fully modded K-drive, and in terms of the actual rest of the game of Warframe, those base functions are better for the game.

K-drive mods are all about open-world speed and mobility, multiplying your Trick score (and getting Energy from it), and increasing the ease-of-use of Trick objects.

While there are some damage/damage mitigation mods, they're strictly low level, and Merulina already does better damage mitigation than those.

In a normal mission players already complain about Merulina being difficult to use, through basically all of the things that the mobility mods would do; too fast, jump too high, not able to go through doors, and no objects that you can really Trick on.

That leaves there to be only the few Utility, Damage and Damage Mitigation mods that you would even want to use on Merulina. The damage mods are effectively useless past around level 15, so that rules them out for anyone that's actually playing Yareli on anything with semi-decent rewards. As stated, the Damage Mitigation mods are out-classed by Merulina already having Damage Mitigation from both Invulnerability phases and direct damage redirection. So the only Utility mod that's actually in any way useful would be the mod that grants you Energy for Tricks every 100 Points.

At that point, all you need to do is buff Merulina with that function, and you don't have to mod it.

I know it seems like 'It's a K-drive, so it should be modded as one', but... it just doesn't need that. Slap on the Augment that heals it up while you damage enemies affected by her 1, and you have a fairly amazing tanky frame that can self-buff and CC reliably. Stick a Helminth Ability over her 3 so that you can jump off and... why not strip Armour with Terrify or Tharros Strike, before jumping back on (both the off and on trigger Invulnerability windows to help with this) and you can scale your Secondary weapon almost infinitely.

[PsiWarp]

As I recall, the community complaint of Sevagoth's extensive Forma hunger for his Shadow and its Shadow Claws, just before Yareli's turn, might have been a factor for Merulina being unmoddable. She's unfortunately already super bug-ridden without modding shenanigans.

[Pakaku]

I imagine it was like Razorwing, it's as simple as a form change, not intended to be anything more than that

[Rathalio]

It's mostly because you don't want to mod it for extra speed and jump hight which outside of open world is making it terrible to control. And many other mods are mostly here for scoring which is useless and stuff like grinding on edges that Merulina do not really benefit from anyways. 80% of the K-drive mods would just not work anyways.

[Circle_of_Psi]

2 hours ago, PsiWarp said:

She's unfortunately already super bug-ridden without modding shenanigans.

To this day, it still makes me laugh how the "Most Requested Warframe" from that side of the player base has a Frame that can barely function correctly.

Wonder if this will be the DE version of Telesto

[xMarvin732]

I always argue it with, that you cant be kicked off Merulina while you can ragdoll on the normal k-drives

[quxier]

On 2023-09-16 at 10:04 AM, Birdframe_Prime said:

I know it seems like 'It's a K-drive, so it should be modded as one', but... it just doesn't need that. Slap on the Augment that heals it up while you damage enemies affected by her 1, and you have a fairly amazing tanky frame that can self-buff and CC reliably. Stick a Helminth Ability over her 3 so that you can jump off and... why not strip Armour with Terrify or Tharros Strike, before jumping back on (both the off and on trigger Invulnerability windows to help with this) and you can scale your Secondary weapon almost infinitely.

Well, you cannot use helminth during Merulina.

On 2023-09-16 at 10:04 AM, Birdframe_Prime said:

While there are some damage/damage mitigation mods, they're strictly low level, and Merulina already does better damage mitigation than those.

One has 5 second immortality that would be good.

Otherwise, just buff and add mods.

[Birdframe_Prime]

15 hours ago, quxier said:

Well, you cannot use helminth during Merulina.

No, you can't, well... aside from Duration or Drain ones that you trigger before activating the case. That's why I say in the literal next few words in that sentence you highlighted: 'so you can jump off and... why not strip Armour with Terrify or Tharros Strike, before jumping back on (both the off and on trigger Invulnerability windows to help with this)'

15 hours ago, quxier said:

One has 5 second immortality that would be good.

So... two mods, out of the entire list of twenty plus.

Just buff the ability to do those things. Why make it necessary to mod it?

[quxier]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

16 hours ago, quxier said:

Well, you cannot use helminth during Merulina.

No, you can't, well... aside from Duration or Drain ones that you trigger before activating the case. That's why I say in the literal next few words in that sentence you highlighted: 'so you can jump off and... why not strip Armour with Terrify or Tharros Strike, before jumping back on (both the off and on trigger Invulnerability windows to help with this)'

I've missed "jump off" part. Still, it's not great unless it's drain/duration that you can turn on before. Why bother with Merulina when you can e.g. buff your frame (e.g. mods) & use thanos strike many time? Pulverize works fine with Eximus - you armor strip all enemies, killing less bullet spongy one > turn off to kill eximus > and turn on (pulverize) to continue killing. It works fine. Merulina on other hand.... I don't see it work that well (with e.g. Thano strike).

That's my opinion on Helminth + Merulina - YMMV.

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

16 hours ago, quxier said:

One has 5 second immortality that would be good.

So... two mods, out of the entire list of twenty plus.

Just buff the ability to do those things. Why make it necessary to mod it?

this:

16 hours ago, quxier said:

Otherwise, just buff and add mods.

If you add mods for all actions (holding board, air trick, grind, slams etc) with few variants (2-3) then you will have lot of mods. That would be too much for base mod slots

Otherwise (without adding new mods) just buff frame and maybe add some frame's augment.

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 minute ago, quxier said:

If you add mods for all actions (holding board, air trick, grind, slams etc) with few variants (2-3) then you will have lot of mods.

But... WHY add more mods? Especially when those mods you're suggesting are to mod things that you don't do as Yareli 99.9% of the time.

You don't do K-drive things in regular missions. You do Warframe things in regular missions, even when you're on Merulina. There is literally no reason to add any more mods to K-drives because they are neither used enough on their own, nor is Merulina actually used as a K-Drive for the vast majority of play.

4 minutes ago, quxier said:

Why bother with Merulina when you can e.g. buff your frame (e.g. mods) & use thanos strike many time?

Tharros Strike was one of two example abilities in an example function to illustrate the use of Merulina's existing invulnerability function.

Why are you making this into an argument when it clearly isn't one?

[quxier]

24 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

33 minutes ago, quxier said:

If you add mods for all actions (holding board, air trick, grind, slams etc) with few variants (2-3) then you will have lot of mods.

But... WHY add more mods? Especially when those mods you're suggesting are to mod things that you don't do as Yareli 99.9% of the time.

You don't do K-drive things in regular missions. You do Warframe things in regular missions, even when you're on Merulina. There is literally no reason to add any more mods to K-drives because they are neither used enough on their own, nor is Merulina actually used as a K-Drive for the vast majority of play.

You don't do k-drive things in normal missions because:

- they do nothing to enemies

- clunky to use (e.g. slams imho)

I've not mentioned it in this topic but I talk a lot about "simple" way to make Merulina more fun via moding. They can add e.g. damaging path like Nezha/Firewalker when you grind. Add 2 mods that changes it. 1 make damage toxin. 2nd one make it fire. Putting 2 mods together would join it (creating, afair, gas). Do similar stuff (this do status, this do more damage, this do X etc) to other k-drive actions and you have more interesting & unique gameplay. It won't be perfect (e.g. give us short rolls & make slams like melee slams). However k drive actions would server some purpose in some part of the game.

 

[Hexerin]

Probably because Yareli is a completely unplayable broken mess of a frame, that DE refuses to fix.

[Birdframe_Prime]

20 hours ago, quxier said:

You don't do k-drive things in normal missions because:

- they do nothing to enemies

- clunky to use (e.g. slams imho)

And that won't change even with the mods you want to add.

There's no functions that K-Drives actually have that would stop it being a clunky movement function that does relatively nothing to enemies. Heck, some of the functions you've listed are whole abilities for other frames, and even then those abilities are often Helminth'd off for better ones.

[quxier]

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

And that won't change even with the mods you want to add.

There's no functions that K-Drives actually have that would stop it being a clunky movement function that does relatively nothing to enemies. Heck, some of the functions you've listed are whole abilities for other frames, and even then those abilities are often Helminth'd off for better ones.

First change slams from "tap > hold" to "look down and melee/slide". That will make it less clunky. Introduce rolls - that makes more precise movements that Merulina needs (she is too fast).

Secondly imagine situation like this, you get an enemy immune to CC (e.g. eximus). You slow it down with "hold the board" move. Then you apply viral with "trick". Meanwhile you can use your secondary with other elements than viral or cold.

[Birdframe_Prime]

22 hours ago, quxier said:

Secondly imagine situation like this, you get an enemy immune to CC (e.g. eximus). You slow it down with "hold the board" move. Then you apply viral with "trick". Meanwhile you can use your secondary with other elements than viral or cold.

So, what you want is Merulina, a solid and dependable damage mitigation and mobility cast, that has invincibility frames and can be augmented to sustain its Health, to be moddable in itself so that it can also be a CC and Status Application tool that would not only affect Eximus units, but also apply multiple other specific Statuses?

For no other cost, in fact, just the option to put mods on the thing?

This is what I'm struggling with here: The functions that existing K-drive mods have is one of three things; more of what Merulina already does; useless to what Merulina does; additional things that would be sensible buffs to the ability without needing to mod them on. But what you're suggesting is to add more mods that rely on movement functions that are only capable of being used if you turn off your guns, but would then buff Merulina itself into a full-on suite of functions that would require the frame to be entirely re-balanced in the way that Grendel was.

Again, the situation you're running into here is that to integrate these functions and make them reliable, you should just be advocating to buff Merulina in the way that you want it, and not add mods to it.

The mods you're wanting to add would... kind of be pointless. Where can you use regular K-drive? Three places. In the entire game. And they don't allow for the things that Yareli can do (casting or even just maintaining already-cast abilities), which means you would run across the exact same problem that the K-drives have now, which is that you're nerfing yourself just to use lesser functions.

The only use would be on Merulina, at which point you should just be reworking the ability to have these functions.

Absolutely nobody is saying that Titania's Razorwing needs Archwing mods, even though her Arch-Weapons have them. It's an ability and doesn't need them (especially as Titania doesn't gain any new abilities that would need the Archwing mods to affect them). The same is true of Merulina; you don't need the mods because it's an ability and is already affected by Warframe mods.

You want more passive functions on Merulina? Great. Buff Merulina. What's the actual point of adding Mods to Merulina instead of functionally buffing the ability?

[quxier]

9 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

On 2023-09-19 at 10:15 PM, quxier said:

Secondly imagine situation like this, you get an enemy immune to CC (e.g. eximus). You slow it down with "hold the board" move. Then you apply viral with "trick". Meanwhile you can use your secondary with other elements than viral or cold.

So, what you want is Merulina, a solid and dependable damage mitigation and mobility cast, that has invincibility frames and can be augmented to sustain its Health, to be moddable in itself so that it can also be a CC and Status Application tool that would not only affect Eximus units, but also apply multiple other specific Statuses?

 

Yeah, that's the gist of it. I don't want to go full detail on it but that's general idea.

9 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

For no other cost, in fact, just the option to put mods on the thing?

You have to do tricks so that's one cost. As for mere status/damage we have already "almost no cost" things like weapons, especially melee.

9 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

But what you're suggesting is to add more mods that rely on movement functions that are only capable of being used if you turn off your guns, but would then buff Merulina itself into a full-on suite of functions that would require the frame to be entirely re-balanced in the way that Grendel was.

Does it have to be fully rebalanced? When I put 2 type of guns: one viral and one corrosive, we don't talk about "balancing" anything. Sure, some tweaks would be necessary but not as big as something big as you said (unless I misunderstood you).

9 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Again, the situation you're running into here is that to integrate these functions and make them reliable, you should just be advocating to buff Merulina in the way that you want it, and not add mods to it.

The mods you're wanting to add would... kind of be pointless. Where can you use regular K-drive? Three places. In the entire game. And they don't allow for the things that Yareli can do (casting or even just maintaining already-cast abilities),

First I'm suggesting changes to Merulina & Yareli. If it propagates to K-drive then it's great.

And where I can use Merulina? In most places except places like water & air.

9 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

which means you would run across the exact same problem that the K-drives have now, which is that you're nerfing yourself just to use lesser functions.

In order for Merulina to be on par with Frame's combat it would require MASSIVE changes. What I'm suggesting is something usable yet not very hard to implement. Would it be very powerful? Probably not. Would Frame's combat allow more complex combat options? Sure. However those changes (that I'm proposing) would at least make some reason to consider Merulina. Now it's:

- you like K-drive movement or just "skate board feel", even it's small

- damage mitigation

With my changes you could at least use Merulina for something else, meaningful in combat.

9 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Absolutely nobody is saying that Titania's Razorwing needs Archwing mods, even though her Arch-Weapons have them. It's an ability and doesn't need them (especially as Titania doesn't gain any new abilities that would need the Archwing mods to affect them). The same is true of Merulina; you don't need the mods because it's an ability and is already affected by Warframe mods.

Haha. You took the least "bad" transformative ability to compare. Not many (I've not seen any) complain about Titania/Razorwing becase:

a) she is powerful

b) she isn't very restrictive - It takes your weapon, but give you 2 with moddable functionality; you can cast any (even from Helminth) ability; she can use rolls (for Rolling guard & other damage mitigation if you want it), she cannot jump but she can fly

Compare it to other (even before updates):

- Caliban Razor gyre: not modable, weak, cannot cast abilities except not very useful 2nd, cannot use parkour (only "jump to enemy")

- Valkyr/4th - can cast abilities (afair), strong, limit you to one melee, can use parkour (afair)

- Pre rework Grendel/Pulverize - cannot cast abilities, very energy hungry (cannot even regenerate energy properly & it's draining, very quick after some seconds), restricts your movement (no roll, bullet jump) - you can at least (wall) jump, ability is clunky to use (slow, get stuck at walls etc), requires augment to properly function, cannot use weapons

- Post rework Grendel/Pulverize - can cast at least his own abilities, not very energy hungry (you can sit draining 0 energy), it still restrics your movement but it's much less clunky to use (faster, more maneuverability), still cannot use weapons, you are now armor stripping

- Sevagoth/Shadow/Claw - strong, can use shadow abilities (some are not great), cannot use Helminth, restricts you to 1 melee

I would see complains about abilities such as Razor gyre or Pre-Pulverize. Other abilities are/were much less mentioned. Strong factor is important for some part of players. I don't see many complains about Sevagoth mainly because it's powerful enough.

Merulina is powerful. Sure you can get some damage mitigation but you can do similar with other functions that doesn't restricts you.

9 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

You want more passive functions on Merulina? Great. Buff Merulina. What's the actual point of adding Mods to Merulina instead of functionally buffing the ability?

Being able to modify yourself (frame, weapon, companion) in meaningful way (doesn't have to be powerful but it should should have some impact in combat) makes game more interesting. That's why I'm advocating for freedom of (use of) options (I hate STyanax' nerf to 4th, Xaku's 2nd not being able to get guns, during abilities you cannot cast other abilities (e.g. Razor gyre - Caliban etc), require overly complex actions (exodia contagion requires 2x/double jump instead of single jump).

Maybe some people likes to press "few keys to win" but I like my game to be more nuanced. I like to "talk" to enemies (I make action X - enemy do Y, I make action Z - enemy do G etc). Being able to mod something makes me "say" something different. Sure, you can add stuff to base Merulina but being able to mod her would make her much more interesting/complex/stuff.

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

13 hours ago, quxier said:

You have to do tricks so that's one cost.

That's not a cost. And no, you can't compare it to things like weapons, because those are doing what they're intended to do. I hold the staunch position that Merulina is an Ability and therefore it is governed by Ability balance.

If you're going to make an Ability that doesn't deal damage, suddenly do that, it's part of an Ability Rework, not just being able to slap mods onto a thing that wasn't moddable for the reason that it's an Ability that isn't supposed to do those things.

13 hours ago, quxier said:

Does it have to be fully rebalanced?

Yes. Because it's not a gun. Guns do one thing, Merulina does a completely different thing.

13 hours ago, quxier said:

And where I can use Merulina? In most places except places like water & air.

Then rework Merulina. Don't keep trying to make it more complex than that.

Also, Merulina's not just a damage mitigation and mobility function, it's the reason that Pulverise can now cast abilities and why Zephyr's Hover allows her to recast abilities while moving (and even reload while casting some that would usually prevent her doing that). It allows Yareli to cast abilities that normally prevent movement while moving, don't underestimate that.

13 hours ago, quxier said:

Haha. You took the least "bad" transformative ability to compare.

No, it's the only mode-switching frame to compare with.

Merulina has K-drive, which is a separate vehicle for every other frame, and Titania has Razorwing, which is a separate vehicle for every other frame. If we get a frame with a transformation that triggers a Necramech, then that frame would count too.

If you want to compare it to the others, let's list: Caliban's Razor Gyre is an animation-based ability, if isn't moddable. Grendel's Pulverise is an animation-based ability, it isn't moddable. Valkyr's 4 is an Ability Melee Weapon which has established rules for being a weapon, just like all of the other Ability Melee weapons. Sevagoth's Shadow is the closest one on the list to this as it's a complete separate 'frame', but this one can only use (guess what) Warframe and Weapon mods.

The pattern's absolutely clear.

You get an Ability, it's not separately moddable or it's only affected by Warframe and Weapon mods.

The only directly comparable frame has weapons they summon that are moddable, but the part that would be modded by Archwing mods? That isn't.

So why would Merulina be the exception to all of that established system? It's a Warframe Ability, and it's not a Weapon. It's not even a Companion like Venari. Why would it be affected by anything other than Warframe mods?

This whole thing is just a genuine waste of your time.

Just pitch a rework of Merulina.

The modding does nothing besides allow for free extra functions that the ability isn't designed to do.

[quxier]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

15 hours ago, quxier said:

You have to do tricks so that's one cost.

That's not a cost. And no, you can't compare it to things like weapons, because those are doing what they're intended to do. I hold the staunch position that Merulina is an Ability and therefore it is governed by Ability balance.

Ok, but what is cost and do "things" need it (how much). At this point cost is just random "buzz word" depending on situation.

 

Ability can have huge/big cost: 100 energy per cast, pre-rework Grendel/Pulverize, doing nothing, not even moving, would eat 1/2 of Primed flow energy in mere seconds (I don't remember details) So on and so forth. Without any energy restores/getter it's hard to use them.

On other hand you can for example spam 25ish energy abilities with Efficiency and some energy restores/getter. That's make such abilities into "near no cost" because you can get more energy that you are wasting.

 

Same for weapons (primary/secondary) - can be have huge or small cost. With my Carrier I rarely see changes after "ammo nerf update". Without Carrier and just doing stuff I sometimes get no ammo.

 

Melee has cost of animation time. Most can be shortened a lot.

 

Here, when you stuck with "ability so it has to have ability's cost" thing then you are just missing whole pool of cost methods.

 

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

15 hours ago, quxier said:

Does it have to be fully rebalanced?

Yes. Because it's not a gun. Guns do one thing, Merulina does a completely different thing.

I mean "fully" not that it doesn't need any balance. Does it need huge team testing any number? I don't think so. It just needs some base/small balance with e.g. "deal N% damage of Corrupted heavy gunner".

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

15 hours ago, quxier said:

And where I can use Merulina? In most places except places like water & air.

Then rework Merulina.

That's what I'm trying to do. I'm not sure why are you saying it because in the first sentence I said:

15 hours ago, quxier said:

First I'm suggesting changes to Merulina & Yareli. If it propagates to K-drive then it's great.

 

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

15 hours ago, quxier said:

Haha. You took the least "bad" transformative ability to compare.

No, it's the only mode-switching frame to compare with.

 

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

15 hours ago, quxier said:

Haha. You took the least "bad" transformative ability to compare.

No, it's the only mode-switching frame to compare with.

Merulina has K-drive, which is a separate vehicle for every other frame, and Titania has Razorwing, which is a separate vehicle for every other frame. If we get a frame with a transformation that triggers a Necramech, then that frame would count too.

If you want to compare it to the others, let's list: Caliban's Razor Gyre is an animation-based ability, if isn't moddable. Grendel's Pulverise is an animation-based ability, it isn't moddable. Valkyr's 4 is an Ability Melee Weapon which has established rules for being a weapon, just like all of the other Ability Melee weapons. Sevagoth's Shadow is the closest one on the list to this as it's a complete separate 'frame', but this one can only use (guess what) Warframe and Weapon mods.

The pattern's absolutely clear.

You are missing lots of what I've written. You are comparing abilities in vacuum. You won't understand from single variable (ability "type" like "mode switching" or "animation based") why people want something more from ability.

 

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

You get an Ability, it's not separately moddable or it's only affected by Warframe and Weapon mods.

The only directly comparable frame has weapons they summon that are moddable, but the part that would be modded by Archwing mods? That isn't.

So why would Merulina be the exception to all of that established system? It's a Warframe Ability, and it's not a Weapon. It's not even a Companion like Venari. Why would it be affected by anything other than Warframe mods?

Why not? What's so wrong with Merulina being modable? Not counting Devs time/money of course.

Mech has mech's mods - they could use frame's mods.

Companions has their own mods - yet they die, have bad abilities etc. It's waste of mod space. Why not them not being immortal with some downsides?

There are many stuffs that has mods that don't really need them. There is nothing wrong with making Merulina moddable while other abilities "are not moddable". With way of thinking like this we will create less interesting stuff in the future.

[Birdframe_Prime]

13 hours ago, quxier said:

That's what I'm trying to do.

No, but you're not. You're trying to put K-Drive mods on Merulina.

Rework the Ability, don't try to mod the Ability as a separate thing from the Ability.

DE made that mistake with Ability Weapons, and to this day the community still has the problem with DE not doing that properly (as in, you can't mod them like weapons with the full set of weapon mods). Instead of actually making these weapons just be powerful and have functions that let them scale situationally in the same way that regular weapons do. That's what they were before, and could be still, if DE hadn't copped out.

13 hours ago, quxier said:

You are missing lots of what I've written. You are comparing abilities in vacuum.

You're trying to negate my point about how the only other frame that does the same thing as Yareli does is somehow not the only other frame that does that.

Even then, I'm not ignoring what you wrote, I responded to each and pointed out why they aren't in the same category.

None of those other points you brought up are actually relevant to this, in fact they are almost exclusively in favour of my point. Take Pulverise as an exact example; you transform into the ball and... what? Do you mod the ball? No. You mod the frame and the frame's mods affect the ball. Take Razor Gyre then; you go into the spinny mode and do you mod the spinny mode? No. You mod the frame and the frame's mods affect the spinny mode.

The closest you got was Sevagoth, and yes you go into another full mode, but it's a full Warframe with Warframe style powers and takes Warframe mods. Because it's just a secondary Warframe that you switch to, not a mobility add-on.

None of these frames lets you actually bring in a mobility mode and mod that separately from the frame for the same logical reason that you can't individually mod each ability on the frame separately.

13 hours ago, quxier said:

Why not? What's so wrong with Merulina being modable? Not counting Devs time/money of course.

Because it's not a separate thing from the Frame.

You are basically putting a conditional buff to exclusively one frame's ability behind the grind for K-drive, and from the reaction of the Devs themselves at TennoLive, a vast portion of the player base haven't even put in the basic grind for getting Yareli from the K-drive faction because it involves doing K-drive related activities.

Then, when you've gone and done that grind, what? You now have a set of functions to put on Merulina that are either locked at being sub-par, or are powerful enough to warrant actually rebalancing what the Ability does in the first place. Either massively upping the Energy cost for those bonus functions, per cast, or by reducing the strength of the existing functions as a direct response.

It needlessly complicates and obfuscates something that could be far easier and more elegantly done by just changing the Ability.

No worrying about whether the player is going to add this mod, or that, or whether a specific set of Mods is going to make a combo with some Helminth or other Warframe's Ability to completely break a new game mode.

Just add a function to the Ability, test it, and implement it in the greater game.

What's so wrong with Merulina being moddable? What's right with it?

What's so wrong with just buffing Merulina and skipping all that ridiculous over-complication?

[Silligoose]

On 2023-09-16 at 8:28 AM, (XBOX)KikoTheKat said:

Sorry if this has been answered or asked before, still a fairly newer player but how come we can’t mod Merulina?

At that point DE didn't appear to be putting too much effort into content and tried to reuse assets often with little care for efficacy or impact on player perception. It was sad to see how hard they were trying to hype up Merulina while demonstrating how poor the mechanic worked in actual missions. Their "fixes" were low effort and the lack of modding capability was on par with that motif.

[quxier]

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

22 hours ago, quxier said:

That's what I'm trying to do.

No, but you're not. You're trying to put K-Drive mods on Merulina.

I'm trying to (mini) rework Merulina using mods. Just to be precise.

 

 

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

22 hours ago, quxier said:

You are missing lots of what I've written. You are comparing abilities in vacuum.

You're trying to negate my point about how the only other frame that does the same thing as Yareli does is somehow not the only other frame that does that.

Even then, I'm not ignoring what you wrote, I responded to each and pointed out why they aren't in the same category.

None of those other points you brought up are actually relevant to this, in fact they are almost exclusively in favour of my point. Take Pulverise as an exact example; you transform into the ball and... what? Do you mod the ball? No. You mod the frame and the frame's mods affect the ball. Take Razor Gyre then; you go into the spinny mode and do you mod the spinny mode? No. You mod the frame and the frame's mods affect the spinny mode.

The closest you got was Sevagoth, and yes you go into another full mode, but it's a full Warframe with Warframe style powers and takes Warframe mods. Because it's just a secondary Warframe that you switch to, not a mobility add-on.

None of these frames lets you actually bring in a mobility mode and mod that separately from the frame for the same logical reason that you can't individually mod each ability on the frame separately.

Saying "it's logical because few other items does the same" is bad argument. Even majority can be wrong. I'm not saying in this case (the abilities mentioned are not modable separately) is wrong or right. It's just arbitrary decision from dev.  What if abilities mentioned could be moded? You would say it's ok for another abilities to be moded because few other abilities are already moded? I BET NO.

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

22 hours ago, quxier said:

Why not? What's so wrong with Merulina being modable? Not counting Devs time/money of course.

Because it's not a separate thing from the Frame.

So just because you activate it (Merulina) from the frame (as ability) means it's wrong to have their own set of "mods"? So by that logic if we had some (weird) frame that has ability "turn into Mech" then that Mech SHOULN'T  be moded separately just because you activate it via ability. That's honestly weird way of thinking but it's subjective imho (there cannot be discussions about that matter).

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

You are basically putting a conditional buff to exclusively one frame's ability behind the grind for K-drive, and from the reaction of the Devs themselves at TennoLive, a vast portion of the player base haven't even put in the basic grind for getting Yareli from the K-drive faction because it involves doing K-drive related activities.

1) So what if I'm putting mods into "k-drive activities"? Most if not all mods can be traded.

2) If player doesn't like k-drive activities, including doing it with Yareli in ANY MISSIONS then Merulina's mods are not for them. There is no problem here.

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Then, when you've gone and done that grind, what? You now have a set of functions to put on Merulina that are either locked at being sub-par, or are powerful enough to warrant actually rebalancing what the Ability does in the first place. Either massively upping the Energy cost for those bonus functions, per cast, or by reducing the strength of the existing functions as a direct response.

Again, as I metnioned, there are other types of cost that Merulina would have. They don't have to heavily increase energy cost. Maybe "a little".

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

It needlessly complicates and obfuscates something that could be far easier and more elegantly done by just changing the Ability.

With current limitation of 8 (afair, not counting exilus & aura) mods you cannot do too much. It would be either very limited or complex/obfuscated.

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

No worrying about whether the player is going to add this mod, or that, or whether a specific set of Mods is going to make a combo with some Helminth or other Warframe's Ability to completely break a new game mode.

And that's the point of my suggestion - making it more complex & nuanced. I don't want play "press X to win". I can already use Roar with Aquablades that kills a lot of enemies. That's however make such builds (almost) finished. What change I can make? Not too much.

If you like simplicity (& close to "press X to win") then it's ok. Don't use such complex combat. But don't be against suggestion because you don't like certain styles personally.

[Birdframe_Prime]

On 2023-09-22 at 8:30 PM, quxier said:

What if abilities mentioned could be moded? You would say it's ok for another abilities to be moded because few other abilities are already moded? I BET NO.

Depends, to be honest.  If they were able to be modded with Warframe mods, then I would argue that Merulina should be modded with Warframe mods.

And that's pretty weird to be suggesting, because what other mods would those abilities actually be modded with besides Warframe mods? Once again, the only ability like Merulina in the game is Razorwing, so...

It's not like you would put K-drive mods on Pulverise, is it?

So the argument there would be 'these other abilities can have Warframe mods put on them as a separate modding section, why can't Merulina?' and I would argue in favour of that. Because there would be (not very similar) mobility functions that have a separate modding system. A precedent would be set, and DE wouldn't have the reason to not do it to Merulina too.

On 2023-09-22 at 8:30 PM, quxier said:

And that's the point of my suggestion - making it more complex & nuanced.

Except it's not more complex an nuanced. It's adding either F-tier or S-tier functions, depending on the mod, and trying to pretend that this is an easier way of doing things than just doing them to the base ability.

Look... what I think you're misunderstanding here is this: I'm not saying that Merulina shouldn't have access to extra functions.

You can have your tricks-to-activate method, but just rework Merulina so that it has those functions inherently for activation. Because that's the simple solution.

Modding it separately is completely un-necessary when you can do even less work to just add the functions that you are specifically asking for to the base cast. And not have the wild variance of utterly useless functions to straight-up over-powered functions.

If you were to add them as mods, you would still have to do all the work to make them activate on Merulina anyway, because Merulina already operates under separate rules from regular K-drive. So you're adding another layer to something that just doesn't need it.

My way: 1, Change base functions of Merulina so that you can do a Trick to activate a sub-function. 2, Ensure function is tuned and balanced to how strong it's supposed to be on a Warframe in regular gameplay for Range, Strength and so on.

Your way: 1, Change base functions of Merulina so that you can do a Trick to activate a sub-function. 2, Create all of these sub-functions as mods that have to be slotted on a separate modding menu that you have to enable on the main Arsenal instead of in the Vehicle section. 3, Ensure functions are tuned and balanced to how strong they're supposed to be on K-drives, how much each of these mods is going to cost for the power it offers. 4. Now ensure, by either nerfing or buffing their effects, that when they're slotted on Merulina they either do, or do not, interact with the Warframe mods that already affect the Ability (such as Warframe Strength affecting Damage of Heat trail, or Range of Status Application). 

Do you see why your way is straight-up worse? Not just for the Devs on what they have to work on, but also for the players who now have to obtain, rank and then slot mods that may or may not even affect Merulina in the same way that they do a K-drive, adding Forma into the cost on top of the Endo because you know that some of the mods will be expensive enough to require that.

It's not 'more complex and nuanced' your way. It's the same end result as my way. The difference is that my way doesn't have the utter waste of everyone's time.

[Skoomaseller]

plain and simple, no effort was made to make it so.

plainly clear w/ the bugs still plaguing Merulina.

they can't get that down, she/her hitbox is still too #*!%ing tall for many doorways on various tilesets, so why even bother making kdrive mods compatible w/ Merulina?

It took them more than a #*!%ing YEAR to fix her signature pistol, Kompressa. It had a bug where it wouldn't benefit at all from multishot, severely hampering its damage. so if they took that long for a weapon, who knows how long it'll take for Yareli herself? Until her deluxe? Until Yareli Prime? 

just move on to the next piece of content. not like anyone plays her am I right haha just consume new content guys

Edited September 25, 2023 by Skoomaseller

[quxier]

10 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

On 2023-09-22 at 9:30 PM, quxier said:

And that's the point of my suggestion - making it more complex & nuanced.

Except it's not more complex an nuanced. It's adding either F-tier or S-tier functions, depending on the mod, and trying to pretend that this is an easier way of doing things than just doing them to the base ability.

Look... what I think you're misunderstanding here is this: I'm not saying that Merulina shouldn't have access to extra functions.

You can have your tricks-to-activate method, but just rework Merulina so that it has those functions inherently for activation. Because that's the simple solution.

It's fine for Merulina to have "trick giving some bonuses" on base version (not moded), like I probably mentioned. However that's just simple solution and SIMPLE method. No to much nuanced. Nor it's complex... except to fit what mod you want, which isn't what I meant by saying "complex".

However, being able to mod it would be more complex/nuanced. If you believe it's the way to add bad or superstrong function then it's just depend on balance. DE sometimes do something "over". For example, exodia contagion is overnerfed (can do 1 shot, even with additional jump mods, require bullet/double jump, some heavy shot nerf recently). On other hand there are lot of "close to afk" styles like Xaku's that DE is fine with. So that's not the problem with suggestion but implementation.

10 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

If you were to add them as mods, you would still have to do all the work to make them activate on Merulina anyway, because Merulina already operates under separate rules from regular K-drive. So you're adding another layer to something that just doesn't need it.

My way: 1, Change base functions of Merulina so that you can do a Trick to activate a sub-function. 2, Ensure function is tuned and balanced to how strong it's supposed to be on a Warframe in regular gameplay for Range, Strength and so on.

Your way: 1, Change base functions of Merulina so that you can do a Trick to activate a sub-function. 2, Create all of these sub-functions as mods that have to be slotted on a separate modding menu that you have to enable on the main Arsenal instead of in the Vehicle section. 3, Ensure functions are tuned and balanced to how strong they're supposed to be on K-drives, how much each of these mods is going to cost for the power it offers. 4. Now ensure, by either nerfing or buffing their effects, that when they're slotted on Merulina they either do, or do not, interact with the Warframe mods that already affect the Ability (such as Warframe Strength affecting Damage of Heat trail, or Range of Status Application). 

YOu are exagerating. Sure, more functions is equal more work. However those gives more possible gameplay interactions. It's not simple as 1=1 but not too hard.

10 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

2, Create all of these sub-functions as mods that have to be slotted on a separate modding menu that you have to enable on the main Arsenal instead of in the Vehicle section.

That's... sounds like good thing. Where do you mod your weapons and frames? In the arsenal. So it's win-win for me.

10 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

, Ensure functions are tuned and balanced to how strong they're supposed to be on K-drives, how much each of these mods is going to cost for the power it offers.

If they work on general K-drive. But even in general the cost is already big. What's the point of doing tricks (and disarming yourself afair, from your post) when you can just use your gun, simple powers, companions etc.

As for for Merulina only then it would be same situation as with build in, but just more. But remember more work = more reward.

10 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

4. Now ensure, by either nerfing or buffing their effects, that when they're slotted on Merulina they either do, or do not, interact with the Warframe mods that already affect the Ability (such as Warframe Strength affecting Damage of Heat trail, or Range of Status Application). 

Same for base, built-in function.

10 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

 

Do you see why your way is straight-up worse?

No, I don't see it. There is difference but not as big as you suggest.

10 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

but also for the players who now have to obtain, rank and then slot mods that may or may not even affect Merulina in the same way that they do a K-drive

OH, no, players have to play game, earn mods. They can be traded as well.

10 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

adding Forma into the cost on top of the Endo because you know that some of the mods will be expensive enough to require that.

Oh, no, another 3 forma or milions of Endo? I mean, I get that some grind in this game is horrible (depends on luck sometimes) but getting those (few forma or endo/credits) are not issue compared to other stuff in this game. Like... come on, are we playing same, Grindframe?