Grendel Prime shield gating concerns

[Kaiga]

Edit: Shield gating is being overhauled, post irrelevant due to devstream announcement 

Edited September 28, 2023 by Kaiga

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

Or maybe they need to look at shields instead, having less shields shouldn't be giving an advantage.

[Joezone619]

12 minutes ago, (XBOX)C11H22O11 said:

Or maybe they need to look at shields instead, having less shields shouldn't be giving an advantage.

Not to mention the decaying dragon key, its supposed to be a burden, not a buff.

[Kaiga]

18 minutes ago, (XBOX)C11H22O11 said:

Or maybe they need to look at shields instead, having less shields shouldn't be giving an advantage.

That would be nice, but I'm looking at the immediately possible here lol

[Tiltskillet]

Grendel will be ok.  Even  75 more for Grendel Prime would only put him at 150, 38 with a key.  Which is as low as shielded frames go that aren't named "Vanilla Grendel".  

Not that they're even going to double his current shields, if they do increase.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

There's no guarantee anyone plays at high level, with out them showing video gameplay of themselves playing higher levels. I am also not convinced, that people who can play comfortably at higher levels will suddenly struggle if his shields are increased, as if positioning, movement, enemy awareness, LOS, use of Operator are all thrown out the window, with only shield gating tech being the reason they got there. 

My position isn't absolute though, and I am willing to concede or change it. My experiences with level cap are only occasional, as I don't much enjoy playing for more than 90 mins, usually. There are some modes that can get there a bit quicker now, Disruption, Cascade etc and Circuit, but the latter has Decrees which can warp gameplay elements favourably etc. 

I also do use shield gating but I never use the Decaying Dragon Key, outside of some small testing. Its not as vital or necessary as some make it out to be. Would Grendel Prime coming with extra shields be a bit annoying? Potentially sure, but I am dubious it will be that much of a detriment, especially in context to other buffs he may get, and I think more people will make more of a fuss about it than necessarily warranted. I mean as far as perceptions and talk go, versus actual demonstrable natural gameplay and good faith examples of it being a hindrance.

[(NSW)Greybones]

Then you die. Christ allmighty

bloody players sitting there thinking that shieldgate abuse is meant to be a normal thing and that fundamentals like how much shield a thing has should be designed around it…

Edited September 27, 2023 by (NSW)Greybones

[Numerounius]

The value increase is going to be small enough that it isn't going to be enough of a problem.

Wish they would fix this idea of smaller number for shield that is supposed to a negative is a benefit instead.

[ShogunGunshow]

Unfortunately DE has made the classic DE move of allowing something clearly dumb and unintended to exist for years so that by now1 players feel entitled to it.

The crying and whining about any eventual shield gate fix is going to make the ammo economy changes look positively civil by comparison.

[(NSW)Greybones]

13 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

Unfortunately DE has made the classic DE move of allowing something clearly dumb and unintended to exist for years so that by now1 players feel entitled to it.

The crying and whining about any eventual shield gate fix is going to make the ammo economy changes look positively civil by comparison.

The option of shieldgate abuse is less a problem than players thinking it’s a default design and then jumping into high-level content and asking everything to be designed around it.

If they’ve got something to prove and think that high-level content lets them prove it, then they’re doing a pretty poor job of proving anything when they sit in shieldgate abuse builds

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

Why is this a problem? 

Unless you spent your only grendel on nourish, you should have a fully stacked grendel, and chances are you have arcane energize (not to mention grendel has Nourish) so energy shouldn't even be close to being a problem. 

Again, there's going to be more hp or armor on the prime, but considering your complaints are on shields there shouldn't be any reason on why you'd worried about health tanking. 

Like the only problem I see is if you main grendel and want to use his skin, but literally the shield bump happens with any prime, why is grendel some special exception?

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

32 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

The option of shieldgate abuse is less a problem than players thinking it’s a default design and then jumping into high-level content and asking everything to be designed around it.

The funny thing is shield gate is balanced by itself. People are so used to running Primed sure footed that the one major weakness, knockdowns, are almost forgotten about. Frames that shield gate feel a lot less immortal when they rely on cc, are vulnerable to knockdowns, or come into contact with toxin, the problem is that everyone tries to nullify those 3 weaknesses as much as possible.

[(NSW)Greybones]

16 minutes ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

The funny thing is shield gate is balanced by itself. People are so used to running Primed sure footed that the one major weakness, knockdowns, are almost forgotten about. Frames that shield gate feel a lot less immortal when they rely on cc, are vulnerable to knockdowns, or come into contact with toxin, the problem is that everyone tries to nullify those 3 weaknesses as much as possible.

It’s sometimes surprisingly balanced-feeling. When someone’s not looking for a fight and their build and where they take it reflects that, obviously a mechanic that’s designed to give a grace period for when things get dicey isn’t going to get a chance to breathe when those situations aren’t meant to happen in the first place. But otherwise it does what it says; there’s only been a few situations where I’m like “I should have died for how sloppy I played”, and it becomes apparent just how far removed from its main design it is when used like in the weird way that shieldgate abuse uses it 

Edited September 28, 2023 by (NSW)Greybones

[PR1D3]

lmao. Shield Gating crutch withstanding how much do you honestly think they're going to increase his shield value to make this even remotely a concern for you?

[AntifreezeUnder0]

Shieldgating of grendel is least of his concerns... The butched scaling dmg replaced with generic stats of abilities, and making his forte- nourish ,  be better on others than himself is real issue.

I play grendel a bit, dont use shieldgating, but also dont go into long endurance runs, just casual fun up to 1h.  Slap on his nourish augment for status immunity and many problems are fixed in survivability up to certain point. 

Also about shieldgating people will find ways to - like some did with parasitic armor... Use it and then cast abilities to get overshields which counts as shields.....

Also shieldgating atleast lets some squishy frames step into consideration to some high lvl to lvl cap plays. If people are begging to change shieldgating, then there should be chants to remove any ability which gives flat dr, because dr is armor exclusive thing, and any invulnerability abilities mods, operator shools, since those get abused too or simple invsis, becaue how dare someone camp in corner on ceiling killing everything with few shots... while others have to abuse few more mechanics to obtain same effect.

[ShogunGunshow]

18 minutes ago, AntifreezeUnder0 said:

Shieldgating of grendel is least of his concerns... The butched scaling dmg replaced with generic stats of abilities, and making his forte- nourish ,  be better on others than himself is real issue.

Sevagoth cries quietly in a corner. 

[Tiltskillet]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

but literally the shield bump happens with any prime,

Many, not all. 

I'm still waiting for the first prime shield reduction though.  I guess that would be DE really throwing in the towel!

 

[quxier]

Or maybe add overguard?

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

14 hours ago, Kaiga said:

Because there's no guarantee DE plays at a high level, something came to mind about the next prime frame.

Grendel is a fantastic frame not just because of the rework, but because he's a health tank who also has enough low shields to take advantage of competitive shield gating, and not be completely useless in higher level gameplay. 

The prime frame shipping with higher shield values would make it worse than the stock frame in terms of that, as people already use the decaying dragon key, particularly on Grendel to achieve functional shield gating values for health frames, and considering DE had already acknowledged the use of things like that, this seems like it would be a no brainer.

This is an issue that has been going on for three years now and unfortunately we just have to bite the bullet. Wisp prime had increased shields but since her and especially Grendel have such low base shields it doesn't require a drastic change in build to allow shield gating.

[(PSN)Unstar]

With respect, I would say this is a non-issue.  The concept of a Prime frame being less optimal at shield-gating is in no way new to Grendel Prime.  In addition, there's a solid argument to be made that this difference adds to build variety by requiring that players make a strategic decision between whether they would prefer a more optimal shield gate or a more optimal EHP.  It's counterintuitive, but not being able to get everything you want is a good thing because it gives you the chance to make such strategic choices.

The only way to perceive this as a problem is if we choose to believe that Prime frames can't have any downsides relative to the normal frame; this certainly hasn't been the case since shield-gating was introduced, and I'd be surprised if there weren't other niche gimmicks that benefit from lower stats that mean this was never true.  So if this is indeed an issue — which is debatable — it's not one that will be solved by making any specific design decisions in regards to Grendel Prime himself, because the "issue" will exist regardless of what happens to him.

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

18 hours ago, Kaiga said:

Because there's no guarantee DE plays at a high level, something came to mind about the next prime frame.

Grendel is a fantastic frame not just because of the rework, but because he's a health tank who also has enough low shields to take advantage of competitive shield gating, and not be completely useless in higher level gameplay. 

The prime frame shipping with higher shield values would make it worse than the stock frame in terms of that, as people already use the decaying dragon key, particularly on Grendel to achieve functional shield gating values for health frames, and considering DE had already acknowledged the use of things like that, this seems like it would be a no brainer.

No, and I'm really disappointed that some in the community would expect this.

Higher levels require out of the box thinking in order to achieve success. Just because DE allows shield gating to remain does not mean they should improve or even focus on it. It is and should be up to us to figure out how we could push a frame or loadout through higher levels. If shield gating on a frame is inefficient, then we find another way. Let's keep the even slightest handholding out of the challenge.

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

20 hours ago, Kaiga said:

That would be nice, but I'm looking at the immediately possible here lol

We just got it

[GrayArchon]

20 hours ago, Kaiga said:

That would be nice, but I'm looking at the immediately possible here lol

They're overhauling shield-gating!

[Kaiga]

12 minutes ago, GrayArchon said:

They're overhauling shield-gating!

What. 

I don't see it in the devstream overview, source?

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

2 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

What. 

I don't see it in the devstream overview, source?