Abyss of Dagath - Dev Workshop: Companion Improvements and Tweaks

[MaxTunnerX]

On 2023-09-28 at 4:36 PM, [DE]Momaw said:

Pet Immortality

We've all seen the memes with people giving their Pets funny names, only to see the message over and over every few minutes: "Your pet is down!"  Dying cats and dogs have been demanding attention on your HUD, and spontaneously combusting sentinels have been robbing you of your Vacuum and Animal Instinct for years.

All that changes with this update. Going forward, Pets will still have Health and Shield values, and they can be knocked out, but they will not die if you fail to revive them. When they reach zero Health, Pets will instead become Incapacitated for a base duration of 60 seconds. All Pets will automatically revive at the end of their Incapacitate period, and there is no limit to the number of times this can happen.

Man this is the best thing that has happened for years! Thank you so much for this.

Edited October 4, 2023 by MaxTunnerX

[Tiltskillet]

It'll be sketchy in situations where enemies do a lot of damage but there aren't many of them to melee.  So bossfights.  I don't know how big of a nerf it actually is in the much more common horde mode situations.

But one thing about the Overguard mechanic is,  I'm going to be experimenting with no longer modding the pet for health...which is a weird thing for this mod to encourage.   Especially with all the conversation about how "low shields = bad" has been such a lame concept up to this point.

[trst]

Actually it might not be remotely as bad as you're making it out to be as Healing Return is similar mod which may indicate a feature not mentioned. That feature being that it triggers on each enemy hit per swing and works with multi-hits. If the new Pack Leader works the same then hitting a group of four enemies means healing 200-368 in one swing. Also something like the Redeemer Prime could potentially heal 500-920 if the multiple pellets can trigger it like Healing Return does.

Also the Overguard is immensely useful if it still triggers the gating for companions. Going in with a melee build, just as you already did to make your per "survivable" with Pack Leader, could mean that your pet is actually invulnerable so long as you have enemies to hit.

Really the mod needs some hands-on experience to really be worth passing any judgment. Especially with all the other changes and new mods being thrown into the system.

[Hexerin]

Considering the mod was pointless in its obscenely overtuned state, and it will continue being pointless in its now balanced state, means that nothing has changed. You never slotted it to begin with, wasted a mod slot that could go to any of numerous other mods that actually provide a useful effect.

[(PSN)RB3-Reloaded]

3 hours ago, trst said:

Actually it might not be remotely as bad as you're making it out to be as Healing Return is similar mod which may indicate a feature not mentioned. That feature being that it triggers on each enemy hit per swing and works with multi-hits. If the new Pack Leader works the same then hitting a group of four enemies means healing 200-368 in one swing. Also something like the Redeemer Prime could potentially heal 500-920 if the multiple pellets can trigger it like Healing Return does.

Also the Overguard is immensely useful if it still triggers the gating for companions. Going in with a melee build, just as you already did to make your per "survivable" with Pack Leader, could mean that your pet is actually invulnerable so long as you have enemies to hit.

Really the mod needs some hands-on experience to really be worth passing any judgment. Especially with all the other changes and new mods being thrown into the system.

The Mod for what it costs compared to its value is definitely bad especially compared to what it used to provide.

if we’re talking about multi hits then once again we’re talking about good range good attack speed and a good combo which not all melee weapons can provide nor are all 3 things players necessarily have to invest in just to give their melee a good hit box just to heal a companion.

and as for the per pellet redeemer example? Wake up that doesn’t address the issue at all so we will now be equipping high pellet gun blades to heal companions? Niche solutions aren’t what I’m talking about. A High rank maxed primed mod that taking up space for a companion no less needs to be universally good or just don’t bother.

And as I said with the overguard gating companion are shield gating now and mods that are going to benefit it by reducing shield delay ect overguard is either going to be useless or as the person on top of you stated be tested to see if it’s the only thing used for pet survivability so God forbid you wanna shoot your primary weapon with using your melee every 0.5s.

And no it overguard doesn’t work like how pack leader does pre-rework to make pets survivable because it ACTUALLY heals your companion and made sense if you’ve built your companion for health and Armor. Not swinging over 10+ times to heal a companion just for it to get a health buffer that has no defensive traits whatsoever unless you are literally swinging every 0.5s

And okay the mod needs hands on experience before passing on any “real” judgment that’s the only thing I’ll take you on about but I’ll say this straight up looking at these numbers and features said in the post already you can get a good prediction on how bad the mod is going to be also we would’ve had some hands on experience if DE used their tests servers to get input before nerfing mods so severely.

[(PSN)RB3-Reloaded]

3 hours ago, Hexerin said:

Considering the mod was pointless in its obscenely overtuned state, and it will continue being pointless in its now balanced state, means that nothing has changed. You never slotted it to begin with, wasted a mod slot that could go to any of numerous other mods that actually provide a useful effect.

Well with all due respect when it was overturned it was definitely being used it just depends on the companion really and if they needed it so I’m just assuming your a Vulpaphyla user and didn’t slot it cus why would you slot it on an invulnerable companion?

[Hexerin]

18 minutes ago, (PSN)RB3-Reloaded said:

Well with all due respect when it was overturned it was definitely being used it just depends on the companion really and if they needed it so I’m just assuming your a Vulpaphyla user and didn’t slot it cus why would you slot it on an invulnerable companion?

Imagine using a companion that can die and take core gameplay functionality with it when it does, for the rest of the mission.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Hexerin

[(XBOX)Big Roy 324]

I see a lot of confusion over how this is going to work.  Which I understand considering how much is going to be done.

So pets will not be perma killed once the update drops. 

This is wonderful because I rarely use the other pets because of this. Besides charm, Smeeta was great because his mischief ability was similar to diversified denial. Allowing for an extended interval between downs. I have literally resisted building more than my first kubrow or a predasite because of this. 

So this will expand companion choice a lot.  

I look forward to it and will probably start building more pets in preparation for it.

[ShogunGunshow]

Do Duplex Bond clones have their own individual cooldowns for abilities, or are the clones just pewpews?

[(PSN)RB3-Reloaded]

11 hours ago, Hexerin said:

Imagine using a companion that can die and take core gameplay functionality with it when it does, for the rest of the mission.

Well Venari could use it and benefited greatly from it and couldn’t perma “die” either and as for the core gameplay functionality thing that’s honestly just a sentinel problem if you don’t wanna pick up your pet that’s just on you. But I hear you though vulpaphyla was basically the only un frustrating way to decently pick up loot and have radar but I never really had a problem just going over to a place and picking it up idk

Also I suggested it should have the bonus feature or reducing the incapacitated timer on melee kill which would greatly bolster its use

Edited October 5, 2023 by (PSN)RB3-Reloaded

[ShogunGunshow]

Also @[DE]Momaw, something to pass along, now that companions are potentially about to become much stronger, I need to point out this long-standing bug with Theorem Infection, where the damage bonus from Infection doesn't actually fade off of your companion at the end of the effect and continues to stack, until it hits some sort of overflow error and zeroes out the damage. I imagine this has never been a priority to fix because the effect does fade if the companion dies, but since we're going to be living in a world where all companions are much chunkier, this has the potential to be an actual issue.

(Side note, if you do examine this, it would also be nice to finally fix the UI bug where Theorem arcanes don't refresh on the UI on reaching max stacks and moving into a fresh zone, despite accurately refreshing their timers in the background.)

[--PV--TrashySmashy]

Can Titania have her pet while in razor wing mode now. I don't want to lose out on all the cool new stuff when I play as her.

[ShogunGunshow]

It would also be nice to get a weapon pass for sentinels/hounds. Verglas "I'm a glaxion and therefore better than any primed sentinel weapon" and Helstrum "I would like my sentinel to have all the assist and cause aoe status" are pretty much the choices for most builds outside of meme.

(Incoming sentinel incarnons)

[Hexerin]

8 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

It would also be nice to get a weapon pass for sentinels/hounds. Verglas "I'm a glaxion and therefore better than any primed sentinel weapon" and Helstrum "I would like my sentinel to have all the assist and cause aoe status" are pretty much the choices for most builds outside of meme.

(Incoming sentinel incarnons)

If your build doesn't need the damage Verglas provides, but primarily needs the statuses, Artax can be the better option. It is capable of applying and maintaining three status procs, whereas Verglas can only apply and maintain two status procs.

[ShogunGunshow]

57 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

and Helstrum "I would like my sentinel to have all the assist and cause aoe status"

36 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

Artax can be the better option. It is capable of applying and maintaining three status procs, whereas Verglas can only apply and maintain two status procs.

Again, if I want status, I just go Helstrum. Because that can maintain 4. And does it in an AoE. 

Need to workshop companions for more, now. I know Diriga has some electric proccing stuff but IIRC Arc Coil is pretty low status chance

[Hexerin]

41 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

Again, if I want status, I just go Helstrum. Because that can maintain 4. And does it in an AoE. 

Need to workshop companions for more, now. I know Diriga has some electric proccing stuff but IIRC Arc Coil is pretty low status chance

I didn't include Helstrum in my post because it's doing something different. My post was specifically a comparison between Verglas and Artax.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Hexerin

[ShogunGunshow]

33 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

I didn't include Helstrum in my post because it's doing something different. My post was specifically a comparison between Verglas and Artax.

🙄

Alright. 

[Hexerin]

1 hour ago, ShogunGunshow said:

🙄

Alright. 

Reading comprehension not your strong suit?

[ShogunGunshow]

1 hour ago, Hexerin said:

Reading comprehension not your strong suit?

I brought up Helstrum for status, so I was confused why you were bringing Artax into the conversation to compare to Verglas for Status. Because Helstrum is a better status-stick - that I was talking about.

Not entirely sure why you're so hostile about my implied exasperation that you feel the need to get nasty, tho. 

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Hexerin said:

Reading comprehension not your strong suit?

It's not mine either.  My first thought was, "Shogun already covered what to use for a robotic status weapon when he was laying out why the class needs an overhaul...and Artax is not the answer." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And I don't believe Artax is better than Verglas for this anyway, practically speaking.  It's nice that it can apply an additional proc, but it's quite slow at applying the modded ones. Whereas Verglas is very fast to max what it's got.   Considering Verglas does about 50x the damage of Artax too, this is a good demonstration of  why robotic weapons could use some refinement.

Edited October 6, 2023 by Tiltskillet

[Keyhound]

couldnt find any info about it, but what about protea's dispensary mod that revive sentinels? it feels pretty useless now, since they revive automatically.

also, i hope that in the second round of updates, that they give companions more things that they can do. lets be honest, who uses kubrow for anything? vast majority of them is completely useless. 

nobody uses diriga because its only uniqueness is being a bad volt. that cant even stun enemies well.

dethcube is supposed to be the more combat oriented sentinel, but all it has going for it is the energy drop on supported kills.

wyrm has a borderline useless status cleanse.

both djinn and nautilus have similar uses. both with CC,

both helios and oxylus have the same theme of observer sentinels.

 

why dont we have a sentinel that helps on hacking? or one that can mind control a mechanical enemy? why do they have to be so bland and borderline useless? to the point they feel more like a waste of mod slot rather than an actual advantage to equip?

compare that to charm, cat's eye or sharpened claws. and it becomes clear why most people will go with kavats instead of anything else.

the only really usefull sentinel uniqueness that actually make us want to use them are helios and carrier. and carrier itself lost alot of uses not only because of ammo mutation mods being easier to equip on weapons that need it, but also because of the ammo rework.

 

to me, there need to be some heavy rebalance on companion roles. and they MUST be good at what they do.

-taxon should be the shield sentinel, give it something good like, +15% shield damage mitigation to it and the warframe, or while the warframe has shields it slowly heals their health.

-carrier is the ammo sentinel, allow it to give warframes max ammo capacity, or better yet, ammo efficiency.

-wyrm is the status protection sentinel, make it capable of giving the warframe immunity to impact/slash/puncture status. and the ability to cleanse 1 elemental status every 10 seconds, maybe make it transfer status effects from the warframe to itself.

-djinn mod already screams "suicide bomber" so why not make it the sentinel that you want to die alot, its already mid way there, just commit to have it be the self destruct sentinel. maybe give it a massive radius, or, because you want him to die, most survival mods should be avoided, so instead, give him a set of mods, that shower enemies with diferent status when it dies.

-nautilus could be the CC sentinel, it already has a mini vaccum, and it has the omni tool, so why not allow it to freeze enemies randomly? freeze is something that is very rare to achieve, but very usefull,

-diriga should lose the electric mods that dont really do much for him(they could be transfered to other sentinels, like taxon or nautilus), instead it should be the opposite of djinn, the tank sentinel. give it the ability to reflect bullets directed to it back to enemies, also, give it a mini turbulence that does the opposite, attracting bullets to itself, so it can reflect them, that mini turbulence shouldnt be big, but enough to cover the head of the warframe, of course, it doesnt work on explosives.

-helios should be the booknerd sentinel, so why does oxylus have scan mods? transfer all of them to helios instead.

-oxilus on the other hand should get a new theme, and to me, it would make more sense for it to be the hacking sentinel. so make it able to not only have a chance of auto hacking consoles, but also hijack mechanical enemies, including downed moas/ambulas. and a chance of jamming enemies weapons when attacking them(could be based on fire rate, slower weapons have higher chance, faster weapons, smaller chance).

-dethcube should be the combat sentinel. basically just make it THE sentinel to pick up if you just need to feel like you have a second player around. just make it have mods that enhance its weapon damage/crit/status chance.

 

and that's how it should be. each companion should FEEL unique. and have a role. seriously, why does oxylus have stuff that should've been for helios from the start?

[Unimira]

When do we get AI controls? Auto revive is at most a band-aid for suicidal critters, it's still annoying seeing them run over to the next/previous room to get shot in the face (and stopping enemies coming towards you for X number of seconds).

[(XBOX)K1jker]

Thank you, a hundred times, for allowing me to finally go back to sentinels again after the update! 🥰

[(PSN)aarott]

>Don't worry, guys! Your pets just get incapacitated for 60s now!
>Plus we're adding some new mods to reduce their down time. There's one where if you shoot an enemy in the head the timer goes down, one where if you shoot an enemy while jumping the timer goes down, and one that straight gives you gun fire rate while healing your pet with every reload.
>Nothing for melee, though. Can't be giving melee anything in this decade. Just don't let your pet go down, lol.
>Oh and btw, we're nerfing your pack leader from a 100% heal to a 1% heal, good luck lmao.

 

I hate this update so gosh darn much. 

[(PSN)RB3-Reloaded]

On 2023-10-01 at 12:40 AM, Roble_Viejo said:

Companions should have Target Enemy / Protect Zone / Regroup Commands
using the Mark Waypoint Input EXACTLY like Khal has during his Missions

And doing this would be extremely easy, just copy paste this System unto Companions

This idea of putting khal mechanics in the main game will always be terrible and I truly wish for Warframe players to stop acting like khal missions and mechanics are some GOD given savour that’ll fix everything.