Abyss of Dagath - Dev Workshop: Hydroid Rework

[Birdframe_Prime]

Oh no...

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

The rework seems promising. But then again, Pablo revitalizes anything he touches. While I dislike Hydroid's current state, the puddle is an iconic part of his kit The main issues are that (1) It forces Hydroid into a sedentary state and (2) it sequesters enemies, preventing your teammates from killing them. I propose a solution that hopefully resonates with other Tenno here. So:

1. Merge Undertow into Tidal Surge. Tap for Tidal Surge, hold for Undertow. 

2. Casting Undertow instead summons a puddle at the location you aimed at instead of directly melting Hydroid and breaking his momentum. Holding the crouch button will cause Hydroid to dive into the puddle and do the same things he does currently. Bullet jump to exit the puddle

3. Any enemies that fall into the puddle are trapped, but allies can now shoot the puddle to damage all enemies within (similar to Tornado).

4. Casting Tempest Barrage directly on the puddle will cause it to grow in size.

 

Those are my two cents from a non-Hydroid player.

Edited September 29, 2023 by (PSN)LoisGordils

[Quinesis]

Undertow is such a unique, playstyle defining, core ability of Hydroid and it upsets me to hear it's getting trashed. Yes, in its current state it has many flaws and issues, but it also has great potential and with the right changes it can become too good of an ability to be replaced via helminth let alone deleted completely.

And the reasons to remove Undertow don't seem justifiable enough to me, like:

• "It forces you to be stationary in an active game" Tidal Surge can be cast while Undertow is active, simply deactivating it and repositioning then activate it again also works. The movement speed while Undertow is active could be drasticaly increased and Tidal Surge having its full length instead of halfed, also let casting speed affect its activation/deactivation. Hydroid's playstyle is already pretty stationary, he's kinda like Vauban, Khora, Ivara etc in that regard.
• "It hides enemies from your allies" Well, players can shoot the puddle, if only it was more obvious for them to do so. Even then, most players won't even notice few enemies missing, they're too busy blasting or chilling somewhere. NEVER heard anyone complain about it ever. Infact, this is more annoying for the Hydroid himself, because drowned enemies won't get grabbed by tentacles for Pilfering Swarm to trigger. Maybe, when enemies step on the puddle the tentacle spawns under and grabbes them instead of drowning? 

I'm beggin devs to reconsider this decision. Other players suggested to combine Undertow with Tidal Surge via tap/hold mechanic which I think is not that bad. Or combine Tempest Barrage with Tentacle Swarm, these two abilities are essentially the same thing - for a set duration, a set location, enemies are CC'd and proc'd with corrosion, only difference is energy cost and the augment would be combined aswell with 100% loot and viral. 

Also, if Undertow survives, Remove the inability to pick up loot while in Undertow. This is SO annoying when you have loot floating in your face, obscuring your vision.  Prowl can do it, Absorb aswell, etc. Please <3

All in all, removing Undertow completely seems like such a waste. Grendel has a simmilar gimmicky ability, but it was preserved and even buffed. Players who don't find these abilities useful/worthwhile can just replace it via helminth. That system was made specifically for that reason.

[Zabyr]

В 29.09.2023 в 05:19, Skoomaseller сказал:

@Zabyr thoughts

I'll start from afar. In one Russian gaming magazine there was a review of the Digital Extremes game – WarPath.

Спойлер

This is a clone of Unreal Tournament 2004. The editor of the article was shocked how the studio that had a hand in the legendary Unreal and Unreal Tournament 1999 could make such potboiler work. Then he wrote that DE were mediocrities who had lost their talent.

18 years later, I agree with him. DE are mediocrities and potboilers!

 

This is the gift you gave me for my six-year anniversary of playing for Hydroid.
I play WARFRAME, this donation trash, just for the sake of Hydroid and you decided to ruin everything and make him other Warframe. That's why I was so afraid of the rework.

And what did you take from me?

 

Passive
Why was it necessary to remove the tentacle? Was it so difficult to add a new passive to it? We have Warframes with two or even three passive skills, what was the problem with combining them? I could use it just as easily as before. I loved it because I play Melee.

 

Tempest Barrage
Okay, they removed the charger, although I liked it and was convenient, but okay. I'm ready to compromise, but what do I get - corrosion? Where is the cold? Hydroid is a disabler, not a debuffer. Cold would suit him better to slow down enemies even more. And with the help of an augment, anyone could make it a debuffer that cuts off armor. And corrosion. It does not destroy proto-shields, unlike cold and impact.

 

Tidal Surge
(//_-) And why was it bad to throw enemies in the direction of movement?

Okay, they removed it. OK. But what instead, corrosion again? Have you eaten too much acid and are feeling sick?
My question is, what, it would have been impossible for Tidal Wave to steal armor from enemies and then there would have been no need to remove Ebb Tide. Has such an obvious thought ever occurred to you? Where are we going, we're potboilers. I hope you have reduced the energy consumption from 50 to 25 or 15. This has been requested as often as charging. Have you read the reviews?

 

Undertow/Plunder
Ironic. You plunder me DE, where is my Undertow that I used? You took the water Warframe roleplaying away from me. I was like a Toa Nuva Gali, but I became an acid-using Bohrok. Acid and water? It’s okay that water neutralizes sulfuric acid. These are two opposites.

Hydroid was a controller-disabler, and you made him a Debuffer-damage-tank, with the ability to control, but much worse. Just because you play Nezha, Pablo, doesn't mean that all other Warframes have to be like him. Bring Scott back, he understands Hydroid better than you.

You have until October 18th to bring back the Undertow by combining it with the Tidal Surge. Go for it!

You took away a unique ability from Hydroid that worked, you just needed to remove the Impact damage and make True damage, like it was in 2014. And also, make this damage dealt from 2% to 5%. Because without armor, enemies in Undertow die in 3-4 seconds.

 

Tentacle Swarm
I asked you to make more tentacles. The larger the affected area, the more tentacles. 20 tentacles at 42 meters is not enough. Where is it all? You removed the knockback from my Tempest Barrage, so how am I supposed to parry the blind spots of the tentacles now without it?
I hope you haven't removed True Damage from the tentacles.

 

 

Who was this rework for? It is clear for whom - for infantile screamers who have never eaten anything sweeter than carrots in their lives. And for Hydroid fans, the minimum has been done here. Although, why be surprised, we waited 2 years for the Hydroid trailer, but what we got was potboilers. You made a great trailer for Wisp Prime, but not for Hydroid.

 

A few years ago, my clanmates left Warframe after reworking Ember and adding idiotic meteorites. Ember's aesthetic has been turned into nonsense. Everything happened again, only with Hydroid...

Edited October 12, 2023 by Zabyr

[Zabyr]

1 час назад, (PSN)LoisGordils сказал:

The rework seems promising. But then again, Pablo revitalizes anything he touches. While I dislike Hydroid's current state, the puddle is an iconic part of his kit The main issues are that (1) It forces Hydroid into a sedentary state and (2) it sequesters enemies, preventing your teammates from killing them. I propose a solution that hopefully resonates with other Tenno here. So:

1. Merge Undertow into Tidal Surge. Tap for Tidal Surge, hold for Undertow. 

2. Casting Undertow instead summons a puddle at the location you aimed at instead of directly melting Hydroid and breaking his momentum. Holding the crouch button will cause Hydroid to dive into the puddle and do the same things he does currently. Bullet jump to exit the puddle

3. Any enemies that fall into the puddle are trapped, but allies can now shoot the puddle to damage all enemies within (similar to Tornado).

4. Casting Tempest Barrage directly on the puddle will cause it to grow in size.

 

Those are my two cents from a non-Hydroid player.

The Allies could shoot at Undertow before.

 

[(PSN)That-Lu-Jan]

On 2023-09-28 at 3:06 PM, Voltage said:

Khora completely killed the relevance of Hydroid with Pilfering Strangledome, so I am curious about this as well. It would be nice if there was a brand new augment, maybe something special like how Funnel Clouds works for Zephyr.

Khora only replaced hydroid in farming setups because of how bad his original 4 was, now that its getting buffed I can see Hydroid replacing khora in farming setups

[Lancars]

3 hours ago, Leqesai said:

Functionally I think it looks like a fine ability.

Aesthetics are a little disappointing though. From what they showed in the devstream it looks pretty boring, visually.

Undertow tactical and fun to use traded for an easy press button for dumbed down gameplay. This is why people are defending it because its one less button to think about. Plus you get the people in here saying i'm whining and seeing as they want to insult me they much prefer the ignorance of just mashing a button for several effects, which in turn they will come in later and complain the game isn't hard enough.

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

59 minutes ago, Zabyr said:

The Allies could shoot at Undertow before.

 

Ohh! I just realized that. Thank you. Then I don't really get the whole issue with enemies being sequestered then...

[SteveCutler]

A Corrosive damage buff is generally nice (i.e. Saryn's Venom Dose), but it seems very strange to me that Hydroid will get it from the exact same ability that also strips armor. Corrosive damage is strong against armored targets, but weak against unarmored ones. When you cast Plunder, you'll get a Corrosive damage buff but the enemies won't have armor anymore to benefit from that Corrosive damage. Seems odd.

Edited September 30, 2023 by SteveCutler

[(XBOX)Ampathetiic]

While it is sad to see something so iconic go, I really can't blame DE for scrapping the ability because sitting in a puddle waiting for enemies to die is pretty boring. On top of that, his new ability looks pretty good, so I can't complain.

2 hours ago, (PSN)LoisGordils said:

2. Casting Undertow instead summons a puddle at the location you aimed at instead of directly melting Hydroid and breaking his momentum. Holding the crouch button will cause Hydroid to dive into the puddle and do the same things he does currently. Bullet jump to exit the puddle

Personally, this would be my ideal fix to Undertow. Bonus points if we can maintain multiple Undertows at the same time.

[SteveCutler]

Also, I see a very big problem with Plunder. Not sure if anyone else noticed this? When recasting Plunder, the armor buff and damage buff numbers get overwritten, even if the new numbers are lower than the old numbers. You can see this in the stream video at 1:06:40. They had +1440 armor and +360% Corrosive damage, then recast Plunder and got +749 armor and +187% Corrosive damage. That's going to be a massive problem and annoyance, like pre-buff Icy Avalanche.

Edited September 30, 2023 by SteveCutler

[(XBOX)sinamanthediva]

Seriously,
No puddle = No Hydroid

We don't need yet another cookie cutter Warframe that is void of anything interesting or unique.  The Puddle was the Soul of Hydroid and embodied his creative Pirate Water Themed Persona to its Core!  I'm not against altering the Puddle to make it even better at enemy containment or even more fun in game-play, but PLEASE DON'T REMOVE THE PUDDLE!

#SAVETHEPUDDLE
#PUDDLEPOWER
#LONGLIVETHEPUDDLE
 

[NecroPed]

1 hour ago, (PSN)That-Lu-Jan said:

Khora only replaced hydroid in farming setups because of how bad his original 4 was, now that its getting buffed I can see Hydroid replacing khora in farming setups

I think I'll find myself using hydroid a lot more for farming and in general really, he's always been one of my favourite warframes for his theme and aesthetics, but I always found his kit underwhelming. These new changes I'm really looking forward to, especially since they kept my favourite abilities. 

[SteveCutler]

I don't play Hydroid myself, but maybe they could have combined it with Tentacle Swarm. Something like, Tentacle Swarm has a small Puddle range, and a large AoE range. When you cast the ability, a small Puddle appears at your targeted location, and Tentacle Swarm's AoE spreads out far around that location. Tentacles grab enemies and pull them down into the murky depths, only to have them re-emerge out of the Puddle. In other words, a grouping ability, grabbing enemies across the map and teleporting them to the Puddle.

Edited September 30, 2023 by SteveCutler

[R4bbit0le]

I think that ship has sunk mate.
Honestly Undertow just felt like Hydroid was a bit dead in the water and his new kit seems to work swimmingly. 

[Waeleto]

Undertow held hydroid back for year and now he's finally free from it, let it go

[Skoomaseller]

10 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

I've lived at the ocean (a couple times actually). Yes, metal corrodes near the sea - slowly over years. It is not in any way, shape, or form comparable to acid.

You don't dip some metal into the sea and it comes out full of holes, that's not how water works. You can swim in the stuff.

yes obviously, but in a game where water bubbles make people more susceptible to pain, where skateboarding somehow makes me more resilient to bullets, it does make sense.

the main thing is that seawater corrodes. not how long it takes to corrode. and that's the thing DE decided to base hydroid's new damage profile on.

[Skoomaseller]

gonna go against the general sentiment here and say I'm glad undertow's gone.

uniqueness ≠ usefulness/fun. but of course, that is my opinion, I can totally understand why people are upset that undertow will be replaced. it is a much beloved ability that even spawned many jokes & memes in the community.

[(NSW)Greybones]

I do get bothered by fundamental changes on behalf of players who want everything to be the same and perform the same. I thought the puddle was kind of unique and could benefit from just a few tweaks (like the collectibles hovering over the camera and blocking everything)

[PsiWarp]

The things about Undertow I'll miss are the channelled invulnerability to bide a lot of time to cast powers, and the tentacle fishing. Drowning them was cool, but took too long and depended on teammates shooting the puddle to speed the kills up.

From the devstream footage, both Tempest Barrage and Tentacle Swarm now have a large visual area of seawater to indicate their radius, which looks nicer than the small pool we had. Tentacle Swarm reemerges under new enemies, so that simulates the tentacle fishing part (except the ragdoll pull, that was most hilarious and miss it dearly).

Tidal Surge if its steering to greatly improved will encourage frequent use, giving a more mobile/active approach to using i-frame and status cleanse. One suggestion I have is to let the wave create a whirlpool after Hydroid finishes surging, to pull in and clump up the enemies caught. It's a better fishing net than before.

[(XBOX)Chiffon Pink]

Kinda sad undertow was fully removed, was expecting for it to be combined with tidal surge: now it's a channeled ability that turns hydroid into a puddle while stationary, a wave while moving.

I mean it's not like combining abilities in reworks is unheard of, just look at Vauban's vortex and bastille.

[Azamagon]

Overall, this looks like a fantastic rework!

I do have a few concerns though:

Plunder - The fact that you need living enemies with Corrosive stacks on them to beef up its effect is gonna be problematic for a few things, like when facing status-immune enemies (such as bosses). I hope there's a decent base bonus to the ability so it at least does something in situations like that? And if you could Plunder once from recently killed enemies with Corrosive stacks on them, that'd be great.

Also, it would be nice if it interacted with enemy shields too (even if it still gave you armor), so it has a use against Corpus too.

Rousing Plunder - I don't think solely a flat one-time heal is very wise here, as this is not an ability you spam. Also adding a moderate heal over time to this augment (lasting for the entire duration of Plunder's buff) would fit the ability's intended use better, imo.

As for Tempest Barrage and Tentacle Swarm, they still seem a little... empty? Stuff like: Enemies affected by Tentacle Swarm are more likely to be critically hit and enemies struck by Tempest Barrage have a higher chance to drop energy orbs when they die.

[Traumtulpe]

2 hours ago, Skoomaseller said:

the main thing is that seawater corrodes. not how long it takes to corrode. and that's the thing DE decided to base hydroid's new damage profile on

I really don't see it, water cleanses and cools, it doesn't dissolve metal. If you get acid on you the first thing you do is rinse with lots of water. Acid and Viruses are the opposite of water, in many ways.

The water-frame becoming the "removes all armor instantly via acid and procs everything up with viral-frame" just doesn't fit with the theme at all.

[Leqesai]

7 hours ago, Lancars said:

Undertow tactical and fun to use traded for an easy press button for dumbed down gameplay. This is why people are defending it because its one less button to think about. Plus you get the people in here saying i'm whining and seeing as they want to insult me they much prefer the ignorance of just mashing a button for several effects, which in turn they will come in later and complain the game isn't hard enough.

I'm not really sure why you've quoted me in your response. 

[Skoomaseller]

41 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

I really don't see it, water cleanses and cools, it doesn't dissolve metal. If you get acid on you the first thing you do is rinse with lots of water. Acid and Viruses are the opposite of water, in many ways.

The water-frame becoming the "removes all armor instantly via acid and procs everything up with viral-frame" just doesn't fit with the theme at all.

seawater. ocean water. saltwater. not tap water. that one cleans. 

obviously the ingame visual of corrosive is more visually indicative of some acid of sorts corroding armor but in hydroid's case it isn't actually acids/chemicals. it's ocean water. it's just that DE doesn't really have a status effect for seawater. or water in general for that matter.

and I'd even say the new augment for tempest barrage makes sense. marine viruses are a thing. millions of them thrive in the ocean.

buuut I understand it's a bit difficult to separate acids/chemicals and corrosive status in this game because of how it's visually presented.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Skoomaseller