bnuy Posted September 29, 2023 Share Posted September 29, 2023 (edited) Design Goals There are many questions to consider when theory-crafting balance changes, with the first being the most important; what issues are these changes meant to address? These changes are meant to address the many quality of life issues present in Nyx's abilities, such as only being able to have a single cast of Psychic Bolts active at a time. In the fast paced horde shooter style that Warframe has, only being able to debuff six enemies at a time is incredibly weak. Another large issue with her abilities is that when she makes enemies attack one another, they are barely able to do any damage. Along with her lacking damage and all of the minor tweaks to give her kit a quality of life refresh, her fourth ability, Absorb, needs to be replaced. Absorb prevents you from engaging with many of the core mechanics of the game, like using your weapon, or the movement and parkour system, which is why it needs to be completely rethought. Other Helpful Questions: How tanky are they, and through what means do they achieve their resilience? Nyx has below average resilience, and mainly stays alive by keeping up her wide area crowd control. How much damage do they deal, and what do they use to inflict it? Nyx has low damage, she primarily inflicts her damage with her weapons after debuffing enemies, though Absorb does have some niche nuke builds. What feel and play-style do they reflect when in use? Nyx is a crowd control frame, she casts wide range abilities to manage crowds while debuffing them, and can even turn their own damage back against them. These questions help me refine the direction I want to take with the rework. I am able to figure out if the frame is more of a front-line bulwark, a back-line sniper, or right in the middle. Along with that I also consider what types of thematically cohesive mechanics would work for the frame's abilities. Nyx's core theme is to turn the enemies into their own biggest threat while supporting her squad with wide range crowd control, helping them avoid damage. Due to her theme I can see that turning Absorb into a form of ability to amplify and reflect enemy attacks would fit with her quite well. Passive: Hypnotic Visage (new) Spoiler What Changed, and Why? Her old passive was poorly designed, the accuracy reduction effect had no feedback for the player, leaving it feeling like she lacked a passive entirely. There was another core issue, even if her passive caused a bullet to miss her, it could hit still hit an ally. These give more than enough reason her passive needed to be the first thing to go, and I'll be replacing it with an interesting bit of survivability that synergizes with her kit. Hypnotic Visage Description: Nyx passively emits a hypnotic aura that seems to bend reality itself, occasionally causing any attacks that seem to hit her allies to miss entirely, applying a Radiation status effect in retaliation. Ability Stats & Functions: Cast Type: Passive, Aura Aura Reflect Radius: 20.0m Aura Reflect Chance: 20.0% chance to ignore incoming Damage and effects Reflect Status Chance: 100.0% chance to apply a Radiation status effect to the attacker aura reflect radius cannot go below 20.0m aura reflect chance cannot exceed 90.0% radiation status effect has a duration of 6.0s and is not affected by mods Ability 1: Mind Control (tweaked) Spoiler What Changed, and Why? Mind Control is a must have for her theme, but despite having the potential to be a fantastic ability, it had some major flaws. The main issue was that having a single ally just didn't feel impactful enough, this was true for more than just it's damage, but also the ability to draw enemy fire. Along with those, it also lacked any form of control, you weren't able to command your victims around as your helpless playthings. With the ability to have multiple stronger allies, as well as control them, this should help boost the ability into a state where it feels quite impactful, even without external influence. Finally, the augment that was nothing more than a band-aid to the ability's lacking damage potential, which can now be entirely remade to cover one of her weaknesses. Mind Control Description: Nyx invades the psyche of any enemies in the targeted area, confusing them into fighting for the Tenno cause. Temporary allies are strengthened by her latent psychic energy. Ability Stats & Functions: Energy Cost: 25 Energy (affected by ability efficiency) Animation Type: Full-body Cast Type: Activation, Target Point Radial Cast Radius: 30.0m (affected by ability range) Mind Control Radius: 3.0m Mind Control Duration: 60.0s (affected by ability duration) Control Ally Leash Radius: 75.0m Control Ally Max: 3 Control Ally Immunity Buffs: gain Status Immunity for the duration Control Ally Health Buffs: 2.00x to Health and Shields (affected by ability strength) Control Ally Weapon Buffs: 25.0% of all Nyx's corresponding weapon type mods Control Ally Ability Buffs: while it's active, Telepathic Transfer will apply to all Mind Control targets targets will benefit from the mods of your weapon matching their equipped type, primary, secondary, or melee if the ability hits no enemies, the energy cost is refunded Ally Commands & Mechanics Allies prioritize targeting enemies affected by her Psychic Mark and Psychic Bolts, in that same order. Allies will automatically return to Nyx if they are outside of the Leash Radius. (Tap) Cast: Allies move to targeted point to defend the area. allies will move to the target point to defend the area until the ability ends, nyx moves too far away, or they are manually called back (Hold) Cast: Calls allies back to your side or ends the Mind Control affecting them. holding to cast while aimed at a mind control target will end the effect for them, with no target it will instead call back all allies when manually ending the ability, the cast target will be staggered Ability 2: Psychic Bolts (tweaked) Hide contents What Changed, and Why? This ability was already useful in some ways, while having severe quality of life issues that hindered it's performance. The main issues were that existing effects were removed upon recasting, and that the number of Bolts didn't scale at all. Just changing these two things already left her with an incredibly powerful debuffing tool, but I went further and granted it extra synergy with her kit, being able to buff any allies as well. Her augment for this ability seemed like what should be inherent functions of it, so I've gone ahead and reworked that as well. Psychic Bolts Description: Nyx launches a cluster of seeking bolts at nearby targets, confusing enemies while removing their defenses. Ally hits instead empower their attacks with Radiation Damage for the duration. Ability Stats & Functions: Energy Cost: 50 Energy (affected by ability efficiency) Animation Type: One-handed Cast Type: Activation, Line of Sight Bolt Target Radius: 30.0m (affected by ability range) Bolt Duration: 20.0s (affected by ability duration) Bolt Projectiles: 7 (affected by ability strength) Bolt Confusion Debuff (Enemy): target is applied with the 'Confusion' status effect for the duration Bolt Ability Disable (Enemy): target has their Auras and Abilities Disabled for the duration Bolt Defense Debuff (Enemy): -80.0% total Armor and Shields (affected by ability strength) Bolt Damage Buff (Ally): +20.0% total Radiation Damage dealt as extra hit (affected by ability strength) there is no limit to the number of targets that can be under the effects of this ability on target hit under the effects of this ability, the duration is refreshed on enemy hit, the target will be staggered ability disable affects auras such as those of the infested ancients and eximus units defense reduction from successive casts can stack, but cannot exceed 100.0% extra hit damage scales with total damage dealt and has status chance equal to the equipped weapon Bolt Targeting: Psychic Bolts will redirect to a new target of the same type if their initial target has 100.0% of their defenses removed, is killed, or has the ally buff applied. When they redirect, if no targets of the same type are in range, they will pick any target type. Looking at Target: Highlights the target you're aiming at with a 'Psychic Mark', all Bolts will prioritize the marked target. this ability will prioritize the marked target until they have 100.0% of their defenses removed, or the ally buff psychic mark is displayed as a small icon above the targeted unit with no psychic mark, the ability will revert to tap or hold cast function (Tap) Cast: Psychic Bolts will prioritize debuffing enemies in range. this ability will prioritize the nearest enemies until they have 100.0% of their defenses removed (Hold) Cast: Psychic Bolts will prioritize buffing allies in range. this ability will prioritize the nearest allies, including nyx, until they have the ally buff applied to them Ability 3: Telepathic Transfer (new) Hide contents What Changed, and Why? Chaos was already a decent ability, but it seemed like a better fit for Nyx's most powerful ability than Absorb. With this in mind I decided to swap Chaos to her fourth ability, improving it while adding bonus effects to compensate for the increased Energy cost. With Chaos moved to her fourth slot, and the feeling of her needing to maintain a survivability tool, I thought this ability being turned into a spiritual successor to Absorb would be a nice way to modernize her while keeping a similar feel. Absorb mainly struggled because it locked you out of some core mechanics, namely, weapon usage, and the movement/parkour system. The second issue with Absorb was the ridiculously scaling energy drain, and with no way to replenish energy in her kit, keeping this immense drain presents a large flaw of being unable to upkeep abilities. Instead of the imbalanced invincibility, I've opted to set the new ability to the generic max value for damage reduction abilities, while making it reflect damage to keep with her theme of making the enemies threats to themselves. Telepathic Transfer Description: Nyx strains herself to empower Hypnotic Visage and draw enemy fire while she projects a powerful psychic shield that surrounds and protects her, reflecting an amplified portion of incoming attacks at their source. Ability Stats & Functions: Energy Cost: 75 Energy (affected by ability efficiency) Energy Drain (/sec): 5 Energy (affected by ability efficiency & ability duration) Animation Type: One-handed Cast Type: Toggle, Self Target Damage Reduction: -60.0% Damage taken (affected by ability strength) Taunt Radius: 10.0m (affected by ability range) Reflect Radius: 20.0m (affected by ability range) Reflect Damage: 200.0% of Mitigated Damage (affected by ability strength) Reflect Damage (Visage Bonus): when Hypnotic Visage triggers, +100.0% Radiation Damage to Reflected attack Reflect Status Chance: +100.0% additive Status Chance to Reflected attack damage reduction cannot exceed 90.0% reflect damage is the same damage types as the mitigated damage while this ability is active, hypnotic visage range will benefit from any positive increase in this ability's range with a 10.0m radius on this ability hypnotic visage would be unchanged, but with 30.0m on this ability hypnotic visage would gain +10.0m Ability 4: Chaos (tweaked, moved from Ability 3) Hide contents What Changed, and Why? Moving Chaos to her fourth ability slot meant an increased energy cost, that alone was reason to enhance the ability to a degree. Even without it being moved to her fourth slot, the ability was lacking in power, so there were many reasons to give new effects to this ability. There were also many issues to correct, such as the ability only being able to have a single instance active, and the ability only applying the effect once. I've gone ahead and put the augment into the base functions of the ability and given a new unique identity to the augment, one that should hopefully find player use and enjoyment. Chaos Description: With a powerful psychic blast, Nyx causes mass hysteria on the battlefield, confusing all enemies into attacking random factions. Enemies caught inside the Chaos will slowly have their Radiation resistances degraded. Ability Stats & Functions: Energy Cost: 100 Energy (affected by ability efficiency) Animation Type: Full-body Cast Type: Activation, Cast Point Radial Chaos Ring Radius: 20.0m (affected by ability range) Chaos Ring Duration: 18.0s (affected by ability duration) Chaos Ring Max: 2 Chaos Hypnotice Trance: for each enemy in Chaos, +2.0% chance to trigger Hypnotic Visage Chaos Status Effect (/sec): all enemies inside receive +1 Radiation status effect Chaos Health Debuff (/sec): all enemies inside receive -10.0% Radiation Damage resistance to Health (affected by ability strength) with ten enemies inside her rings, nyx will have a 40.0% chance to trigger hypnotic visage radiation status effect has the default duration of 6.0s and is not affected by mods damage vulnerability debuff applies directly to health, is permanent, and cannot exceed +100.0% Augments: All of the augments needed extensive overhauls. They were all what should've been basic functions of their respective abilities, so they were moved into the base functions and then adjusted to compensate. I like to think all of these augments are very unique and allow you to alter your playstyle to some degree, and they would all find use some place. Hide contents Mind Freak (Mind Control Augment): Description: Nyx uses telepathy to link her Mind Control victims to allies within 20.0m of them, sapping 15.0 Energy from the victims with every kill they get, and restoring it to her allies. Ability Stats & Functions: Control Target Replenish Radius: 20.0m (affected by ability range) Control Target Energy / Kill: +15.0 Energy (affected by ability strength) Pacifying Bolts -> Doubling Delusion (Psychic Bolts Augment): Description: Enemies killed while affected by Psychic Bolts creates 2 new Bolts each with 100.0% of the remaining duration, that will seek out the nearest enemy within 15.0m. Mod Functions: Kill Bolt Target Radius: 15.0m (affected by ability range) Kill Bolt Duration: 100.0% of the remaining duration (affected by ability duration) Kill Bolt Projectiles: 2 Assimilate (Absorb -> Telepathic Transfer Augment): Description: Nyx applies Telepathic Transfer with 75.0% Ability Strength to all allies within 20.0m for +1.0 increased Energy Drain per ally. Mod Functions: Ally Transfer Radius: 20.0m (affected by ability range) Ally Transfer Drain (/sec): +1.0 Energy Drain per ally; stacks 5x, 5.0/s max. (affected by ability efficiency & ability duration) Ally Transfer Effectiveness: applied with 75.0% total Ability Strength (affected by ability strength) ally transfer drain is increased when any number of allies are affected, it does not scale by amount Singularity (Absorb -> Telepathic Transfer Augment) Description: Create a ring every 3.0s for 10 Energy that lasts 1.0s and drags enemies within 20.0m toward the center at 20.0m/s. Mod Functions: Singularity Drain: 10 Energy (affected by ability efficiency) Singularity Delay: 3.0s Singularity Duration: 1.0s (affected by ability duration) Singularity Range: 20.0m (affected by ability range) Singularity Strength: 20.0m/s (affected by ability strength) Chaos Sphere -> Entropy (Chaos Augment): Description: Nyx empowers allies within Chaos, granting them the effects of her Hypnotic Visage that will linger for a 4.0s upon leaving. Whenever Hypnotic Visage triggers it replenishes 15 Health and Shields to all allies within 10.0m of them. Mod Functions: Visage Linger Duration: 4.0s (affected by ability duration) Visage Restore Radius: 10.0m (affected by ability range) Visage Restore Amount: 15 Health and Shields (affected by ability strength) Final Thoughts This thread was an absolute pain to polish, Nyx's kit was in such a sorry state that I had to go through and tune up every minor detail. That being said, it was lots of fun to do, despite taking quite a while. I hope you had as much fun reading these ideas as I did putting them together, I'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions you have in the comments below! Edited October 1, 2023 by bnuy 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R4bbit0le Posted September 29, 2023 Share Posted September 29, 2023 This thread is so carefully written and was such a good pitch I feel my humble comments won't add much to it. Thank you for sharing! But as I do enjoy playing Nyx, I wanted to add just a little bit to it. Nyx is very powerful, her problem is not viability so I don't think she needs these much changes although I really enjoyed your ideas for future frames. I think her biggest design flaw it's how her Absorb works. At the same time it's such a big part of her identity and still one of her strongest tools that I cannot part with it. Nyx can't be invulnerable to everything except stairs, doesn't make any sense in current gameplay if it ever did 10 years ago! Movement is one of the best parts of our game and I think that is the very reason Nyx is very unpopular (bottom 3 at most ranks). Our community values mobility very highly and not even a full invulnerability is worth losing it. It doesn't feel like smooth gameplay, not even with mobility subsumed from Lavos or Revenant helminth and Assimilate augment. Releasing the bubble after eating damage should have more impact and the magnetic buff feels weak, most player don't even know it's there. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R4bbit0le Posted September 29, 2023 Share Posted September 29, 2023 I would do this to her Absorb: complete freedom of movement and no slow tap or hold mechanic, like Mag's Magnetize tap 4 to activate or deactivate bubble around you, no long release animations if you only tap Absorb you won't get no AoE on release, only the weapon damage buff based on what you absorbed. Tap bubble radius is 50% smaller instead you can hold for the full range and enter the "meditative" state and then release for the AoE with all the animations we currently do increase the magnetic damage buff to weapons to 0.1% of all damage absorbed and not affected by mods so activating and releasing her 4 becomes more thoughtful and rewarding The cost to channel an ability should be energy and not reduced mobility or both as we have now. This is how it works currently: "Absorb drains 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 energy per second, and will remain active so long as Nyx has energy. An additional 8 energy is drained for every 1000 damage that's absorbed" and all costs are affected by efficiency, drain is also affected by duration. I would change it to: Tap version: " Absorb drains 12/9/7/6 energy per second, and will remain active so long as Nyx has energy. Each big hit (1000+ in one hit) to the bubble also drain an additional 20 energy. All energy costs are affected by efficiency and drain is also affected by duration. This is not perfect for high level and values could be adjusted to better reflect damage but it's better than what we have now for sure. The goal is to make tanking fodder and low level units very easy but bosses, eximus, and high level units require more planning, positioning, enemy knowledge, constant use of Chaos, target priority and a good energy economy solution. Take my energy but not my bullet jumps!! Hold version: Absorb drains 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 energy per second, and will remain active so long as Nyx has energy. ll energy costs affected by efficiency and drain is also affected by duration. Just that! You are already paying a big price for just standing still on the same spot without using any tool on your arsenal. It will be a looong while until you reach nuke damage for high level armored units. Eximus units will just feel a breeze passing by either way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bnuy Posted November 29, 2023 Author Share Posted November 29, 2023 bump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bnuy Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 bumperino Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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