Rework old frames by making augments part of their base kits.

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

Equinox, Ash, and Nekros are all good frames with one major issue: they have too many augments that are required to make their abilities useful. Several of their abilities are underwhelming or entirely useless without equipping augments, which poses a problem when you're trying to mod your Warframe and you need 2-3 augments for their abilities to even be useful, let alone all of the "optional" augments you want to play around with.

So it would be nice if abilities like Ash 1 and 3, Equinox 3 and 4, Nekros 3 and 4, and other abilities on older frames has their augments implemented by default. 

Or just add an augment slot if you'd prefer that.

Edited September 30, 2023 by (XBOX)Upl0rdYT

[(NSW)Greybones]

Useful for what, exactly?

[trst]

Except not one of those frames require those augments to be useful. They're only "required" if you choose to require a build based around said augments. While as stand alone abilities they all still have valid uses.

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

9 minutes ago, trst said:

Except not one of those frames require those augments to be useful. They're only "required" if you choose to require a build based around said augments. While as stand alone abilities they all still have valid uses.

Their abilities literally need augments to be useful. 

Ash 1 and 3 do nothing without augments. Even if you want to argue that his 1 does something, compare those abilities to Kullervo's 1. 

Equinox's 1 is nothing but a gimmick without the augment. Her 3 is only good on day mode while on night it only affects nearby enemies and halves its own effects. Rather than rework her 3 I simply said that she should just implement the augment, but buffing her 3 on night mode would be perfectly fine. 

Her 4 is useless without the augment because you can't use half her kit while it is active. There is literally no point on why it has this limitation because all it does is make you focus on 1 form not 2. 

Nekros's 1 is ok. His 2 is good (but most people use the augment for him due to the constant energy drain without it). His 3 makes enemies run away from him (hence the augment to slow them), and his 4 while fine by itself also has an augment needed for survivability, which as previously mentioned is very annoying when you're running the other 2 augments. 

The idea that you should sacrifice abilities entirely unless you specifically build around them is dumb. Imagine if these newer frames needed 3 augments to do all the things they do. Would people like them nearly as much? Probably not.

53 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Useful for what, exactly?

Depends on the ability but these 3 frames specifically have abilities that are annoying to use (or are heavily restricted) without their augments.  

Equinox 4, Ash 1 and 3, and Nekros 3 are the biggest examples.

[(NSW)Greybones]

10 minutes ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

Depends on the ability but these 3 frames specifically have abilities that are annoying to use (or are heavily restricted) without their augments.  

Equinox 4, Ash 1 and 3, and Nekros 3 are the biggest examples.

What are you using them for, though, that they need the augments? Most abilities can be specialised in at the cost of specialising in other abilities, augments range pretty dramatically in effects, and the higher we go the more we need to be considerate of how we build in the first place (and then we get into unbalanced Steel Path which tasks us with sacrificing variety for enough power to get our foot into the door and then plays hell with things like direct damage and enemy density-based abilities).

Sometimes an ability can be specialised in but then the player needs to play better to make good use of it instead of standing around like they’ve gotten Rhino for the first time as a newbie. Sometimes the ability’s effectiveness gets impacted by how overbuilt or underbuilt someone’s weapon is for a mission. Sometimes such specialisation only works because someone’s got tons of energy generation elsewhere

What are you using the abilities for, and what’s the build supposed to do?

Edited October 1, 2023 by (NSW)Greybones

[BroDutt]

32 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

What are you using them for, though, that they need the augments?

I think OP already explain it. Those augment kinda like Qol for those warframe. You basically need that for every type of build.

Equinox 4 energy transfer augment is detrimental that without it you'll cost extra energy to recast it when changing to different form and lost all of the bonus that you build.

Ash seeking shuriken augment basically the reason anyone use it and even without the bonus damage from Fatal teleport, he should be able to do finisher when teleport (the Circuit Stalker even had this without augment).

The only one that kinda an option is Nekros Despoil since you can build for sustainable energy generated Nekros (Nourish, Arcane Energize and Archon Shard)

What i really like is merging of augment especially if it's for the same ability. And extra augment slot is kinda nice

Edited October 1, 2023 by BroDutt

[(NSW)Greybones]

3 minutes ago, BroDutt said:

I think OP already explain it. Those augment kinda like Qol for those warframe. You basically need that for every type of build.

Equinox 4 energy transfer augment is detrimental that without it you'll cost extra energy to recast it when changing to different form and lost all of the bonus that you build.

Ash seeking shuriken augment basically the reason anyone use it and even without the bonus damage from Fatal teleport, he should be able to do finisher when teleport (the Circuit Stalker even had this without augment).

The only one that kinda an option is Nekros Despoil since you can build for sustainable energy generated Nekros (Nourish, Arcane Energize and Archon Shard)

What i really like is merging of augment especially if it's for the same ability. And extra augment slot is kinda nice

I’m not sure I was explained much of anything. There’s QoL and then there’s actual limiting mechanics designed to make a player think twice about doing something or be more considerate about what they’re doing. And then you get into concepts like armour stripping and mostly that revolves around Steel Path because, again, it’s unbalanced as the builds of players who use it as their standard stomping grounds, but SP isn’t the whole game (and thank god for it too, otherwise it’d be a pretty limited game in both opportunity for challenge as well as variety of builds).

Is OP coming from a purely SP perspective or something?

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

17 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

 

Is OP coming from a purely SP perspective or something?

Nope. Ash 3 opens enemies to finishers but is inconsistent. The other person already mentioned how Equinox needs her 4th augment for her 4 to be somewhat useful, and I mentioned about how her 3 needed a buff (especially on night form) or for the augment to be built in or else it's almost useless. 

Nekros was more interesting but the reasons why I mentioned him was because on a build revolving around his base kit, you'll want augments for either his 2 and 3 or his 2 and 4. His 2 needs to have a separate augment so you can choose whether or not you want to expend energy on it  so that means you have very limited mod space when taking his other 3 augments into account. 

Note that these are just the "mandatory augments." These frames still have several other nice augments like Ash's 2 and 4 or Equinox's 1 and 2 that have to fight for space with either your regular mods or your augments, which makes you effectively sacrifice 1 or 2 of your abilities for the sake of your other 2 abilities should you choose to run the "optional" augments.

Edited October 1, 2023 by (XBOX)Upl0rdYT

[(NSW)Greybones]

15 minutes ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

Nope. Ash 3 opens enemies to finishers but is inconsistent. The other person already mentioned how Equinox needs her 4th augment for her 4 to be somewhat useful, and I mentioned about how her 3 needed a buff (especially on night form) or for the augment to be built in or else it's almost useless. 

Nekros was more interesting but the reasons why I mentioned him was because on a build revolving around his base kit, you'll want augments for either his 2 and 3 or his 2 and 4. His 2 needs to have a separate augment so you can choose whether or not you want to expend energy on it  so that means you have very limited mod space when taking his other 3 augments into account. 

Note that these are just the "mandatory augments." These frames still have several other nice augments like Ash's 2 and 4 or Equinox's 1 and 2 that have to fight for space with either your regular mods or your augments, which makes you effectively sacrifice 1 or 2 of your abilities for the sake of your other 2 abilities should you choose to run the "optional" augments.

When you bring in concepts like “Mandatory mods”, I seriously think you’re coming from a SP perspective because the rest of the game outside of the mode designed for min-maxers and their few ways to build is literally designed for build variety; I haven’t felt like I needed any of these mods as mandatory for the standard game, and I’m someone who balks heavily at the notion of mandatory mods so if I felt like I needed something and it didn’t make sense despite how well I utilise what I’ve got, I’d be one of the first to complain

Inconsistent behaviour, sure, that’s less a “This needs a mod to fix it” and more a “This inconsistent behaviour needs a look at”, so instead of asking for these things to be made part of the kit, why not ask that the core problem of inconsistency be looked at? Otherwise this sounds like you’re trying to get fundamental concepts like “Be considerate about when and where you use a thing” taken out of the game

Edited October 1, 2023 by (NSW)Greybones

[trst]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

Their abilities literally need augments to be useful. 

Ash 1 and 3 do nothing without augments. Even if you want to argue that his 1 does something, compare those abilities to Kullervo's 1. 

Equinox's 1 is nothing but a gimmick without the augment. Her 3 is only good on day mode while on night it only affects nearby enemies and halves its own effects. Rather than rework her 3 I simply said that she should just implement the augment, but buffing her 3 on night mode would be perfectly fine. 

Her 4 is useless without the augment because you can't use half her kit while it is active. There is literally no point on why it has this limitation because all it does is make you focus on 1 form not 2. 

Nekros's 1 is ok. His 2 is good (but most people use the augment for him due to the constant energy drain without it). His 3 makes enemies run away from him (hence the augment to slow them), and his 4 while fine by itself also has an augment needed for survivability, which as previously mentioned is very annoying when you're running the other 2 augments. 

The idea that you should sacrifice abilities entirely unless you specifically build around them is dumb. Imagine if these newer frames needed 3 augments to do all the things they do. Would people like them nearly as much? Probably not.

Shuriken has guaranteed Slash procs and not all weapons can apply them which became very relevant when we got status scaling for all weapons. And Teleport still opens enemies to finishers which will one-shot pretty much anything aside from SP endless spawns and SP Eximus. The only real purpose of the Teleport Augment is one-shotting SP Eximus for stealth kills.

Equinox's 1 literally lets her access the other half of her kit while the augment is literally just a gimmick. Pacify's augment doesn't do anything but grant you some extra power strength as the slow is pointless and at times even detrimental. The augment is effectively a better Strength mod and is only useful for min-maxing your strength (a valid use for it but not necessary to make the ability "useful"). And Half of Equinox's kit is pretty useless by default due to how powercreep killed support effects which makes up said half, but even then you aren't required to maintain access to both halves of Mend & Maim for the ability itself to be useful.

While Desecrate remains useful even with the energy cost. Terrify is still a full armor strip which is useful regardless of what the enemies are doing. And Shadows already gives you survivability by creating targets with a higher threat rating than Nekros, the augment just doubles down on said survivability.

 

Your whole point was that these augments:

3 hours ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

...are required to make their abilities useful.

Which is outright false. Just because you can't find the use of a base ability without the extra effects of an augment doesn't suddenly make the ability worthless. The only thing making them "worthless" is your chosen playstyle with these frames.

[--Leyenda-yight6]

hace 12 minutos, trst dijo:

Shuriken has guaranteed Slash procs and not all weapons can apply them which became very relevant when we got status scaling for all weapons.

All primary weapons are capable of applying guaranteed bleed with hunter ammo, several melee weapons are capable of applying guaranteed slash, only secondary weapons with low status chance or no slashing damage have trouble applying this status. The shuriken is still a bad ability, I could use 4 instead and it would do more damage with less energy, something similar with ember's first ability and her 4.

hace 18 minutos, trst dijo:

And Teleport still opens enemies to finishers which will one-shot pretty much anything aside from SP endless spawns and SP Eximus.

The teleport is inconsistent, any stun prevents you from finishing, the only thing it needs from its increase is to be able to finish automatically and, why not, allow it to teleport in any direction.

hace 28 minutos, trst dijo:

Equinox's 1 literally lets her access the other half of her kit while the augment is literally just a gimmick. Pacify's augment doesn't do anything but grant you some extra power strength as the slow is pointless and at times even detrimental. The augment is effectively a better Strength mod and is only useful for min-maxing your strength (a valid use for it but not necessary to make the ability "useful"). And Half of Equinox's kit is pretty useless by default due to how powercreep killed support effects which makes up said half, but even then you aren't required to maintain access to both halves of Mend & Maim for the ability itself to be useful.

Everyone who has suggested a rework for Equinox agrees that augmentation 4 has to be the default in the warframe for his 4 and 3, anti-synergy with his 1 makes no sense.

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

9 hours ago, trst said:

 

 

Your whole point was that these augments:

Which is outright false. Just because you can't find the use of a base ability without the extra effects of an augment doesn't suddenly make the ability worthless. The only thing making them "worthless" is your chosen playstyle with these frames.

As people have already mentioned, making Ash's 3 do the finisher automatically would be a huge qol for his kit. His shuriken is fine as a first ability, but every frame since Wisp has had their 1 be really useful, so comparing Ash 1 to Yareli 1, Gyre 1, Wisp 1, Garuda 1, Voruna 1, or Kullervo 1 shows how much it is lacking. 

Equinox literally needs the augment to her 4. The point of her is being extremely versatile, but if the point of her 4th ability is to store up as much potential as possible, you immediately lose access to her other half of her kit until you are done casting her 4, which makes it an immediate disadvantage unless you only use mend.

Her 1 by itself is a gimmick and I know that's how it's supposed to be, but I can't run the augment for it when I'm busy running the augments to band-aid her 3 and 4. 

Her 3 literally needs a buff/rework. Like no other frame has this weakness where their ability halves it's own effectiveness. If it was 99% damage reduction it would make way more sense but it's a 90% damage reduction that only affects nearby enemies making it way worse than any other frame with 90% damage reduction. That's why people run the augment on her, because her slow > her damage reduction. 

Nekros is less severe than the other two frames, but he still has the problem of wanting to run 3 different equally important augments. Since most people run Despoil, you will almost always be choosing between his 3rd and 4th augment, and remember that you're probably also building Nekros with Equilibrium and Health Conversion so when combined with a second augment leaves little room for anything else.

 

[Marvelous_A]

Yes I think it really isn't a hot take or something. Unless a player is terrible at modding stuff, they should be able to easily tell some augments are so essential they can't be omitted in a proper build.

[(NSW)Greybones]

8 minutes ago, Marvelous_A said:

Yes I think it really isn't a hot take or something. Unless a player is terrible at modding stuff, they should be able to easily tell some augments are so essential they can't be omitted in a proper build.

More like some players are demonstrating an eye-rolling amount of not really stepping outside their comfort zones and then claiming the game needs to be designed around them and their limited choices in ways to play

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

12 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

More like some players are demonstrating an eye-rolling amount of not really stepping outside their comfort zones and then claiming the game needs to be designed around them and their limited choices in ways to play

If you're so sure you're right, you're free to try playing Equinox or Nekros in upper branch void (or anything harder) without augments to prove me wrong. 

And I don't mean using Equinox while using an incarnon or a Kuva weapon and saying "oh I killed everything so they're good enough." 

The fact that you have to run augments to even be on par with the abilities of several of the more recent frames should tell you something.

Edited October 1, 2023 by (XBOX)Upl0rdYT

[(NSW)Greybones]

12 minutes ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

If you're so sure you're right, you're free to try playing Equinox or Nekros in upper branch void (or anything harder) without augments to prove me wrong. 

And I don't mean using Equinox while using an incarnon or a Kuva weapon and saying "oh I killed everything so they're good enough." 

The fact that you have to run augments to even be on par with the abilities of several of the more recent frames should tell you something.

Upper branch void? Give me some clarification on what you’re referring to and I will. I’m well versed in what it takes to make mods not-so-mandatory, and I’m not someone who thinks the game rolling over and dying is its default state, so I’m not pushed into unnecessary amounts of overkill or survival

[(PSN)robotwars7]

22 hours ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

Or just add an augment slot if you'd prefer that.

heh, had one of those in the First Descendant Beta when it was live, and the augments actually change the entire playstyle of each character; I only wish all warframe augments could do that, but I don't think we'll ever get a dedicated augment slot for warframes, because if we were, it likely would have been already done by now

the best I think we can hope for is that when a frame gets reworked, part -or all - of it's augments get folded into the main ability. this is going to be the case with Hydroid thankfully, but the other frames OP mentioned -Ash, Equinox and Nekros -  are not really in a position where people are calling for a rework, and all of them are already Primed, so I doubt they're getting tweaked again any time soon.

[(XBOX)Obi Wan Dandobi]

The idea of augments should be exactly that, to augment how a frame plays. Nekros Despoil a classic example. You don't need it but it augments his play style therfore no need for it to be part of his bade kit. What I hate is augments introduced as band aids. Rhino's Iron Shrapnel. Why is that not just part of his kit? Who doesn't want to refresh his iron skin? Also, as OP says, Equinox Energy Transfer. Why is that not just normal? Why am I wasting a mod slot for it?

[Hexerin]

9 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Upper branch void? Give me some clarification on what you’re referring to and I will. I’m well versed in what it takes to make mods not-so-mandatory, and I’m not someone who thinks the game rolling over and dying is its default state, so I’m not pushed into unnecessary amounts of overkill or survival

Show us a video of your playthrough of Akkad (Eris) on Steel Path. Take Hildryn, without using Blazing Pillage. Go up through wave 40, for a full 2 reward cycles. Or, if you really want to prove the point, take it as far as you possibly can. The higher you go, the more it'll shut everyone up about this, right?

[(NSW)Greybones]

2 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

Show us a video of your playthrough of Akkad (Eris) on Steel Path. Take Hildryn, without using Blazing Pillage. Go up through wave 40, for a full 2 reward cycles. Or, if you really want to prove the point, take it as far as you possibly can. The higher you go, the more it'll shut everyone up about this, right?

I was under the impression that OP wasn’t talking about SP, but I can see what I can do. Shouldn’t be too hard to shut a bunch of mandatory mod-equipping narrow-playstyle non-experimenting low-risk grindheads up; they aren’t exactly known for stepping outside of whatever their builds alone can handle since to do so would be to invite mission failure or death, which they avoid like the plague

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

21 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

When you bring in concepts like “Mandatory mods”, I seriously think you’re coming from a SP perspective because the rest of the game outside of the mode designed for min-maxers and their few ways to build is literally designed for build variety; 

Arbitrations, Kuva liches, Archon hunts, top branch of void, Zariman, Conjunction survival, railjack, and open worlds all have somewhat difficult enemies even without steel path modifiers. 

 

9 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Upper branch void? Give me some clarification on what you’re referring to and I will. I’m well versed in what it takes to make mods not-so-mandatory, and I’m not someone who thinks the game rolling over and dying is its default state, so I’m not pushed into unnecessary amounts of overkill or survival

Void is divided by nodes that are in different lines or "branches." The top layer of the void, accessed from Sedna, is likely a new player's first experience with high level enemies outside of liches or railjack. The enemies there have a buff to their stats (although not as much as steel path) and corrupted vor will have a chance of spawning. 

In other words it's the first regular place on the star chart where enemies become capable of easily killing people's Warframes.

[(NSW)Greybones]

Just now, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

Arbitrations, Kuva liches, Archon hunts, top branch of void, Zariman, Conjunction survival, railjack, and open worlds all have somewhat difficult enemies even without steel path modifiers. 

 

Void is divided by nodes that are in different lines or "branches." The top layer of the void, accessed from Sedna, is likely a new player's first experience with high level enemies outside of liches or railjack. The enemies there have a buff to their stats (although not as much as steel path) and corrupted vor will have a chance of spawning. 

In other words it's the first regular place on the star chart where enemies become capable of easily killing people's Warframes.

Alright, I see what you mean now. Mostly I just refer to them by level of content that takes place on them, since that’ll be one of the bigger indicators of how tough things’ll get alongside whatever modifiers are present.

So I’ll poke around all of those with a variety of builds/loadouts without relying on the augments and still using Nekros, Ash, Equinox. Between you and @Hexerin I’ve got yet more gameplay and experimenting; good thing I’ve still got things worth getting to shoot for

[(NSW)Greybones]

9 minutes ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

Arbitrations, Kuva liches, Archon hunts, top branch of void, Zariman, Conjunction survival, railjack, and open worlds all have somewhat difficult enemies even without steel path modifiers. 

 

Void is divided by nodes that are in different lines or "branches." The top layer of the void, accessed from Sedna, is likely a new player's first experience with high level enemies outside of liches or railjack. The enemies there have a buff to their stats (although not as much as steel path) and corrupted vor will have a chance of spawning. 

In other words it's the first regular place on the star chart where enemies become capable of easily killing people's Warframes.

As a side thing, I appreciate the way you’ve phrased this; no sneaky attempts to try and get me to go completely modless or anything, you’re showing consideration for what is to be expected.  I respect that, even as I’m actively trying to prove you wrong about something. I’m pretty confident in what I can do, but it’s more out of experimental curiosity now (which it was before as well with an element of “Proving wrong”, but now moreso and the Proving Wrong is less important)

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

I think in some cases, this would be a good call, and nice change. I wouldn't say it would count as a rework though. As far as terminology goes, a bit of consistency would be nice. Hydroid? Getting reworked, Grendel? Reworked. Integrating an augment into an ability because you can argue the ability or Warframe has become a bit dated, not really a rework. 

Likewise there is value in not over exaggerating or engaging in hyperbole. Don't believe me? Then you are literally a liar with literal pants on fire, thinking otherwise is scientifically impossible! Ability underwhelming? Good, measured, relative. Literally useless? Literally undermines the very point attempting to be made. Literally discredits the person making the claim. Literally literally proving my point, literally and figuratively, but also literally because language does evolve and adapt, so literally not actually being literally, but being used so much to mean figuratively, but thats literally okay, because it just means the word becomes a contronym, of which there are many already... 

Speaking of nyms, do you guys know what a synonym for contronyms are? Janus word... look at them, they come to this place when they know they are not pure. Tenno use language, but they are mere trespassers. Only I, Vor, know the true power of language... My main point though, is you shouldn't try to advocate for a change by believing that there aren't people out there who can do hours of Steel Path with a Warframe without Augments or certain tech, you might think is mandatory. Your argument shouldn't rely on that idea (and in this case, it doesn't even need to, so what if someone (I am someone) can use Equinox in Steel Path for hours without any of her Augments. Its fine to argue it would be a good change for other reasons. More flexibility, more accessible for some players, or many other reasons. Something doesn't need to be literally useless for someone to suggest changes or improvements. Also, yes, it would sort of be cool too, if people did try to understand the sincerity and intent behind the points and arguments too, but two way street.