The Things I'd Need to be Happy with Pseudo-Exalteds no Longer Using Stat-Sticks

[(PSN)MYKK678]

15 minutes ago, Raikh said:

Certainly went on a bit of a tangent here. But I guess its inevitable to talk about the state of full Exalted Weapons when talking about making Pseudo-Exalteds individually moddable like them. I'm highly curious where changes to Pseudo-Exalted modding will take us should they happen.

It wasn't a tangent, just an inevitable outcome. Talking about "Pseudo-Exalteds" makes for a nice thought experiment, but it certainly won't be happening. Not only would it risk opening frames up to a few problems, but can you imagine the uproar over a whole system being built for "Pseudo-Exalteds" before anything is done about the state of actual Exalted weapons? People can have their own opinions about DE, but they're definitely not that stupid.

[CrownOfShadows]

Yeah, psuedo-exalteds are funny creatures. I think they're much more likely to be rolled into full abilities than they are to become mod-able weapons, but I'm not so sure I'd touch them too much - a big chunk of the riven market is tied up into them too so there's that to consider. Mostly what I'd do is make them all work the same, but keep them in their weird spot. Right now they all work slightly differently it seems like, which means you need deep knowledge about the frame and how to precisely build for them, and this info can be hard to get.

1. Khora is king of them, without a doubt, and Whipclaw absolutely does not need anymore help. And it was nerfed not all that long ago! And it still is ridiculously strong.
2. Atlas... ok... look, he can do absolutely dumb damage - he definitely doesn't need buffs either, he just needs QoL imo, it's more that he's not a great frame to play than it is that his psuedo doesn't hit hard enough.
3. I haven't gone deep enough into Gara stat stick builds to really speak about it - I mostly use hers in combination with her kit rather than as an actual DPS
4. I also haven't used Ash intimately so I can't speak on his

The two I can speak on - well, they're pretty OP and I'd be scared to buff them.

(and just in case you guys don't have this epic thread already bookmarked [i think he keeps it updated], and also apparently razorflies count in this category, which i definitely cannot speak about in any detail):

Edited February 28 by CrownOfShadows

[Raikh]

13 minutes ago, (PSN)MYKK678 said:

It wasn't a tangent, just an inevitable outcome. Talking about "Pseudo-Exalteds" makes for a nice thought experiment, but it certainly won't be happening. Not only would it risk opening frames up to a few problems, but can you imagine the uproar over a whole system being built for "Pseudo-Exalteds" before anything is done about the state of actual Exalted weapons? People can have their own opinions about DE, but they're definitely not that stupid.

I most definitely don't see it happening outside of a larger scale Exalted Rework. Even if they gave Pseudo-Exalted flat out preferential treatment over Exalted Weapons on the modding front that wouldn't solve Incarnons and Riven and just make both ends mad. So I can definitely imagine the community meltdown if they just made that change.
I wouldn't exclude the possibility of it happening at some point but given the opinion on Exalted Weapons being already split in the community and just the undertaking it would be to rework Exalted Weapons as a whole I wouldnt even wanna put a year on it.

[(PSN)MYKK678]

22 minutes ago, Raikh said:

I most definitely don't see it happening outside of a larger scale Exalted Rework. Even if they gave Pseudo-Exalted flat out preferential treatment over Exalted Weapons on the modding front that wouldn't solve Incarnons and Riven and just make both ends mad. So I can definitely imagine the community meltdown if they just made that change.
I wouldn't exclude the possibility of it happening at some point but given the opinion on Exalted Weapons being already split in the community and just the undertaking it would be to rework Exalted Weapons as a whole I wouldnt even wanna put a year on it.

There's all of that, plus because "Pseudo-Exalteds" is a player made-up term, there's no actual official definition for it. Therefore as easily as someone can claim there's only X amount of "Pseudo-Exalteds", I could argue there's far more.

If we go down the route of pretending the definition is "a physical weapon being manifested by a Warframe", then Revenants Enthrall could count, as it creates Physical Eidolon-like bots over enemies heads to keep them Enthralled.

If we go down the route of pretending the definition is "a physical weapon capable of inflicting damage", then any power Volt uses that inflicts damage with electricity counts. Electricity itself has a split ratio of understanding between Chemistry and Physics, but the majority of which is Physics. Also anyone who creates spinning blades like Yareli or Dagath now get to count too.

There was some poor fool earlier trying to argue that because a Dev mentioned the term in a tweet, it has to be official. Unfortunately for that theory to work, there'd have to be some universal force that stops Devs from being able to speak or type out Community Terms, as if they cannot do it otherwise. They likely didn't know the character Clem started as a Community joke either, literal proof their argument was nonsense. So for now, without an official definition, these so-called "Pseudo-Exalteds" would be getting preferential treatment for no real reason, and all it would do is open the flood gates of folks asking "Well why isn't X counted as one?".

[Raikh]

14 minutes ago, (PSN)MYKK678 said:

There's all of that, plus because "Pseudo-Exalteds" is a player made-up term, there's no actual official definition for it. Therefore as easily as someone can claim there's only X amount of "Pseudo-Exalteds", I could argue there's far more.

Don't think thats such a huge deal. Sure, the argument can always be made that some abilities could/should work off of mods, but thats a different story as you are asking certain abilities to become (Psuedo-)Exalted Weapons. Pseudo-Exalted Weapons right now are Abilities that scale off of mods or stats from your weapons w/o being weapons mechanically (referring to inputs) and are not moddable themselves.

I think attempting to stretch the definition just because its a community term isn't making a good point because its not a flavor term but a mechanical term, atleast to the degree I have encountered it. People usually ask for things to become Exalted if it seems to make sense thematically, like it was the case with Peace Maker, not argue that they are actually Exalted Weapons and throw a tantrum because they don't scale with weapon mods.

 

Edited February 28 by Raikh

[(PSN)MYKK678]

26 minutes ago, Raikh said:

Don't think thats such a huge deal. Sure, the argument can always be made that some abilities could/should work off of mods, but thats a different story as you are asking certain abilities to become (Psuedo-)Exalted Weapons. Pseudo-Exalted Weapons right now are Abilities that scale off of mods or stats from your weapons w/o being weapons mechanically (referring to inputs) and are not moddable themselves.

I think attempting to stretch the definition just because its a community term isn't making a good point because its not a flavor term but a mechanical term, atleast to the degree I have encountered it. People usually ask for things to become Exalted if it seems to make sense thematically, like it was the case with Peace Maker, not argue that they are actually Exalted Weapons and throw a tantrum because they don't scale with weapon mods.

 

Again, I can't "stretch the definition", there isn't one. And until there is, anyones interpretation of it is as valid as another's.

[Raikh]

11 minutes ago, (PSN)MYKK678 said:

Again, I can't "stretch the definition", there isn't one. And until there is, anyones interpretation of it is as valid as another's.

I don't think thats the case at all. Just because its a community term doesn't mean its undefined. Nor is there any need for an authority figure to make something official for the term to have meaning or represent something for the time being. Plenty of terms in gaming were coined by the respective communities. The abilities referred to in topics regarding Pseudo-Exalted Weapons are fairly easy to identify. There isn't anything nebulous about the idea, particularly when the concerns featured are about mechanics referring to how these abilities interact with weapon mods, which automatically excludes any abilities that have no direct interaction with weapon mods.

 

[KitMeHarder]

4 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

You can't compare exalted weapons to other abilities if you're wanting to give them all the same tools as weapons - at that point I'd say yeah - they can't have any power scaling then - they can't be abilities at that point they have to be weapons because that's what you're wanting them to be

I can and you should. And they're abilities AND weapons at the same time. When you use them you not only need the power of a (signature) ability from them, but you're losing the ability to use one or all of your weapons when you use them. So they also need to compensate for that in terms of power.

And there's no point in having them separately moldable in the first place if your logic is "you can't think of them as weapons". Why would DE not just make them like Sol Gate, Crucible Blast, Ulfrun's Decent, etc... if you think they want us to not think of them as weapons?

Besides ones that have very unique and powerful mechanics (Peacemakers and Desert Wind) the only real reason to use our current exalteds is their ability to be (fully) dual modded. And as we've seen, without that most fail into (relative) ruin.

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Like they're inconsistent - ok, and?

Do you think Landslide is overpowered? All I'm literally trying to do is give exalteds the same tools psuedo-exalteds have. (So yes, abilities already have access to these mechanics (and more) and the game is fine.)

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

exalted's should be strong, yes, but they don't need to all be equally strong

I feel like your comments are talking about balance, but then you say all abilities/exalteds (frames as a whole) shouldn't be similarly strong... but that's literally what balance would be.

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

but I think you're underrating Iron Staff a bit here

You even said yourself that Iron Staff isn't as good as some normal melees....

It's baseline should be nowhere near a melee weapon I can equip on any frame, which doesn't cost energy, doesn't take up an ability slot, etc....

[KitMeHarder]

2 hours ago, (PSN)MYKK678 said:

can you imagine the uproar over a whole system being built for "Pseudo-Exalteds" before anything is done about the state of actual Exalted weapons?

That's why I preemptively made this thread. So before DE considers doing anything funny, there's at least a chance they can see and reference threads like these. Streamlining Shattered Lash, Slash Dash, Landslide, and Whipclaw just for them to be made into relative garbage like Iron Staff would be near game killing for me.

2 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I'd be scared to buff them.

Except with my thread I'm not buffing them. They're staying basically the same if DE implements all of my suggestions. And that's what I mean about giving exalteds less than what Landslide has, it's not going to break the game.

2 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

also apparently razorflies count in this category, which i definitely cannot speak about in any detail

They scale off of Diwata only, so they already have "separate" modding/don't use conventional stat-sticks.

[CrownOfShadows]

2 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

I can and you should. And they're abilities AND weapons at the same time. When you use them you not only need the power of a (signature) ability from them, but you're losing the ability to use one or all of your weapons when you use them. So they also need to compensate for that in terms of power.

idk man this doesn't feel reasonable at all, it feels like your splitting word hairs to justify this. Like imagine if you pumped 200-300% str behind any good melee weapon, that'd be broken af, and all you seem to be asking for is the reverse. If you wanted that then at the very least you need to dampen them, debuff them in preparation for this supernova of power that would get dumped on them.

You want to drop a nuke on an anthill when all you need is one stick of dynamite. All this is just massive overkill.

2 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

And there's no point in having them separately moldable in the first place if your logic is "you can't think of them as weapons". Why would DE not just make them like Sol Gate, Crucible Blast, Ulfrun's Decent, etc... if you think they want us to not think of them as weapons?

It's a cool design idea that got more complicated than they probably intended. I actually quite like exalted weapons as a concept and honestly those warframes tend to be more interesting in the long-term imo.

2 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Do you think Landslide is overpowered? All I'm literally trying to do is give exalteds the same tools psuedo-exalteds have. (So yes, abilities already have access to these mechanics (and more) and the game is fine.)

I feel like your comments are talking about balance, but then you say all abilities/exalteds (frames as a whole) shouldn't be similarly strong... but that's literally what balance would be.

Landslide IS overpowered, the only reason it isn't on everyone's red alert is because it's single target, slow, not 'cool', kinda needs a niche setup, and it's on a sucky frame. Balance isn't about plateauing all weapons, it's about making sure they're all in the same ballpark, can compete, and yet still have an identity. Pushing exalted weapons into the next zip code isn't balance.

And while Iron Staff is a little weaker than I'd like, I'd still put it in the top quarter of melee weapons. It just needs a little nudge, not a screaming demon freight train of buffs.

2 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Besides ones that have very unique and powerful mechanics (Peacemakers and Desert Wind) the only real reason to use our current exalteds is their ability to be (fully) dual modded. And as we've seen, without that most fail into (relative) ruin.

Uh, have we seen that? I think we've seen that most have fallen into great use, and only a few have fallen into the ditch. It's much easier and more balanced to just drag the few in the ditch out.

......... giving Blood Rush, Weeping Wounds, Arcanes, Rivens & all the other tools of normal weapons to exalteds ... like....

Mesa, Baruuk, Excal, Titania ... these are all A-S tier warframes (and most precisely because of their current exalted/psuedo) and Wukong is just waiting for some reason to take over the meta again. Please explain how this will not send them all into the stratosphere. I just don't get it. They'll be halfway to Mars before the sound of the rocket has even faded.

If they were all F tier warframes and/or their exalteds struggled to even get through the regular starchart - then okay, sure, let's buff the holy bejesus out of them. But they're not down there, they're are sitting at the top.

Edited February 28 by CrownOfShadows
multiple typos

[CrownOfShadows]

How about we take a more reasonable approach. What would a reasonable buff for exalted's look like?

1. Blood Rush? Out of the question imo. That is multiplicative damage and it will be completely out of control.
2. Weeping Wounds? Hm, okay, that might be fine.
3. Galvanized Mods? Absolutely not (this is a Mesa/Titania multiplier buff and they don't need it)
4. Arcanes? Not for guns. No way. For melee only? It'll be too strong on Baruuk imo but other than him - yeah, these by themselves might be ok, I can see all other melee exalteds appreciating this without becoming oppressive.
5. Base Stat increases? Your examples seem a little high to me but I think these by themselves would be ok (Khora does not need a buff, she's still right up there with the best)
6. Separate combo timers that independently decay? I don't even think this is a buff it's more a QoL and I support it 100% regardless, the only argument against it is that DE is (rightfully) afraid people will never leave their exalted form. But I think that's a fairly weak argument compared to the peace of mind it would deliver, and I think there's a strong case that it will actually encourage more weapon swapping rather than the opposite (this change alone is probably all that's need to make Iron Staff feel good - nobody ever stays in it long enough to get to 12x and like all melee weapons that's where a good chunk of the power is)

So basically I'm not saying none of these will work, I'm just saying pick one, a reasonable one, and avoid gun buffs entirely because that's Mesa/Titania.

OH and one other thing I've seen thrown around is the idea to create exalted-only mods or exalted-weapon-specific mods (like an Iron Staff mod or a Diwata mod), this would be a good way to scale them independently of other melee/weapons and honestly I'd be on board for these solutions too as it seems pretty reasonable.

Edited February 28 by CrownOfShadows
remembered exalted mods

[CrownOfShadows]

^{oops quoted myself lol}

Edited February 28 by CrownOfShadows

[KitMeHarder]

15 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Excal, Titania ... these are all A-S tier warframes

• Excal is not S or A tier, unless you only have S, A, and B tiers on your list. He is objectively average preforming and his usage stats are carried by him being a starter frame. At LR3 he only had 1.48% usage rate. And not to mention he was muuuch worse before the Abyss of Dagath.
• Titania is not praised for her Exalteds, you should know that.

15 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Blood Rush? Out of the question imo. That is multiplicative damage and it will be completely out of control.

It is the same exact multiplier as Sacrificial Steel and only 1.6x stronger. It also has to be built and maintained unlike SS.

15 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Galvanized Mods? Absolutely not (this is a Mesa/Titania multiplier buff and they don't need it)

IDK what you think a multiplier is, but this ain't it. It is the same thing as any other crit chance mod, takes a mod slot, Titania only has base 10% crit chance, etc... You're Don Quixote saying there's an army of giants attacking, only for them to be a couple of windmills.

15 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

For melee only? It'll be too strong on Baruuk imo but other than him - yeah, these by themselves might be ok, I can see all other melee exalteds appreciating this without becoming oppressive.

You can not pick and choose at willy-nilly. We do not need bogus inconsistencies.

15 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Khora does not need a buff, she's still right up there with the best

Bro... it is not a buff, like I already said. It's in exchange for no longer getting all the buffs from using stat-sticks. It is more-or-less the same power she currently has.

15 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Landslide IS overpowered

Then you must think something like half of all frames in the game are overpowered. So then it makes me wonder why you bother playing a game that's so obviously not for you, and not the level of power you want to embody? Respectfully, I at least would never push against the power "fantasy" level that a game established itself on, even if it wasn't for me and I enjoyed parts of it. Case-in-point, I recently played Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. I enjoyed it and got my 150 hours out of it, but I highly disliked how little power it gave players, especially individually. So guess what? I didn't go and complain on the forums for the game to cater to my drastic needs, I just had my fun and moved on.

I'm not discouraging you from playing Warframe, but I don't understand why you and others play this game if it's not your preference? Or at the very least I don't see why you try in change/holdback an established game just for your own drastic preferences.

Edited February 28 by KitMeHarder

[CrownOfShadows]

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

• Excal is not S or A tier

You're entitled to your own opinion on him.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

It is the same exact multiplier as Sacrificial Steel and only 1.6x stronger. It also has to be built and maintained unlike SS.

IDK what you think a multiplier is, but this ain't it.

Critical damage IS multiplicative damage. By increasing crit chance (and crit damage) you are multiplying damage. That's the entire structure of crit. Galvanized mods are also multipliers: multishot is a multiplier, and so is crit chance, and so is CO.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

Bro... it is not a buff, like I already said. It's in exchange for no longer getting all the buffs from using stat-sticks. It is more-or-less the same power she currently has.

Ok, I re-read your post and I misunderstood:  you want to remove all stat sticks from the game and make them into exalteds, in which case, yes, they will definitely need number adjustments.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

You can not pick and choose at willy-nilly. We do not need bogus inconsistencies.

You focus way too hard on inconsistencies, just saying. We MUST pick and choose. You CANNOT give Regulators merciless, not without gutting them first.. You just can't, not if you care about this game in the slightest. How do you not see this problem?

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

Then you must think something like half of all frames in the game are overpowered.

Err... this makes me doubt whether you've seen what Atlas can actually do (or maybe you're just being difficult and refusing to admit that those numbers aren't potentially a problem).

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

So then it makes me wonder why you bother playing a game that's so obviously not for you, and not the level of power you want to embody? Respectfully, I at least would never push against the power "fantasy" level that a game established itself on, even if it wasn't for me and I enjoyed parts of it. Case-in-point, I recently played Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. I enjoyed it and got my 150 hours out of it, but I highly disliked how little power it gave players, especially individually. So guess what? I didn't go and complain on the forums for the game to cater to my drastic needs, I just had my fun and moved on.

I'm not discouraging you from playing Warframe, but I don't understand why you and others play this game if it's not your preference? Or at the very least I don't see why you try in change/holdback an established game just for your own drastic preferences.

There's no need to devolve into personal attacks

Edited February 28 by CrownOfShadows

[ShogunGunshow]

All Warframe damage abilities should gain bonuses off of a new slot item called a Focus, with its own mods, that gives them base critical and additional status chance. Different focuses can give different stats, allowing future releases and more mods to let warframe abilities enjoy the same power creep that our weapons do.

Thank you for attending my ted talk

[KitMeHarder]

4 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Critical damage IS multiplicative damage.

But exalted weapons ALREADY have access to it. It's not some new multiplier I'm giving them.

4 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

We MUST pick and choose. [...] How do you not see this problem?

So should we just start arbitrarily picking and choosing what normal weapons do and do not get an arcane slot? Regardless of your answer, that is not how games like these work. The only time a weapon/weapon ability should have something exclusive to it is if the mod card literally says the name of the weapon on it (i.e. Avenging Truth).

4 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

You CANNOT give Regulators merciless, not without gutting them first.

Even if Peacemakers gets access to Merciless like you said, it's not even that big of a buff. For one, it'll be additive with any base damage mods she already has on. Two, Peacemakers don't scale like normal exalteds, strength gives it a base damage buff (not actual base damage). I.E. a Mesa with 200% power strength already has +600% base damage.

• Even if we assume you have no base damage mods on Peacemakers (or do you?), you probably assumed Merciless would increase Peacemakers' damage by (1*(1+3.6))-1= +360%. But that isn't the case.
• Really it's only increasing Peacemakers' damage by ((1*(1+3.6+(1.5*2*2)))/(1*(1+(1.5*2*2))))-1= +51.4%.

Also, that 200% strength Mesa gets another +50% base damage from Shooting Gallery.

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Peacemaker

4 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Err... this makes me doubt whether you've seen what Atlas can actually do (or maybe you're just being difficult and refusing to admit that those numbers aren't potentially a problem).

I know what he can do, probably better than most players. But I also know of ~14 or so Warframes that are better/better at killing than him. And that's not even considering all the frames that have significantly more utility value than him, which is just as (if not more) powerful.

4 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

There's no need to devolve into personal attacks

It's not a personal attack, it's supposed to be eye opening. If not for yourself, at the very least so you know how you come off to myself and likely many other players.

Overpowered literally means too powerful and in need of a nerf when not used in the common slang jargon, where people just simply mean strong. So if Landslide is in need of having it's power reduced, when Atlas is faaar from the head of the pack, it makes me think you don't like Warframe for what it is/has been.

Edited February 29 by KitMeHarder

[CrownOfShadows]

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

But exalted weapons ALREADY have access to it. It's not some new multiplier I'm giving them.

... this is such a dodge

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

So should we just start arbitrarily picking and choosing what normal weapons do and do not get an arcane slot? Regardless of your answer, that is not how games like these work.

Arbitrary = random. Obviously not, things need to be carefully selected. This is exactly how this game works, in about a dozen different ways just off the top of my head. Things are tailored and tweaked all over the place.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

Even if Peacemakers gets access to Merciless like you said, it's not even that big of a buff. For one, it'll be additive with any base damage mods she already has on. Two, Peacemakers don't scale like normal exalteds, strength gives it a base damage buff (not actual base damage). I.E. a Mesa with 200% power strength already has +600% base damage.

• Even if we assume you have no base damage mods on Peacemakers (or do you?), you probably assumed Merciless would increase Peacemakers' damage by (1*(1+3.6))-1= +360%. But that isn't the case.
• Really it's only increasing Peacemakers' damage by ((1*(1+3.6+(1.5*2*2)))/(1*(1+(1.5*2*2))))-1= +51.4%.

Also, that 200% strength Mesa gets another +50% base damage from Shooting Gallery.

Even if this math is correct the logic still carries over into stuff like Cascadia Overcharge, Secondary Outburst & Conjuction Voltage.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

It's not a personal attack, it's supposed to be eye opening.

Don't tell me what games are for me and don't gaslight me.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

If not for yourself, at the very least so you know how you come off to myself and likely many other players.

I'll let the record show who's being reasonable and who's being unreasonable. You don't seem to care about balance at all you only care about consistency. You haven't acknowledged a single counterpoint I've made and you've blatantly dodged multiple points. You're apparently convinced you're right about everything and nobody else can possibly have any understanding... and so having any kind of conversation with you is pointless - I'll exit here. Have a nice day and next time try to have an open mind.