Exalted QOL ?

[EternaldrkMako]

seeing how dante is yet another exalted frame im happy to see that type expand 

however, exalteds at this time seem to be vestigial, in that we have weapons with arcanes and mod pools that allow them to scale above in most cases 

This is felt more so on the melee exalteds , given tennokai was allowed on them to help a bit , but they have a restricted mod pool ,and no arcanes . they tend to fall off in most cases against  well modded melee or zaw 

honestly it seems like a simple fix,  just to grant the exalteds in general same mod pool as the weapon counterparts and grant them arcances so they will all benefit and scale for users in general along with their weapons equipped 

it might make some way stronger then i can imagine or predict? im sure someone will make something thats OP or nuke 

but at this time, it is becoming sad when im seeing people subsume the ultimate power of a kit for something else because it doesn't deliver nearly as much as just hitting them with a normal melee or a scaled up headshot ? 

i dont honestly think this would be bad as general qol to them to be on par with normal weapons, as they are usually a ultimate power and should be useful and stronger IMO then a default counterpart 

[Demigirlboss]

A weapon that costs energy to use, with a constant (and in Valkyr's case scaling) energy cost has no justification, in my opinion, for being noticeably worse than sticc

[DeathOfASaint]

yeah id really like if my regulators could use arcanes, a weapon that needs energy just to perform worse than a wep with an unlimited ammo pool makes no sense

but i think this is being stuck to one of DE Steve's outdated philosophies of letting exalteds be worse than normal weaponry even after he left, i have no clue why

Edited February 24 by DeathOfASaint

[EternaldrkMako]

4 hours ago, DeathOfASaint said:

yeah id really like if my regulators could use arcanes, a weapon that needs energy just to perform worse than a wep with an unlimited ammo pool makes no sense

but i think this is being stuck to one of DE Steve's outdated philosophies of letting exalteds be worse than normal weaponry even after he left, i have no clue why

 

5 hours ago, Demigirlboss said:

A weapon that costs energy to use, with a constant (and in Valkyr's case scaling) energy cost has no justification, in my opinion, for being noticeably worse than sticc

yea kinda the point of wasting energy is to have a weapon that functions on hand if ammo is out or capacity to deal scaling factor amounts of damage to any situation 

 

[Demigirlboss]

11 hours ago, EternaldrkMako said:

 

yea kinda the point of wasting energy is to have a weapon that functions on hand if ammo is out or capacity to deal scaling factor amounts of damage to any situation 

 

Baruuk with Reactive Storm is a pretty good example of that, and to a lesser extent Excalibur with Chromatic Blade, but both are augments and in the latter case you're still committed to a single Element, which is still kinda butts.

[Aevire]

I think the logic is that since there’s only 1 primary exalted (bow) only 3 secondary exalteds (peacemaker dex pixia & balefire) and only 5 melee exalteds (excal baruuk valkyr wukong and sevagoth) they “aren’t worth” the time and effort it’d take to code them such that they could use those arcanes, or code those arcanes so they work on exalteds. I don’t agree with this. That’s going on 10 warframes. If they just cannot make every single weapon arcane work on every single exalted weapon then make arcanes exclusive to exalted weapons that make them viable. Including pseudo exalteds (khora gara  ash atlas and excal again) that’s 13 going on 14 warframes, near a quarter of all the warframes in the game (also both Necramechs, I guess). Not only is it definitely “worth it” affecting nearly a quarter of the warframes in the game but that’s enough ability weapons to make ability weapon exclusive arcanes or other similar systems viable.

[EternaldrkMako]

On 2024-02-26 at 4:11 PM, Aevire said:

I think the logic is that since there’s only 1 primary exalted (bow) only 3 secondary exalteds (peacemaker dex pixia & balefire) and only 5 melee exalteds (excal baruuk valkyr wukong and sevagoth) they “aren’t worth” the time and effort it’d take to code them such that they could use those arcanes, or code those arcanes so they work on exalteds. I don’t agree with this. That’s going on 10 warframes. If they just cannot make every single weapon arcane work on every single exalted weapon then make arcanes exclusive to exalted weapons that make them viable. Including pseudo exalteds (khora gara  ash atlas and excal again) that’s 13 going on 14 warframes, near a quarter of all the warframes in the game (also both Necramechs, I guess). Not only is it definitely “worth it” affecting nearly a quarter of the warframes in the game but that’s enough ability weapons to make ability weapon exclusive arcanes or other similar systems viable.

They had to touch the exalted melees to enable tennokai system to work on them, so its not like the didnt have the chance to do it as they already were there code wise

usually how this stuff functions is through inheritance of classes , so say if a melee can have a x mod pool and arcanes and tennokai, they can simply enable it by removing the limiting function or limiting code such as if exalted exclude list # (mods) and exclude (arcanes) . quite easy to code and setup so its a matter of not wanting or caring enough to link/tweak them to expand or enable these capacities 

same thing applies with primary and secondary , they already had the arcane functions enabled a while ago its simply allowing them to pull from the same lists as non exalted.

also as you state its a good chunk of frames sporting the exalted/pseudo now, and even the poster boy of the game. it doesn't make sense and undercuts the performance of the frames that should have had these system already applied simply by inheritance or just quickly fixing the class to match that of normal type weapons. i know de is worried about them maybe be too powerful , but then do a balance/rework to keep then in line with the capacity. but at same time we have unchecked potential ina  variety of frame powers or weapons that scale infinitely ?

just a lot of inconsistency 

On 2024-02-25 at 1:26 AM, Demigirlboss said:

Baruuk with Reactive Storm is a pretty good example of that, and to a lesser extent Excalibur with Chromatic Blade, but both are augments and in the latter case you're still committed to a single Element, which is still kinda butts.

baruuks augment adapts damage to the one it hits , to be most effective, you can hit and deal various elemental damage types per strike, per target, which makes it akin to revenants 4 power, excaliburs chromatic is a joke and should do imo same thing or least have chromas shift elemental type when holding 4 or something 

[ShruikanUmbra]

En 1/3/2024 a las 17:34, EternaldrkMako dijo:

excaliburs chromatic is a joke and should do imo same thing or least have chromas shift elemental type when holding 4 or something

That would be sick! 

[Fred_Avant_2019]

Excalibur's Exalted Blade < funny basic skana with funny zapzap meme build & incarnon mode.

Yeah I don't know what to say anymore. The exalted blade looks great and all, but a sharpened tooth pick will scale better all thanks to the magic of combo mods.

The only ones that don't completely suck are pseudo exalted because you can actually mod them and abuse incarnon perks (which by the way, you shouldn't, else you're going straight down to the 7th circle where we belong), and Garuda's claws, but only thanks to the fact that you can actually fully mod them.

[Birdframe_Prime]

There is, I find, an over-arching problem with Ability Weapons in general that prevents them from being what they can and should be; namely, the best in class for their specific type of weapon, comparable only to other Ability weapons of the same class.

That problem is that DE appears to feel that the Ability part outweighs the Weapon part when it comes to scaling and functionality.

So each one of them is designed to do something based on the Warframe's Ability set or Theme at the expense of its functionality as a weapon.

Almost to extremes, every Ability weapon has terrible stats, or is worse than the equivalent best Prime weapon in its class. For example, despite multiple changes, Peacemaker technically deals less damage than the AkLex Prime, but the Ability part of it stands the Regulators in far greater stead, thanks to the scaling fire rate, crit and the instant accuracy achieved by waving your cursor in the direction of the enemy and clicking.

Others are limited not by damage, but by secondary stats, like Exalted Blade and Balefire Launchers. And yet more are limited by some functionality, such as Valkyr's Claws having such an abysmal combo animation, or Shadow Claws being specifically locked to Sevagoth's Shadow mode.

These limits are supposed to balance the power that the extra Ability functions give it. Valkyr's life steal, Excal's blade waves and so on.

The problem is that this whole philosophy leaves DE in a kind of grey zone.

They can't make these weapons powerful enough to only count as Abilities, and they can't let them be modded as powerfully as regular Weapons due to the Ability affects having even greater growth on them.

And it's a stupid place to be, really.

Since DE has embraced the 'mod them as weapons' part, OP is genuinely right that they need the same pass-over and quality-of-life that regular weapons have had. Allow them the same modding, the same Arcanes, the same conditional mods.

Rebalance the stats of each one of these to take advantage of the current modding system. Rebalance the Augments if necessary too, such as Chromatic Blade and Reactive Storm, to have the correct numerical effect on the Abilities after the change, if necessary.

Make the Stance mods on the Melee weapons add mod points like every other Stance does.

Commit to the Weapon side of things, and have the Ability side be what actually costs Energy to maintain.

If necessary up and rebalance the Abilities too, so that they actively interact with the weapons to make them stronger (not just 'press 2, your weapons now have +Crit and +Attack Speed), but functionality buffs to adapt damage or change the special features around.

The grey zone of Ability Weapons needs to be cleared up.

[Fred_Avant_2019]

Le 08/03/2024 à 23:00, Birdframe_Prime a dit :

There is, I find, an over-arching problem with Ability Weapons in general that prevents them from being what they can and should be; namely, the best in class for their specific type of weapon, comparable only to other Ability weapons of the same class.

That problem is that DE appears to feel that the Ability part outweighs the Weapon part when it comes to scaling and functionality.

So each one of them is designed to do something based on the Warframe's Ability set or Theme at the expense of its functionality as a weapon.

Almost to extremes, every Ability weapon has terrible stats, or is worse than the equivalent best Prime weapon in its class. For example, despite multiple changes, Peacemaker technically deals less damage than the AkLex Prime, but the Ability part of it stands the Regulators in far greater stead, thanks to the scaling fire rate, crit and the instant accuracy achieved by waving your cursor in the direction of the enemy and clicking.

Others are limited not by damage, but by secondary stats, like Exalted Blade and Balefire Launchers. And yet more are limited by some functionality, such as Valkyr's Claws having such an abysmal combo animation, or Shadow Claws being specifically locked to Sevagoth's Shadow mode.

These limits are supposed to balance the power that the extra Ability functions give it. Valkyr's life steal, Excal's blade waves and so on.

The problem is that this whole philosophy leaves DE in a kind of grey zone.

They can't make these weapons powerful enough to only count as Abilities, and they can't let them be modded as powerfully as regular Weapons due to the Ability affects having even greater growth on them.

And it's a stupid place to be, really.

Since DE has embraced the 'mod them as weapons' part, OP is genuinely right that they need the same pass-over and quality-of-life that regular weapons have had. Allow them the same modding, the same Arcanes, the same conditional mods.

Rebalance the stats of each one of these to take advantage of the current modding system. Rebalance the Augments if necessary too, such as Chromatic Blade and Reactive Storm, to have the correct numerical effect on the Abilities after the change, if necessary.

Make the Stance mods on the Melee weapons add mod points like every other Stance does.

Commit to the Weapon side of things, and have the Ability side be what actually costs Energy to maintain.

If necessary up and rebalance the Abilities too, so that they actively interact with the weapons to make them stronger (not just 'press 2, your weapons now have +Crit and +Attack Speed), but functionality buffs to adapt damage or change the special features around.

The grey zone of Ability Weapons needs to be cleared up.

Ability weapons are for most of them the reason why you play the frame in the first place :

• Is Ash interesting without his bladestorm ability? Not so much. The shortest invis can only be worth so much.
• Is Atlas interesting without his Landslide? No. Definitely not.
• Is Baruuk interesting without Serene Storm? Not when his whole kit revolves around building it.
• Is Chroma interesting without Spectral Scream? Hell yes, because it's the single worst ability weapon. Because it's essentially an ignis with a -80% fire rate debuff and cannot be modded. But thematically speaking Chroma is "trash" because neither Spectral Scream nor Effigy which also uses it are good. Either of these abilities can be subsumed off and it's always a benefit to do so.
• Is Excalibur interesting without his Exalted Blade or even just Slash Dash? No. You do any amount of research on any version of "Excalibur" in any form of media, and it's always pointing out to the single strongest sword in its respective universe. I can out kpm this piece of trash with a properly modded Heat Sword.
• Is Gara interesting without her Shattered Lash? Tough decision, the weapon itself is godawful but you can overlook that since hey, you can scale her 2 damage counter to infinity granted you use it (shattered lash) on her glass wall. Other than that, the projectile version is kind of pointless (outside detonating the wall) and the slice arc is basically too narrow and won't even hit enemies hit by CC, which is actually really cringe, there is no legitimate reason as to why it loses functionality when enemies don't have both boots glued to the damn ground.
• Is Hildryn interesting without her Balefire? Yes but that's just because Pillage exists. Having overshields makes Balefire worse due to the intense ragdoll push force it applies and its stats are horrible for an exalted weapon. You want a slow weapon that deals extreme damage? Look up the Arquebex for Voidrig, that's how this kind of weapon is done right. Having ONLY high base damage is NOT the way to go. Multipliers and damage type are all crap. The only things that helps relieve its issues is fully stripping enemy defenses with Pillage and the fact that it's the only (I think it's the only one) weapon in the whole game that does not suffer from radial damage fall off issues (it's 100% damage anywhere it hits).
• Is Ivara interesting without her Bow? Eh. She's already not super interesting to begin with, you can only have so much fun with everlasting invis and dashwires, but that's personal preference. Her Bow doesn't require charging to increase damage or projectile speed, but it changes the angle of the volley, for whatever reason, which is very unpractical and the Cernos Prime just does everything it does, but better. Unless you're a madman running the explosive shot augment with internal bleeding, but then that means you're a deranged psychopath (I plead guilty).
• Is Khora interesting without her Whip? Nope, and it really shows when you have that one Khora player who just patiently waits around only using the 4, effectively sabotaging the entire team because now every enemy needs to dangle around looking like idiots, as much as the rest of the squad trying to shoot them because pressing the 1 key is too much work I'd guess. It's the strongest pseudo exalt in the game, with the best stats and with a quite strong augment too.
• Is Mesa interesting without her Peacemakers? 1 is the most replaced ability, 2 is basically just cc and 3 is just a damage reduction. You might as well play any other bulky tin suit if you're determined to not use her Peacemakers.
• Is Sevagoth interesting without his Shadow? It kills me to say yes, because he probably has one of the more interesting gameplay loops in the cast, but the Shadow itself has too many issues.
• Is Titania interesting without her 4? I've tried actually. It's chill, but you're just shooting yourself in the foot if you're not using Dex Pixia. The Diwata though? It might as well not exist, just like archmelee, gee what a surprise.
• Is Valkyr interesting without her 4? Her whole thing isn't too far off what Excal does, but she can tank hits. Same flaws though.
• Is Voruna interesting without her 4? Well, it's unplayable without the augment, considering the energy cost involved (yes, even despite all the orbs she's able to generate), outside of that, she's just a random tinsuit with invisibility, orbs generation and a "press button to prep for condition overload" thing. It absolutely shreds once fully stacked and it's basically why you'd play her in the first place, thematically speaking, that's her whole thing doing all sorts of rawr nom nom slash slash.
• Is Wukong interesting without his Iron Staff? Same as Excal and Valkyr. The fact that it no longer has a dynamic range is a straight downgrade thematically speaking. Outside of that one ability, Wukong is just eh. The clone is a funny distraction, 2 & 3 are actually useful though. That still doesn't mean the frame's "interesting".

 

The one thing I find disappointing about a Warframe is when the one gimmick it tries to build upon doesn't work or is just unapplicable.

Some examples of frames who rely on one gimmick/theme but do it properly/well are Gauss, Gyre, Vauban, Protea, Zephyr, Garuda, Grendel, Mag, Saryn, Xaku, Kullervo, even Equinox. You can take any of these frames, play them for hours on end and not be as bored as taking whatever Inaros/Rev with a torid incarnon.

 

TL;DR, what I'm getting at is that, if you have an ability that's the key in the gimmick or theme of the frame, then it deserves to be viable / interesting enough to consider over just using guns and that's probably why you don't ever see frames like Limbo, Loki, Nyx, Inaros or Ember these days, not because they have boring themes, but rather because they have critical functionality problems.