Eclipse Update (Dev response)

[ominumi]

16 minutes ago, Ace-Bounty-Hunter said:

They changed the ability precisely because of the fact the light/dark mechanic was either inconsistent or flat out didn't work with the new lighting system. What makes you think they'll add it back in as an augment?

Because of lighting inconsistancy, I have a few ideas. Though I'm guessing it's going to be a balancing nightmare.

[ominumi]

27 minutes ago, Ampathetiic said:

I would imagine if they were thinking about changing the other two abilities, they'd communicate that in any way. They haven't communicated that, which is why I ask if there's any reason to believe they'd make other changes. To me, it seems pretty clear that Mirage is basically irrelevant in this change, and this change was driven by Eclipse popularity in the Helminth system.

Look at it this way. We never got a feedback thread considering Inaros or Hydroid but DE made their own changes. Consdiering why DE even made a feedback thread goes to show there's other things to consider. I mean make changes then look for feedback is another option.

[Politically_Correct_Name]

4 hours ago, --F--NerevarCM said:

They literally said tap/hold with a nerf to helminth.

And everyone I saw on that thread said "YES, tap/hold and nerf helminth version"

Sure nerf it would be perfectly acceptable however completely gutting it to where it wont even be used is not something majority of players would ever agree to.  This ability now is vex armor light, would you call this a nerf?  Its an annihilation and will make it completely a waste of helminth.  Im stunned anyone is actually defending this change, im guessing majority of you are just people whom like to argue for the sake of arguing because you have nothing better to do today.  

58 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

So from 200% fluctuation multiplicative to 350% guaranteed additive base seems like quite a fair trade and a far more reliable skill.

It might appear that way because 200 is smaller than 350 but thats not how math works in gamin damage calculations, especially when you consider theres already many forms of additive damage, this is a massive nerf, no where close to break even.

[Politically_Correct_Name]

1 hour ago, Ampathetiic said:

This falls under the vague "other factors" change, which people have a right to be upset over, as they had no way of knowing what that would entail. Second, they just lied about the change not affecting Mirage's Eclipse, which we absolutely should be upset over.

amen this is over the top and I pray this doesnt stick

[KitMeHarder]

3 hours ago, Enxchiol said:

I think some people are overreacting about how big thus nerf is. The raw numbers are 75% bigger

That's a psychological pitfall, you have to look at the damage formula. Even if you don't look at the damage formula, you have to take into account that since current Eclipse is a separate multiplier, it has an additional (1+), so it's really 300% instead of 200%. So it's only a 1-350/300= 16.67% increase... before you even get to the diminishing returns.

3 hours ago, Enxchiol said:

also you can remove base dmg from your weapon builds and insert other things instead that will also recoup some of this loss.

That just adds tedium, like faction mods. I don't want to rebuild a weapon every time I want use an Eclipse frame in something like an Archon interception.

And at least in terms of mods, almost no mobbing build uses the standard base damage mods in the first place anyway (Serration, Hornet Strike, PPP, etc...).

[Ampathetiic]

8 minutes ago, ominumi said:

Look at it this way. We never got a feedback thread considering Inaros or Hydroid but DE made their own changes. Consdiering why DE even made a feedback thread goes to show there's other things to consider. I mean make changes then look for feedback is another option.

The difference is that Hydroid and Inaros have been the subject of constant calls for reworks for years, whereas people barely talk about Mirage (before this change, obviously). The fact that it took so long for those two to be reworked is evidence that we cannot assume DE will do anything specific unless they say it directly.

Edited February 24 by Ampathetiic

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

20 hours ago, Hexerin said:

Meanwhile Xata's Whisper still goes completely unnoticed by both DE and the majority of the playerbase.

Cause a youtuber hasn't told the lemmings what to do yet.

[Hexerin]

2 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Cause a youtuber hasn't told the lemmings what to do yet.

[Greysmog]

Hey look man, all I care about is having a toggle.

If that means Eclipse in general is nerfed, so be it. Maybe that means DE will buff some other aspects of her kit, or just fix them in general, like clones messing with Critical Damage if you go lower in strength. I don't really get why DE nerfed the defense to 90% when Toxin Procs still just totally ignore the DR buff but whatever.

On Chroma this really sucked because all he did was tank, but Mirage does plenty of damage by herself and the weapon DPS is just gravy. I can't say I really care.

Edited February 24 by Greysmog

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

20 hours ago, Hexerin said:

Meanwhile Xata's Whisper still goes completely unnoticed by both DE and the majority of the playerbase.

Shhhh

We don't speak of the true power here

[PainTako]

As per this thread, DE proposed three ideas and a catch all on how to adjust eclipse, they are as follows:

Quote

• We can fix the locations it doesn’t work correctly in (like Albrecht’s Laboratories and Open Zone areas) but leave everything else the same - including its unpredictability when moving. This would require extensive work to fix as it ties into our new lighting system but would allow Eclipse to work in these areas and any future environments.
• We can change Eclipse to work more reliably, but may need to reduce its effectiveness when used as a Helminth ability by reducing its power, duration, or other factors.
  • Eclipse is already the 2nd most popular Helminth ability, so removing its main barrier to entry (reliability) would mean a rebalance is in order. This effectiveness reduction would not affect the ability for Mirage, only when applied from the Helminth.
• We can redesign the ability, so it works on the same general theme but functionally is different. For example, it could spawn beams of light nearby - standing in them provides the light boost, while standing out of them provides the shadow boost.
• Suggestions! We are open to unique suggestions from Tenno on this as well!

To summarize, the first option would be keeping eclipse as it was intended, just having DE take more effort to restore it to the original design of the ability. Which is lighting based. This presumably would take further time to come out, but they suggested it and as such would be willing to do so.

The second option is a more reliable method, presuming this would be a toggle. With this there would be a caveat, this would result in a possible further nerf to Eclipse when used in the helminth system. Such a nerf would be strength, duration, or "other factors".

The final option is an entire redesign of the ability.

 

I believe most people know that we as a community voted for the second option. And DE has showcased the changes in Devstream 177. To give a recap DE stated that they would be nerfing Eclipse's DR from 95% to 90%, while the damage buff has changed how it works. It use to be a 200% total damage multiplier, but now it will be a 350% base damage multiplier. As per the option DE proposed, this was "We can change Eclipse to work more reliably, but may need to reduce its effectiveness when used as a Helminth ability by reducing its power, duration, or other factors.".

This was written by DE as an option, it's explicit wording is to state that it would only be a nerf to helminth users, if at all, but would stay the same for Mirage. This is not we voted for, but this is not what we got.

They are reducing the DR by 5%, while I understand this is a minor change DE intentionally said they'd might be nerfing the ability for helminth users, and mirage would remain unaffected by any nerfs.

They are completely changing the damage ability however, even if the % increase is higher, since it is a base damage increase instead of a total damage increase it's a nerf. To give an example:

Let's take Acceltra Prime for an example. It has 44 base damage, 34% crit chance, 3x crit multiplier. We will mod it with Serration (+165% damage), Cryo Rounds (+90% cold), Infected Clip (+90% Toxin), Point Strike (+150% critical chance), Vital Sense (+120% critical damage). For Mirage we will be taking a build that is targeting 278% strength for both examples.

Old Eclipse has a base strength of 200% damage increase, with 278% strength this totals to 556% damage increase. It is a final damage multiplier.
Acceltra will have 116.6 base damage, with 209.9 viral damage. It will have an 85% chance to crit for 6.6x damage. On a normal hit we will deal a mixture of 326.5 damage, and 2,154.9 mixed damage on a crit.
Eclipse will increase this to 1,815.34 mixed damage on a normal hit, and 11,981.244 mixed damage on a crit.

New Eclipse is a base strength of 350% damage increase, with 278% strength this totals to 973% damage increase. This is a base damage multiplier. As such we have to adjust Acceltra's damage numbers, the new damage of Acceltra is 545.16, with 981.29 viral damage.
This is a total of 1,526.45 mixed damage on a normal hit, and 10,074.56 mixed damage on a crit.

 

This is a nerf to Eclipse, and the community was lead to believe Eclipse would stay the same functionally, but possibly be nerfed more for Helminth then it was already. DE nerfing Eclipse not only is disingenuous but also an objective lie. As when they gave us these options in the megathread they stated:

Quote

Eclipse is already the 2nd most popular Helminth ability, so removing its main barrier to entry (reliability) would mean a rebalance is in order. This effectiveness reduction would not affect the ability for Mirage, only when applied from the Helminth.

I would urge DE to uphold what they first suggested and revert Eclipse's values numbers and revert the damage multiplier changes. With this they should do as they stated which would possibly nerf it for Helminth.

I would also urge players reading this to hold DE to their word.

[KitMeHarder]

16 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Cause a youtuber hasn't told the lemmings what to do yet.

More so because it's reliant on you using/abusing it's ability to double dip certain things. And even then, it's mainly just the Devouring/Devastating incarnon evolutions.

[Tiltskillet]

2 hours ago, Skoomaseller said:

i get the feeling that they're working on one. something to clearly differentiate between multiplicative and additive damage buffs, or just making buffs scale one way or the other, across the board

Maybe, but if so it's a bad look to do it in small bits and without saying anything about the larger context.

[BongoSkaggs]

Looking at the numbers, with the Eclipse change Pablo mentioned my Mirage's damage would drop around 60% per shot of my tenet arca plasmor on a lvl 200 steel path corrupted heavy gunner. Would drop my damage to barely above what I could get from subsuming Roar.

If the subsumed version is the issue, then further nerf that. Don't gut Mirage under the guise of bloody fixing her.

Honestly I would prefer her ability remain broken rather than this garbage.

[KitMeHarder]

11 minutes ago, PainTako said:

Eclipse is already the 2nd most popular Helminth ability

Even this wasn't accurate. On yesterday's stream it was shown it was only the 3rd most used, and by a pretty decent margin.

[trst]

There's no lie here as they called their suggestions ideations. Meaning they were presenting concepts outlining each approach and not final iterations. And it's entirely reasonable that in exploring the route players wanted of making it more reliable DE found the damage buff to be excessive on both the Helminth version and on Mirage.

Also in the end the whole thing is a net buff for everyone involved. Mirage didn't need two damage boosts and benefits more from a reliable source of DR while Helminth was lacking reliable DR and already has other damage buff options.

[Skoomaseller]

19 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Maybe, but if so it's a bad look to do it in small bits and without saying anything about the larger context.

that's true. maybe this is just testing the waters a bit. but yes, if that is their plan, they should announce it. 

[Ampathetiic]

7 minutes ago, trst said:

There's no lie here as they called their suggestions ideations. Meaning they were presenting concepts outlining each approach and not final iterations. And it's entirely reasonable that in exploring the route players wanted of making it more reliable DE found the damage buff to be excessive on both the Helminth version and on Mirage.

Doesn't that just mean that the feedback they asked for was ignored? We were given options A, B, and C, only for them to pick D. They offered a compromise, we accepted the compromise, then they changed the terms of the compromise and decided on it without considering player feedback. That sounds like something to be upset about.

Even if you're fine with Eclipse being nerfed, it'd be disingenuous to frame this change as the result of community feedback.

[Hexerin]

12 minutes ago, trst said:

Helminth was lacking reliable DR

Which it is still lacking. Eclipse on Helminth is still capped at 75% DR, which is barely functional in early SP. The only reason Trinity (the only other frame with 75% DR as far as I'm aware) gets away with it, is because Trinity has strong innate self-sustain. Most frames that lack DR (and thus would want it from Helminth) also lack self-sustain, so the 75% DR cap is going to make it still not a good answer for them (Pillage will remain the better choice for defense).

[KitMeHarder]

42 minutes ago, trst said:

Also in the end the whole thing is a net buff for everyone involved.

This is straight up incorrect and you know it.

Quote

while Helminth was lacking reliable DR and already has other damage buff options.

But not damage buffs like Eclipse. Saying there are "other options" then means you can't relegate your DR statement to only DR, you'd have to say EHP. So then with EHP there are numerous options too. Elemental ward, Defy, Pillage, Condemn, various other healing/shield regen, etc...

Quote

while Helminth was lacking reliable DR and already has other damage buff options.

Hall of Mirrors isn't that great from a damage perspective.

• It's only 80% overall damage at base
• Has horrendous accuracy for anything that isn't a launcher
• Is reliant on Eclipse, Eclipse's augment, and it's augment to be good
• Doesn't work with glaive heavies
• Etc...

Edited February 24 by KitMeHarder

[CrownOfShadows]

Yes I foresee this ability only being used defensively in the future. It will be good in that way, 90% consistent DR is nothing to sniff at and a LOT of frames are going to flock to this now, BUT I think where this becomes bad is that we have to ask 'why not just make it a 95%/90% DR ability and nothing else' .... and then we have to ask 'what's the downside/drawback/interest of a duration based DR ability?" - that is, it turns an interesting choice into no choice, and I think that's what feels bad. There's no reason to ever use the damage side of this again, and a straight up 90% DR is both boring and possibly too strong.

Does Mirage (& everyone else) actually need a 2x-3.5x final damage multiplier like this? No, probably not. If it was something else besides a damage boost that would be interesting, and probably that's the best route out of this situation. Make the other side of the toggle do something else, something interesting and useful enough to compete with DR.

But otherwise what's the point of a toggle if it's never going to be toggled.

[trst]

5 minutes ago, Ampathetiic said:

Doesn't that just mean that the feedback they asked for was ignored? We were given options A, B, and C, only for them to pick D. They offered a compromise, we accepted the compromise, then they changed the terms of the compromise and decided on it without considering player feedback. That sounds like something to be upset about.

Even if you're fine with Eclipse being nerfed, it'd be disingenuous to frame this change as the result of community feedback.

The options were make it function as originally intended, make it more reliable, change how it functions entirely, or something entirely different. Players chose option B in wanting it more reliable and that's exactly what we got.

7 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

Which it is still lacking. Eclipse on Helminth is still capped at 75% DR, which is barely functional in early SP. The only reason Trinity (the only other frame with 75% DR as far as I'm aware) gets away with it, is because Trinity has strong innate self-sustain. Most frames that lack DR (and thus would want it from Helminth) also lack self-sustain, so the 75% DR cap is going to make it still not a good answer for them (Pillage will remain the better choice for defense).

And the only other DR option that isn't armor based is Null Star. Which requires a massive duration investment to hit it's DR cap and is incredibly unreliable without an augment.

[Waeleto]

6 minutes ago, trst said:

The options were make it function as originally intended, make it more reliable, change how it functions entirely, or something entirely different. Players chose option B in wanting it more reliable and that's exactly what we got.

And the only other DR option that isn't armor based is Null Star. Which requires a massive duration investment to hit it's DR cap and is incredibly unreliable without an augment.

You forgot that they included in option B that it wouldn't be nerfed ON MIRAGE which just happened 

[Hexerin]

2 minutes ago, trst said:

And the only other DR option that isn't armor based is Null Star. Which requires a massive duration investment to hit it's DR cap and is incredibly unreliable without an augment.

Null Star really is just useless on anyone that isn't Nova herself.

• Requires excessively high ability duration to even provide the DR in the first place.
• Wants negative range, so that the particles don't constantly get flung off at enemies (stripping your DR over time).
• Can't be refreshed while any particles are still active, causing you to be stuck with very little DR for long periods of time.
• Only affects health, making it useless on frames that prefer shields (which is most frames).

We really need a legitimate DR option from Helminth, and Eclipse could've been it if DE wasn't so terrified of letting players have fun tools.

[Numerounius]

Most of the suggestions in that thread were for a simple toggle though so its understandable that was the route they wanted to take.

But they still needed to further adjust it so I understand that was the way they wanted to nerf it if it was deemed too strong which they know about on top of the lighting problems it had. Yes despite calling it a nerf it is still going to be widely used, heck even in different ways now.

I wouldn't call the ability completely changed or nerfed beyond expectations.

What I a bit miffed on is that when asking for feedback it is important to look beyond the common and popular suggestions that were thrown in there as that can usually swamp out the good suggestions and feedback from people who know how best to utilize the ability. This doesn't feel like that was taken into account here, people were posting for a toggle simply so they can have big number to throw at enemy when there were others in that thread that recognized that would be the popular idea and provided further detailed feedback beyond that. While we'll have to wait for the actual patchnotes since it was a little rushed in the devstream to collect my full thoughts, it doesn't sit right that it was adjust the numbers at the end of the day.