Why does Bastille forcibly turn into Vortex again?

[Binket_]

So, riddle me this.

You have a Tap/Hold ability with two VERY distinct functions.
Let's go over their functions:

• The tap function "Bastille" creates a field that lifts enemies up into the air.
  • Up to 12 Enemies can be lifted at a given moment.
    • This amount increases with Ability Strength.
    • Enemies lifted are suspended in a way that makes them very easy to headshot.
  • Enemies within this field are stripped of 10% of their total Armor. Stripped Armor is applied to teammates as a buff.
    • This actively benefits everyone, regardless if they need the armor or not.
    • Armor bonus for allies is capped at 1000.
    • Armor stripped is affected by Ability Strength. The amount given as a buff is directly tied to the amount stripped.
    • The cap is unaffected by Ability Strength. _{(Though, 1000 Armor should be more than enough.)}
    • This Armor buff lasts for 10 seconds outside 
  • Several components of Vauban's Kit work splendidly with this.
    • Tether Coil _{(blue icon)} will unlatch from enemies when they arrive in the field, seeking new targets to drag in.
    • Vector Pad can launch enemies into the field, suspending them for easy pickings.
    • Flechette Orb can easily take out enemies on the edges since they'll most likely be aligned in a row.
    • Due to the orderly nature, it's easier to apply Overdriver where it's needed.
    • Tesla Nervos love the stripped armor, allowing them to do their full damage this way.
      • In addition, the Augment "Tesla Bank" makes this even more powerful, since the charges are kept between targets.
  • The Range of the field is 10m.
    • More than enough to be useful on it's own while allowing the player to adjust it accordingly to preference.
  • After it's duration expires, it will forcibly turn into it's held variant with no option to disable that.
  • The Augment for Bastille's side repels enemies out of it's field, arguably the opposite of what one wants with Bastille.
    • This does 200 Magnetic Damage with a 100% chance to take effect at max rank. Strength scales damage.
    • Given that Magnetic tends to do poorly against a large majority of enemies, this is mostly pointless.

 

• The held function "Vortex" creates an obnoxious gravity field that condenses all enemies into a mess of vaguely humanoid polygons.
  • Enemies in this vortex are highly susceptible to Flechette Orb and Photon Strike.
    • It however pairs very poorly with Tether Coil and Vector Pad, often bugging out the former and rendering the latter useless.
    • While Tesla Nervos can still function within it, it's not nearly as effective since the hit detection would be "slightly stable" at best.
    • Overdriver is effectively a moot point. Given it's unpredictable nature.
  • Due to the nature of "laziness" in the game, players will often focus this one ability STRICTLY with obscene Range so that they can sit in one spot.
    • This means the above synergy with Flechette Orb and Photon Strike are effectively nullified to a large majority. As the damage dealt would be abysmal.
    • This also means there's no point in using Overdriver, even to buff teammates. Nor is there a reason to use Tesla Nervos.
      • While they do use their weapons to finish the job, it's arguably effective at best. For other reasons in this list.
  • There is no buff associated with Vortex.
    • None. Literally zero. There is no stat-inducing buff given by Vortex directly.
    • I'm taking an extra line here, as I have to make this clear: I've encountered players that think it does. It doesn't. Stop that.
  • Enemies within the field of Vortex take 50 Magentic Damage every second.
    • While this scales with Strength, the amount of increase it would give is insignificant.
    • There is however a chance to inflict Magnetic. This is not affected by Strength.
  • The mess of ragdolls constantly moving makes hitting weak points nearly impossible.
    • This can often dramatically reduce the damage one can deal.
    • This also means conditions that require headshots or finishers are basically stripped of any possible use.
    • If a Vauban is around, you are effectively forced to play by their rules.
  • Vortex is not locked to Line-of-Sight. 
    • Enemies can be snagged behind walls, guard rails, floor panels, vents, etc, etc.
      • Since these enemies are usually out of sight or out of the way for most players, drops for the enemies can often be considered forfeit.
      • Excessive Range also amplifies this problem, since it can start to exceed the room it's placed in and effect enemies well out of sight.
    • This turns any map that isn't mostly flat ground into a headache.
    • Arguably defeating the utility of Vortex to begin with.
  • The Augment for Vortex's side allows the player to keep casting Vortex in the same spot to artificially extend it's duration.
    • This encourages players to stay in a single spot, regardless if it would be better suited elsewhere.
    • The bonus is 70% of the Max Duration, thus is boosted by Duration directly.
  • Vortex's visual cue is extremely prone to people abusing it.
    • Seriously, it's always blindingly white... it may be a "me" issue on this one, but you- DE- have done bigger fixes for less. Come on.

Now, all that accounted for, let's ask the question:

"Why does Bastille HAVE to turn into Vortex?"

Someone at DE- your very headquarters- thought "Yeah, let's fuse the two abilities."
This is fine. Pre-rework Vauban was kind of a scattered mess anyway.
They also thought "While we're at it, let's make it so players have to use Vortex. Regardless if it's actually useful to them at the moment."
This is NOT fine. You overdid it and made it another mess by circling back around.

I'm not saying we have to neuter Bastille OR Vortex. Rather the opposite.
We should just... take the part where Bastille turns into Vortex... and move it across space and time where nobody will see it again.
I have had so many situations where I WANT to use Bastille, but I DON'T WANT to use Vortex more.
... and because Vortex would cause more problems than Bastille would help? I'm not using it.

I understand players like Vortex for what it is.
Though I wish they would be more modest about it for the sake of their teammates sanity-- you've shown time and time again that if so much as one person enjoys it?
It stays the way it is, regardless if it'd be better otherwise. _{(A sentiment I cannot understand for the life of me, but one thing at a time.)}

Despite that understanding of Vortex, this change wouldn't effect those players who do enjoy it in any conceivable way that I can think of. Even some extremely minor hedge cases.

There is no reason to have it work like that besides purposely being annoying to the player.
I play the game to have fun, like everyone else. I shouldn't have to a make some grand workaround for something so trivial and spiteful towards the player.
You can have the game be easy AND fun. The two are not mutually exclusive DE and it starts with engaging the player.

There is a reason I look to that new promised gamemode of the Sanctum Anatomica and think "Okay, what's the catch to make it ungodly easy" because you've had this habit of doing so for a few years now to the point where I'm mostly playing because I got nothing better to do. I know this game can get better, you know this game can get better-- what is stopping us?

I've probably posted about this before and I'm sure many have as well. Here's another. It's not complicated.

 

 

... now with that out of the way? Here's a fun image to take the edge off things.

Edited February 26 by Binket_
I just noticed a typo in the title. So there's that.

[Chewarette]

Yup, that was always a weird design choice to begin with. Both abilities are cool, but indeed the Bastilles are ruined by this force-Vortex thing

[RLanzinger]

To @Binket_,

I Agree with ya +1Like

Personally I think Why does Bastille forcibly turn in Vortex is linked to the LAME Photon Strike Ability,

If you separate Bastille from Vortex, the ability is too strong but combo (poorly) with Photon Strike

IE you use Bastille only, Vauban's Ultimate is too much weak (this why vortex exist) and Photon Strike become useless

IE you use Vortex only, Vauban's Ultimate is too lame (vs zephyr 2th) and Photon Strike because a Reap/Sow ability.

 

If you want to separate Vauban's ultimate use you need to reburbish his lame^{yeah i don't like it :p} Photon Strike (delay AND small radius is A PAIN).

IE you use Bastille (tap) only, his 3rd ability should be defensive Photon Shield (tap) : Overshield^{same formula as damage} split among allies (tenno n' bots)

IE you use Vortex (hold) only, his 3rd ability should be a boosted  Photon Strike (hold) (no Delay, Small radius if in vortex range for synergy)

(no Delay, Big radius^x3-5 if NOT in vortex range)

[Raarsi]

So don't hold the button down?  Might take some slight training, but seems pretty easy to me.

[RLanzinger]

NA @Raarsi , you did not read Binket at ALL : "After it's duration expires, it will forcibly turn into it's held variant with no option to disable that."

Edited February 27 by RLanzinger

[Raarsi]

17 hours ago, RLanzinger said:

NA @Raarsi , you did not read Binket at ALL : "After it's duration expires, it will forcibly turn into it's held variant with no option to disable that."

So then kill the trapped enemies before that happens?

I guess I'm not understanding the issue since there's no realistic reason to keep up Bastille other than to keep enemies stunned long enough to kill them, and if that's not enough time, then either getting better weapons or switching to the old "Tether Mine on the ceiling" trick work far more efficiently than just trying to maintain a Bastille.

[RLanzinger]

To @Raarsi,

Ol' Players had tactics with Vauban before Vortex exist and Bastille was mainly a Defensive (it's the name of the French Prison n' Vauban was an architect btw),

Having Bastille turning into Vortex is like having Frost's Snow Globe becoming Mag's Bullet attractor :

• It's sabotaging your own defense like opening The castle gates during a siege,
• You cannot (headshot) enemies because they became a ragdoll's meat ball,
• It's a mess with the "Repelling Bastille" Hold-the-Line function (It was a great unstoppable wall that cannot be destroy... was)

Also I must say that Vauban the best defensive architect that cannot maintain his Bastille's Prison but can do it with the Vortex's trap....

THAT may be a a good game ability but A PLAIN INSULT TO "Sébastien Le Prestre, Marquis de Vauban"

AND AS A 🐓FRENCH🐓 PLAYER, THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE !!! 😝

[Raarsi]

3 minutes ago, RLanzinger said:

It's sabotaging your own defense like opening The castle gates during a siege,

That's called "leading the lambs to slaughter".  It's one of those things Vauban uses, what's it called...oh right, a trap.  Vauban the warframe is themed less around defense and more around traps, so the idea of leaving an opening in your defense so you'll know exactly where enemies go so you can crush all of them in one go seems to fit the theme of Vauban the warframe a lot more than setting up a wall and being that one French knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Now for defense, my go-to has always been knowing that nodes for defense or mobile defense always have four major entryways for enemies to come in from regardless of the tileset.  Find those four entryways, drop a Flechette at each one, and watch the enemies get turned into flying Swiss cheese as they try to pass through (or at least get banged up enough that it's easy to pick them off).

These days, offense is the best defense.  Better to kill mobs than attempt to prolong the inevitable.

16 minutes ago, RLanzinger said:

THAT may be a a good game ability but A PLAIN INSULT TO "Sébastien Le Prestre, Marquis de Vauban"

AND AS A 🐓FRENCH🐓 PLAYER, THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE !!! 😝

As an American player, I feel like I could make a joke here, but I don't feel like it. 🤣

Something to bear in mind is that some of the best features to any fortress are never the walls, but rather the traps for whatever unfortunate souls manage to get in.

[Icebreccer]

On 2024-02-28 at 6:03 PM, Raarsi said:

So then kill the trapped enemies before that happens?

I guess I'm not understanding the issue since there's no realistic reason to keep up Bastille other than to keep enemies stunned long enough to kill them, and if that's not enough time, then either getting better weapons or switching to the old "Tether Mine on the ceiling" trick work far more efficiently than just trying to maintain a Bastille.

For one Bastille is the one that strips armor from enemies and gives you armor. Enemies that are ragdolled (pulled by Vortex) won't be stripped of their armor. Vortex also attracts the Photon Strikes (only for the host mind you) making them much more annoying to target. Also the forced conversion makes it impossible to use both Bastilles and Vortexes at the same time depending on situation. There are times when you'd want to have couple Bastilles around and toss a Vortex in another place, but you can't do that without collapsing every Bastille into a Vortex.

Also at the moment the "invert TAP/HOLD abilities" option is really clunky to use for Vauban as changing the option makes Vortex the TAP option, but the collapse button for Bastille remains HOLD. This makes it so that you can only have one Bastille as you can't toss another one without causing the first one to collapse into a Vortex. And that's just bad.

There really is no reason to force the Bastille to Vortex conversion for players. Simply making it that TAP casts Bastille and HOLD casts Vortex would make it so much better to use. I love Bastille and would like to keep stripping armor and holding enemies neatly in place.

[AsffluffyZ]

The Bastille switch to vortex gives players some breathing room to throw another Bastille and to have enemies in the area for it.

 

Bastille can also be turned into a full duration vortex if the change is triggered right before it runs out.