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Please Remove Warframe Vulnerability While in Operator Form


Nikolovski_
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In the hopes that devs read this: writing ultra concise version, then justifications, then potential fixes. Links at bottom.

~~~~####### Short Version #######~~~~

Please change or remove the following feature:

"While controlling the Operator, the Warframe becomes invulnerable to damage. However, if the Warframe has an ability active, it will instead have a 90% Damage Reduction instead of being invulnerable" (wiki)1.

https://imgur.com/a/VMCWBpQ Video Demonstration of mechanic

Why?

  1. Player confusion.
  2. Inconsistent / confusing / unfair application.
  3. Not preventing any cheese that I assume the feature was originally intended to address.
  4. Little impact on low-mid level content.
  5. Massive and unjustified impact on high level content (especially void cascade).
  6. Extremely easy to fix.

~~~~####### Expanded Justifications #######~~~~

Player Confusion

My friends and I enjoy doing "endgame" / level-cap content to limit-test our builds and farm shiny objects. Big fan of omnia fissures, sp circuit, deep archimedea. Despite the bugs, we enjoy running long sp void cascades. However, we kept getting this "weird bug" where our operators would randomly get 1 shot by nothing, and our warframes would have 2hp left. With perfect connection and rolling guard, you might survive this. We were shocked to discover that this was an intended feature - one that I argue should be removed or at least changed. I imagine this is the experience that 99% of players have engaging with this feature - they either assume their operator got 1-shot through shield gate and Emergence Savior2 by some unseen damage source, or that the game bugged. I struggled to find many others talking about this, but from what I did see, most people posting about this are under the impression that it's a bug, not a feature3,4.

Inconsistent / Confusing / Unfair Application

I still have no idea which abilities count for making your warframe vulnerable while in operator form. I know desecrate counts, grave spirit, and apparently limbo's kit3. When scrolling through the list of frames, it looks like most frames (60%+?) have some sort of duration-based ability tied directly to the frame (i.e. not like wisp motes) that is likely to remain up (i.e. not ash smoke) while in operator form. Many of these abilities can't be uncast, (roar, grave spirit, shooting gallery, etc.) thus allowing no input from the player to make their warframe untargetable while in operator form. Even if every ability in the game was able to be deactivated, would you really want players to manually disable every ability before going operator? This is antithetical to the fast in-out gameplay that I think DE wants us to have - at least based on design choices with Thrax, Kuva Guardians, debuff operator abilities, etc.

Isn't Justified with "Cheese Prevention"

I suspect most if not all of the abilities that a player could cast and then go immune in operator have no meaningful benefit for cheesing purposes. All modern "nuke" abilities I'm aware of have active cast requirements, and crouching in operator form for an extended time is wildly inefficient anywhere that it matters. Maybe there's some huge equinox cheese that lets you afk in operator doing level 20 content, but there are far better ways to address this if it's even a priority.

Little Impact on Low-Mid Level Content

90% damage reduction is plenty for low-mid level content, even non-endless sp. To get a feel for where 90% DR is effective, think of places that Mesa's Shatter Shield, Trinity's link or blessing, Mirage's Eclipse allow you to tank all enemies with zero effort. This means that any attempt at cheese prevention can't even apply to content where ultra-passive nuking abilities function.

Massive and Unjustified Impact on High Level Content

The only time I've even noticed this "feature" is when doing high level content + approaching level cap. There, you die instantly without having a very active playstyle, either using shield gate + brief respite (or similar), warframe-specific survivability (Hildryn, Harrow, Rhino, Revenant), or invisibility (snoozefest). Thus, 90% DR is nothing against these enemies. They will 1-shot your shield, you will have a ~1.3 second shield gate window, then they will 1-shot your health, at which point your operator instantly dies, and you return to your frame with about a 0.1 second window to activate rolling guard or cast something to save yourself. If you're not the host, going operator and getting unlucky means a death sentence in about 2 seconds.

  • Players are unable to (and shouldn't be expected to) uncast their abilities to avoid this instant death.
  • In contexts where operator use is encouraged, (Thrax, Kuva Guardians, future game modes I bet) players do not have time to "hide" their warframe somewhere just for a quick operator action.
  • Deaths in high-level content are often far more punishing than normal stuff - ideally those deaths reflect a genuine "skill issue", not "your frame had an ability up and one enemy decided to land their shots while you were doing operator stuff."
  • If you want to add content where players are encouraged to use operator, especially in quick in-out gameplay, this feature - that most players think is a bug - will continue to cause problems.
  • Due to AI behavior + enemy inaccuracy, whether enemies try to target the warframe / operator / teammate / companion / random objective, whether the player dies in 2 seconds of operator form is entirely out of their control, and whether they happened to be playing a frame with the misfortune of having an ability that counts under this system is not a mechanic I think players want in the back of their minds. In normal gameplay, this "feature" only happens occasionally while in operator form - maybe 1 out of 20 times at worst. This makes the occasions where you intended to use some operator action and instead get killed instantly wildly unpredictable, and not really something you can strategize around other than attempt to recover.

Easy to Fix

There's probably one line of code handling the logic for "if(warframe_ability_active): 90% DR; else: immune". If you are an intern reading this, change that line to "if(False) ...". Your boss will not notice, and endgame players will consider you a hero. This mechanic is outdated and can be safely removed. Unless your code is unbelievably spaghettified, absolutely no system in the game relies on this mechanic, easiest change in the world. If, for whatever reason, someone wishes to defend some aim of this feature, I have other solutions listed later.

~~~~####### If This Only Affects Endgame, Why Care? #######~~~~

Let Me Play With the Cool Toys

Warframe players grind for many a shiny object. As you acquire more weapons, mods, frames, etc. the world of buildcrafting opens up a considerable degree. Many players - myself especially - greatly appreciate Warframe's buildcrafting depth and the variety of ways we can bully the enemies of the origin system. If you're like me, something that drew you in to warframe beyond an ultra-casual level was seeing YouTube videos demonstrating some ultra-niche setup that got massive red numbers using some weapon or frame that you (or overframe) had resigned to the trash heap. Endgame and/or level-cap content gives us an opportunity to limit-test these interesting build ideas, since it really doesn't take much to make average sp content feel trivial. Additionally, having insanely high level content gives players something to aspire towards as they collect each ingredient for some future build, and was certainly enough to keep my newer friends clearing the normal star chart.

DE Wants to Build More Endgame Activities

It seems like DE is exploring multiple ways to define what constitutes "difficult" content in Warframe:

  • Zariman gives new modes with new failure conditions (flood, cascade) besides just letting the objective get 1-shot
  • More attention paid to excavation hp and similar at higher levels of enemy scaling, a sort of endorsement of high-level content not seen previously
  • Duviri sp circuit scaling to level cap pretty quickly + loadout restrictions as a difficulty modifier
  • Deep Archimedea combining sortie-esq modifiers, loadout restrictions, and higher-level enemies than other non-endless content
  • 60 eyes Murmer boss having insane damage and dispel on attacks
  • Increased number of enemies with status caps (not my favorite mechanic) and unstrippable armored necramechs (also not my fav, we'll see after armor changes)

These different approaches to difficulty have a variety of reactions from the community, (not going to weigh in too much here) but the general aim is to find enjoyable but difficult content, and to encourage players to make the most of their loadouts + the mechanics the game has to offer.

It also seems like the choice to leave shield gating as-is (which I like tbh) and increase access to survivability options (team-wide overguard w/ Styanax and Dante) means a shift away from survivability being the #1 challenge in warframe, but rather a challenge players need to keep in mind while doing some other objective - similar to energy management or damage strategy.

For these reasons, I think this feature will become an increasingly important issue as DE adds more challenging content and powerful enemies.

~~~~####### Potential Solutions #######~~~~

Remove Mechanic Outright with no Replacement (preferred)

Based on its disproportionate impact on endgame content and the decreasing (if any) availability of afk nuking abilities, I can't see any reason for this feature - or anything like it - existing in the current state of the game. I would advocate for its complete removal.

Abilities Deactivated When Swapping to Operator (bad for QOL)

I wouldn't like this change since it's a negative quality of life most of the time, but if DE really thinks there's some afk cheese issue, this would prevent random rng deaths. I would prefer this change over changing every ability in the game to be deactivatable, and a similar sentiment was suggested here5. However, this would still force players to figure out which abilities risk them getting instantly nuked in operator form without warning, or would punish quick operator usage with needless recasts.

Abilities Lose Duration or Deactivate if Immune Warframe Targeted by Enemies (okay I guess)

Better than the previous fix, since recasts aren't guaranteed, and any afk cheese is prevented by an enemy shooting the afk frame. This would still be annoying to the player, since you'd need to see if your important abilities were deactivated when transferring back to frame.

~~~~####### Conclusion #######~~~~

Please remove all warframe vulnerability while in operator form. This mechanic serves no purpose in any content, and is a total rng instant death at the highest-level content, with no counterplay besides restricting your frames to only include abilities where this mechanic is absent. This only hurts the game, and will become a larger problem if DE continues to add high-level content. More players don't know about this problem because they don't yet engage with high level activities or because they assume it's a bug. Thanks for reading <3

1. https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Operator Transference Section, paragraph 3 (as of April 2024)

2. https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Emergence_Savior

3. https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1313909-warframe-killed-while-in-operator-mode/

4. https://steamcommunity.com/app/230410/discussions/2/1629665087690680267/

5. https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1103362-tranference-and-active-warframe-abilities/

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No, I disagree that this should be removed. The consistency should be improved so that ALL abilities engage the 90% DR and no abilities "get away with it", but it should absolutely stay as it is otherwise

It's not a massive and unjustified impact on high level content, it's one of the few things actually keeping Void Cascade somewhat challenging and engaging

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I'm sure there are a number of ways to increase difficulty that don't require the sort of inconsistency / annoyance / inconvenience of this one. Again, it's super weird that players would be incentivized to uncast abilities or run away from their objective in order to do operator actions. Especially true if your intention is to go operator for 3 seconds to cast some sort of debuff. I'm all for difficult content being in the game, but when I think of "difficulty" I imagine objectives and challenges that demand mastery over one's kit - the type of thing that looks impressive to a spectator. As it is currently, there's no difficulty increase for invis frames and abilities that "don't count": it doesn't even make sense to punish a player for leaving an ability up that provides no benefit to themself / operator. Also no challenge for people who can uncast. As for people who choose to hide their frame somewhere to do operator actions, I imagine this highly discourages quick operator actions since engaging with the system is far more obnoxious, and as far as "difficulty", I don't think parking your frame somewhere safe is the type of "skill expression" that most would consider difficult or impressive.

I guess another way to think of it is that not all things that people "fail" at are difficult (at least insofar as we want "difficult content"): winning at roulette is something most will fail to do, but I hardly think it'd be reasonable to claim the winner has "succeeded at a difficult thing". I would much prefer difficulty mechanics were challenges that all players could deal with, and ideally - the "correct way" to address a challenge is still fun and engaging, not avoiding ability usage and parking the frame somewhere away from enemies.

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Spatial awareness and positioning is absolutely a form of skill expression, which is what "parking the frame somewhere safe" means. It means seeing cover and using it, keeping track of surrounding enemies, and avoiding crossfire. It's simply an extension of the already existing shield gating playstyle

There are already solutions to the vulnerable Warframe:

  • Crowd control - whether hard CC or soft CC, something as simple as a few Radiation procs will take aggro pressure away
  • Rolling Guard to give 3 seconds of immunity, which is plenty for many Operator actions
  • The Warframe's own shield gate, and a Robotic companion with the Guardian mod replenishing the shield to refresh the gate while it's parked
  • Positioning, meaning at a bare minimum not leaving the Warframe right in the middle of a crowd of enemies
  • The Unairu focus school, with Reinforced Return
  • Simply using stealth or damage avoidance abilities
  • Simply turning off a channeled ability if it's in your best interests to do so
  • Being very quick at doing whatever it is that required you to park the Warframe

Everything in Warframe is an encounter to build around. This is something you've encountered that you're struggling with, and instead of using any of the options above to solve the problem, you're asking for the outright removal of the mechanic. Void Cascade boils down to three things - being aware of what needs to be done, being in the right place at the right time to do what needs to be done, and doing what needs to be done quickly enough. The Warframe being vulnerable during Operator sections just adds to this sense of speed and urgency. We're already so ridiculously strong, that one of the only things that can possibly slow us down during Void Cascade and therefore threaten mission failure is the hurdle of survivability

Warframes being invulnerable every time the player is in Operator presents a ridiculous amount of cheese - it will be literal invulnerability on demand that lasts however long the player wants it to, no matter what frame they're playing, or what Focus School they're using, while current cheese options have to be actively picked over something else (like Revenant or Vazarin). The 90% DR is plenty for the Warframe to be safe for a few seconds in the vast majority of content that people play. If you're going to be doing niche, super high level content like level cap, then you bet your loadout needs more consideration than usual to counter all possible issues you might encounter. If you're doing level cap surely it's because you're seeking a broader challenge from "the rest of the game", so why are you trying to narrow and/or remove it?

I agree that it's currently inconsistent in what abilities do or don't trigger the DR, so that should be fixed so it's more obvious and predictable for the player. But it's a balancing and anti-afk feature that should stay as it is

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On 2024-04-30 at 2:21 PM, SabreWalrus said:

We're already so ridiculously strong, that one of the only things that can possibly slow us down during Void Cascade and therefore threaten mission failure is the hurdle of survivability

I think you make a fair point about player strength. I hope we get more crazy mechanics in the future that provide additional challenges. Not sure if I want survivability to be the primary hurdle in missions going forwards though (especially with the ultra-ez survivability focused frames that exist now). More on that later.

On 2024-04-30 at 2:21 PM, SabreWalrus said:

Warframes being invulnerable every time the player is in Operator presents a ridiculous amount of cheese

Although I think this is fair as well, I get the impression DE's newer mission design is trying to incorporate more operator interactions and failure conditions that don't have to do with personal survivability - such that going operator form just to avoid death means not contributing to the primary objective = failing the mission. That said, I imagine using Xaku, stealing enemy guns, then afking as operator would be pretty busted in some circumstances. I guess when I'm thinking of cheese, I'm not thinking about merely surviving, but doing something to further the objective while taking no personal risk or displaying any skill. Although rev and invis exist, I don't find the playstyles particularly fun/challenging so I tend to avoid. (more thoughts on this at the end)

On 2024-04-30 at 2:21 PM, SabreWalrus said:

The 90% DR is plenty for the Warframe to be safe for a few seconds in the vast majority of content that people play.

I agree. In fact, I think 90% DR is more than enough in most content, such that afk cheese is very much on the table, outside of content approaching level cap. However, at/near level cap, 90% DR is absolutely worthless due to enemy damage scaling. I don't think any sane person brings a health tanking build to level cap for this reason - adaptation + high armor + DR abilities + healing isn't enough because even with enemies doing 0.01% of their base damage, that number is higher than frames can get hp for, 1-shotting health before healing/lifesteal/etc can even be considered.

On 2024-04-30 at 2:21 PM, SabreWalrus said:

If you're doing level cap surely it's because you're seeking a broader challenge from "the rest of the game", so why are you trying to narrow and/or remove it?

Agree with first half, disagree with second. I think there can be mechanics that are "uniquely challenging" that are nonetheless unfun to play around. I'm sure we could imagine a game or mechanic that requires skill but is still a horrible experience. I guess we disagree about how cringe this particular mechanic is. 

 

On 2024-04-30 at 2:21 PM, SabreWalrus said:

I agree that it's currently inconsistent in what abilities do or don't trigger the DR, so that should be fixed so it's more obvious and predictable for the player. But it's a balancing and anti-afk feature that should stay as it is

If this feature was only in place for abilities that could plausibly provide mission-relevant benefits while frame is afk, I don't think I'd mind nearly as much. However, I think the number of abilities that fit this category is very small. I don't think it makes sense for a frame with roar active to get nuked since roar's buff to teammates isn't dependent on the caster being alive. If the tradeoff to using Equinox 4, Xaku 2, Banshee 1 was damage vulnerability, I wouldn't be as bothered.

Curious how you would feel if the mechanic worked as follows:

When going operator, if your warframe has an ability that provides some passive benefit such as free damage, cc, etc. (give Nekros 3 a break tho :sad:), you are only allowed to be in operator form for a limited amount of time (similar to warframe transference in Duviri lone story / experience). The timer decreases faster if a larger number of enemies are currently targeting your frame, and this timer "recharges" over time, such that you'd need to be in warframe form the majority of the time if using one of these abilities. Alternatively, abilities are merely uncast when timer is out, which would prevent annoyances where you were using operator to traverse the map quickly and get pulled all the way back.

In my opinion, this would be the best case scenario: prevents afk cheese at all levels of content, doesn't have weird instant nuke potential at high levels, and potentially allows "parking" to decrease the timer penalty. Additionally, all consistency weirdness would be resolved. The reason I'm advocating for the mechanic's removal is because I imagine deleting it would be an easy change, but adding an entirely separate mechanic that actually prevents afk cheese at low-mid level and doesn't feel like a bug at high level would take a lot more effort. Even if DE is beginning to search for ways to make more difficult content, I assumed they wouldn't put that many dev-hours into improving a mechanic that really isn't noticed until ~sp 1000+ most of the time.

Personally, I dislike the "parking incentive", since even if I were to consider it skillful, I don't think it's a particularly fun thing to engage with. My warframe is in the fight, and can sustain via shield gate, recovery abilities, i-frames, etc. but is made of paper the moment I go operator form - so I need to run from the fight or find a weird hole to hide it in before doing my operator business. This feels pretty disruptive to the flow of combat and the crackhead pace of warframe that I've come to enjoy.

Also - different hypothetical - if the operator design/buildcrafting had equal depth to warframes, operators had more engaging survival mechanics than "hold crouch for immortality", and operator death was as punishing as warframe death, would there be any need for warframe damage vulnerability in operator form? Obviously a huge diversion from the original suggestion, but curious where you're coming from regarding balance and difficulty.

Broadly speaking, I think the 90% DR mechanic hurts a number of frames/builds that could otherwise work well in level cap void cascade, and fails to provide the player with skillful / interesting / enjoyable counterplay, so it does more harm than good. I'm not opposed to difficulty per se, but to mechanics which demand an arbitrary restriction on builds or an uninteresting playstyle in response.

Ultimately, is there any anti-afk feature that you would accept / prefer to the current system that prevents me from needing to slow down my playstyle (via parking) or risk getting nuked through a frame I can't control and a damage source I can't see?

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This ability made sense when Operator wasn't meant to be part of the gameplay loop, and instead just quick in and outs. 

But now that a lot of content, Zariman especially, requires you to be outta of your Warframe for extended periods of time, it doesn't end up being a fair mechanic. Especially when some abilities barely affect the surroundings and would actually be detrimental in having them activated, as oppose to the intended mechanic of it being a way to prevent cheese like Immortal Gloom or what ever. 

"Just Park it somewhere else"

High level enemies can hit you across the the tile set with full accuracy and enough damage to punch through 90% DR. You know this, we know this, don't try to make it some 'skill issue' especially when there are cases of enemies being teleported forward if we the players move far away enough from the enemies. 

"Use CC"

HAHAHA HAHAHA

Yes good luck CC-ing the Eximus that spawns with Overguard, or the Thrax Units that not only spawn with Overguard but also have diminished CC duration. 

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8 hours ago, Nikolovski_ said:

Personally, I dislike the "parking incentive", since even if I were to consider it skillful, I don't think it's a particularly fun thing to engage with. My warframe is in the fight, and can sustain via shield gate, recovery abilities, i-frames, etc. but is made of paper the moment I go operator form - so I need to run from the fight or find a weird hole to hide it in before doing my operator business. This feels pretty disruptive to the flow of combat and the crackhead pace of warframe that I've come to enjoy.

The trick with parking is not to spend time searching around to then leave the Warframe in a literal closet all the way across the room, but to use whatever geometry is in the immediate vicinity instead. If there's a box 3m away that breaks the enemy's immediate LOS, you leave the frame behind it before you clear an Exolizer. Operators can move around so quickly with slings that even if you do leave the Warframe relatively far away you can still get to where you need to be without much issue. It doesn't break the flow, it's simply part of the flow. The word "park" probably conjures too many images of a slow, deliberate action in a specified area lmao, while what we actually do is drop the frame like a hot potato as we transition from bullet jump to void sling

8 hours ago, Nikolovski_ said:

Curious how you would feel if the mechanic worked as follows:

When going operator, if your warframe has an ability that provides some passive benefit such as free damage, cc, etc. (give Nekros 3 a break tho :sad:), you are only allowed to be in operator form for a limited amount of time (similar to warframe transference in Duviri lone story / experience). The timer decreases faster if a larger number of enemies are currently targeting your frame, and this timer "recharges" over time, such that you'd need to be in warframe form the majority of the time if using one of these abilities. Alternatively, abilities are merely uncast when timer is out, which would prevent annoyances where you were using operator to traverse the map quickly and get pulled all the way back.

The problem with all proposed solutions is that they make it even more complex for the player to understand. Although there isn't consistency with the abilities currently, it's simple enough to understand "if I have an active duration or channeled ability, the Warframe is vulnerable". You assume as much any time you have abilities active, and you play around it accordingly. I think if the timer doesn't force you back to your frame and it just deactivates your abilities instead, then it's not a good solution. And for it to be balanced, it would need to be no more than 5 seconds. And that will feel really bad to the majority of players getting yanked around, and they will complain

8 hours ago, Nikolovski_ said:

Broadly speaking, I think the 90% DR mechanic hurts a number of frames/builds that could otherwise work well in level cap void cascade, and fails to provide the player with skillful / interesting / enjoyable counterplay, so it does more harm than good. I'm not opposed to difficulty per se, but to mechanics which demand an arbitrary restriction on builds or an uninteresting playstyle in response.

Void Cascade is unique for its Operator reliance and problems like the 90% DR. The player has to blend Warframe and Operator gameplay, with all the considerations that entails. If you want a playground purely for destroying boss units, you have Disruption. If you want a playground for AOE DPS and an endless stream of enemies, you have Survival. Some things won't work in Cascade and that is okay. It's okay to have these limitations. It's okay to have to tailor loadouts for specific mission types. If you can't make something work, then that is your limitation. This is a niche issue that only affects level 1000+, where your request basically boils down to "this mechanic is making level cap too hard for me, please remove it". We already know DE doesn't endorse level cap or support long endurance runs in their game. If you opt into doing them, you embrace and accept everything the game throws at you

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7 hours ago, (PSN)rexis12 said:

High level enemies can hit you across the the tile set with full accuracy and enough damage to punch through 90% DR. You know this, we know this, don't try to make it some 'skill issue' especially when there are cases of enemies being teleported forward if we the players move far away enough from the enemies. 

I try to avoid reducing discussion down to "skill issue", but it is what it is. Many players, myself included, can solo Void Cascade into level cap and beyond with non-invis frames that are vulnerable every time we're in Operator. We can obviously allow for it and play around it, so it's not a run-ending issue. If you struggle with it, it is ultimately a you problem

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I don't really mind the Warframe is vulnerable in this situation but I would like for the game to properly explain and show when this happens and to see the Warframe's current status so I know when it's time to jump back and defend it instead of suddenly being pulled into a downed state.

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