Suggestion: Affinity Range Overhaul

[MythIncarnate]

The Problem: A static affinity range results in a number of undesirable scenarios, punishes people who desire to play frames other than mach turbo speedrun meta builds, and in general results in public experiences - especially for newer players - being unpleasant, less rewarding and less useful to their overall progression. The current implementation of a fixed range in which players can actively benefit from each others activities in a cooperative, squad-based looter-shooter results in an experience that feels less co-op and more "race to the objective or get left in the dust".

The Stopgaps: Currently, two measures exist to ease this issue, but do so in a clunky, inefficient way:

• Vazarin "Mending Unity" increases Affinity Range by 25 meters.
• Fosfor Rahd and Blau increase Affinity Range by 400 meters if using both.

Seeing as one requires a specific Focus school, and the other is a tedious to craft set of gear items, neither option is great, and as both seem to suffer from the issue of only really benefiting the one using them, rather than a squad-wide benefit, these patches aren't really doing much to address a latent issue with the game.

The Proposal: What I suggest is an overhaul of HOW Affinity Range is handled, making the system more dynamic and creating options for split-squad objective tackling, making missions more rewarding for sticking together, and encouraging team play against the increasingly solo-focused mindset more and more players seem to have. It boils down to the following changes:

• Increase the base Affinity Range to 75 meters, to allow larger tiles to be covered more easily without players being punished for it.
• Make Affinity Range grant a 'buff' that is applied for being within range of at least one other player. Let's call it "Squad Tactics" for the purpose of this post.
  • Squad Tactics is a "sticky" buff, and will last for 10 seconds after leaving its range.
  • So long as you have the Squad Tactics active, you earn any affinity that is generated by ANY member of the squad, even those outside the range.
  • Squad Tactics also applies a global loot pickup share - if any player picks up loot, all players with Squad Tactics get the pickups.
  • Those without Squad Tactics only benefit from the affinity and loot they generate/collect themselves, but it is still shared with those who have Squad Tactics.
• Certain "Points of Interest" behave as though they were a player, for the purpose of granting Squad Tactics. Other specific mission types have unique rules for how Affinity Range works:
  • Spy Vaults - Allowing for split-squad infiltration for speed, while still benefiting everyone fully.
  • Interception Control Points - Being out of range of one or more of your allies while you hold a point is silly, given you're working together to capture a signal.
  • Void Cascade Exolizers - More or less the same argument as above, just differently flavored.
  • Survival Life Support Towers - Count as a player for 1 minute after they spawn and for 1 minute after they are activated. The icon of a tower that counts as a player should be different in the HUD and UI, for quick distinction, perhaps a small symbol and a color change or a visual aura. To ensure players aren't punished for needing to run to hit one.
  • Defense, Mobile Defense, Ascension, Void Armageddon and Hijack Targets/Objectives - The active objective is the center point of  a 75 meter affinity radius bubble. These objectives grant Squad Tactics, and being outside the bubble prevents you from having it (with exceptions - see below).
• Effects that currently change affinity range become altered. Their effects also allow you to ignore the range restrictions on the above mission types.
  • Fosfors -  Grant the one using them Squad Tactics for 2.5 minutes (or up to 5 minutes if both are used), regardless of other player positions.
  • Mending Unity - Could change to become "Squad Tactics lasts 6/12/20 seconds longer upon leaving. Switching to Operator grants you Squad Tactics for 120 seconds once every 15/10/5 minutes."
• Abilities, such as Trinity's Blessing, which are based on Affinity Range currently instead apply to self plus anyone with Squad Tactics. It also opens the possibility for other abilities to either function in a radius around players with the Squad Tactics buff (think: Desecrate), or else grant additional benefits for having the buff.
• Railjack missions could be unified to the same system, and Archwing Missions could as well with the current multiplier on Affinity Range they already have.
• Being marked as AFK visibly removes the Squad Tactics buff, providing a clear visual feedback on when that occurs to both you and your allies.
  • Side Note: I haven't ever seen the current "Affinity Range" indicator buff get removed from an AFK player, barring them getting left behind. That would be a useful thing in an of itself.

The Pros: If the benefits of these changes aren't implicitly obvious, I'll state them clearly below:

• No longer punishes players for using or not having a small subset of frames used to speed run/rush objectives.
• Doesn't actually hinder anyone who does play in such a way, while also allowing their allies to benefit more fully from their activities.
• Relieves the utter need for Loot Radar/Animal Instinct and Vacuum/Fetch, since loot will be shared squad-wide.
• Potential for abilities - either existing or new ones - to interact with the system in novel ways.
• Allows for things such as tactical splits - sending two players to tackle a sub-objective like cache/standing token hunting or defending multiple points in Void Cascade.
• Mods or Arcanes could be made to interact with the system too, in far more interesting ways than "+X m of Affinity Range."
• Encourages teamwork and communication, making the game overall more pleasant for most people.
• Potential for new game modes that would currently be impractical or unfeasible under the current static paradigm, such as multi-tile puzzles, or simultaneous objectives across distances greater than the width of a team door.
• Relieves the common "hallway hero" syndrome common in many mission types like Survival where one or more players wander away from the group to the detriment of all.
• Refreshes a tired and crusty mechanic that has, by and large, remained unchanged since the inception of the game.

The Cons: Like any proposal to overhaul something simple into something more complex, there are going to be some issues that arise. The following are what I see being problematic, potentially, with this proposal:

• Inherently more complicated: The nuances are less easy to articulate to new players.
  • They are, however, much more intuitive (I think so anyway) for how a co-op game should be.
  • Given the way the community is towards new or returning players, I'm not too worried about education being an issue for very long.
  • Tooltips and mission-specific loading hints could also help.
• Potential fountain of bugs: Not sure how gutting and reworking such a core system would affect the game.
  • Bugs can be fixed.
  • No matter what changes, this is going to be an issue, and this fixes more issues than it should create.
• There's gonna be someone who complains: There always is with large changes.
  • The game survived Parkour 2.0, Damage 2.0 and other, arguably worse changes.

The Conclusion: I feel like this suggestion would not only massively improve the feel of the game for anyone who isn't a solo-only player, enrich the sense of comradery the game has, and fix a huge number of issues the game has developed as it has evolved away from it's origins as an extremely simple looter-shooter without much of a story beyond what could be gleaned from a few tidbits on items.

Thank you for reading!

[dwqrf]

il y a 8 minutes, MythIncarnate a dit :

The Problem: A static affinity range results in a number of undesirable scenarios, punishes people who desire to play frames other than mach turbo speedrun meta builds

Remember that people getting out of the whole squad affinity range (the one solo egoist speedster in a full squad) will also lose the affinity generated by all the other players. It works both ways.

Fosfor aren't tedious to craft ; and as well work both ways.

I'm all up for teaching people to know and master affinity range more than anything, but I don't think it should be buffed. It's just that it's a way too obscure mecanics for most people, new players like advanced players. Those players think Hydron and ESO are such great XP pool while they are just small arenas where all the players are forced in affinity range of each other, without any single discipline when playing Survival or Bounties. It's great to punish players getting out of the squad core as well.

[vixenpixel]

I like this idea. Granted, I didn't read all of it, but what I read looks great. :)

[MythIncarnate]

16 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

Remember that people getting out of the whole squad affinity range (the one solo egoist speedster in a full squad) will also lose the affinity generated by all the other players. It works both ways.

A soloist speedster running off is likely generating the affinity anyway (or at least the lions share).

16 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

Fosfor aren't tedious to craft ; and as well work both ways.

Considering they require fish parts and take an hour for 20 (as opposed to the usual 1 minute for 1/10/100), many people do find them tedious.

They work two ways between the the player who used them and each member they are in range of. They do nothing for the rest of the squad. I.e. If A uses a Fosfor, they are linked A<->B, A<->C and A<->D, but B, C and D aren't linked. Moreover, I've not once seen a soloist speedrunner take the 3 seconds it would take to actually use a Fosfor.

19 minutes ago, vixenpixel said:

I like this idea. Granted, I didn't read all of it, but what I read looks great. :)

Well, thanks for that!

[dwqrf]

il y a 13 minutes, MythIncarnate a dit :

Moreover, I've not once seen a soloist speedrunner take the 3 seconds it would take to actually use a Fosfor.

I do systematically if I'm too fast and too far from new players. Granted, I might be the exception, using Fosfor and Stims in every mission where and when it's needed...

But I would surely agree both those recipe could be made with easier components.

[.-Nyx-.]

I really like this idea a LOT.

I also think increasing the camaraderie feeling in missions would add much satisfaction and joy to the overall game experience without hampering the solo players in any way.

maybe the 'tenno affinity' icon could be blinky red when you are out of range or something?

I dont think it would remove the need for fetch or loot radar... but maybe that is just me.

 

Nyx

Edited Wednesday at 06:04 PM by .-Nyx-.

[MythIncarnate]

2 minutes ago, .-Nyx-. said:

I dont think it would remove the need for fetch or loot radar... but maybe that is just me.

Well, "remove" is a bit strong I guess, but you would be punished far less for not having them. :)

[Voltage]

I like the premise of this post, but I don't support universal loot within this range. The reason being is because it would bring back the Greedy Pull camping meta 10 years later in a game-state that is already incredibly powercrept and endorses AFK behavior. The last thing we need is even more reason for a player to not move and collect all loot. This problem would be exaggerated further as Pull is a subsume ability within Helminth.

Other than that small detail, I like the idea of making Affinity Range a more dynamic radius/buff.

[DatWeeaBooSki]

The idea honestly sounds pretty good!