Dev Workshop: Koumei & The Five Fates - Companion Reworks

[Corleone-Kun]

Too bad I sold most companions weapons since they were Mastery fodder before. And I not about to build another companion just to get another weapon. 

[Koalachan]

I am into the infested aesthetic and play Nidus with Helminth Charger for thematic reasons. Ages ago the strain set was promised a buff on dev workshop that never happened. Hearing companions got reworked and Helminth gettting a shoutout was music to my ears.

 

But I read this and go... what? His damage was made worse and Toxic damage is uncombinable and he has no Status Chance anyway? Nothing about the Strain set being made more useful? No interaction with other maggot sources?

 

This was extremely disappointing to read and I hope someone spends some time on rectifying this injustice. Helminth has been bad for ages and still will be if this is it?

[Halo]

15 minutes ago, Koalachan said:

I am into the infested aesthetic and play Nidus with Helminth Charger for thematic reasons. Ages ago the strain set was promised a buff on dev workshop that never happened. Hearing companions got reworked and Helminth gettting a shoutout was music to my ears.

 

But I read this and go... what? His damage was made worse and Toxic damage is uncombinable and he has no Status Chance anyway? Nothing about the Strain set being made more useful? No interaction with other maggot sources?

 

This was extremely disappointing to read and I hope someone spends some time on rectifying this injustice. Helminth has been bad for ages and still will be if this is it?

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID EARLIER IN THE THREAD!

Extremely upset and agree.

We can only hope and pray for SOMETHING. 

[Forgek]

Wait, so the Helminth Charger is left out once again? I'm genuinely confused why it, which is already one of the weakest companions, is just being left out like this. Its base stats make it unable to effectively use some of the better Bond mods too, leaving it further in the dust with these companion reworks. Is this just because it's easy for players to access? Please reconsider this.

[Hyohakusha]

Love it, but the one thing that needs to be added is the ability to rename our sentinels like other pets/ weapons.

[Udoshi]

On 2024-09-27 at 1:37 PM, [DE]Momaw said:

Artax

• Previously: Cold based beam weapon, always applies Cold status (Damage 5, Status 3%, Fire Rate 1, Magazine 100/Reload 1.5, Critical 2%/1.5x)
• Now: Changed Artax math from old "Chance of status per second", to newer "Chance of status per firing interval" that other beam weapons use, and buffed the status chance.

 

I just wanted to say that the artax having a guarantee cold proc even if you mod away from it is something of a charm to the gun, and I hope it doesn't go away: You could make viable debuff artax using just the shivering contagion and some punch to go through it.

Do you think we could get a "beam Splitter' mod that gives the split flights/phage/'neg accuracy but it splits off some sub-beams instead of making one beam wavey' treatment to a beam to make it somewhat of a cone  style shotgun?

[DrinkingRock]

This may have already been asked, but are companions going to grant us affinity now that they're becoming universally more deadly? I understand wanting to avoid potential afk farming, but new players may not realize they're hurting their own xp gains when the new cat in town is decimating.

[Croblin0095]

2 hours ago, Halo said:

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID EARLIER IN THE THREAD!

Extremely upset and agree.

We can only hope and pray for SOMETHING. 

as a HUGE Helminth Charger fan (been using my beloved horror-beyond-comprehension since I first got it, despite obviously better options) I really hope this is simply an oversight of some kind, given how badly Helminth is outclassed by like literally everything ever (including sentinels soon too rip)

There's a chance that they MAY have simply forgotten to add if Helminth did get stat/crit chance buffs, which I hope is the case because the lowered damage would be nicely compensated by a wayyy higher stat and/or crit chance. IF HOWEVER they really didn't do anything to my beloved nightmare dog, I will be joining you in the unhappy camper gang. Only time will tell though Charger gang o7

[_Anise_]

On 2024-09-27 at 8:37 PM, [DE]Momaw said:

Spare Parts: Now compatible with both Hounds and Sentinels instead of only Sentinels

Hounds, Sentinels and Moa instead of only Sentinels? right?

[Halo]

1 hour ago, Croblin0095 said:

as a HUGE Helminth Charger fan (been using my beloved horror-beyond-comprehension since I first got it, despite obviously better options) I really hope this is simply an oversight of some kind, given how badly Helminth is outclassed by like literally everything ever (including sentinels soon too rip)

There's a chance that they MAY have simply forgotten to add if Helminth did get stat/crit chance buffs, which I hope is the case because the lowered damage would be nicely compensated by a wayyy higher stat and/or crit chance. IF HOWEVER they really didn't do anything to my beloved nightmare dog, I will be joining you in the unhappy camper gang. Only time will tell though Charger gang o7

Only time will tell indeed. 

I have high hopes they forgot the stat changes for them. But alas, if they truly meant to keep it down in the dumps, then I won't shut up about it. 

Stripped Smeeta of its resource buff on Charm to give it a stronger affinity buff + the charm mod as a universal mod for all pets. 

Everything getting buffs across the board... And then there's the Helminth, getting an over a few years old bug fix for one mod of a set that barely anyone uses (except us), one of their two precepts getting a buff, and a complete damage downgrade... 

[OtenWr]

Some love for the companions, I love to use it.


Amazing changes. 😁

 

Hope this changes make  ppl  use and experiment  more companions, not only for buffs or drops.

 

Excited 

Edited Sunday at 04:10 AM by OtenWr

[Eternal_Phenix_Prime]

On 2024-09-27 at 3:37 PM, [DE]Momaw said:

There is one notable Precept that will need some special explanation. Out of respect for our readers, let's get that out of the way first:

• Charm (SMEETA Kavat): The resource and credit pickup multiplier has been removed from Charm and promoted to being its own separate precept Mod (Loyal Retriever,) equippable on all Beasts. Charm's chance to provide a buff on activation has been increased to 40%. The available buffs are:
  • 25% chance of Reinforced Shield
  • 25% chance of Instant Reload (re-rolled if your current weapon doesn't need to reload)
  • 10% chance of Bonus Critical Chance buff
  • 10% chance of Free Ability Casts
  • 10% chance of Bonus Affinity. (Affinity bonus has been increased to 3x)
• Loyal Retriever (Beast companions): Provides a passive 13% chance that each resource or credit pickup will be doubled. This effect is always active: there is no cooldown, no duration, no waiting for it to be ready.
  • If you already own a Smeeta then you will receive Loyal Retriever for free automatically. In the future, this will be purchased with Conservation tags from the Earth Conservation vendor.
  • We chose 13% as being the statistical average of what amount of time Charm's resource bonus would be active.

We know Smeeta is very popular so it's important we explain why this change is happening. There are two reasons.

One: In a game with so much variety, we never want a specific choice of equipment to dominate our community. For some players, collecting loot is the most important part of any mission so anything that contributes to giving you MORE loot is so important that no alternatives can compete. Our intent is that opening the resource boosting part of Charm to all Beasts will increase your freedom in pet selection.

And two: Charm’s randomness encouraged players to “wait for buff” in a way that was counter to Warframe’s speed and fluidity. It was advantageous to allow resources to pile up in the level, deliberately NOT picking them up until Charm gives the resource buff, which could take minutes. The resource buff could even stack, creating random chances on top of random chances, slowing down the game even more. In our fast-paced game about space ninjas, we want to reward players who are mobile and actively engaging with enemies, so we have re-engineered the effect to be always active.

 

Point 1 is very fair & true...

Point 2 however fundamentally forgets about all endless mission types. These missions are long, resources will pile up unless you are constantly jumping around to pickup everything. Defense and Excavation in particular encourage slow stationary gameplay, only periodically taking a moment to go around collecting loot. What exactly is so wrong about timing these periodical pickup breaks with Charm procs? These mission types are inherently slow, some such as survival are outright tied to a timer that the player cannot influence in any way.

Exactly how can you say that Charm was "counter to Warframe’s speed and fluidity" without implying that endless mission types themselves are "counter to Warframe’s speed and fluidity"?

More than anything this feels like an attempt to slow down the game's progression speed by forcing players into spending even more time farming resources such as Steel Essence & Vitus Essence, both resources commonly farmed through endless mission types. (All arbitrations are endless, acolytes only spawn every 5 minutes or so of mission time).

Edit: Honestly I would suggest leaving Charm as is and introducing Loyal retriever as a new mod that cannot be equipped alongside Charm. This still accomplishes the first objective, while doing away with the... Erroneous? Misguided? (not sure what to call it) Second objective.

Edit 2: Really my above suggestion is even more necessary as while Charm's utility overshadowed other companions, it was also Smeeta's only worthwhile feature.
Reinforced shields & instant reload are lame buffs and barely noticeable, especially in higher level content.
The critical chance buff is actually a debuff for high critical builds.
Affinity buff? This is essentially entirely useless once your gear hits max rank.
This adds up to a 70% chance for Charm to not do anything particularly useful, with only a 10% chance at a useful free ability casts buff. Previously Charm also had a chance at a free rare resource, does this at least account the full remaining & missing 20% chance?

Edited Sunday at 03:00 PM by Eternal_Phenix_Prime
Somehow Charm doubled the contents of my comment. Also phrasing

[Poestis]

I really wish they listed which Conservation Tags for the companion damage mods were here.
I hope none are the Woodland Margoo that never seems to show up.  I got like 300 Flossy SawGaw tags, would be great if some were those, lol.  I am going to guess that most of the tags will be Kubrodons ones, and kavats for cetus but who knows.

[MaxAltair]

Im glad you are focusing on improving companions behavioor.
How about MOAs Ai? the Oloro MOA, it is useless most of the time because it get stuck on path, or simply it is not interested in decipher a console. On rescue missions is useless it dont do anything.
I expected something similar to the Corpus from the New War he can give many orders to their moas.

Adition to the above: why to mess with posture/strategies mods? Similar to sentinels need a mod to attack...
Give teeno the function to command their companions! Attack aggresively, Stay Behind,...just Cast Abilities, focus on Nearest/Raged attackers...Retreat when health is toching 0...
A world of possibilities there! and more fun to interact if we can give orders to our companions in battle.

Edited Sunday at 08:02 AM by MaxAltair

[Bag_n_Gra]

On 2024-09-27 at 3:37 PM, [DE]Momaw said:

We know Smeeta is very popular so it's important we explain why this change is happening. There are two reasons.

One: In a game with so much variety, we never want a specific choice of equipment to dominate our community. For some players, collecting loot is the most important part of any mission so anything that contributes to giving you MORE loot is so important that no alternatives can compete. Our intent is that opening the resource boosting part of Charm to all Beasts will increase your freedom in pet selection.

And two: Charm’s randomness encouraged players to “wait for buff” in a way that was counter to Warframe’s speed and fluidity. It was advantageous to allow resources to pile up in the level, deliberately NOT picking them up until Charm gives the resource buff, which could take minutes. The resource buff could even stack, creating random chances on top of random chances, slowing down the game even more. In our fast-paced game about space ninjas, we want to reward players who are mobile and actively engaging with enemies, so we have re-engineered the effect to be always active.

NO MORE FREE OFFICE COFFEE & SUGAR!

    We know caffeine is very popular so it's important we explain why this change is happening. There are two reasons.

    One: In a world with so much variety, we never want a specific choice of caffeinated beverage to dominate our community. For some workers, consuming coffee is the most important part of any day so anything that contributes to giving you MORE caffeine so important that no alternatives can compete. Our intent is that opening the sugary, caffeinated part of beverages to all employees will increase your freedom in beverage selection.

    And two: Office coffee with sugar encouraged workers to “waste time” in a way that was counter to Warframe's productivity speed and fluidity. It was advantageous to allow free coffee to stink & mess up the office, deliberately by NOT picking the sugar packets up until ants show up, which could take minutes. The free office coffee could even spill, creating sticky mess on top of shared cooking & eating surface, slowing down the game production even more. In our fast-paced game about space ninjas, we want to reward workers who are neat and actively engaging with content & the community, so we have repurposed the coffee machine to be a croissant warmer.

 

Caffeine is the only drug I can appropriately suggest that spawned the brain rot that is splitting Charm's effects into two mods vs. just making Charm available to all companions.

 

Blatant farm nerf with spite thrown at the Smeeta with these "buffs".

 

2 =/= 1

[Thordd]

One thing not addressed is that sentinels' weapon accuracy with non-snipers is not great after about 3 meters, especially anything that rapid fires.    You actually do better with jsut a few ticks on the sentinel attack mod then modding with all ticks because less range is far more accurate to actually hit an enemy.

[Thordd]

I will be curious if beast behavior genuinely improves.    Having them lead you rather than follow you is a great idea but it still remains to be seen if the beast AI wont get stuck on level geometry and keep teleporting back to the player.

[Solarmatt]

Really hoping you have a look at the Vasca Kavat, they really need some love. At least increasing Draining Bite's Heal to something decent would help

[thats_rudiculous_07]

Fired up  mod please rework  make it actually proc heat damage.

Resourceful/Loyal Retriever drop % is way to low. 

It won't Affects to certain mission resources won't be applied  : kuva siphon and kuva survival  for kuva, mining

How often are you even going to proc it? extremely RNG dependent on how often the  It would proc. If it depends on just picking up items . This basically aweful not consistent at all, at least you know when your going to get double resource drop , now we don't even know when it going to proc the double drop chance. The point of drop chance mods was to get specific resources , this greatly and severely limits the actual rare materials . When this is the justification for a nerf; kuva siphon, kuva survival , mining, fishing, and hunting need to be removed from the "fast-paced game about space ninjas." Basically we need to stay longer to even get the actual item we want .

It'll take long to get rare items now .

This doesn't respect our time .

When the only item were most likely to get drop are commons not the rares.

 

 

Edited Sunday at 02:59 PM by thats_rudiculous_07

[Koalachan]

12 hours ago, Halo said:

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID EARLIER IN THE THREAD!

Extremely upset and agree.

We can only hope and pray for SOMETHING. 

At the very least I would want Maggots across the board (i.e. also Nidus and Pathocyst) to share their mechanics. It's counter-intuitive that they don't; whenever you tell someone they end up surprised that the thing that looks like a maggot, talks like a maggot and walks like a maggot is not in fact always a maggot. Not getting his stats like the other pets also makes you think they remain the same so he won't even be useful for Tenacious Bond or actually applying his Toxic damage as status. If he's infested, lean into it give him a very high status chance so the Toxic in his damage actually means something.

But more than anything the opportunity cost of having once again missed the rework boat to get some love is the real kicker. Means it's probably never going to happen. *shaking my head*

Edited Sunday at 01:03 PM by Koalachan

[LittleLeoniePrime]

I'm just gonna add to the crowd of people shouting at you to please reconsider the Beast only limitation on Loyal Retriever, Prosperous Retriever and Resourceful Retriever and make them available on all companions or make counterparts for Hounds, MOAs and Sentinels so we don't run into another Vacuum/Fetch situation.

[dwqrf]

il y a 6 minutes, LittleLeoniePrime a dit :

I'm just gonna add to the crowd of people shouting at you to please reconsider the Beast only limitation on Loyal Retriever, Prosperous Retriever and Resourceful Retriever and make them available on all companions or make counterparts for Hounds, MOAs and Sentinels so we don't run into another Vacuum/Fetch situation.

That, and [Investigator] for all.

Edited Sunday at 01:59 PM by dwqrf

[LittleLeoniePrime]

4 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

That's, and [Investigator] for all.

the codex has maybe 2 or 3 real in-game purposes and I think Helios has a good niche in being the scanny boi

if we start putting everything on everything all companions become the same and lose their uniqueness

both Carrier (with Vacuum back in the day) and now Smeeta with charm are cases worth nerfing or broadening onto the entire roaster because they interacted with a core mechanic of the game - looting. Vacuum makes it so you can pick up everything and charms affinity buff simply gave you more loot which is crucial in a looter shooter.

Edited Sunday at 02:05 PM by LittleLeoniePrime

[-Menagerie-]

Carrier and Wyrm stay losing I guess

Otherwise, AMAZING! Minus the fact I'm going to have to invest so much forma into my pets again...

[dwqrf]

il y a 6 minutes, LittleLeoniePrime a dit :

the codex has maybe 2 or 3 real in-game purposes and I think Helios has a good niche in being the scanny boi

if we start putting everything on everything all companions become the same and lose their uniqueness

both Carrier (with Vacuum back in the day) and now Smeeta with charm are cases worth nerfing or broadening onto the entire roaster because they interacted with a core mechanic of the game - looting. Vacuum makes it so you can pick up everything and charms affinity buff simply gave you more loot which is crucial in a looter shooter.

Investigator should be sort of a companion scanner augment from Simaris, in the same way Animal Instinct works on every companions. That won't remove Helios uniqueness of being able to use his precept augmenting damage on weakpoints, and being the only one able to use Deconstructor. 

The only things adding Investigator for all would do, is to let people that would like to use a mod slot actually progress and be interested in their codex completion, which is a much a thing as credits and resources, if not much harder to obtain.