My Extended Thoughts on the Smeeta Rework

[Fireshock]

Let me preface this by saying I'm a 6-forma Smeeta owner and it's been my main companion ever since DE removed pet permadeath and made the Nutrio segment make the DNA stabilizers actually affordable in 2018. That made me actually explore other companions other than Sentinels and take my pets out of the freezer. So for the past 6 years or so this guy has never left my side, and I feel qualified to speak on this.

Perhaps I was attracted to the double loot and affinity ability like everybody else, sure, but I also loved the natural colors I got on my Smeeta with shiny, bright red and orange accents. I named him Schpeltiger after Travis' bike in No More Heroes but also because it sounds like "spell tiger." I dressed him up like a little wizard!

That aside, my post will focus on two main points: the removal of the double loot bonus from Charm, and the current implementation of "Loyal Retriever."

Point 1:

The removal of the double loot bonus from Charm is similar on paper to how Vacuum made Carrier the "best in slot companion." Being able to remotely pick up loot was too good. This made DE make Vacuum a global mod to allow people to choose other companions but still get that remote pick up ability. This is a similar situation, with one key difference:

• Vacuum was a single mod that was made global. Charm was split into two mods.

So now, as a Smeeta owner, to get back the functionality I've had for the past 6 years I now have to change my heavily forma'd build by removing 1 mod to add in Loyal Retriever. This doesn't seem fair to players, unlike in Vacuum's case where nothing really changed on everyone's Carrier builds.

It's clear DE didn't want to make all of Charm a global precept like Vacuum which is fair enough. But the solution here should've been:

• Charm includes the 13% resource doubling effect of Loyal Retriever as a passive ability, then does the regular random Charm stuff on top of that.

This would otherwise put it on equal footing as global Vacuum, where owners of the existing companion are not adversely affected. It still makes the key functionality of Charm something you can put on other companions, without affecting existing builds. This would be an easy change to add in, and I think this solution should still be explored.

Point 2:

DE didn't like that because Charm had a random chance to trigger double loot/exp, players would wait around for it to trigger. This is also fair, I admit I've been guilty of it before (but I only did it when playing solo, so I didn't effect anybody else's experience).

However, I believe the current implementation of Loyal Retriever only addresses half of the problem: the waiting portion. It ignores why players would wait to begin with. As Pablo himself brought up, it was to "pick" an item to double. There are many rare items that drop specifically on the ground (Vitus Essence, Steel Essence, Toroids, etc). Waiting allowed you to choose to double those items specifically. The current implementation being "everything has a small random chance of being doubled, and the player has no control over it" removes this functionality entirely.

I respect that DE is giving players options via different mods to add more control over Loyal Companion, like having one mod just for resources and one just for credits. There's some level of acknowledgement from DE over players wanting more efficient ways to farm without losing Charm completely. There's no mod however to bring back this old "choose which drop you want doubled" functionality from Charm. So, here's my next proposed solution:

• An alternate mod like the solo credit and solo resource ones that replaces the passive functionality with a manual trigger: e.g. for the next 3 seconds every drop has a 100% chance to be doubled. This effect can only be triggered once per mission.
  • 3 seconds gives some breathing room if you accidentally pick up the wrong item because it's all in a pile. Maybe it would be hard to have a "manual trigger" for a companion mod, but there are already ways of doing manual control of pets e.g. Hunter Command. Maybe it could also trigger if you mark with G and then walk over a marked resource?

What would this mod add? This would allow the player to choose to give up passively doubling everything for the ability to guarantee a doubling of a specific resource. This still removes the AFK encouraging behavior while bringing back the reason why people would wait to begin with: to get a little extra Steel Essence or a few extra Azure Toroids. When I was farming Exploiter Orb, it was easier and quicker for me to wait for my Smeeta to double the drop than to re-do the entire 15 minute boss fight. New players trying to do the same thing would have to redo it in the event Loyal Retriever doesn't trigger on the toroid.

Perhaps you would immediately argue DE doesn't want those rare resources to be farmed more efficiently. However, I would argue again that there's a level of acknowledgement in not just nuking Charm out of orbit and giving players these alternate mods to customize it, even increasing the chance, that they want to give players more efficient farming techniques. Plus, removing the ability for Charm to stack with itself already removes the most broken interaction Charm had so you're not going to get dozens of Steel Essence or whatever at once anymore. The limit of "once per mission" balances it even further. Why not give veteran players the ability to give up doubling resources they already have billions of for the ability to pick a specific resource they're going out of their way for to double? This would also help new players that say, need more Argon Crystals, or need more Orokin Cells, equip this fourth alternate mod to specifically go out of their way for those items. When they're done, they could go back to one of the other three mods.

Key point here: This theoretical mod would encourage play style customization, and help new and veteran players alike. Please consider this idea.

If you made it this far into my post, thanks for reading. I took a lot of time to write this out, so if you have a comment, please keep in mind these are just my opinions and be respectful.

Edited yesterday at 06:34 AM by Fireshock

[vixenpixel]

Waiting around to get the buff so you can pick up the stuff invalidates using melee for example. How is that conducive with Warframe as a game. That's not even mentioning how utterly devoid of fun a playstyle that is. 

[Fireshock]

7 minutes ago, vixenpixel said:

Waiting around to get the buff so you can pick up the stuff invalidates using melee for example. How is that conducive with Warframe as a game. That's not even mentioning how utterly devoid of fun a playstyle that is. 

I don't think you even read my post.

[vixenpixel]

7 minutes ago, Fireshock said:

I don't think you even read my post.

I thought it was too long.. 😅

[Fireshock]

4 minutes ago, vixenpixel said:

I thought it was too long.. 😅

Well, at least you're honest. Please take the time to read it before responding though. Not once did I argue in favor of the waiting play style or say it should be reinstated. In fact I addressed the problem and talked about why there are better solutions.

[vixenpixel]

2 minutes ago, Fireshock said:

Well, at least you're honest. Please take the time to read it before responding though. Not once did I argue in favor of the waiting play style or say it should be reinstated. In fact I addressed the problem and talked about why there are better solutions.

I'm sowwy..🫣

[_Anise_]

18 hours ago, Fireshock said:

Point 1:

I was thinking about this too, now the XP buff has more chance of being rolled and it gives 3x xp.... I just got this in an ESO where I was leveling khoumi and forgot to take off my other weapons to maximize xp and I got my warframe from 0 to 30 and my smeetas claws from 0-30 before the first round was even done.

I am also urked that I need to run 2 mods on this now to get a similar effect, they could least baked the better rare 28%? drop chance mod into charm right?? (and made the mods mutually exclusive)

smeeta mandatory leveling cat god!

18 hours ago, Fireshock said:

Point 2:

I said before this mod came out, would be nice if it had a pity timer on rare resources, before I would have around a 1 in every 4~ relic unlock missions to have the smeeta buff up when I collected the last void essence which would double the void essence up for the entire run, you can now expect this to happen once every 40+ missions with the small chance per resource.

(edit;for anyone who does not know what a pity timer is, the chance goes up a slight amount for rare resources every time you collect a rare until it doubles a rare then the chance resets)

Edited 21 hours ago by _Anise_

[Debatra]

They definitely should have added the new mod's bonus to Charm so we could save the slot.

I also wouldn't mind an Exilus slot for things like Animal Instinct.

[tucker_d_dawg]

I'm glad by in large i don't need smeeta loot drop functionality because the change is really bad. 
And the doubling of a single resource when it procs is terrible rather than say "everything you picked up in the last 3 seconds".  

The issue obvious issue with the old method is not caused by players hanging around waiting for a double breaking game play.  I mean seriously - if you are doing an 1 hour run, you are not worried about staying 20m away from one pile when you have a whole map.  And no one (at least not with any bumps on their brain) would hang around and wait on a NON endless mission.

The change, to me at least, either feels disingenuous and masking "Players getting too much rare loot)" behind "It was disruptive to gameplay, we're doing this for you" - Yeah, that like  "I'm from the government and here to help" 🤣

Or you legitimately don't do long boring endless missions and think it is somehow "flow breaking"

No, the real issue is the rarity of the item to begin with necessitating players finding every way they can to maximize its gain.  You notice that even if some players need those orokin cells, or polymer bundles - very few (if any) players timed smeeta farming those.  The waiting for the doubler is almost exclusively a toroid, steel, and vitus farm.  

Now steel essence feels more common than it was at launch but old habbits die hard.
Specific types of toroids and vitus is still a just a unbelievably tedious slog to farm.  I guess you want to force all players into Nightwatch Napalm spamming saryns that only do arbitrations when its defense on certain tile sets and not bother with the other arbitration game modes?

[Traumtulpe]

The real issue is that the Smeeta now doesn't do anything. And no, nerfing my weapons from red to orange crits or having a 4% chance to buff me with double affinity - which is going to proc *after* my gear is already rank 30 (20 + mission complete bonus) - isn't "anything".

And Decoy is pretty nice at keeping the Smeeta alive, but there's no point in keeping it alive in the first place if it doesn't do anything.

I suggest Charm giving +100% affinity passively always, and Decoy having a higher threat level than the player (so enemies will shoot it even if you are closer than the decoy), plus maybe a 3 seconds damage absorb phase.

Edited 2 hours ago by Traumtulpe