Are stats sticks and pseudo exalteds a bug or a feature

[Sefrokan]

The title, basically. Didn't manage to find anything about that when googling, so I'm curious.

[sunderthefirmament]

Just now, Sefrokan said:

The title, basically. Didn't manage to find anything about that when googling, so I'm curious.

DE has purposefully implemented them, and continued adding them over time.  So they're a feature, albeit one that some of the developers have stated they aren't pleased with.

 

I hope that one day they are all removed and replaced with appropriately balanced exalteds (along with fixes and enhancements to our existing exalteds), but there's no clear timeline on when that might happen, if indeed it happens at all.

[Sefrokan]

Ok, so, let me see if I understand this: they make it so some mods cannot be used on exalted weapons and then make it so mods that are on a melee weapon somehow affect very specific skills without it being stated in the game, while also allowing for those same mods to be used for those specific skills, while neglecting the skills that were made to be specifically moddable?  

[dwqrf]

I think they are a bug.

But since many players got used to it ; as it balance (read : make completely overpowered) some spells, making them work radically stronger than expected and become important game changer in the meta for many frames, removing them is kind of tricky as it would make those people really really really unhappy, even if it was explained as a long overdue fix and balancing the spells in the process.

We already went through the removal of the Smeeta's charm abuse and multiple stacking with each other, which upset many, we aren't going to see the removal of stats stick soon, even if, for me, it would never be soon enough.

[dwqrf]

il y a 4 minutes, Sefrokan a dit :

Ok, so, let me see if I understand this: they make it so some mods cannot be used on exalted weapons and then make it so mods that are on a melee weapon somehow affect very specific skills without it being stated in the game, while also allowing for those same mods to be used for those specific skills, while neglecting the skills that were made to be specifically moddable?  

It's more complexe than that. It's like at the time when Gladiator Set mods, which have a passive granting +% Critical Chance (like Blood Rush) on melee depending of melee combo ; were used on the Helios' sentinel melee weapon Deconstructor to enhance Exalted melee weapons which were designed not to be able to equip Blood Rush or Gladiators mods, but yet got through that trick their set effect.

Or when they added the Xoris, which was the first weapon to pause its combo counter, so you could go to x12 and put it back on your pocket ; and somehow, your Exalted melee weapon was also considered at x12 combo at all time.

That's bugframe for you.

[Sefrokan]

4 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

It's more complexe than that. It's like at the time when Gladiator Set mods, which have a passive granting +% Critical Chance (like Blood Rush) on melee depending of melee combo ; were used on the Helios' sentinel melee weapon Deconstructor to enhance Exalted melee weapons which were designed not to be able to equip Blood Rush or Gladiators mods, but yet got through that trick their set effect.

Or when they added the Xoris, which was the first weapon to pause its combo counter, so you could go to x12 and put it back on your pocket ; and somehow, your Exalted melee weapon was also considered at x12 combo at all time.

That's bugframe for you.

Does that mean those specific skills are meant to get all those boons, basically?

[Sefrokan]

I mean, what weirds me out the most is that they make some skills specifically to be moddable, then make some mods not work, then make them work on some specific skills when they are equipped on ytour melee but don't tell you anything about it.

 

[dwqrf]

il y a 1 minute, Sefrokan a dit :

Does that mean those specific skills are meant to get all those boons, basically?

No, they aren't. Those skill have stats and effects, and do things, like any other skills in the game, which should be enough.

But people found synergies with thoses skills and [add external modifiers that shouldn't apply to it] (melee mods, gladiators mods, Incarnon's passives stats boost, some syndicates mods, some melee weapon passives, etc) making those skill actually outperfom the equipped melee weapon in many case ; so they use those skills to deal damage instead of the melee weapon.

But ultimately, they could just use the skill for its innate effect, and use their melee weapon for its damage ; but that would require you to actually play the game, and that's hard. It's better to have a good bugged setup reducting your gameplay to only one button doing it all, you know ?

[Sefrokan]

4 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

No, they aren't. Those skill have stats and effects, and do things, like any other skills in the game, which should be enough.

But people found synergies with thoses skills and [add external modifiers that shouldn't apply to it] (melee mods, gladiators mods, Incarnon's passives stats boost, some syndicates mods, some melee weapon passives, etc) making those skill actually outperfom the equipped melee weapon in many case ; so they use those skills to deal damage instead of the melee weapon.

But ultimately, they could just use the skill for its innate effect, and use their melee weapon for its damage ; but that would require you to actually play the game, and that's hard. It's better to have a good bugged setup reducting your gameplay to only one button doing it all, you know ?

So, is it a bug, a feature, or some intendend something that didn't go right? We got official word on this from the devs?

 

Edited 17 hours ago by Sefrokan

[PublikDomain]

39 minutes ago, Sefrokan said:

The title, basically. Didn't manage to find anything about that when googling, so I'm curious.

It is a buggy feature. They were explicitly added to the game in 2015 starting with Excalibur's first rework and then Atlas' Landslide a little after, then Gara launched with one in 2017 and then Khora in 2018. These came alongside Exalted Weapons like Exalted Blade (where the 'Exalted' name comes from), Artemis Bow, Iron Staff, etc., which at the time were not independently moddable and inherited the relevant mods in the same way as Pseudo-Exalted Abilities. Then Exalted Weapons alone were updated to be independently moddable as a whole category. For whatever reason Pseudo-Exalted Abilities were left as they were.

10 minutes ago, Sefrokan said:

We got official word on this from the devs?

Yes.

For Atlas' Landslide the scaling mechanics Slash Dash gained a few months prior was added to improve his damage, since on release Landslide was too weak:

Quote

Landslide now has improved damage scaling based on the Mods of your Melee weapons.

30 minutes ago, Sefrokan said:

Ok, so, let me see if I understand this: they make it so some mods cannot be used on exalted weapons and then make it so mods that are on a melee weapon somehow affect very specific skills without it being stated in the game, while also allowing for those same mods to be used for those specific skills, while neglecting the skills that were made to be specifically moddable?  

Pretty much. Pseudo-Exalted Abilities and Exalted Weapons are pretty mechanically scuffed.

Edited 17 hours ago by PublikDomain

[dwqrf]

il y a 4 minutes, Sefrokan a dit :

So, is it a bug, a feature, or some intendend something that didn't go right? We got official word on this from the devs?

 

I think it's a bug, that slowly became a feature, that's not highlighted by the devs in any means, as they couldn't solve it or accept it, and I think it would eventually be removed from the game.

But Warframe is a live service, and removing one of the most popular building hidden gem and interaction, even if shadowy, would make a lot of people upset, leading to bad press and bad reputation, meaning it's not always the right move, you know ?

Also, it doesn't matter if you kill enemies with a bullet doing 100% of their health, of with a spell doing 100,000,000% of their health. In the end, they are both dead, and they have a certain time before they can be killed and loot again, so it doesn't break much things.

The thing to keep in mind, is that if players becomes meta slaves hungry for bigger numbers following guides telling them how to abuse obscure broken mecanics of the game, they'll be extremely upset the day it's patched out.

Myself, I'm just trying to play the game the way it's intended, and it's working really well for me to have fun and to complete all my objectives. And I don't ever use stats sticks.

[Merkranire]

Whatever it is, DE’s got their hands tied by a community that’s given an inch and takes a mile instead, so expect it to hang around and to be told that you must use and abuse it in a certain way

Edited 17 hours ago by Merkranire

[stormy505]

I don't mind stat sticks that much tbh, less formal cause instead of having to reform an individual ability you forma a weapon that can be used by multiple stat stick frames (cause there's a lot of overlap in builds) Also you don't need to reforma when the prime releases since the weapon can be used by both. Also allows for pseudo exalts to keep up with powercreep a bit more, cause they benefit directly from the increase in weapon power that inevitably happens in warframe, compared to exalted weapons which are now some of the most common abilities helminthed off of frames cause they're dated.

"Just make pseudo exalted weapons have their own separate modding and balance them correctly forever," Is kinda a flawed viewpoint cause warframe has a track record of really poor upkeep on older mechanics. Like, compare how pseudo exalts have aged compared to full exalted stuff. It's pretty obvious which ones have aged better.

[ominumi]

Exaulted Weapons used have interactions with stats sticks. DE change it so those Exaulted Abilities have their own mod page separated from stats sticks. The problem we have now is our stats sticks has improve tremendously from 10 years ago. 300% crit chance is easy to achieve on stats sticks.

[ShogunGunshow]

Someday the devs may give us a moddable Focus item and slot for our damaging abilities to scale off of, but for right now it's this dumb sh*t.

[Marvelous_A]

They weren't a listed feature in earlier days but now it's an official feature. Doesn't change how inconsistent they are, though.

Edited 15 hours ago by Marvelous_A

[Xzorn]

It's a bug but DE doesn't generally care about mathematical bugs until you show them just how busted it can be.

I did this myself with Stealth + Gas triple dip years back. A 5 year old but by that point and fairly well known.

I showed them numbers and a breakdown, they didn't like and it was fixed in a week.
There's actually still Youtube videos calling me out by name and slandering me hard. My little claim to infamy. =D

[Sefrokan]

Ok, so they didn't manage to make it work the way they intended, it, went around nerfing what is meant to work properly (exalted weapons) and because some people want "haha big number funny" they can't really remove it, specially with the amount of people that spent tons of plat for rivens. 

I know this is stupid, but before using the helminth skills, I wanna do steel path with each frame's base kit. I haven't played anything besides excalibur yet, and seeing exalted blade fall so far behind that I have to choose between some survivability or actually dealing with steel path enemies just ircks me. I hope they dos something some day.
Do the devs watch videos of the game, anyway? There are videos left and right going on over those skills and stat sticks and so on, so I'd assume the math is pretty known.

Once again, I hope they eventually do something, otherwise, so much for the "To minimize a dominant playstyle that players feel they need to play it." philosophy for the nerf they applied on this last patch.

I suppose tldr: they were originally intended, but now are a leftover thing that is being exploited while the proper skills didn't keep up with power creep, correct?
I'm here crying in exalted blade excalibur umbra build.

[PublikDomain]

1 hour ago, Sefrokan said:

I suppose tldr: they were originally intended, but now are a leftover thing that is being exploited while the proper skills didn't keep up with power creep, correct?
I'm here crying in exalted blade excalibur umbra build.

"Exploited" might be a bit much, but otherwise pretty much. Exalted Weapons falling behind isn't the fault of Pseudo-Exalted Abilities, though. They just got lucky.

Edited 1 hour ago by PublikDomain

[Sefrokan]

27 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

"Exploited" might be a bit much, but otherwise pretty much. Exalted Weapons falling behind isn't the fault of Pseudo-Exalted Abilities, though. They just got lucky.

They did fall behind, right? I don't have literal thousands of hours like hours, so I'd just like confirmation if yes or not. At least exalted blade, I guess. Dunnow about any other.

[ominumi]

1 hour ago, Sefrokan said:

Ok, so they didn't manage to make it work the way they intended, it, went around nerfing what is meant to work properly (exalted weapons) and because some people want "haha big number funny" they can't really remove it, specially with the amount of people that spent tons of plat for rivens. 

I know this is stupid, but before using the helminth skills, I wanna do steel path with each frame's base kit. I haven't played anything besides excalibur yet, and seeing exalted blade fall so far behind that I have to choose between some survivability or actually dealing with steel path enemies just ircks me. I hope they dos something some day.
Do the devs watch videos of the game, anyway? There are videos left and right going on over those skills and stat sticks and so on, so I'd assume the math is pretty known.

Once again, I hope they eventually do something, otherwise, so much for the "To minimize a dominant playstyle that players feel they need to play it." philosophy for the nerf they applied on this last patch.

I suppose tldr: they were originally intended, but now are a leftover thing that is being exploited while the proper skills didn't keep up with power creep, correct?
I'm here crying in exalted blade excalibur umbra build.

DE nerf things based on popularity. Unless 70% of the playerbase use pseudo exaulted weapons, nothing is going to change. On the flip side, if no one uses Exaulted weapons at all, they'll get buff. So far it seems like a lot of people still use Exaulted weapons even if they're subpar. Plus DE has a ton of other stuff to work on than balancing.

Edited 46 minutes ago by ominumi

[vFlitz]

17 hours ago, dwqrf said:

Or when they added the Xoris, which was the first weapon to pause its combo counter, so you could go to x12 and put it back on your pocket ; and somehow, your Exalted melee weapon was also considered at x12 combo at all time.

That's not how this worked. Exalted melee used its own combo counter for all purposes except for the Gladiator Set, which applied its bonus to the Exalted based on whatever the normal melee's combo count was at the moment in the background. People already were taking advantage of it with other melees by using naramon and a lot of combo duration, Xoris just made it easier.