Retune *all* The Frames! (11/19: Wildfire)

[Archwizard]

Tentacles still need reliability. Fixed pattern would be nice, or more/smaller tentacles.

 

Honestly, I think it's just a matter of patching up whatever algorithm they use to determine where they spawn. Its happened to me many times today alone that the tentacles will prefer to cluster together in some areas nearer me far away from where I pointed/where targets are, or they'll spawn very closely to an enemy but (for some unknown reason, even if the tentacle is literally right on top of them) not grab them.

 

Should at least make a note about that in the OP. Something to the effect of "Tentacles will prioritize locations occupied by the closest targets to the reticule."

Edited May 23, 2015 by Archwizard

[FelisImpurrator]

Honestly, I think it's just a matter of patching up whatever algorithm they use to determine where they spawn. Its happened to me many times today alone that the tentacles will prefer to cluster together in some areas nearer me far away from where I pointed/where targets are, or they'll spawn very closely to an enemy but (for some unknown reason, even if the tentacle is literally right on top of them) not grab them.

 

Should at least make a note about that in the OP. Something to the effect of "Tentacles will prioritize locations occupied by the closest targets to the reticule."

Yep. Swarm's "You Had One Job" syndrome. I noticed that even three more tentacles makes it a lot better at rank 30, but before that, it's effectively the "Pray to RNCthulhu that it hits one enemy out of ten" button. Although 'closest to the reticule' would simply translate to 'closest to the center' because the location's determined at cast time - you could say that they should A) stay in the green radius, seriously, and B) have a much higher chance, or a guarantee (instead of the 'tries to, but occasionally derps' we have now) of spawning under enemies in said radius. Even if it's random enemies within the entire area, that's something. Whether center takes priority or not... I don't know if that would be better or worse if they had small AoE as per your OP.

[taiiat]

a plausible working theory i've been seeing lately is that they target Enemies at the start of the cast, put spawn the Tentacles at the end of it.

it's plausible.

Edit:

i can't actually accurately or quickly tell(since i can't remember) if i've posted this here before since the Forums are stupid - so i'll risk reposting it just to be sure.

Hysteria is boring, and non-engaging.

what i'd really like it to be - is a tool. not a crutch.

i want Hysteria to be an Ability you can Toggle. at any time. with a moderate Energy Cost to make you think about it rather than like a light switch. (and draining some Energy per second)

the reason for this - is Hysteria can then become a Tool to your Combat. when things are getting tricky, you can activate it.

to conjoin with this, Hysteria would no longer make you Invulnerable. instead, it would have it's own built in 'Quick-Thinking'. minus the Energy Drain. you cannot go below 2HP.

so you still can't die - but you can leave Hysteria with basically no Health if you're not careful, which is a death sentence.

to make Leeching Health practical against even higher-ish Level Enemies, Hysteria would grant a flat (unmodifiable) 50% Damage Reduction.

furthermore, casting Hysteria would no longer have that long-winded Animation. instead, something shorter. something you could be able to use in the middle of Combat.

just yell, draw Claws, and ready to attack.

lastly, the Animations of Hysteria's Claws ofcourse need to be looked over again. they're very clunky and yuck compared to a lot of Melee Weapons.

which doesn't make sense, it should be a feature Melee Weapon, since it's unique to a Warframe, part of the gimmick of a Warframe.

i don't mean it needs to be 'better' - it should PLAY the best. as a Signature Weapon it should feel the smoothest, feel the most responsive, be the most flexible. not the least of all of those.

with all of that, Hysteria would no longer be a Crutch, but rather, something that you use tactically.

just like having another Weapon with you.

similar ideal to what i'd like for Ballistic Battery and Peacemaker - basically like having a fourth Weapon with you. use it whenever you want/need, just with some cost to doing so to make sure you're thinking about it and making tactical decisions.

Edited May 23, 2015 by taiiat

[Archwizard]

i want Hysteria to be an Ability you can Toggle. at any time. with a moderate Energy Cost to make you think about it rather than like a light switch. (and draining some Energy per second)

the reason for this - is Hysteria can then become a Tool to your Combat. when things are getting tricky, you can activate it.

to conjoin with this, Hysteria would no longer make you Invulnerable. instead, it would have it's own built in 'Quick-Thinking'. minus the Energy Drain. you cannot go below 2HP.

so you still can't die - but you can leave Hysteria with basically no Health if you're not careful, which is a death sentence.

 

Valkyr

- Hysteria no longer makes Valkyr invulnerable or deals damage to the player when it ends, but instead prevents Valkyr from falling below 1 health (by any means) while active. While active, damage dealt to the user's health increases the user's damage dealt until the effect ends (exchange rate affected by rank and Power Strength). Hysteria can be canceled by recasting the effect.

 

Way ahead of you.

 

I'm not certain of the energy cost over time, though. For one, it feels a natural fit for Valkyr to have Rage, which (as a rule) is disabled during Toggled skills.

Besides, having the full cost upfront means that just slipping into it for the sake of 3 sec of invulnerability immortality as the designated reviver and then dropping out to use your Soma, is more penalizing than riding out the full duration for the weapon.

 

to make Leeching Health practical against even higher-ish Level Enemies, Hysteria would grant a flat (unmodifiable) 50% Damage Reduction.

 

As a counter to this (and I swear I wrote this up long before Chroma came out), scaling damage for Hysteria. Since the leeching is linked to your damage, it's effectively healing that scales to enemy output.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

I'm not certain of the energy cost over time, though.

(and I swear I wrote this up long before Chroma came out)

scaling damage for Hysteria

- having Energy Drain seems appropriate to me, so that you can use Hysteria for a good while, but not indefinitely.

because in my mind, Hysteria would no longer have a Duration. your own perogative of when to turn it on, and when to turn it off. with Energy Drain just keeping you from using it permanently.

i wouldn't specifically want Hysteria to be extremely costly either, though. i want Players to be able to use it when needed, but not constantly on and off.

enough that makes you think about using it, but not 'i wish i could use this but i can only afford to once a minute in a frantically fast paced game'.

- to make matters worse, i can only search for things that i know what i'm looking for! lol.

i just wanted to make sure i'd mentioned this here. the Forums largely require just memorizing what's happened, because good luck finding anything, even if you tell Google to look around for you :v

- i was more concerned about the getting hit side than the healing after hits side.

i can already pretty easily fill Valkyr's Health in just one or two seconds - but higher Level Enemies will still Kill you extremely quickly - easily dying within a second.

just having lots of Life Leeching won't fix that IMO - because then to not die, you're still forced to use Hysteria constantly, rather than using it in stick situations and other emergencies, and still having the rest of your Equipment available most of the time when things aren't so sticky.

i.e. simply being able to Leech buckets of Health doesn't help you not need to use Hysteria far too often, IMO.

Edited May 23, 2015 by taiiat

[Elydir]

I think hysteria could use a toggle, because abilities like absorb have it and arent op. With your guys change to hysteria invulnerability itd be fair.

 

As a good balancing point, you shouldnt get any mitigation. Cause uh, hysteria does solid damage again with Arch.

[taiiat]

As a good balancing point, you shouldnt get any mitigation. Cause uh, hysteria does solid damage again with Arch.

the problem with that, and why i chose Damage Reduction (or some sort of survivability bonus), is because you're currently completely invulnerable in Hysteria.

if you no longer are, being reduced in your Damage flexibilities and Et Cetera - i'm concerned about getting into a situation where you need to be using Hysteria constantly, because the Health you recoup is chiseled away immediately, and you therefore can't turn it off without immediately dying.

i.e. you could get trapped into it. and that wouldn't be good.

[CrogenitorSeims]

the problem with that, and why i chose Damage Reduction (or some sort of survivability bonus), is because you're currently completely invulnerable in Hysteria.

if you no longer are, being reduced in your Damage flexibilities and Et Cetera - i'm concerned about getting into a situation where you need to be using Hysteria constantly, because the Health you recoup is chiseled away immediately, and you therefore can't turn it off without immediately dying.

i.e. you could get trapped into it. and that wouldn't be good.

 

Actually, I have some suggestions for Valkyr I've been working. I think one of them may help that problem:

 

The first 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 seconds of Hysteria grant complete damage/status immunity. X% (7.5%?) of damage dealt to Valkyr during that time is converted to healing when Hysteria ends or is dispelled. The immunity duration is not affected by Power Duration, nor the healing affected by Power Strength.

 

(Yes, the idea was inspired by Snow Globe.)

Edited May 27, 2015 by CrogenitorSeims

[Archwizard]

- having Energy Drain seems appropriate to me, so that you can use Hysteria for a good while, but not indefinitely.

because in my mind, Hysteria would no longer have a Duration. your own perogative of when to turn it on, and when to turn it off. with Energy Drain just keeping you from using it permanently.

 

Another problem with this though, is that it would be wildly imbalanced not to give it a maximum duration. As long as you have energy, you're flat-out invincible - and it would likely be tuned with an upkeep cost low enough to match its present "100 energy for 30 seconds" effects, much like the changes to Absorb, Soundquake and Undertow allowed their costs to match at their prior base durations. Without having to repay the initial cost, the skill would even be progressively cheaper by comparison after you reach the 30 second mark.

 

Besides, the devs seem to be pushing for toggled skills you have to turn off eventually. Just losing access to a few weapons, I'm not sure will cut it - especially as Valkyr can completely work around not having a rifle.

 

Plus, it would make Warcry the only skill in Valkyr's arsenal affected by Duration.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

Besides, the devs seem to be pushing for toggled skills you have to turn off eventually.

Plus, it would make Warcry the only skill in Valkyr's arsenal affected by Duration.

- an Energy Drain that is enough to keep you from indefinite use but does not keep you from using the Ability is a simple number decision.

there's no reason why the Ability needs to be able to run for 30 seconds. as it is now, Valkyr uses that 30 seconds as a crutch to like, f... i don't know, go make a sandwich and then masturbate while you wait for it to end or something.

choosing how much Energy Drain is a single number. all it needs to be is not crazy high or low.

if for example, Hysteria was 35E to cast, plus 15E per second drain:

if we presume always using 75% Effiency (since we want to make sure the cost always matters), then 8.75E to cast, and 3.75E per second. based on your 30 seconds that you find important, it would cost 121.25 Energy to do the same. note that Valkyr has an Energy Pool of 150.

17E per second would also be acceptable, if it would be wanted to weigh it heavier.

making sure Valkyr can't use it for long extended periods just because is simple to do. and if you can turn it off and on pretty much whenever you want, you have little reason for it to be 'always on'. you use it for a brief period, like, 10 seconds when you need it, turn it back off, Et Cetera.

sure, you could have it always running, but if you don't choose when it runs out, the game chooses for you, and that's prone to leaving you with a lot of guns pointed towards you with 1/2HP and no Shields.

i.e. i don't think having it run for very long periods would even be a good thing if working like this.

- well, there's no reason for it to be that :| of a situation in the first place.

why isn't the stun on Paralysis affected by Duration? i mean, comeon, as it is now, it lasts like, 1500ms. :v

if you blink just after casting Paralysis, the affected Enemies will already be shooting you again. (mild exaggeration)

and Rip Line could Duration modify how long it takes for Enemies to stand up from the Rip Line ragdoll.

and if Rip Line has a Status Chance (i can't remember off the top of my head), Duration could determine how long the Slash Status would last. if it doesn't have a Status Chance, it might as well have one. 60% or more is fair.

[Archwizard]

I'm not certain of the energy cost over time, though. For one, it feels a natural fit for Valkyr to have Rage, which (as a rule) is disabled during Toggled skills.

 

And I just remembered (finals week has destroyed my brain, sorry)... they actually disabled that effect of toggles. Rage can be used, just EV and totems can't.

 

So Valkyr would be able to take damage during Hysteria... transfer it to Rage... and never need to run out of Hysteria.

(Now I'm suddenly remembering why I was opposed to toggling it when that was proposed to me months ago... I apologize for my prior meandering, as I was trying to feel my way around my own brain to remember it. Val doesn't get much discussion these days.)

 

As enemy output increases, the more burst damage she takes during the time her health pool is exposed. Its uptime would actually increase in higher-level content, giving it pseudo-scaling.

 

Assuming that Hysteria wouldn't gain the Absorb "cost increases with damage taken" restriction (which would make Hysteria literally Quick Thinking), that's infinite invulnerability.

 

In short, with your suggestion, Hysteria stays exactly the same, you just suffer a harsher penalty for turning it off... but now never have to turn it off, since it has no maximum duration.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

-snip-

...

...

.....

we will continue this at another time.

[Archwizard]

 

I... don't know what that means.

[Elydir]

I... don't know what that means.

 

I think it means he agrees.

 

Also congrats on being 1337.

 

[Archwizard]

Aaaand here is the other project I've been working on since... before finals week.

[Elydir]

- World on Fire replaced with “Rising Phoenix”: Ember conjures a firebird and transfers control to it, becoming immobile. The firebird has a large health pool (affected by Power Strength), flight with Archwing controls, and is able to use all of Ember's abilities while active. When the firebird expires, it explodes to deal damage in a wide radius, affected by how much health it lost. Toggled, unaffected by Power Duration, but the firebird gradually loses health over time and dies with Ember.

 

Now, there is no way to avoid Duration with World on Fire at this point without a total rework of the effect; toggles are, by nature, designed to be turned off. The ones without Duration have a downside to the player while active, usually in the form of mobility; otherwise, the Renewal route. Additionally, Ember's main downside is that she has no choice but to use proximity with her opponents as part of her offense due to the radial nature of her skills; they tried mitigation, it didn't take. Rising Phoenix is intended as an answer to both, while also being more reliable to use than World on Fire. The advantage of the skill is that, as enemy output increases, it becomes more efficient to use as a standalone damage tool, as the construct will die faster and expend less energy for the same output; furthermore, it has a duration that is capped by Power Strength rather than Duration, increasing build potential.

 

Would this include bonus threat for the phoenix? Just having Ember sit around doing nothing might be an issue if enemies are just as likely to run up to her and shoot her.

[TheBrsrkr]

Would this include bonus threat for the phoenix? Just having Ember sit around doing nothing might be an issue if enemies are just as likely to run up to her and shoot her.

I'm on mobile, so I'm not actually quoting you, rather I'm quoting what you're quoting. Weird.

Anyways, why go through with the whole spawning a whole Phoenix when you can make ember herself the Phoenix? Just asking.

[DameDameNingen]

Instead of its current function, perhaps venom dose could automatically give the buff to anyone who hits an afflicted enemy with a melee attack?

 

I like your changes to venom generally, its potentially very powerful, but far too fiddly to use atm, especially for a first ability.

[Archwizard]

Would this include bonus threat for the phoenix?

 

That's the plan.

 

Anyways, why go through with the whole spawning a whole Phoenix when you can make ember herself the Phoenix? Just asking.

 

I actually had a discussion with someone about this on Reddit recently.

 

Basically, DE likes to make toggled skills with the intention that you have either a want or a logical reason to eventually turn them off (Absorb/Soundquake/Undertow lock mobility, Effigy reduces defense). Since World on Fire (as a source of passive damage with no penalty for activity beyond its cost) has neither, it was given a Duration cap, just like Renewal and Prism. Just saying "this ultimate makes you the Human Torch, giving you flight and passive radial damage" provides neither want nor reason to turn it off prematurely, making it a prime candidate for a Duration cap.

The intention here is to give Ember a toggled ultimate that isn't affected by Power Duration, so it needs to penalize her in some other way; "My body is getting shot at and my Sentinel is dead, I should toggle off and tap Fire Blast" is a logical reason, "I can't pick up items, maybe I should toggle off and run for it" is a strong want.

 

Instead of its current function, perhaps venom dose could automatically give the buff to anyone who hits an afflicted enemy with a melee attack?

 

Also a thought.

[Elydir]

This thread reminded me of something thats been bugging me for a while https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/471699-mesas-no-melee-50-hp-should-be-base-health-not-total/

 

Short version is Mesa gets only 50 HP total for dropping her melee wepaon, which is a huge drop in mobility and survivability (blocking, dodging). Do you think thats fair?

Edited June 9, 2015 by Annon5150

[Archwizard]

Mesa gets only 50 HP total for dropping her melee wepaon, which is a huge drop in mobility and survivability (blocking, dodging). Do you think thats fair?

 

Well the thing is... it's a passive, and thus far we have no real gauge as to how strong passives are supposed to be.

Further, the minimal usefulness of the health buff is sort of offset by the buffs she gets to pistols anyway. I doubt it's intended as a wholesale "this is your substitute for coptering", so much as a cheesy minor incentive to favor pistols and give up quick melee.

 

I dunno. It depends on what level to expect from future passives.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Archwizard

[Archwizard]

Was inspired by a discussion on Reddit to update Limbo's section.

 

With the upcoming Taijitu Warframe's ability to swap between states, it seems pertinent to allow Limbo to swap at least one of his abilities depending on his state within the Rift. I'd been debating giving him some kind of teleport for a while, but couldn't really think of anything to differentiate it from Blink - until I remembered another thread I can't find from some time ago, where someone suggested creating a gate to fire bullets through to the other side. While I disagree with that idea (as it completely eliminates the point of about half of his abilities and lets you essentially shoot fish in a barrel), making it simply a shield did seem like the perfect complement.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Archwizard

[Elydir]

But what if your inside the rift and dont have any gates out? Does it just not work?

[CataReverb]

Archwizard, What's your thoughts on this: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/474686-valkyr-ripline-useability/

[Archwizard]

Archwizard, What's your thoughts on this: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/474686-valkyr-ripline-useability/

 

With Parkour 2.0, DE said that everything related to movement - even powers like Tail Wind or Rip Line - would be under review. Whether or not this means we should expect any changes is... debatable.

 

Personally, whenever I've used Valkyr, I've always felt that the skill dragged me about 4 feet at a slow speed and then let gravity take hold. Like running a low-duration build on a frame with one of the many Slash Dash clones, except without the radial damage from the effect.

Now, I'll grant that being able to drag you the whole 65 yards unmodded for 25 energy might perhaps be a little too powerful (considering even Tail Wind doesn't get that far without significant Duration modding), but I doubt anyone would complain if the skill latched on just a few seconds longer - maybe a minimum duration and/or percentage distance of the drag, ending prematurely if you strike a non-entity surface. Pulling speed could be modified by Duration or Strength.