Rescue 2.0 Has Reminded Me Of This Continuing Problem (Banshee Silence)

[SharpteethSeven]

Banshee's silence is absolutely worthless.

 

In fact, I'd almost hazard to say it's worse than useless because it can lull you into having the false sense that you are even vaguely less likely to be detected, when in fact Rhino in giant-sized wooden clogs would be about as stealthy as a Banshee, in addition to having better footwear. (Seriously, what's with those shoes?)

 

Silence feels like an ability that was designed for a different game. A game with actual hiding/cover mechanics and set enemy patrol paths like Metal Gear Solid, for example. Sadly, Warframe has neither of these things, and even if it did have these things, Silence wouldn't be very useful because every Warframe in the game would presumably have access to these mechanics.

 

The "stealth" equation in Warframe is, unfortunately for Banshee, about 99% visual and about 1% sound. Many weapons have the silent property by default, and all ranged weapons can have the silent property added. Sure, I can take a bow, get that silent property for free, and pick off enemies one at a time without alerting their friends with Silence running. On the other hand, I could take my boltor prime with a Hush mod and mow down the entire group of friends, their cleaning guy, their barracks mascot Rolly-Ball and that one guy who wasn't supposed to even be here today all in a shorter amount of time. So short in fact that this makes Banshee's silence moot.

 

Meanwhile, back on Banshee, I'm also dealing with the fact that enemies seem to have, of all things, a realistic line of sight. I know, I know, a hell of a thing to complain about, but trying to play the stealth game on Banshee is a potent reminder of why sight-cones have been a thing since stealth game immemoriam. If at some point I'm actually managing to cross an area getting my stealth-murder-death-kill on, all it takes is one single Grineer roughly in the same zip code that happens to be facing me on the same plane, and then it's all TENNO SKOOM and it's all over but for the crying.

 

It's pretty clear to me that Silence needs to be turned into something worth using, but how to go about it? My personal suggestion is this:

 

Turn Silence (and change the name if it makes anyone feel better) into an AoE, enemy-based stealth as opposed to the other player-based stealth abilities. For the duration of the ability it would make enemies in the affected area treat either just the Banshee or, ideally, everyone on the team as being stealthed. Behavior would be exactly the same to other player-based stealth abilities, simply on a per-enemy basis rather than a per-warframe basis.

 

This would be a very nice turn-around for Banshee. It would both fix her completely broken stealth mechanic and give her a more group-oriented utility that would contrast with and differ nicely from the more straight-up stealth abilities of other Warframes, keeping Banshee with a unique design identity from the others. Hell, it wouldn't even need a new casting animation, just potentially a new lingering, visually apparent glowy effect to show who is affected by it.

 

It would still be balanced by a few factors:

 

1. Being centered on cast point and only affecting enemies within that zone at the time that the ability was used. Entering a new area with new enemies would require that it be used again, thus still making Banshee required to stick to more methodical gameplay, comparatively speaking. 

2. Could if necessary have the "still in use" limitation similar to Nyx's chaos and thus force players to choose between longer duration and faster resets.

3. Could if necessary be further tweaked by adjusting things like base duration and base range.

Edited May 1, 2014 by Orphea

[Senketsu_]

TlTR, all I know is that when I tried to use banshee for recsue 2.0 it didnt even work, and I had the mod maxed.

[Noble_Cactus]

Not to mention that all abilities are silent, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Yes, this includes Rhino Stomp. Rhino Stomp is freakin' silent. The Penta and the Ogris are also completely silent.

Edited May 1, 2014 by Noble_Cactus

[Draciusen]

Not to mention that all abilities are silent, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Yes, this includes Rhino Stomp. Rhino Stomp is freakin' silent. The Penta and the Ogris are also completely silent.

I always feel like Shuriken isn't silent.

I miss and suddenly everybody wants my booty.

[ra9una]

Not to mention that all abilities are silent, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Yes, this includes Rhino Stomp. Rhino Stomp is freakin' silent. The Penta and the Ogris are also completely silent.

Roar is silent........ hah.

[Noble_Cactus]

I always feel like Shuriken isn't silent.

I miss and suddenly everybody wants my booty.

 

Hmm, I might be wrong about projectille abilities then. Seeing as they're probably recoded versions of weapon projectiles (or vice-versa), they might have some innate alert trait to them.

[theammostore]

I always feel like Shuriken isn't silent.

I miss and suddenly everybody wants my booty.

Swiggity swooty.

 

And yes, hopefully now they'll tweak silence properly.

[The_Sharp_Demonologist]

I would like to see what they have in stores for por Banshee.

 

Btw if Soraka has teached us something is that you dont mess whit the banana, specially Banana shoes.

[AuroraSonicBoom]

No, oh no. We need less Invisibility like abilities in the game, not more. Spammable invsibility is bad design as it allows players to circumvent challenge entirely instead of making that challenge easier. Also, for a "3" ability, it would still be pretty underwhelming additionally to the fact that they said they don't want to remove the main function of the skill(which a stealth buff would invalidate), and give it some actual usefulness in normal combat as well. Given all those criterias, there are way better solutions to buff Silence without turning into a broken copycat invisibility.

[Dogoframe]

IMHO a HUGE step towards giving feedback about Silence would be DE explaining the ability from their point of view, with relevant engine information.

 

DE: Hey Beta Detectives, Silence is supposed to do this and this and that, but not that, that and this. Is that your experience?

 

But then I also think Rescue 2.0 was the perfect time to try adjustments to Silence and other "stealth" abilities. The Beta tag we are forced to swallow should be indication enough that small fixes/adjustments can be done temporarily. You know... For testing...

[Lukap99]

... I got it!

1. Silence: the team buff
C

ast silence, suddenly you and your teammates have completely silent weapons for X amount of seconds. Like volt's speed.

 

2. Silence: the enemy debuff

 

Silence can now be cast upon enemies like bullet attractor or shield polarize. Can be casted multiple times.

3. Silence: the AOE that follows you

Banshee releases a swarm of technocytes/nanites in the air around here, forming a sphere that follows her. All enemies that enter the sphere become deaf. All sounds made inside the sphere are absorbed by the nanites, so if an enemy sees you and shoots you, other deaf enemies and enemies outside the sphere will not get alerted. Additionally, if an enemy walks outside the sphere or if the sphere vanishes they will still be deaf, but only for a limited amount of time.

[biggles1y3]

-snip-

The "stealth" equation in Warframe is, unfortunately for Banshee, about 99% visual and about 1% sound. Many weapons have the silent property by default, and all ranged weapons can have the silent property added. Sure, I can take a bow, get that silent property for free, and pick off enemies one at a time without alerting their friends with Silence running. On the other hand, I could take my boltor prime with a Hush mod and mow down the entire group of friends, their cleaning guy, their barracks mascot Rolly-Ball and that one guy who wasn't supposed to even be here today all in a shorter amount of time. So short in fact that this makes Banshee's silence moot.

--

 

 

The large majority of silenced weapons are low fire rate snipers/bows and quite niche and this is reflected in-game where they are rarely used, Rescue or not. Ask yourself how often you see players using them. They're not even that good to use in Rescue 2.0, they're still too slow if you're playing with others.

 

The "Hush" arguement/claim is completely ridiculous and yet keeps getting brought up with Banshee's Silence ability. I have not once ever seen(or heard) another player with Hush on their weapon, and when they could be getting faster fire rate or higher damage or cooler elemental effects why on earth would they slot Hush.

 

Even in this Rescue 2.0 it's full blown boltor prime/boar prime/penta mayhem and the only frame that reduce the impact that has on stealth play is Banshee. As it stands now you only have one or two players using their abilities to destroy rooms in the blink of an eye, isn't it more rewarding to be able to assist their abilities than sit with a useless damage ability and hoard those energy orbs?

 

She has a place in stealth missions, it's not to be another loki, it's to bring the awesome gun play back in to stealth, to reduce punishment of errors, make nearly all weapons, snipers, (Sonar) without requiring any load-out change of her squad members.

 

 

... I got it!

1. Silence: the team buff

C

ast silence, suddenly you and your teammates have completely silent weapons for X amount of seconds. Like volt's speed.

 

2. Silence: the enemy debuff

 

Silence can now be cast upon enemies like bullet attractor or shield polarize. Can be casted multiple times.

3. Silence: the AOE that follows you

Banshee releases a swarm of technocytes/nanites in the air around here, forming a sphere that follows her. All enemies that enter the sphere become deaf. All sounds made inside the sphere are absorbed by the nanites, so if an enemy sees you and shoots you, other deaf enemies and enemies outside the sphere will not get alerted. Additionally, if an enemy walks outside the sphere or if the sphere vanishes they will still be deaf, but only for a limited amount of time.

 

The thing I'd like improved on is Silence's effective duration of benefit. You can double the 15 seconds it lasts but that doesn't help the squad that's already moved onto the next room or in an area that turned out to have no enemies.

 

A roar/speed style buff sounds nice, and is the direction I most often consider, it is a bit confusing thematically though. How does throwing sound waves around make another person be legitimately quiet compared to enemies losing hearing functionality? Someone clever can probably think something up for flavor text.

 

2. Sounds like a downgrade from room wide silence.

3. Honestly just sounds like a huge pain to manage, either you provide 50-90ish meter coverage(like current version) and your movement allows it to carry a further 10-20meters while active or everyone has to be huddled around you to benefit.

 

Some reference of when the effect is going to end for the squad and continuing to unload bullets will call in reinforcements would be nice. Until then I'm not sure it can be trusted enough by other players for it to be integrated into their play habits.

[Cleesus]

Yeah i was also disappointed with Silence. I thought I finally had a use for my dusty old Queen banshee and the ability did nothing. Then I remembered that it has never worked for the past year and 1 month she has been in the game so I have no idea why I go my hopes up. Also funny post OP.

[SharpteethSeven]

 

 

The large majority of silenced weapons are low fire rate snipers/bows and quite niche and this is reflected in-game where they are rarely used, Rescue or not. Ask yourself how often you see players using them. They're not even that good to use in Rescue 2.0, they're still too slow if you're playing with others.

 

The "Hush" arguement/claim is completely ridiculous and yet keeps getting brought up with Banshee's Silence ability. I have not once ever seen(or heard) another player with Hush on their weapon, and when they could be getting faster fire rate or higher damage or cooler elemental effects why on earth would they slot Hush.

 

Even in this Rescue 2.0 it's full blown boltor prime/boar prime/penta mayhem and the only frame that reduce the impact that has on stealth play is Banshee. As it stands now you only have one or two players using their abilities to destroy rooms in the blink of an eye, isn't it more rewarding to be able to assist their abilities than sit with a useless damage ability and hoard those energy orbs?

 

She has a place in stealth missions, it's not to be another loki, it's to bring the awesome gun play back in to stealth, to reduce punishment of errors, make nearly all weapons, snipers, (Sonar) without requiring any load-out change of her squad members.

 

The reason you don't see people using hush mods on weapons is more due to the broken, half-baked state of stealth gameplay rather than it's usefulness or lack thereof. Right now, "stealth" gameplay is very binary...either you take an Ash or a Loki and have reliable or semi-reliable mechanics to assist in stealth kills, or you get frustrated with the quirky, unfinished gameplay elements surrounding stealth and just gun your way through in the end. However, if I really feel like just bypassing that whole mess (and making Banshee's current iteration of Silence obsolete in the process), I can take my Boltor Prime, put on a hush mod, still have ridiculous oodles of damage because I've multiforma'd my Boltor Prime like anyone should be doing, and clear areas silently presuming that I can get a line of sight without being seen and alerting the enemy in the process. (Which, incidentally, the current iteration of Silence also requires.)

 

As for the Boltor/Boar Prime/Penta mayhem, stop trying to do stealth missions with pugs. It won't happen excepting once in a blue moon when the stars align and you have light from Venus getting reflected off of a weather balloon and hitting some swamp gas. I came here to talk about either Solo or pre-made group play, where the stealth mechanics actually have a snowcone's chance in hell of happening in the first place. Bringing a group of random strangers into a stealth attempt is only going to end up with rainbow syrups dripping down your hand before you even get to take a bite.

 

Now, that said, I can hear you on the idea that she should not just copy another stealth frame's idiom, and instead provide group utility. If you actually read my post again, that's exactly the sort of thing I was going for and I'm not sure how you got the notion that I was trying to make her another Loki. The thing is, right now, she doesn't provide that utility in any meaningful way. Sure, in theory, if you can somehow get Silence off on a group of enemies ahead of your team, you're still dealing with the limited range and stationary nature of the ability and the fact that you've only eliminated arguably the least important aspect of stealth gameplay. Meanwhile this still requires that your team is trying to not be seen, which if they're all lobbing Bolts and Grenades everywhere in impish glee, they're not going to do.

 

In short, this is a good way to sum up the current state of Warframe stealth gameplay:

 

 

Incidentally, some changes ARE coming down the pipe for Silence! And they are...incredibly vaguely worded! ...so I have no idea how to make any solid commentary on them yet. I'm hopeful though, from the sound of it, that this will be a slightly more useful, utility-providing anti-detection mechanic. We'll have to wait and see.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Orphea

[OTTERMATIC]

Not to mention that all abilities are silent, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Yes, this includes Rhino Stomp. Rhino Stomp is freakin' silent. The Penta and the Ogris are also completely silent.

 

And they also use rifle ammo instead of sniper ammo. You know, because logic.