Augments Are Becoming Little More Than A Bandaid

[Vargras]

Don't get me wrong, augments are cool and all, but in many cases, it simply adds something that should be baseline for the skill in question. Many of the frames most harmed by this are already the ones most in need of some skill tweaks of some sort -- Excalibur, Ember, and Frost being some of the big ones.

 

Why doesn't Excalibur's Slash Dash add to the melee counter by default? Why doesn't Ember's Fire Blast cause enemies to panic by default? Why doesn't Frost's Ice Wave leave a slowing trail by default?

 

Some of these things should already exist, and instead, you have to spend a mod slot on it. Why?

[Roaringsilence]

I agree, mod space is at a premium already especially after they took 2 of them away. They keep saying they want to give players as much choice as possible but honestly 90% of the mods in the game are not used. We simply don't have the space for quirky mods.

[AlphaHorseman]

It's as I have feared, DE is using the augments as a cheap way to fix the abilities, that way they don't have to do reworks. Mark my words, if this can continue, you can be sure that the next frame people want a rework for will not get a rework, but merely a set of augments to band aid their abilities.

 

I do not support this kind of thinking.

[kubbi]

I completely agree. I really hope these augment mods aren't supposed to be a band-aid for the poor abilities and they will eventually still get a buff/rework. Especially Ember. Oh God pls Ember..

[Vargras]

I agree, mod space is at a premium already especially after they took 2 of them away. They keep saying they want to give players as much choice as possible but honestly 90% of the mods in the game are not used. We simply don't have the space for quirky mods.

I will say that not all of the augments are like this -- some are pretty neat and open up new ways to play, and they should absolutely be mods (like Tesla Link, the new Hallowed Ground augment, etc.).

 

However, some should absolutely become baseline for the skills in question.

[Hybridon]

Because band-aid is easier than balance.

 

Funny fact: In the Design Council, when doing all the process of these mods, giving ideas, etc, many said DE, fix the powers then make an augment mod.

 

But meh, too much work, right?

[Mcl_Blue]

Not only those, but many of the ones suggested in the Design Council (as in, the upcoming Augment Mods) also fall into this. Some of the stuff there is so..... basic.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Mcl_BlueMadness

[Azamagon]

There are more problems:

 

Iron Skin - Only way to make it recastable any time (just like Null Star)

Shuriken + Link - 100% useless on Corpus, and kinda bad against Infested too.

Speed - Should also be baseline (although as a combo with a movable Electric Shield, for skill synergy)

Disarm - My hopes for Switch Teleport to proc something akin to Radiation (baseline) is now pointless, as this augment is so OP it's not even funny.

Rift Surge - *facepalm* The ability is so clunky and unwieldy in the first place, it (and its augment) needs a complete rework

Shooting Gallery - So it's random jumparound is here to stick around? That totally sucks...

 

Slash Dash, Fire Blast and Ice Wave augments should be baseline too, yes.

 

The rest of the new ones are fine. The old ones also have a whole truckload of problems, but it seems DE doesn't care about dígging themselves into deeper and deeper with problems. They need to look at abilities and their baseline effects first, THEN start thinking about the augments...

 

I was gonna make a huge post and analyze all the augments and describe what is wrong with each and one of them (if they have flaws that is). But it's just so much, it's so tiring, I don't even have energy to bother... T_T

 

 

Not only those, but many of the ones suggested in the Design Council (as in, the upcoming Augment Mods) also fall into this. Some of the stuff there is so..... basic.

What's even more idiotic is that imbecil players are voting in there... voting for some really horrible choices *shudders*

Edited December 11, 2014 by Azamagon

[AlphaHorseman]

I can't believe they'd do this to us. And here I was thinking they'd actually continue to rework the frames to make their abilities better, now they're just funneling what should be a baseline of each ability into an augment. I'm not using them, they're not worth my mod slots. They should've already been in my abilities. Some I can see as useful, and actually DO add something to an ability, but the majority of them are band aids that should've been added into the abilities from the outset.

[WI6HT]

What if we could just add those mods to the abilities themselves? Thoughts? IDK

[Eyeless]

This is what I was afraid of when they first announced augments. I'm sad I was right. We probably won't see anything changed for the better until several months into the future, if there even are any made to remedy the larger issue at hand. 

 

I'd really love to be proven wrong, but this is yet another thing DE seems intent to be stubborn on while ignoring all the feedback given over the weeks as usual. 

[AlphaHorseman]

Augments should ADD something to an ability, NOT make them viable simply by being dependent on an augment. Things like the hit counter with slash dash and the ice wave leaving behind a proc area makes sense to be innately within the ability. Why are they not?

[Ronyn]

Some are good, some are band-aids.

[Azamagon]

Augments should ADD something to an ability, NOT make them viable simply by being dependent on an augment. Things like the hit counter with slash dash and the ice wave leaving behind a proc area makes sense to be innately within the ability. Why are they not?

Because DE, that's why. They are stubborn beyond belief to do it THEIR way, even if it's completely and obviously wrong.

[AlphaHorseman]

Because DE, that's why. They are stubborn beyond belief to do it THEIR way, even if it's completely and obviously wrong.

If this is the train of thought that DE is going to stick with, I fear for the future of WarFrame abilities. It actually is off putting to me that these things aren't already within the powers once we get them.

[Vargras]

Sent a PM to Rebecca linking this topic and generally stating that there's a bit of concern that augments will overtake any potential buffs/reworks to various frames/abilities.

[TonyFoot]

What if we could just add those mods to the abilities themselves? Thoughts? IDK

Honestly? there was talk of adding small skill trees to each of the abilities a while back. maybe we could use that to incorporate augs? IDK.

[EvanTheNewbie]

If there's one thing to say about all these augments, though, is that they aren't bad. I'm super into Mag's, vauban's, and zephyr's, adding onto already capable skills. Haven't tried the others, but they all sound great on paper. I do see that some of these abilities should have been added to the base skills instead, just not all of them.

[AlphaHorseman]

Some common sense things about these abilities that have been left out are only now being added in, but as augments rather than already built into these abilities.

[Archwizard]

Why doesn't Frost's Ice Wave leave a slowing trail by default?

 

Well, it wouldn't need to if Freeze was worthwhile. Hard to say that instantly freezing 5 guys for 10 seconds wouldn't be way better than slowing as many for that long for running through a patch you made. I'd much rather Ice Wave had some knockback instead for getting foes out of the Snow Globe; then I'd be okay with the augment leaving a patch behind, since he would already have a well-scaling effect that does something unique from the rest of the kit.

 

That said, I was one of the many suggesting that Slash Dash and Fire Blast have their "augmented" effects baseline before those effects were released. It's disgusting that they would go so far as to gate off effects that would give these abilities scaling; they can't even make money from it, since the only way to get the augments is grinding.

 

Finagle's Law: Attribute not to malice where stupidity is an adequate explanation. We can only pray they catch on quickly.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Archwizard

[MotherofHermes]

I agree and have posted my thoughts here: 

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/363492-augmentsarebandaids/

[Jinryusai]

Sent a PM to Rebecca linking this topic and generally stating that there's a bit of concern that augments will overtake any potential buffs/reworks to various frames/abilities.

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/user/13-grineeer/ - PM him next. He handles Warframes and Weapons...

[Jinryusai]

#augmentsarebandaids is something you will be seeing in the forums for a time to come. Before the most recent patch i made the following post:

 

https://forums.warfr...s/#entry3988233

 

You'll notice the bottom one tl;dr says, "IF THEY "FIX" EMBERS 3 WITH A SYN MOD IMMA BE REALLY MAD. :(" 

 

 

aaaand here we are. augment mods glore for frost, ember, nekros, and excalibur. Now, the reason why the community is raging about a lot of these is because they appear to be addressing issues the community has seen as problems for along time now (such as fireblast being useless and slash dash needing to add to the combo counter).

 

Some of these mods are good for the game and add a trade off of augment points for power (such as Saryn's healing molt. I'm okay with that costing mod points. that's really strong). 

 

However, for the rest of these what DE is essentially saying is: Yeah, we've heard what you think about powers and we think they are fine as is. 

 

Slash dash is supposed to be bad. 

 

Fireblast is supposed to be the useless version of world on fire. 

 

Nekros pressing 3 more than he FIRES HIS GUN. That's working as intended. 

 

Until we here some sort of response, it's clear that our feedback will only be met with more augment mods because otherwise why would they implement an augment rather than FIXING THE ABILITY. 

 

There is an entire backlog of nekros, ember, and excalibur threads. Post these no more. #augmentsarebandaids will need to be focused on until DE either tells us that they plan to change things or think things are good as is. When that happens then we will be ready to move forward with one of those discussions. Until such a response, I can do not but complain to the empty air that is a forum page and the friends that are my fellow posters. 

You're welcome...

[Jeetza]

This is VERY true, but I have faith DE will acknowledge the risks of band-aiding the game and will refrain from doing so.

[AlphaHorseman]

This is VERY true, but I have faith DE will acknowledge the risks of band-aiding the game and will refrain from doing so.

You mean along the lines of how they patched up the DS and now a large portion of the player base don't even use them? If that's how they're going to do this, I'm not holding out hope that these band aids aren't finally gonna be added in innately into abilities.