December 19Th: Community Hot Topics!

[TashaPrime]

Nullifiers: Nullifiers are a really awesome part of the game and  I hope that they never go away. with that said however they are at the moment broken. Why should regular mission game play AI's have boss level abilities? I realize that the Nullifier is not hard to kill from the base health stand point however they do create a game mechanic that especially in extended gaming sessions makes a given mission nigh on impossible to play.  

 

Should bullets pass through the shields of the Nullifier maybe but maybe not. If bullets were to pass through the shields then the Nullifier becomes just another enemy blending in with the rest of the crowd. However something like a portion of the damage passing throuth like piercing or slash damage would be nice. 

 

The problem with nullifiers is that when they join the enemy AI any enemy the game basically goes from enjoyable to insanely hard. Where end game players were once able to run hour+ long survival, any mission that has Nullifiers players get wrecked. Just as an example myself and 3 friends went into a survival mission on Jupiter Yesterday (all lvl18 w/maxed gear) and at 20 minutes in people started dying because of the Nillifiers. By the time 40 minutes rolled around we were running for extract because the mission had become un-survivable for 3 out of the 4 of us.

 

Nullifers are a very challenging part of game play that if nothing else the shield's should be scaled back a bis so as to not be able to withstand near as much damage before they shut down. Another option would be to leave them the way they ate at lower level and at higher level make them a radial blast zone at something like every 3-10 seconds or something.

[00zau]

D polarity simply needs to go. There are too few mods using them, and more than half of those mods are garbage, to boot. It's too late to start adding more D mods, especially since the status duration mods weren't D when they could easily have been (given that the flat status mods, which are utter garbage by the way, are some of the few D mods).

 

Conclave restrictions are pointless in tactical alerts. In almost every occasion, it just means the player takes 1x maxed frame and 1x maxed weapon (usually a sidearm or primary). This means that they players aren't really hurt at all in actual effectiveness, but the game is just made more obnoxious to play; no carrier, often no melee to copter with, etc.

 

Since warframes are coming with passives now, all warframes should be given passives. It's unfair for some frames to have them and others not.

 

Survivals usually have enough enemies, but there are occasional lulls that can drain a lot of air. It looks like something has been changed because it's a lot easier to survive on just enemy air-packs without a nekros now, which is nice.

 

Nullifiers are anti-fun. They prevent powers from effecting themselves and allies, while also protecting the same area from ranged weapons, which are our only other option in high level content. Making the bubble not stop weapons would be a pretty good solution; players can just snipe the nullifier out or drop an AOE weapon into the midst of the nullifier squad. Another option would be a pulsing ability clear instead of static protection, this would allow instant damage or momentary CC to be applied within the squad. Abilities like Chaos would still get a momentary stun before being cancelled, and M Prime would reward a prompt response by letting you prime and then hopefully cause a chain reaction within the nullifier squad. This would promote prompt responses to nullifiers, even with abilities, instead of  just having to pour bullets into it.

[(PSN)SilverKarasu]

I like the the idea for passives to be the answer to Excalibur being the Sword Frame. He needs some way to reward that play.

 

But I think he needs a defensive passive either instead or with it. One of the main drawbacks to Melee Excalibur is that Melee is a very vulnerable play style for him. He's not tanky at all. Radial Blind is decent but in a survival there are enemies coming in constantly and Radial blind no longer goes through terrain. So his only defensive skill is ineffective against a constantly renewing enemy presence. And the skill isn't persistent either. So spamming the skill as new enemies fill in is the only answer, and he's not built as a caster able to do that. 

 

One of his passives needs to be something that increases his survive-ability while using a sword/glaive/nikana. Damage is nice but isn't really the issue with the play-style with him. Sure he can pull it off, but it's in no way rewarding and using a gun on him is far safer. I only do it right now in T4 because I'm stubborn and I built him as a melee frame anyway.

[Little-Cunny]

Everyone needs a D. whethert its to create a big bang, or to half someone's mortality

 

Now, about the conclave restrictions, I honestly don't think conclave judges skill, only equipment. And mah skillz are Oh Pi

 

Passive warframe abilities? Why there was a post back then that had these awesome passive  ideas, yet those ideas were not to be. Twas a sad day indeed.

 

Enemy waves? I think having them drop 02 all day everyday or hell give the tennos the ability to not use oxygen for breathing is fine.

Back then, 02 was hard to come by. Now though, spawn camp all day everyday.

 

Nullifiers? Their awesome aim is 2spooky4me. The shields, well they pop like cherries >:D. Except. My bows don't even D: Yet my tentacled beast destroys it like its a well -redacted- a krakken in short.

 

Syndicate explosions you say? NOO STRATA OTL. Anyways, I think the major flaw in them is the fact that we do not have a leash of sorts to curb the explosions.

 

CCombos? Oh mai. DE, please playenjoy a 2010 game called Spiderman:Shattered Dimensions. Oh, and add a lil bit of some metal music and put on a title such as Revengeance and enjoy the ride. :D

 

But  then, I know you guys know, and I know you guys know that I know.

 

Off-topic

Can I be a founder please? Plis nem mi Angkel Sam Slendeh :D

 

Muchos gracias for your time. Adios compadre. BTW I was suppposed to be released on the 10th of January...

[Ryjeon]

I feel that the Nullifiers are too much threat in one package. As priority enemies whose goal is to support the assault of other enemies they they should have a basic weapon and not be a capable of one shotting players with their Sniper weapon. Especially considering that in order to remove their shield you have to spend some time out in the open. This is an aggravating exchange that is causing players to feel forced onto a narrow subset of weapons in order to maximise their chances against this ubiquitous threat.

[Nick-ka-ka]

Nullifiers

Ok. They should be tweaked for two things.

First off, when they appear, every other enemy immediately runs to hide under their bubble of protection, and they get in the way all the time, even when you are trying to make the bubble shrink. I can understand if they were hiding behind something and got up when the bubble came to cover them, but when they spawn the first thing they do is run to the nullifier. Its very annoying in almost any mission type. \

 

Secondly. That tank on their backside should explode if you attack it, which should kill that nullifier and damage anyone around them. It would make sense since it is housing all of that energy. And it would make me feel better to see the pesky guy explode after giving me so much grief.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Nick-ka-ka

[Volume]

Poll options don't really describe my feelings, so I'm just gonna freetext a couple simple lines of feedback.

 

In your opinion, should Warframes have passive bonuses?

 

Define "Passive bonuses" - Are you referring to a League of Legends-esque passive, or do you just mean things like different armor levels, health/shield levels, shield regen speeds, etc.

 

By "some Warframes" do you mean, ones that are currently underused and underpowered? Because I don't feel that this is the best way to balance them.

 

Obviously some passives will end up being better than others (i.e. World of Warcraft racial passive style), and that seems almost unfair.

 

I like the idea of more stuff unique to each Warframe, but don't like the idea of putting in a feature that will probably just leave certain ones even more imbalanced. I can only imagine the threads of people crying about "Excal's passive isn't good enough" or "Rhino's passive is too strong" - but hey, if you guys feel like adding a new thing for each frame, sure, that's cool with me.

 

Do you think the radial explosions from syndicate standing are too powerful?

 

If we even have to have these, I think their damage is in a good place - it's useful for a while, but not upper tier or extremely strong. It will one-shot stuff at a lower level. I feel like there should be a different syndicate bonus, like a trigger-able temporary self-buff or something.

 

Do you think the syndicate explosion should be player controlled in some way?

 

Absolutely. Perhaps a fifth power that gets "unlocked" when the meter fills up. Like, you have to earn the affinity before you can "press 5 for radial explosion / heal" or something.

 

Or, better yet, let us choose what the power is, rather than just a radial explosion, perhaps a self-buff, or something.

 

How frequently do you wish you could cancel a combo?

 

Do you mean melee combo? Basically all the time to the point where I don't actually use them or bother with them anymore, so basically never with my current playstyle. I just play around them and use fast-hitting ones or just quick-melee everything.

 

How do you feel about the conclave restrictions on Tactical Alerts?.

 

Well, I don't see the point in them. I like them where they are, but basically all I do is unequip my sentinel mods other than vacuum, remove one weapon, and all the mods from my dual zoren except "Fury" so I can use one weapon and copter. This usually keeps me under the 500 for the emblem. I don't really know why the missions have these, because most people's builds only really need like 500 conclave anyway. Maybe you should have a different rating for PvE than PvP because mods like "bane of corpus" or "Cleanse infested" only county as one conclave rating, yet are very helpful in PvE. Either way, I like the 'idea' of making a player actually think about what they bring, but the bottom line is that people will used overpowered stuff anyway. Maybe it should be like "maximum 150 conclave rating per piece of gear" rather than "700 conclave rating" because people will just throw 500 conclave rating into one weapon and totally annihilate everything on the map with ease. If you split it between weapons, people might be more in-line with the gameplay, rather than running around pressing 4 on saryn to miasma everything and kill 30 enemies at once in the exterminates.

 

In your opinion, do enemies spawn fast enough in Survival missions?

 

Sometimes. It really isn't the spawn rates, but the map layouts and tilesets. Some are much better for survival than others.

 

Do you think the “D” slot on weapons is useful?

 

I guess it beats not having a polarity if I have to get one for free. It usually gets a Hammer Shot or Cryo Rounds from me on Rifles. I really don't know why we have a polarity for just one element mod. I think Cold damage mods should have a "-" slot and that other mods should be created for the D slot. The slot isn't the problem, it's the lack of appropriate mods.

 

What is your opinion on the Nullifiers?

 

I like them, I love the idea of them, but their shield seems buggy. I can kill it so quickly with any constant-damage weapon, but my Hek that does insane damage barely reduces their shield at all, and I need to unload like 8 shells just to get the shield off. Perhaps this should be looked at? Maybe they should go away faster with stronger weapons, instead of promoting rapid-fire weaponry like the entire rest of the game, perhaps one strong single-shot weapon should break the shield.

 

It seems that these shields work like "Hardened Shields" on the Immortals in Starcraft 2, and reduce my Hek to doing whatever damage one bullet from a Soma would do, so it just takes like 8 or 10 shots from either weapon to clear the shield. Problem being that Hek has a much lower fire rate, for example.

 

Either way, not sure if that part is intended. The power-affecting stuff is great, maybe they should spawn a tiny bit less, but I like them anyway.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Volume

[kennylagenz]

i voted other on the nullifiers, i dont have any problems with there shield or spawn rates howerver their damage seems slightly OP at an early level,

[ChameleonDude]

I really feel that I have to post about tactical alerts after answering that poll: the fact that they have a conclave rating limit to begin with is one of the problems! Nothing has stopped me from going in with Rhino Prime and Boltor Prime and just gunning everything down; I hate doing it - but it works. Any other "difficulty" in those missions just feels cheap, it's just artificial difficulty. Make them actually challenging without forcing me to use bad gear or a cheese build, then that's half of the problem solved.

 

As for the other main problem... the rewards. The stratos emblem - perfect! A nice credit reward, boosters, maybe a potato - sure, why not? But putting in festive items and, from what I've heard, stances as rewards for upcoming ones - no. Some of us really, really hate tactical alerts. Again, it's not because they're difficult, they're just cheap. They have their unique reward (stratos emblem) and that's fine, but please - no more unique items for them. Imagine if there was a four day archwing event that rewarded a new warframe, then it's gone for good (or a few months even) - there would be outrage because the content and the reward aren't fairly linked. The same really applies here, in my opinion.

 

Lastly, the scoring system for tactical alerts needs sorting out. Telling me that I need 100 points for the reward; hiding later milestones until I reach the one before it; and giving me 27 points for the first run, 54 for the second, 39 for the third, etc makes no sense. I'd actually like to know how much effort I have to invest into these things if I'm going to bother with them.

 

All in all, these things are clearly going to stay, but they really need to have real difficulty and be more transparent - not the mess we have now. Personally, I'd love it if they were removed, but that's not going to happen - just don't make me feel that I have to play a game mode that I strongly dislike to get rewards such as holiday cosmetics and exclusives.

[XxDeadlockerxX]

I think that the spawning rate for enemies in Survival Missions should be choosed by the Player instead of it just being one way for everybody. The squad can vote to decide what spawn rate it'd be (Low- Frequent Life Support Drops with less, more powerful enemies; Med.- Moderate LS drops and your average, every-day grineer about to be slaughtered; High- Occasional LS drops with weak, overwhelming enemies; or Very High- Less-than-average chance of LS dropping, Huge packs of enemies that just want to be slaughtered) - And if all votes are different, One is picked randomly.

[Baruti]

In response to Nullfiers, I think the shields durability itself needs to be looked at again, as it stands now they hamper low fire rate weapons FAR more than high fire rate ones.

 

Another thing I feel like is they do WAY too much damage, (all sniper units in the game have this problem actually) the lanka they shoot is almost hit scan and one shots or almost does many of the squishier frames in t4. I feel like them and the grineer as they stand are severely limiting the viable frame pool.

 

I can't even bring out nekros or ember to high level void or grineer missions without being vaporized by a ballista or Nullifier ( or just the insane hit scan damage from all directions in grineer missions, just a special mention goes to ballistas)

Edited January 1, 2015 by Baruti

[siboreas]

Passives

 

I think the idea is cool, and could possibly be used a selling point for various warframes, but then someone else brought up the issue of what a passive is exactly. While gravity has less of an effect on Zephyr, Loki can run faster, Valkyr has more armor, etc. I suppose what may differentiate Zephyr in particular is that no mods can affect her passive. But, then again who would ever use a mod that reduces the effect of gravity?

 

I think the only passives that should very obviously be included are elemental resistances for elemental frames. It always baffles me when Frost's shields are affected by the cold environment. Apart from that I have some ideas, but I'm sure DE can come up with their own.

 

Syndicate Explosion Power

 

Someone else already relayed my thoughts - "compared to what?" It's hard to judge whether or not something is too powerful with this in mind. That being said, I think they're fine as is.

 

Syndicate Explosion Control

 

I personally find that the explosions go off when no one is around more often than when anyone is around to be affected by it. Moreover, part of the reason I'm using the weapon or mod is to use this effect. So, either I should 1) have some control over when it goes off, or 2) it should go off in a more intelligent manner, such as when a minimum amount of units are around (similar to Wyrm's Crowd Dispersion). (I only suggest 2 since control might pose a problem for controller mapping - and I use a controller)

 

Melee Combo Cancel

 

I find melee combo mechanics a tad peculiar in this game as it stands, and often not rewarding enough to be used. I suppose I had expected the combos to be more of a combination of jumping, running, sliding, moving and incorporating guns rather than just rhythmic melee button mashing. While I think of instances where canceling a combo may have been useful, I feel as though by the time I had cancelled the combo, I would have been killed anyway, though may have saved myself an extra second of life. So, hard to say if having that option would provide a big enough benefit, often enough, to be warranted. In my opinion, considering the level of reward, if you're going to start a combo, you should have every intention of seeing it through anyway.

 

Tactical Alert Conclave Restriction

 

I like the conclave restriction because it allows more players to participate. It adds difficulty by restricting the player rather than by increasing the difficulty of the bad guys. I read one post where someone found a gun whose damage was high vs the conclave rating, thereby making the conclave restriction pointless - well congrats, you've found a tactical advantage that works for you, however perhaps other players with different play styles would like to approach the mission using different weaponry. Point being, the current method allows for options.

 

What I would like to see is just more variation to the restrictions and requirements for the alerts. Have tactical alerts that are restricted to melee only for example, or have conclave restrictions on specific weapons. Have tactical alerts where energy or health never drops. Have tactical alerts where everyone is restricted to a max amount of power. I'm just spit-balling, but all I'm saying is that tactical alerts need to be defined by more than just a mission with a conclave restriction - this should just be one kind of various types.

 

Survival Spawning

 

Firstly, as it stands, I think it's fine. As a player who likes a challenge though, I feel that at the start of the match the number of enemies is fairly small. However, this is offset by the life support capsules (which seem to spawn more often at the start, and less often as the match progresses; but I haven't really measured this to see if it's true) and as it stands, it's still somewhat of a challenge for very weak players. What I'd personally like to see, for all continuous game types, is that the number/difficulty of enemies increases faster, and that the rotation of drops is changed to a,b,c, rather than a,a,b,c. This would help players get to the good stuff faster - challenging enemies and rewards - and, would help me avoid that "You have been playing for over an hour.. take a break." message. Sorry, the game didn't get really good until that 60min mark. Moreover, a,b,c is less confusing than a,a,b,c for newer players - run into a few players who are confused when they get a rotation a reward at 30min - just not all that intuitive.

 

"D" Slot on Weapons

 

When a weapon comes with a built-in polarized slot, that's generally an indication to me that this weapon is meant to use a certain mod. I start thinking, okay what makes sense for the stats of this weapon in that slot, what mods can I start using now, what will be useful later and what can I strive to get.

 

When a weapon comes with a built-in "D" slot, my options are generally cold or status - and the status-only mods give such a puny benefit that they're essentially useless. So, cold, which is sometimes useful, but mostly not depending on the weapon/build. This leaves me a little confused as to why a weapon would ever come with a built-in "D" polarity, as there is always a more useful polarity for the weapon. 

 

Do I think "D" mods should be removed from weapons? No, what I think is what pretty much everyone has already been saying - we need more "D" polarity mods. I don't know how difficult of a task this is for DE, since apparently these polarities all have some sort of background/lore/meaning (which I like), but us players have no idea what that is (which makes me sad) - this just makes it difficult to offer suggestions.

 

Nullifiers

 

And now for the beast. So like I mentioned, I like a challenge. I like what nullifiers bring to the game, in the sense that it is one enemy that forces players to change up their tactics when facing them and/or is a tough unit on the battlefield. They force the player to change their tactics to defense, or stealth-close-to-melee. I think a lot of players have trouble with this because for most other units there is no reason to be defensive - you can always just power through - or the challenge of getting close for that melee attack is too great in light of their setup - which to me isn't really an excuse. All that being said, I often notice players going down quite quickly whenever one shows up, and I wonder why. It appears as if players often stand still and just unload their gun at them, and just get sniped by them a few times, leading to the death of everyone else on my squad. Another issue is of course all the other enemies blasting at the player that are protected by the nullifiers bubble. Okay, so is this unit too powerful? Or does it just provide a great challenge that numerous players just have trouble with?

 

When dealing with this, I tried to think about this type of unit from two views: a) the Corpus standpoint and b) whether its abilities make sense - mechanically and with respect to other units. I approached it by thinking about one "fix", and the repercussions of such an action with respect to these views.

 

Okay so firstly, it didn't make sense to me that the bubble blocks bullets. If other material things (ie. Tenno, enemies, their weapons) can pass through the bubble, why can it block bullets? Well, the obvious counter to this as-is is to look at Volt's shield, Frost's bubble - they block bullets, but not people. Okay, but the issue is that the nullifiers bubble already blocks powers, why bullets as well? I think the issue, from DEs side, is that it would make the unit too easy to kill. The nullifier himself isn't that tough - a decent headshot from a decent gun, and he's done. Most of the challenge provided by this unit would be defenestrated.

 

Okay, so let's say we let bullets pass through the bubble. This unit would need to be beefed up then. The tougher units are bigger and slower. My first issue with this is that this guy is meant to protect a bunch of the smaller guys from powers, who all tend to move in quicker and get closer. So maybe making him bigger and tougher isn't really a fix, especially from a Corpus tactical point of view. Moreover, this unit has a pretty powerful weapon, albeit not the fastest. So maybe making bullets pass through, and him bigger and tougher isn't really a fix either.

 

Okay, so if this guy is meant to get close in order to limit the powers of the Tenno, what if he only had a melee weapon, so that he's forced to get right up close and personal. Marry this with making him a tougher unit, but keeping the bullet protection - does this solve the issue? I'd say almost. It raises another question - what kind of melee does he have? If it's too strong, he might just run up, swing once, and the tenno have no real chance to defend him or herself. If it's too weak, then maybe the unit becomes too soft. What about from a Corpus tactical point of view? Does it make more sense to give this type of unit a heavy one-hit weapon, like a sniper, or a melee weapon? If I were the Corpus, I'd give him a heavy gun. Moreover, if he's just running right in to the face of the battle, is he really providing cover for the other units? It seems to make the most sense to me that he's a medium-sized unit to stay with the group he's intended to protect. As such, he can't just have a melee weapon either, as one swipe from my Orthos Prime would eliminate the threat he poses too quickly, and again, wouldn't be the best option from a Corpus standpoint.

 

So, maybe there needs to be some sort of compromise, and a need to revisit the unit's tactics and/or what "nullifying" really entails. Looking back at letting bullets pass, I think then, okay that means the bubble can't shrink - the bullets are passing through, not hitting the bubble. From the enemy point of view, even if bullets are passing, at least they are protected by the bubble. Now the tenno's responsibility is to be a sharp-shooter. But, I still feel as if this reduces the challenge of these units too much. Okay, so how about another compromise - the bubble doesn't block bullets, but blocks status damage and status effects - essentially "nullifying" another "power". Now the nullifier has that extra layer of protection, same with the units, but can still be singled out to be killed from a distance without wasting a ton of bullets. While this would still prove problematic for purely status-damage-based weapons, I think it's a fair compromise, especially considering that some units are essentially unaffected by certain status damage types. It also forces players to consider their loadout as a whole, rather than simply just ensuring they have that single super powerful weapon.

 

That's my two cents. Best of luck to DE on making the best decisions.

Edited January 2, 2015 by siboreas

[Entari0]

So I was just playing a corpus exterminate with 99 enemies to kill. ok, fine. As I went through, I saw several nullifiers, and decided to keep rack of how many I saw. 4. I saw 4 nullifiers. they never overlapped, they never became too much of an issue. I was able to kill them from range by first fanning the trigger on my magnis and then poppoing them in the head. Fine. I think that is an appropriate number of nullifiers per other enemy type. anywhere from 1-5% of the enemies spawning in  a mission where they are a valid enemy should be nullifiers, and that percent should increase with level and time spent in mission, but not beyond about 10%. Also, it may make sense to make it so, if you are in a bubble with a nullifier, you can shoot out, the nullifier can shoot out (or at you), but other enemies cant shoot in, like the original functionality of snow globe, I think.

[(PSN)SilverKarasu]

I'm going to post on my vote on passives. Warframe has a lot of frames now. And mods add lovable amounts of diversity to builds. The fun thing about picking a frame if figuring out it's playstyle and maximizing it. So it sucks when we pick the "Sword Frame" Excalibur, and find out that instead of being set up to take advantage of sword melee, it's has every reason NOT to go around melee'ing poeple.

 

My hope is that passives give frames that thing their missing to really reward using them in a certain way.