Did Excalibur Really Need A Rework?

[TheBrsrkr]

My guess is they were going to rework him anyway, but the nerfs he got and the huge backlash caused them to kick him up the list. they did say that he replaced Frost as the next in line for reworks.

[tris1]

Well i can't argue against that. When you put it that way, yes i guess it does make sense. At the end of the day though, Excalibur is still way more useful in a squad than some of those frames you mentioned. Yeah i guess he does need a rework but where's the love for the other, even more useless frames? The impression i'm getting is that Excalibur will be the only one getting this much attention.

We'll I think Excalibur was placed into a rework because of the continuous nerfing or tweaking DE call it to Excalibur and how many people including my self kept posting loads of posts about Excalibur every time they touched him. I'm not sure about the other frames but I do agree with there are other frames that need tweaks or certain skills reworked like nyx's psychic bolts unlike frames like Loki which are balanced or op because of the scalability which every frame should have. I know that frost is getting tweaks or reworks but was put after Excalibur at the moment DE are fixing abilities by using augments which I'm sure have been posts about them being band aids, the only thing I can say is make a post about frames you want fixed or comment in other peoples posts about there skills like others so DE see them

[vaugahn]

He's about on par with the other frames in need of a rework, but I assume he's getting it first because he's a starter.

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

He needet it after continous nerfs.

His radial blind and javelin are this: usefull. But nothing more.

The blind augument is pretty strong but you can't kill all of them and valk basicly does the same thing stock.

LoS basicly screwed him over.

He did what he did pretty efficient but that was about it. The dps wasn't overwhelming and the CC wasn't gamebreaking eather but people kept demanding a change.

As he is, he needs earher a rework or a buff to his old state but he definitly needs something.

Edited June 7, 2015 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[Thaumatos]

He's about on par with the other frames in need of a rework, but I assume he's getting it first because he's a starter.

So many other frames have been reworked already.  Excalibur isn't getting done first...

 

(Wow you have 11k posts and you haven't noticed this?)

[TheBrsrkr]

So many other frames have been reworked already. Excalibur isn't getting done first...

(Wow you have 11k posts and you haven't noticed this?)

You know exactly what he meant.

[Thaumatos]

You know exactly what he meant.

I'm not sure what you mean by this....sarcasm? lol

 

Anyway, Excalibur is the only frame in the game with abilities that are trumped by game mechanics.  The only one.  I can't believe that anyone would think he shouldn't be at the top of the list for reworks.  It boggles my mind.  I would go so far as to say that anyone thinking otherwise is a complete imbecile.

[vaugahn]

So many other frames have been reworked already.  Excalibur isn't getting done first...

 

(Wow you have 11k posts and you haven't noticed this?)

 

First in the context of this thread, meaning ahead of Saryn or Ash or Frost. 

[Hypernaut1]

Ash is 10x better than current Excalibur. 

[WolvenEdge]

logic in this game is biased and only used to nerf a frame because people found a way to

use it effectively. saryn has a skill called miasma which has no LOS and why is that ? it

comes from saryn her self so it should not go round walls or thorugh them same for

loki/ash/trinity and others.

 

Alright, let me put it this way. If you release a gas into a room, how long does it take to spread around, and does it only go straight? NO. Look up what a concentration gradient is and how gas spreads through a room before posting such drivel.

Loki's abilities are designed oddly in the first place, if you're talking about radial disarm, then it's an energy pulse... likely based on something like a shockwave, which, guess what, doesn't care what corners you throw at it, it will echo around them. Same for trinity, really.

 

As for Ash, if you analyze his ability further, you will find that he spawns several clones and then they and Ash all run around the area LOOKING FOR ENEMIES TO KILL.

You'd think they'd all be able to look around corners, huh?

 

I apologise if I seem a bit blunt, but this part of this post was about as well thought out as trying to shove a horse chestnut down your throat without shelling it first.

And for those that don't have horse chestnuts in their area, they look like this;

http://www.circadia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Horsechestnut.jpg

 

As for Excal's rework, yes. He needed it. Yes, other frames need it too. If you watch the dev streams (51 and 52 I believe) you will find that he was bumped up to their attention by the forums, likely because of recent nerfs/tweaks to mechanics he relied upon throwing him into the 'most obviously in need of steroids' portion of the community's varied and often somewhat anemic eye.

 

-reads own post- Good Lord, I need to lay off watching Zero Punctuation for a while...

[Nagisawa]

Why is this even a question?

 

Yes he does.  He needs to be rebalanced because the game has been.

[-dicht.Amducias-]

Nova also only has one useful ability, apart from her wormhole for mobility who actually uses her other abilities? You know, other than in really low level missions. 

 

Antimatter drop is even more used in speednova builds than mprime at all

[Acos]

For example, most people S#&$ on you for bringing ash in a t3 survival. That's how much most people hate having him in squads. T3 isn't even that hard.

 

People dislike Ash because they're terrible and need to be carried and they know it. They can't look after themselves so they want three other people in the team who can vomit crowd control over every surface in a tileset. I can solo T4 survival on Ash for about as long as it takes me to get bored trying to smash my face against this game's stupid armor scaling values. He's definitely viable. 

 

I saw someone mention rarely using Teleport; You'll use that one later on when enemies become friggin' invincible' to instantly deal a finisher to them. If you've modded your melee weapon correctly you should be doing somewhere between 30k, or 60k, or 100k to an enemy depending on what your weapon is, and what animation you use. 

 

I mostly use it against Heavy Gunners/Bombards. It does take time to execute and if your invisibility wears off during it, your butt is dead. You'll need to watch your timers before you start. 

(Get arcane trickery, omg) 

 

Finally, yes, Excalibur did need a rework. The first time they 'reworked' him, they mostly just wound up nerfing his powers repeatedly, effectively removing anything beneficial they did to him to begin with, leaving him in a state where none of his powers do anything that isn't done better by another frame, while simultaneously having about the most generic abilities in the game. 

To be blunt, they owe us this. 

Edited June 7, 2015 by Acos

[Stratego89]

Yes.

[tris1]

Alright, let me put it this way. If you release a gas into a room, how long does it take to spread around, and does it only go straight? NO. Look up what a concentration gradient is and how gas spreads through a room before posting such drivel.

Loki's abilities are designed oddly in the first place, if you're talking about radial disarm, then it's an energy pulse... likely based on something like a shockwave, which, guess what, doesn't care what corners you throw at it, it will echo around them. Same for trinity, really.

 

As for Ash, if you analyze his ability further, you will find that he spawns several clones and then they and Ash all run around the area LOOKING FOR ENEMIES TO KILL.

You'd think they'd all be able to look around corners, huh?

 

I apologise if I seem a bit blunt, but this part of this post was about as well thought out as trying to shove a horse chestnut down your throat without shelling it first.

And for those that don't have horse chestnuts in their area, they look like this;

http://www.circadia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Horsechestnut.jpg

 

As for Excal's rework, yes. He needed it. Yes, other frames need it too. If you watch the dev streams (51 and 52 I believe) you will find that he was bumped up to their attention by the forums, likely because of recent nerfs/tweaks to mechanics he relied upon throwing him into the 'most obviously in need of steroids' portion of the community's varied and often somewhat anemic eye.

 

-reads own post- Good Lord, I need to lay off watching Zero Punctuation for a while...

Sayrns misama instantly effects the targets it doesn't take time to reach them no for it to travel meaning that it's not logic based otherwise your saying that it's gas which travels through walls like a speed of a bullet. What your doing is placing your own logic into the game which isn't corrctly placed into the game by DE otherwise you know the ability called crush that mag uses how come the enemy just gets straight up and is not effected by the crushing of bones or anything ?

If you read my post I told you how blind currently works and why it is not working like Los correctly otherwise why is it effected by range mods? To keep it balanced yer well logic doesn't effect the distance or how light travels past objects still blinding targets which doesn't in this game.

I don't mind a discussion of what's wrong or right I still belive what I wrote is correct but insulting is not required or needed

[r0ckwolf]

short answer: yes!

 

long answer: look here -> https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/230673-excalibur-20-thank-you-de-for-listening-to-us-we-are-looking-forward-to-the-changes-now/

[Pixues]

Warframe needs a rework.

[RealPandemonium]

People hate powers that don't play the game for them.  SD and SJ gave Excal seamless mobility that not even Zephyr could match (at best they were different with one not being strictly better than the other.)  

 

People want all of their abilities to make the game really easy, rather than to open up alternative playstyles that aren't "CC or kill everything or become invulnerable."

 

Excal's RB was stupidly strong; I'm not sure what they should have done with it, though the Los implementation isn't so bad in its current state (most of its detractors just want failsafe chain CC for killing level 100+ enemies that the game clearly wasn't balanced for.)  

 

RJ was bad because of low damage:risk ratio, suicidally long animation, and targeting issues.  The problem was NOT that it required line of sight, but that it had those issues.  If they fixed those issues and additionally made the javelins knock enemies into each other for knockdowns and bonus damage (and made enemies pinned to a wall/floor stunned for a while) then the ability would have been potentially quite powerful while also requiring choices and forethought from the player to make it truly shine.  DE changing RJ to a generic radial nuke (with a cheesy guaranteed stun attached) as a quick and lazy fix was a grievous mistake and shook my faith in them.  Then, as the last straw, they added line of sight back to RJ, but now it doesn't even throw projectiles.  Its animation was not fixed and its damage is still lackluster.

 

Now, DE is just straight abandoning their original design for Excalibur and just introducing a new warframe with the same name and look to replace him.  DE doesn't care about improving the old content for longtime players; they just will churn out shiny new things to create hype and gain customers.  The drive to monetize their game (and possibly staff changes) have completely altered their design paradigms and as a result the game I fell in love with in September 2013 has all but slipped away.  My faith in DE has crumbled, given the horrendous state of Warframe compared to  how it was 18 months ago.  

Edited June 8, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[MechaKnight]

-snip- 

Looks like we're seeing it the same.

The same radial spam fest we've been trying to alert development to, unfortunately has continued in motion to this day. I simply watch silently to see what happens next. I don't expect anything, I simply watch.

See you space cowboy.

[Cloud]

 

If you ask me, it's Saryn or Ash that needs a rework. Those two are almost completely useless in most situations. Although i guess you could argue they're solo frames? But hey, opinions.

[CryvernX]

 

 

If you ask me, it's Saryn or Ash that needs a rework. Those two are almost completely useless in most situations. Although i guess you could argue they're solo frames? But hey, opinions.

 

 

I know right? 

 

[WolvenEdge]

Sayrns misama instantly effects the targets it doesn't take time to reach them no for it to travel meaning that it's not logic based otherwise your saying that it's gas which travels through walls like a speed of a bullet. What your doing is placing your own logic into the game which isn't corrctly placed into the game by DE otherwise you know the ability called crush that mag uses how come the enemy just gets straight up and is not effected by the crushing of bones or anything ?

If you read my post I told you how blind currently works and why it is not working like Los correctly otherwise why is it effected by range mods? To keep it balanced yer well logic doesn't effect the distance or how light travels past objects still blinding targets which doesn't in this game.

I don't mind a discussion of what's wrong or right I still belive what I wrote is correct but insulting is not required or needed

 

How much easily magnetic material is in your bones, really? What have the Grineer been doing for a long, long time?

The Grineer are failed eugenecists, which means that the higher level enemies would logically be set up to take less effect from such abilities, which means less magnetically influenced material in the bones.... or no bones whatsoever being replaced by stronger materials, considering the Grineer. What Mag does is pretty much place a strong magnetic field in the middle of the person and let the force resulting do the rest, which means stronger structure would naturally be more resistant. On top of that, to show the logic, a circle is one of the strongest shapes to outward pressure known, and guess what the profile of the higher level units is? More circular than the base units, almost like they have support bands designed to be stronger against inward force... like armor is supposed to do?

As for the Corpus, welcome to Science Fantasy as a genre; they have technomancy, whatever arguments you're willing to throw at them will be countered by pseudo-science.

The Infested don't run by the rules anyway, they're living nanite constructs based off of corpses and creatures they've taken over, did you expect them to run by conventional logic applied to modern biology?

 

As for Miasma, let me put it this way. There's a substance called thioacetone, called the world's smelliest chemical. This stuff is so stinky that a whiff will make even the most hardened toss their cookies. To show you how quickly a concentration gradient can pull things through air, it's been shown that you can smell one drop of this stuff from half a kilometer away almost instantly. You know how the sense of smell works, right? The molecule in question has to make it into your nose and be detected by the sensor cells, which means that the molecule in question made the jump of half a kilometer in mere seconds. Saryn's casting time covers all the time that is needed for her Miasma to travel a distance of a paltry twenty meters.

 

As for 'travelling through walls at the speed of a bullet', I already covered that. I said that a gas doesn't care about corners, it GOES AROUND THEM. Spores and unicellular organisms are known to travel in similar patterns to gasses in the air.

 

As for Excalibur and LoS, of course it is buggy, we've been saying it's buggy since it came out, because it doesn't work the way light does. It has been improving though, as one who mains Excalibur, I've been noticing. It's not as buggy as it was, but it's still pretty bad... part of why he's getting a rework. And as for how Blind is effected by Range mods, what does a brighter light do? Higher lumens mean more photons which means that more of them get further. Even some frequencies of light travel different distances with different effects. :\ You researched this part of your post about as much as your last one.

 

Of course I'm applying logic, that's what an analyst does. >:\ I apply logic based on life and in-game physics as explained through what little lore we get.

 

To put it a way that a favorite poster of mind put it; DE does not sit around all day twirling their moustaches wondering how they can attack the players today, or how to break logic this week. It's in their best interest to make a game that's GOOD (and in the case of a science fantasy genre, relatively logical), and they are trying to do that constantly with updates and hotfixes. Yes, many things in the game don't make sense (such as the bug that every 'advanced' player touts and complains at any attempt to fix where you can move faster by spinning on your bum), and they are being looked at. Many things were designed not to make sense, such as how the WarFrames work, and it has reasons in lore for being that way, therefore fitting the genre of science fantasy; if something in your universe doesn't make sense and is intended not to, have some technobable or technomancy or even freaking magic to explain why not.

 

As for insults; I called you out on a post that took into account neither real-life physics nor in-game explanations for non-real-life logic, and called it what I saw it as; misinformation deserving of being squashed beneath the weight of all the science and lore that you were contradicting, and this isn't advanced science or well-hidden lore either. Attempting to use my argument's greatest strength as an insult to my person is a laughable attempt at a counter-argument, please think through your posts a bit more in the future? Or if I'm completely misunderstanding them, how about making it so that I don't have to sort through typo and run-on paragraphs?

 

 

People hate powers that don't play the game for them.  SD and SJ gave Excal seamless mobility that not even Zephyr could match (at best they were different with one not being strictly better than the other.)  

 

People want all of their abilities to make the game really easy, rather than to open up alternative playstyles that AREN'T "CC or kill everything or become invulnerable."

 

Excal's RB was stupidly strong; I'm not sure what they should have done with it, though the Los implementation isn't so bad in its current state (most of its detractors just want failsafe chain CC for killing level 100+ enemies that the game clearly wasn't balanced for.)  

 

RJ was bad because of low damage:risk ratio, suicidally long animation, and targeting issues.  The problem was NOT that it required line of sight, but that it had those issues.  If they fixed those issues and additionally made the javelins knock enemies into each other for knockdowns and bonus damage (and made enemies pinned to a wall/floor stunned for a while) then the ability would have been potentially quite powerful while also requiring choices and forethought from the player to make it truly shine.  DE changing RJ to a generic radial nuke (with a cheesy guaranteed stun attached) as a quick and lazy fix was a grievous mistake and shook my faith in them.  Then, as the last straw, they added line of sight back to RJ, but now it doesn't even throw projectiles.  Its animation was not fixed and its damage is still lackluster.

 

Now, DE is just straight abandoning their original design for Excalibur and just introducing a new warframe with the same name and look to replace him.  DE doesn't care about improving the old content for longtime players; they just will churn out shiny new things to create hype and gain customers.  The drive to monetize their game (and possibly staff changes) have completely altered their design paradigms and as a result the game I fell in love with in September 2013 has all but slipped away.  My faith in DE has crumbled, given the horrendous state of Warframe compared to  how it was 18 months ago.  

 

 

Oh dear. You just crumbled all the faith I had in you, friend.

If you haven't noticed, that 'seamless mobility' will belong to every single frame in the game, Excalibur will still have an advantage because you will be able to slash-dash upward, they're merging the abilities. :| Of all the people who I thought would pay attention, you were among the highest. DE is unsure what exactly they will be doing with Radial Javelin in the future, they're brainstorming... but you did at least hit the nail on the head with its current problems.

 

As for Excalibur becoming a completely new frame; they give him ONE new ability, ONE, and he becomes completely different? It's not even an ability that 'does everything for you,' it changes your frame mode to Tensa Zangetsu without the speed boost, you actually have to work to make it do anything. For one so focused on ways to make the game more skill-focused and reduce radial spam, I'm surprised at you.

 

I do agree that radial spam and 'Crowd control all the things!' are a problem, but one that come with the territory when you have a few elite units taking on armies. You have to be able to control the battlefield through some means, and skills like that are necessary. Do they need to do the work for you? No. Do they need to be completely removed? Also, no. Considering what's being done with Excalibur and the backlash that's incuring, I don't wanna know what will happen if they nerf crowd control again.

 

As for why I dislike the LoS system currently inherant with Blind, it's buggy. As my previous section has stated, it's gotten better, but it still fails to blind targets that it should, and blinds targets that it should not, causing most strategic placing and skill that is attempted to go to waste.

 

Also; again. It's in DE's best interest to make a good game, they do not spend their time wondering how to best attack the players next. The game is in Beta, expect it to change, provide constructive feedback instead of yowling about how they're ruining everything.

 

 

 

TL;DR.

Yes, logic. Miasma does make sense, technomancy counters most arguments in science fantasy genres, and I admit Radial Blind is buggy, never said otherwise. Excalibur is not a completely new frame because of one new ability, and his new ability is more skill based than Javelin ever will be, and for the 'loss of mobility', parkour 2.0, research it, and Excal's jump is being merged into slash dash. Have the spirit bomb and kaioken, shut up Bojack.

 

Disclaimer;

I do apologise if I come off as abrasive in this post. I see false information and attacks upon a developer that is trying hard to keep up with the varied demands of their players, and doing a surprisingly good job despite all the 'doom threads'. Misinformation and attacks upon those innocent of the charges leveled at them are two of my greatest enemies, so I used my +2 modifier against them accordingly, please do not take it personally, and do your research better next time.

Edited June 7, 2015 by WolvenEdge

[TheGrimCorsair]

Yeah, actually Excalibur really, really did need a rework. He has amazing survival tools in his 2 and 3 (it is an absolutely amazing initiator, and great for escaping tar puddles since it turns you invisible immediately causing Infested to forget about you, it also sticks you to the ceiling in low hallways, allowing you to go invisible and use your 2 from safety, then transition into a slide attack for hilarious damage with Radiant finish), a terrible attack/gap closer in his 1, and his 4 is quite probably the most boring PBAoE nuke in the game.

Make no mistake, Excalibur is *unquestionably* a powerful, capable warframe right now, but the changes to its kit to make it more centered around melee, and generally more coherent and practical in function. Except Radial Javelin, IDK what they'll do with it when it's reworked into his 3, maybe no longer PBAoE?

Oh, RIP Super Jump, the single most underrated initiator and power in the game, with which you could maintain the same functional invisibility up time as a Loki while also shutting down enemies for everyone. An aimable variant with the same hangtime and invisibility would have been a much better tool, though. :/

[RealPandemonium]

Oh dear. You just crumbled all the faith I had in you, friend.

If you haven't noticed, that 'seamless mobility' will belong to every single frame in the game, Excalibur will still have an advantage because you will be able to slash-dash upward, they're merging the abilities. :| Of all the people who I thought would pay attention, you were among the highest.

To be fair, I don't watch the devstreams, so I only know a rough sketch of what's to come

 

However, it does seem like the new Excalibur will be different enough to the point that it's basically a new frame.  SD and SJ are being removed totally, and the new 4 is completely new, with no precedent besides "Excal is supposed to be melee because people say so."  The new power set could easily have been used for a new frame.  

 

It seems like DE gave up on maintaining and updating Excalibur because it would be satisfying Excalibur players and not their customer base at large, and that isn't worth it to them.  They've kicked their original vision for the game out the window and are phoning it in from now on.  I can't say I didn't expect this to happen, given that this is a F2P MMO with microtransactions, but I still feel betrayed nonetheless because this game was literally amazing back when I started playing; I fell head over heels for Warframe in October of 2013.  It seemed too good to be true then, and now that notion has played out in a rather painful manner for me.  

Edited June 8, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[vaugahn]

Yes, logic. Miasma does make sense

 

I think when people talk about Miasma it's less of a "is this scientifically possible" thing, and more of the obvious association between the word miasma and a slowly spreading vapor emanating from something.  When you hear the word miasma, at the very least that's what most people picture.

 

However, it does seem like the new Excalibur will be different enough to the point that it's basically a new frame.  

 

I can see where you're coming from with this, but that's a little hyperbolic. Slash Dash really does not seem to be changing all that much, and Super Jump is hardly a factor that makes Excalibur unique. Beyond that, it's not like the whole sword theme just came out of nowhere either...his name is Excalibur, and three out of his four current abilities feature swords.