Dev Workshop Part 2: ...& more Warframe Changes.

[CptKornflake]

Leaving things alone is what brought us to this moment in time, friend.

A balance pass was due to come sometime. Just so happens that Trinity and Ash are in the big bowl of balance soup at the moment.

Edit: Is that Alad V's face when he realizes he forgot to redeploy his extractors after logging in? Classic.

Leaving things alone?

So like 

Nekros

Sayrn

Banshee

Greedy pull mag

Trinity already

Rhino

Oberon

Focus

Countless weapons and all that other crap that was nerfed because people were farming too quickly?

If people don't want to be invincible they shouldn't play invincible frames. If people want to play a crappy healer play Oberon. I can't sit here and take seriously the people who want to make a game more tedious and frustrating than it already is.

People find ways to relieve themselves of the grind, by using Mirage to stunlock enemies or using Excalibur to gain focus. It's not right to strip players from playing a game how they want to play IN A PVE GAME. If it was pvp I could understand but all of this makes absolutely no sense to me.

[Trvldl]

 Enemies can spawn in hordes, from the door or even thin air 20m away behind our backs and oneshot us and objectives with enough level. Some of them can literally teleport on us, dispel our abilities right after spawning. There also are nullifiers that were already countering any cc just fine.

So you leave all that in game and nerf the player alone, that will not add any meaning to the gameplay, only frustration.

Do something as well with obnoxious enemies which you designed to counter omnipresent damage reduction, cc or damage.

[FearsomeWarrior]

My chance to weigh in on Trinity's Blessing.

When raid groups require you to build self damage and you have to screw around with a awesome but me miss-used Glaive Prime build and rely on Quick Thinking to work. Something is broken.

This craziness and the infinite range are insanity and make a badass frame into a slave with no options. Please don't hold back on making changes or nurfs to Trinity because of players crying about it. Stay strong. Make blessing short range so people have to stay near the Trinity if they want heals/reduction. Make her not have to be an energy battery. Possibly self energy only and synergies her #1 to give energy actively to others. Maybe make the range max smaller than the whole map? Thank you.

[Gilmaesh]

Those changes are not that bad, prism should be unable to stop a whole map now, valkyr hysteria will require a bit more of thoughts, and excal changes are fair except for the blind thing, just make it 1/4 maybe, it has some restrictions already.

2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Trinity's Blessing & Ash's Bladestorm are both under review as well. If we determine a course of action for either of these powers, we will let you know here. Feel free to link us threads on either of these with your thoughts!

For blessing maybe remove self damage blessing and add some range to it but i still think this skill is problematic since it makes tank frame kinda useless. You should probably also add a cons to low duration energy vampyr trinity, that's one of the biggest offender for marginalizing contents.

For ash, i can't see anything else than a whole rework. Maybe you can mark enemies with your first skill or even any enemies you damaged and send clones to kill them with the ultimate allowing you to be active while you use ultimate. Meaning that you could chose which enemies blade storm target, to cc and damage/kill high priority mobs. Without marks, clones would attak randomly.

You might want to take a look at Loki disarm, making him affected by power strength could be a start, cap the slow below 75% for molecular prime from Nova and i think you created a new Mesa with that new augment for Banshee (her ultimate should be rework tbh).

Also, one of the biggest problem we have is probably the range. Many abilities would be ok with less range (the radial AOE/CC ones) since at the moment they can reach whole maps leaving no chance to enemies. And efficiency should also be looked at.

Lastly, if you could take a look at broken scaling damage from some enemies ( angstrum comba / napalm / corpus tech / scorch / osprey / arsonic corrupted bombard) just to name a few. You need to look at these as much as our broken abilities / weapons

But i'm glad you finally decided to do something about the cheese we have in this game and that you try to implement better gameplay mechanics.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Gilmaesh

[CptKornflake]

3 minutes ago, FearsomeWarrior said:

Make her not have to be an energy battery. Possibly self energy only and synergies her #1 to give energy actively to others. Maybe make the range max smaller than the whole map? Thank you.

So what alternatives to energy gain do you propose, because right now nearly every enemy drains your energy in some way

Edited May 27, 2016 by CptKornflake

[FearsomeWarrior]

Kill the enemy dead and it stops draining you and drops blue globes hopefully. Having one frame that brings the energy is not the right way. Look in your heart and know it's true.

[Kliuqard]

Personally, decreasing Prism's animation time should be something implemented for balancing's sake.

[CptKornflake]

Just now, FearsomeWarrior said:

Kill the enemy dead and it stops draining you and drops blue globes hopefully. Having one frame that brings the energy is not the right way. Look in your heart and know it's true.

Then why not ask for another frame that also brings energy?

Trinity is a support frame what's the point if she can't support?

[TheEternalJester]

No offense for this (potentially useless and non-constructive post), but you guys seriously need to consider your priorities. You're currently messing with good frames and trying to change them, but no love is given to those frames who more desperately need it?

DE, Please. Don't mess with Warframes that don't currently need it. Work on Warframes that really need a leg up before you do anything to the others.

[AEP8FlyBoy]

19 minutes ago, CptKornflake said:

Then why not ask for another frame that also brings energy?

Trinity is a support frame what's the point if she can't support?

 

I think you both are forgetting something.

Trinity's Blessing & Ash's Bladestorm are both under review as well.
Under review doesn't mean, "Will eventually be nerfed."

This is all for balance's sake, and Trinity in the aftermath will most likely still be 'the' best if not the only true healer.

[FearsomeWarrior]

When did I say nurf her into oblivion? I don't remember saying that. You are obviously a big fan on Trinity as she is now. I hope they can find a balance that keeps her relevant but not required.

[Flackenstien]

My Thoughts:   
________________________________________________________________

Excal and Valkyr's changes definitely seem like good ways to balance these powers. Exact values may need tweaking, but that's expected.  
________________________________________________________________

Ash's Ulti needs more interactivity, making you work a bit more for the massive damage.  
________________________________________________________________

Trinity's Ulti completely overshadows her entire kit, barring Energy Vampire.   
It could use a toning down, but with an added utility.  
For example:    
● Now has a range limit, albeit a large one.  
● Heals over time instead of instant. (Damage reduction stacks with each heal over time, making that less instant too.) 
● Decently reduced duration for the damage reduction.  
● Can now pick up downed allies within range.   
Well of Life really should be Trinity's go-to healing skill, and Link aught to be worth using outside of when you don't feel like spamming Bless.

Ideally I'd like to see Blessing tilted more towards helping Tenno survive a rough battle by giving heal over time with matching damage reduction boost over time, being more like an actual "blessing" than a cure-all godmode.   
The added utility of something like letting it revive would make up for it not being infinite range and instant speed. (Ideally it would still have a very large radius though, maybe enough to heal Tenno a couple map tiles over.)  

Well of Life could get a range buff (with heal reducing with range), and the Augment could use a rework. Pool of Life would be pretty neat if it instead made X enemies within range of the initial target also be suspended as Wells upon cast. Adding to CC and total heal capabilities.   

Each Link chain could have the ability to connect to allies before hopping over to an enemy, giving the damage redirection to very nearby allies too. Giving her more support utility and making up for Blessings reduced duration.   

Energy Vampire would need some balance adjustments too. It's simply infinite energy.  
● Maybe have its Energy replenish negatively scale with how much Energy a Tenno has. Warframes with over 50-75% Energy would receive little, but frames with 0-25% Energy could shoot all the way up.  
● The Energy returns could go down with how much damage the target takes too, having less overall returns when you kill the enemy to rush it for Energy, and higher returns when you let it cook.
________________________________________________________________

Edited May 27, 2016 by Flackenstien

[(PSN)BlitzKeir]

2 hours ago, PsychedelicSnake said:

Jetstream Samcalibur will be a reality one day. I can feel it. In my metal limbs.

Surging Dash + Body Count + Blood Rush. You're welcome.

I like these changes. They make you think a little more about how you manage those powers. And this is coming from a former Valkyr main. Very, very reasonable. I felt the damage incurred was barely worth mentioning.

I'm glad to see Trinity's getting looked at. But if you touch Ash's Bladestorm, be careful... it's not just a murder-everything button, it's how he protects himself. Ash's real problems are with the rest of his kit. Shuriken is handy but outshined. I think the aug should be absorbed into the power itself, because without the aug there's little reason to use it; but the armor cut is vastly overshadowed by his Teleport and Bladestorm, which ignore armor anyway... His Smokebomb needs the most attention though. A lot of people seem to like the idea of the bomb leaving a long-lasting cloud, and passing through the cloud is what makes him invisible. He could get multiple uses out of a single cast, and the aug would become much more valuable for allies. It would make his invisibility feel very distinct from other frames' invisibility powers.

[Urlan]

5 minutes ago, CptKornflake said:

Leaving things alone?

So like 

Nekros

Sayrn

Banshee

Greedy pull mag

Trinity already

Rhino

Oberon

Focus

Countless weapons and all that other crap that was nerfed because people were farming too quickly?

If people don't want to be invincible they shouldn't play invincible frames. If people want to play a crappy healer play Oberon. I can't sit here and take seriously the people who want to make a game more tedious and frustrating than it already is.

People find ways to relieve themselves of the grind, by using Mirage to stunlock enemies or using Excalibur to gain focus. It's not right to strip players from playing a game how they want to play IN A PVE GAME. If it was pvp I could understand but all of this makes absolutely no sense to me.

The current version of Oberon is after a buff. Doubled armor and increased life; more effective Renewal; Reckoning got an additional effect in Blinding enemies near the slammed foes; Smite was made more effective and its wisps better tracking; Hallowed Ground giving more armor, damage though still too low to do anything, and removing status which it just prevented before. This isn't to say Oberon is liked, as most players see a warframe that isn't capable of defending itself in higher level content - this is a complaint that is mostly valid - as with ability diminishing returns and boss level resistance to abilities, generalists like Oberon that focus on light healing and statuses without focuses are essentially liabilities in harder fights. I do play Oberon, he is my most used warframe - its not fun when the game is not balanced around anything but particular warframe use because the players are at such a disadvantage otherwise.

[FearsomeWarrior]

1 minute ago, Flackenstien said:

**My thoughts:**    
________________________________________________________________

Excal and Valkyr's changes definitely seem like good ways to balance these powers. Exact values may need tweaking, but that's expected.  
________________________________________________________________

Ash's Ulti needs more interactivity, making you work a bit more for the massive damage.  
________________________________________________________________

Trinity's Ulti completely overshadows her entire kit, barring Energy Vampire.   
It could use a toning down, but with an added utility.  
For example:    
● Now has a range limit.  
● Heals over time instead of instant. (Damage reduction stacks with each heal over time, making that less instant too.) 
● Decently reduced duration for the damage reduction.  
● Can now pick up downed allies within range.   
Well of Life really should be Trinity's go-to healing skill, and Link aught to be worth using outside of when you don't feel like spamming Bless.

Ideally I'd like to see Blessing tilted more towards helping Tenno survive a rough battle by giving heal over time with matching damage reduction boost over time, being more like an actual "blessing" than a cure-all godmode.   
The added utility of something like letting it revive would make up for it not being infinite range and instant speed. (Ideally it would still have a very large radius though, maybe enough to heal Tenno a couple map tiles over.)  

Well of Life could get a range buff (with heal reducing with range), and the Augment could use a rework. Pool of Life would be pretty neat if it instead made X enemies within range of the initial target also be suspended as Wells upon cast. Adding to CC and total heal capabilities.   

Each Link chain could have the ability to connect to allies before hopping over to an enemy, giving the damage redirection to very nearby allies too. Giving her more support utility and making up for Blessings reduced duration.   

Energy Vampire would need some balance adjustments too. It's simply infinite energy.  
● Maybe have its Energy replenish negatively scale with how much Energy a Tenno has. Warframes with over 50-75% Energy would receive little, but frames with 0-25% Energy could shoot all the way up.  
● The Energy returns could go down with how much damage the target takes too, having less overall returns when you kill the enemy to rush it for Energy, and higher returns when you let it cook.
________________________________________________________________

I love your post.

[Punchedface]

2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Prism was able to lock down maps with little recourse, and we feel that these changes will make it a more targeted ability while also increasing its tactical usage.

Gee, too bad literally no one is discussing the problems that one particular mission type that made this prism abuse overused in the first place.

[letir]

What about mods like Blood Rush and such? Will they be availible for Hysteria and EB?

[Archwizard]

Most of these changes were pretty expected - at least, insofar as the powers have room for adjustment.

Sleight of Hand's change really isn't going to help it all that much, to be honest. It only has a handful of unpredictable effects, and no consistent core benefits. Increasing its damage is not going to make up for a complete lack of scalability; unless they're nukes with higher radii or consistently higher damage than weapons, powers are most often used for their utility, where players fall back on guns for damage (because most of the time, energy is more annoying to get than ammo). SoH doesn't even have consistent enough damage distribution to turn it into a nuke. Its utility is 'unique', but it's the definition of a gimmick, and impractical in all but a select handful of situations.
Like Bullet Attractor was before its... third(?) rework now.

While the change announced for Hysteria works on paper, it really just ensures that the player will heroically run away to reset the buff (especially if they reduce their Power Range so their target range shrinks). It's not really the playstyle of a fearless Berserker. I'd like to highlight an alternative:

Quote

Hysteria no longer makes Valkyr invulnerable or deals damage to the player when it ends, but instead causes damage taken to be staggered into damage-over-time, at a maximum rate of damage per-second reduced by Duration, and lasting until all damage is dealt or the player dies.

Valkyr's life-draining mechanic is treated as a perk of the power, and nothing more - you're already invulnerable, and as long as that stays up, the healing is pointless. There are two reasons people use Hysteria these days: Either for the melee damage (which is good, she's a berserker, that's intended), or so they can safely pick up their allies or otherwise ignore fights with invulnerability (which is the cheesy part). This alternative solution mitigates the latter company, and synergizes perfectly with the life-draining aspect by putting more emphasis on doing exactly what Valkyr is supposed to do to survive: keep killing. Literally fight till you drop. Much more fitting, easier to comprehend, and more natural in the player's hands.

Blessing is a tricky one; everyone agrees that it's cheesy and overpowered (even if its model is the epitome of reactionary healing, but it's just too easy to give the entire party consistent godmode with an Ogris and Quick Thinking). Trinity's entire healing model needs to be examined; presently, Blessing's ability to instantly full-heal targets (including shields) with an unlimited range completely negates the entire purpose of Well of Life (beyond a single-target CC that doesn't work on any priority targets that are worthwhile to CC individually). I suppose you could theoretically have it deal its healing over time so Well of Life will be a better burst heal... but that steps on Renewal's toes (unless you give Renewal a new effect too, which it could use...). Blessing and WoL both need a rework in parallel, so they don't overlap.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Archwizard

[AEP8FlyBoy]

Just now, letir said:

What about mods like Blood Rush and such? Will they be availible for Hysteria and EB?

Most likely no.

They haven't before, and I doubt they will be available afterwards.

Edited May 27, 2016 by AEP8FlyBoy

[TechnicCross]

2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Excalibur:

Excalibur's rework made him an indisputable lethal force - a role he will continue to shine in, but now with more reasonable parameters on his Exalted Blade waves.

Exalted Blade’s damage will now diminish according to distance traveled and enemies punctured, and Exalted Blade’s built-in Radial Blind on spin will now cost ½ the Energy of a regular Radial Blind. Although Exalted Blade is a lot of fun, we feel that it completely overshadows all of Excalibur’s other abilities at little cost. The powerful range on Exalted Blade turned Excalibur into more of a turret than a swordsman. This change means that Exalted Blade is more effective when used in close range and using Radial Blind is now a calculated choice. The ability will simply become more engaging in all encounters.

1.- I completely agree on the fact that Excalibur is being played more as a Turret instead of a Swordsman. So any kind of changes are welcome.

2.- But my personal opinion would be to get rid of the swish-swish Spam waves themselves. I know i will get a lot of hate from some tenno, but ultimately Excalibur is the swordsman frame, he should be hacking away at enemies in the frontline not a crouched or running turret. Yet we could still have the energy wave but in a more controlled manner it could be in the form of the charged attack or even added on end-of-combos(which would promote using those) yet without those diminishing changes with distance or enemies punctured. The problem has never been the ability itself i believe its just how easy it is to spam and clear up to 40m since implementation(Excal does have his 3 for ranged damage). A simple add in melee range on the exalted blade would imo be more than enough just so we can hit multiple enemies kinda like more in a cone in front of him while swinging the sword and not having us locked doing damage to a single target.

3.-The radial blind on spin seems a bit excessive and it will probably restrict Exalted Blades melee moveset since the cost to benefit just doesnt add up when putting normal radial blind side by side with exalted blades radial blind. I would rather just be able to spin attack without the blind while in exalted blade. 

 

 

[xRufus7x]

I agree about the blind on EB costing energy being a little weird concidering it already has a bunch of disadvantages over the standard radial blind. Why not get rid of it and replace it with a 360 degree energy wave. 

Also, since two exalted powers are getting looked at, has there been any discussion about being able to mod them separately from the melee weapons? Sharing mods helps with power scaling but hurts build diversity especially with an ever growing list of mods that do not work with exalted weapons.

And finally, if you are looking at Blessing, can you look at Trinity's entire kit. Well of Life useless and made completely irrelevant by blessing. 

Edited May 27, 2016 by xRufus7x

[Gildarts_bb]

so they are looking at blessing? and here i thought EV was trinity's most op ability heh who knew 

[Flackenstien]

1 minute ago, Gildarts-bb said:

so they are looking at blessing? and here i thought EV was trinity's most op ability heh who knew 

Both of them are issues. EV is something that would need fine tuning, which can't really be done until the rest of the kit is in working order. Blessing is a more immediate issue though, as there are replacements to EV.

[RazrOutlaw]

Please, just don't nerf Trinity's blessing anymore, if anything remove the self-damage functionallity.

[CptKornflake]

18 minutes ago, TheEternalJester said:

No offense for this (potentially useless and non-constructive post), but you guys seriously need to consider your priorities. You're currently messing with good frames and trying to change them, but no love is given to those frames who more desperately need it?

DE, Please. Don't mess with Warframes that don't currently need it. Work on Warframes that really need a leg up before you do anything to the others.

Listen to this guy