Mirage Revisions Feedback [Post Update 18.13]

[Enno69]

23 minutes ago, shootaman777 said:

[snip]

I'm afraid I'm not on your level anymore at this point :) but I'll still give my two cents :

- The "rating" system you suggest sounds very interesting, but once it goes over the ceiling, how would someone know which ones of his/her mods are active during a given mission ? Would not this fluctuation of power be very annoying for players, who prepare a loadout but have little hinsight on what it will achieve in the mission ? Dunno if my thoughts are clear enough, sorry.

- Apologies, but maths isn't my strong point and I don't understand at all what your graph about scaling is supposed to represent.. ;)

[shootaman777]

Just now, Enno69 said:

I'm afraid I'm not on your level anymore at this point :) but I'll still give my two cents :

- The "rating" system you suggest sounds very interesting, but once it goes over the ceiling, how would someone know which ones of his/her mods are active during a given mission ? Would not this fluctuation of power be very annoying for players, who prepare a loadout but have little hinsight on what it will achieve in the mission ? Dunno if my thoughts are clear enough, sorry.

- Apologies, but maths isn't my strong point and I don't understand at all what your graph about scaling is supposed to represent.. ;)

For the rating system, each mission would have the rating limit posted on their corresponding node.  Each mod would have their rating posted on the mod itself.  From there, it would just be a matter of some addition pre-mission to figure out what mods would be active or not.  Or, there could be an option to measure cutoff points by clicking the measure option, then clicking a mod on the config, which would then say the corresponding rating that the Tenno item that the mod is equipped on will have if all the mods up to that mod on the config are being used.  That is also why I proposed having 26 configs - for diversity in builds for all enemy levels, to make the best build for the conclave limit.  In addition, there would probably a button in-game (like hitting p (default button on PC) to check mission progress/rewards) to check which mods of the Tenno are currently active. Essentially, it would function in a similar way to the old-fashioned Dark Sector Conflicts, where you would unlock mods on your build by progressing towards your objective.  

 

For the concept graph: 

Essentially, think of relative enemy difficulty on a scale from 0-100.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of x/10 from enemies levels 1-10.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of x/5 from enemies levels 10-20.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 3x/10 from enemies levels 20-30.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 2x/5 from enemies levels 30-40.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of x/2 from enemies levels 40-50.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 3x/5 from enemies levels 50-60.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 7x/10 from enemies levels 60-70.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 4x/5 from enemies levels 70-80.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 9x/10 from enemies levels 80-90.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of x from enemies levels 90-100.  

The way to do it would be by looking at the colors of each of these graphs (to the left of where it says the multiple of x) and the corresponding enemy difficulty (the section of the line with the matching color) in relation to the enemy levels by intervals of 10 (on the x-axis).  

I think that should somewhat explain how to read the concept graph.  

[shootaman777]

Just now, Enno69 said:

I'm afraid I'm not on your level anymore at this point :) but I'll still give my two cents :

- The "rating" system you suggest sounds very interesting, but once it goes over the ceiling, how would someone know which ones of his/her mods are active during a given mission ? Would not this fluctuation of power be very annoying for players, who prepare a loadout but have little hinsight on what it will achieve in the mission ? Dunno if my thoughts are clear enough, sorry.

- Apologies, but maths isn't my strong point and I don't understand at all what your graph about scaling is supposed to represent.. ;)

For the rating system, each mission would have the rating limit posted on their corresponding node.  Each mod would have their rating posted on the mod itself.  From there, it would just be a matter of some addition pre-mission to figure out what mods would be active or not.  Or, there could be an option to measure cutoff points by clicking the measure option, then clicking a mod on the config, which would then say the corresponding rating that the Tenno item that the mod is equipped on will have if all the mods up to that mod on the config are being used.  That is also why I proposed having 26 configs - for diversity in builds for all enemy levels, to make the best build for the conclave limit.  In addition, there would probably a button in-game (like hitting p (default button on PC) to check mission progress/rewards) to check which mods of the Tenno are currently active. Essentially, it would function in a similar way to the old-fashioned Dark Sector Conflicts, where you would unlock mods on your build by progressing towards your objective.  

 

For the concept graph: 

Essentially, think of relative enemy difficulty on a scale from 0-100.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of x/10 from enemies levels 1-10.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of x/5 from enemies levels 10-20.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 3x/10 from enemies levels 20-30.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 2x/5 from enemies levels 30-40.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of x/2 from enemies levels 40-50.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 3x/5 from enemies levels 50-60.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 7x/10 from enemies levels 60-70.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 4x/5 from enemies levels 70-80.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of 9x/10 from enemies levels 80-90.  

Enemy difficulty would be determined by the line of x from enemies levels 90-100.  

The way to do it would be by looking at the colors of each of these graphs (to the left of where it says the multiple of x) and the corresponding enemy difficulty (the section of the line with the matching color) in relation to the enemy levels by intervals of 10 (on the x-axis).  

I think that should somewhat explain how to read the concept graph.  

[Archwizard]

We all knew the Prism change was coming; I doubt anybody in this thread is arguing that it wasn't justified. Reduce its cast time and call it a day. 

Let's talk about Sleight of Hand for a moment instead.

SoH fits the very definition of what we'd call a "gimmicky" ability. It's flashy, it's unique, it establishes her identity - but no matter how much polish it receives, it won't be practical in any regard. It's "funny", but not "fun".

In terms of its environmental effects, SoH suffers the same issues that Volt's Overload did: many maps don't have enough objects to booby-trap, and in the cases that do, the traps are inconveniently-placed and/or only work once anyway. Consider a Defense map for a moment, any will do as the principles are generally the same; lockers and crates are positioned near walls or inside siderooms, but the map itself has vast open spaces that enemies will spend 97% of their uptime in, away from these lockers and crates. No security cameras, no trappable turrets, no laser doors or explosive barrels or consoles. The rare map has a couple of barely-used ziplines, or some arc traps near the door that you'll shoot coming in anyway because they limit player mobility, and that's it. It makes this ability almost completely useless on Defenses or Interceptions, and most of these same principles also carry over to open-air maps.
The most annoying thing about it is that it's an effect that needs to be constantly monitored because of the exceptions it has. According to the wiki, it still doesn't even affect Death Orbs or Sensor Bars, which are the closest we'll get to Grineer laser doors.

The only semi-reliable effect of the ability is the detonation of pickups. Note the use of "semi": While they're a more plentiful resource on any map than the above, access to specific types is still random, there's no way to make the positioning of drops consistent, and the timing of detonation is random, meaning an enemy can easily dance around them. This effect requires an augment to be reliable (for a minor increase in damage and status chance that make the augment hardly worth the slot compared to any other Power mod or one of her other augments), and even then, the caster still has to sacrifice their own pickups to charge the effect, for a paltry amount of damage over a very minor area.
"Why pick up an energy orb I can spend to cast an ability like Hall of Mirrors or Prism, when I can spend 50 energy out of my own pocket to blow up the energy orb for some Electric damage?" is a dilemma that literally no one will consciously ever have.

It's undeniably a very situational, unreliable, weak ability that only serves to advance her aesthetic at the cost of her effectiveness. 
And what has been done to fix it?
Damage.
Flat damage.
Damage without scalability, which will actively diminish as pickups become a less common resource as enemies die at a slower rate.

Thing about Sleight of Hand, it has no baseline to fall back on, zero core benefits that make the effect worth casting if all else fails. And even if it had some baseline effect worth casting it over, the rest of its effects are too situational so you'd lose out each time you cast for upkeep anyway. It's her signature, but it's just a mess of an ability.

[RealPandemonium]

9 hours ago, shootaman777 said:

 

I've been developing a few ideas for directions that the game could go in.  Mind giving me some feedback on them?  The main point of disagreement that I seem to have with the two of you is that I think I'm focusing on the game as-is too much, and I think that the two of you are focusing on the game as it should be too much.  This should be a way to make the game challenging, regardless of what build is brought to a given mission.  

"

Also, a bit of a nice tidbit for people who want this game to be skill-based, here’s a proposal for a whole new leveling/scaling rework for the Tenno.  The Conclave rating system for weapons and Warframes would be essentially thrown away, or massively modified to be useful.  This would be done as follows: 

 

-Mods would be rated on their individual relative usefulness, and ratings would vary per mission type used in, on what they are equipped, and the difficulty of the mission they are brought to in terms of enemy level. 

 

-Mastery rank increases give another added config per increase, up until mastery rank 26 (config z). 

 

-The current mod drain system would continue to exist. 

 

-To make all content equally as challenging, missions will have a conclave cap based on enemy level (probably by intervals of 10)

 

-If a combination of mods of a build with a higher conclave rating than the conclave of a mission allows is equipped, the build can still be brought to the mission.  However, mods will take effect in order from first to last, left to right, top row to bottom row, until they go over the conclave limit of the level that they are being used in.  The first mod that breaks the limit will not be effective, nor will the ones after it. 

 

-Endless missions: mods on a build would unlock as the enemies scaled.  In essence, as the enemies increase in difficulty, your modded capabilities increase as well, but enemies will still endlessly scale even after all your mods have been unlocked. 

 

-After something has been forma’d once, all polarities currently on mod slots would function the same as mods – it would be optional to equip them, allowing for many configs to be made by being able to equip or not equip polarities that are pre-forma or post-forma, allowing for many more builds to be made with fewer forma, and the capability of forma’ing an item up to 60 times (covering all 10 slots of a Warframe with the 6 potential polarities) to cover being able to reduce the drain of by half, of every permutation of mods that exists to equip on said item.  Different polarities, after a forma, would be able to be equipped in different places on different configs, in essence. 

 

-Endgame missions would have no conclave limits to begin with. 

 

-Conclave rating would be calculated individually and separately for each individual weapon and the Warframe currently being used, not added together for a combined conclave rating, otherwise this system could be easily exploited. 

 

-This would require someone to sit down and redefine mod values as per usefulness, as well as relative to rarity, maybe on a scale of 1 – 10 of usefulness ranks, based on the most used mods being a 10 and the least used ones being a 1. 

" 

Also, this is a semi-practical idea I proposed to go along with my other idea, in the Trinity 'Rework' (nerf) feedback thread.  Do you think the two would work together?  

"

The only problem I see with that is that nobody has mentioned exactly how to go about making enemies scale, with numbers or calculations.  I suppose that's kinda almost impossible for an individual to do, but I'll present something that I thought could conceptually work, here.  These are just a few quick sketches I made while responding to this post:  

<Also, how do I insert images here?  If I can figure that out, I'll put them here.>  

This is more or a concept sketch, just to say in advance.  Essentially, the idea is that, with level on the x-axis as the independent variable, enemy difficulty is on the y-axis as the dependent variable, and the graph ends up looking like a Euler's method approximation of the enemy scaling graphs we see on the wiki as smooth curves, composed of secants connecting the enemy difficulty linearly every 10 levels, but with a twist (jumps in difficulty as enemies cross each 10 level boundary).  

On a graphing calculator (https://www.desmos.com/calculator), it should look like the piece-wise function: 

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/barbxff0ig   Nevermind, I put it together and it let me save it and give a link to what I made!  Thanks, Desmos!  

Essentially, consider using x/10 as the enemy difficulty rating from levels 1-10 of enemies { x | 1 < or = x < 10 }, and 2x/10 or x/5 as a difficulty rating for enemies from levels 10-20 { x | 10 < or = x < 20 }, and repeat the pattern for all other multiples of x/10, and f(x) = x would determine the enemy relative difficulty from levels 90-100 { x | 90 < or = x < 100}, and so on.  This is the general idea of what I had in mind.  If anyone has some ideas to add to this, or revise this, that'd be great.  

" 

I've been typing up a long post of ideas for entire game reworks, and this is a part of it.  How does it look?  Am I wasting my time on it, or could these ideas potentially be useful?  

I'm gonna take a better look at this later when I have more time; tagged in the meantime.  

[shootaman777]

On 6/5/2016 at 6:27 PM, Archwizard said:

We all knew the Prism change was coming; I doubt anybody in this thread is arguing that it wasn't justified. Reduce its cast time and call it a day. 

Let's talk about Sleight of Hand for a moment instead.

SoH fits the very definition of what we'd call a "gimmicky" ability. It's flashy, it's unique, it establishes her identity - but no matter how much polish it receives, it won't be practical in any regard. It's "funny", but not "fun".

In terms of its environmental effects, SoH suffers the same issues that Volt's Overload did: many maps don't have enough objects to booby-trap, and in the cases that do, the traps are inconveniently-placed and/or only work once anyway. Consider a Defense map for a moment, any will do as the principles are generally the same; lockers and crates are positioned near walls or inside siderooms, but the map itself has vast open spaces that enemies will spend 97% of their uptime in, away from these lockers and crates. No security cameras, no trappable turrets, no laser doors or explosive barrels or consoles. The rare map has a couple of barely-used ziplines, or some arc traps near the door that you'll shoot coming in anyway because they limit player mobility, and that's it. It makes this ability almost completely useless on Defenses or Interceptions, and most of these same principles also carry over to open-air maps.
The most annoying thing about it is that it's an effect that needs to be constantly monitored because of the exceptions it has. According to the wiki, it still doesn't even affect Death Orbs or Sensor Bars, which are the closest we'll get to Grineer laser doors.

The only semi-reliable effect of the ability is the detonation of pickups. Note the use of "semi": While they're a more plentiful resource on any map than the above, access to specific types is still random, there's no way to make the positioning of drops consistent, and the timing of detonation is random, meaning an enemy can easily dance around them. This effect requires an augment to be reliable (for a minor increase in damage and status chance that make the augment hardly worth the slot compared to any other Power mod or one of her other augments), and even then, the caster still has to sacrifice their own pickups to charge the effect, for a paltry amount of damage over a very minor area.
"Why pick up an energy orb I can spend to cast an ability like Hall of Mirrors or Prism, when I can spend 50 energy out of my own pocket to blow up the energy orb for some Electric damage?" is a dilemma that literally no one will consciously ever have.

It's undeniably a very situational, unreliable, weak ability that only serves to advance her aesthetic at the cost of her effectiveness. 
And what has been done to fix it?
Damage.
Flat damage.
Damage without scalability, which will actively diminish as pickups become a less common resource as enemies die at a slower rate.

Thing about Sleight of Hand, it has no baseline to fall back on, zero core benefits that make the effect worth casting if all else fails. And even if it had some baseline effect worth casting it over, the rest of its effects are too situational so you'd lose out each time you cast for upkeep anyway. It's her signature, but it's just a mess of an ability.

Indeed.  After all, Mirage is not a trickster Warframe, as many would say.  She is an illusionist Warframe.  While looking at her description in the arsenal, this can be clearly seen.  In other words, Sleight of Hand is not only useless; it is improperly named (as it does something completely counter-intuitive for an ability named Sleight of Hand) and does not fit Mirage's theme.  

[--.Ravakahr.nVbs.--]

Just re-wrote my post. Edit says all. 

 

[kennytheone]

sleight of hand op

[(PSN)Silverback73]

On June 11, 2016 at 7:26 AM, kennytheone said:

sleight of hand op

On the one hand, I'm about rewarding players for investing in the time-power curve for meta rewards but having just started in the Rathuum event, just wow...

Synnoid  Simulor Mirage is seemingly meta on a game-breaking level.  As a clanmate pointed out, his 1-forma build far outclasses 4-forma Tonkor builds by a wide margin.

Once I see and hear the frame-spam-sim-spam, I know we will win but it is not enjoyable to participate.

[ReynoldsXD]

still mirror malevolence spamming my tonkor artillery/supra bullet hose.

 

Was never using the other abilites in the first place...

[shootaman777]

20 hours ago, (PS4)Silverback73 said:

On the one hand, I'm about rewarding players for investing in the time-power curve for meta rewards but having just started in the Rathuum event, just wow...

Synnoid  Simulor Mirage is seemingly meta on a game-breaking level.  As a clanmate pointed out, his 1-forma build far outclasses 4-forma Tonkor builds by a wide margin.

Once I see and hear the frame-spam-sim-spam, I know we will win but it is not enjoyable to participate.

You just got the Rathuum event?  Did you get the version with the one-shotting jumpscaring slaughter-drones?  Because you've never truly experienced Rathuum the way it was meant to be experienced until one of those Deth Carambus jumpscare you with an unnaturally large sound and kill your QT/tanking build in one shot (as Inaros, for crying out loud).  Now, THAT was a reason to say 'just, wow...'

Has this clanmate of yours tried out a 4-forma Tonkor build with Mirage's Hall of Mirrors/Eclipse combo, as well as his 1-forma build for the Synoid Simulor in the same scenario?  This clanmate of yours will notice that the converse of his earlier statement is also true, if the HoM/Eclipse combo is counted on both sides.  Irrespective of this, the Synoid Simulor is a weapon designed to be more effective with more multishot and/or a faster fire rate, as more shots in the same location largely increase the damage of the weapon.  Mirage is not making this weapon into an exploit; rather, Mirage is unlocking the latent endgame potential of an otherwise lackluster weapon.  

Also, this Synoid spam has nothing to do with surviving.  It can only hold down small points of a map.  When using it on the Europa interception map, you will notice how entirely ineffective of a weapon that the Synoid Simulor really is.  It is a niche weapon; nothing more, nothing less.  It excels in maps with both close quarter engagements (due to small rooms) and chokepoints, failing to have either of which leads to the Synoid Simulor's [relative] uselessness against everything except Nullifiers.  

Edited June 13, 2016 by shootaman777
Addition in [ ]

[(PSN)Silverback73]

While eloquent, your situational examination doesn't change the fact that every high ranking Mirage I played with used Synnoid Simulor, spammed the map from start to finish, died the least, and topped to kill chart to the tune of 2:1 compared to the next best score.  Occasionally, an Ash came close.

And seeing how this is a mob-shooter-dungeon-crawl, most situations will favor the synsim if you have any kind of closing speed.

[(XBOX)TheSpaztagonist]

I just did my 'first legitimate' mission as Mirage to see how the LoS worked. It feels a lot more gimmicky than the other blinds. Perhaps some of these are my imagination but I'd like to put in a  few things I've noticed.

1. Enemies on Ramparts are 'LoS'd from the Blind. If they are blinded, they keep firing at their target until the overheat.
2. Enemies are out of LoS of the blind if behind other enemies / Frost Eximus bubble.
3. Prisms thrown upward have very little LoS [probably because enemies aren't looking up?]
 

Now seeing the first comment, I'm not going to add to that, but there are other changes that can be made. I've not been killed so many times by Ballistas that the mission ended. I mentioned my own kind of nerf to Prism  in another [very long] topic, so I'll quickly mention it here:
 

Spoiler

Prism is extremely important to Mirage's ability to not just die. Being one of the most frail frames with no real active way to stay safe, opening a door in Sedna can be the immediate end to almost any Frame. Because it's happened to much, I've gotten to using a Crowd Control ability on the other side of doors to ensure my safety, whether it be Invisibility, Molecular Prime, Chaos, or whatever the frame has -- EVERY frame has an ability that traverses walls. If someone wants to try and defend SoH as an ability to use in such a situation, welp, you don't use Mirage at all.

In trade for the LoS nerf, making an over-all nerf to all blinds so diminishing returns affects it, making the first initial blind full duration, and scaling down probably by half duration up to 3 times [4 times total blinds] until enemies are no longer affected. Sure, you can't 'just become immune' to blinding, but Mirage already has Holograms that damage people but can't be damaged, so there goes logic. This kind of nerf I feel is more fair, as people who crowd control MDs or Interceptions will only be able to cast their blinds a certain amount of times on certain enemies, eventually making it difficult to tell which enemies have been blind-immune or have not yet been blinded -- the risk of casting the ability still exists if you try to over-cast on a group of enemies at the max of your range, then rushing to you with Sunglasses. 

If I want to point fingers quickly, a Loki can do almost exactly what Mirage used to do, being invisible [almost blind] and Irridiating Disarm augment to make enemies attack each other. You'd only need to worry about the handful of enemies that actually make it to the defense target, and with Invisibility, melee should dispatch these now meleeing enemies -- Disarm goes through walls and has no duration [Radiation does]. His cast time isn't ridiculous so he doesn't have to use the [should be Exilus] Natural Talent mod. Mirage is frankly one of maybe 5 frames that effectively use it. 

And you can scream to the skies about how you ONLY use HoM, you're why the Kohm is broken. </3

 

Spoiler

And I needed to add this bit in:
"Occasionally, an Ash came close." So it's fine if a character 'comes close' spamming his ultimate ability, but it's not for a character to use a weapon [or just all weapons] more effectively than others.

I've passed the Mirage Sim 'build' to others once I used it. But just because they know about it and use it once in a while doesn't ever come close to me; someone who mains Mirage and understands her movement. An Ash can literally sit in one spot and with an enough Efficiency [whoa, 2 mods!] they can spam Bladestorm and instagib enemies in the first 2 sorties; having to 2 hit enemies in the third. [Oh my!] Your allies can even help your Ash build by putting on Steel charge for you! Not at all broked and not situational.

Or we can talk about how Valkyrs have been immortal and are only slightly less now. Doesn't matter what weapon they have -- just the mods matter -- and you can only really use a few effectively.

An incomplete Mirage build using the standard Simulor is possible, but not nearly as potent as a SynSim, which requires a MR of 12 and/or Genius rank in Cephalon Suda. Ash just needs what? the ability to trade.

 

Edited June 14, 2016 by (XB1)TheSpaztagonist
Read the above post and needed to reply.

[shootaman777]

On 6/14/2016 at 0:10 PM, (XB1)TheSpaztagonist said:

I just did my 'first legitimate' mission as Mirage to see how the LoS worked. It feels a lot more gimmicky than the other blinds. Perhaps some of these are my imagination but I'd like to put in a  few things I've noticed.

1. Enemies on Ramparts are 'LoS'd from the Blind. If they are blinded, they keep firing at their target until the overheat.
2. Enemies are out of LoS of the blind if behind other enemies / Frost Eximus bubble.
3. Prisms thrown upward have very little LoS [probably because enemies aren't looking up?]
 

Now seeing the first comment, I'm not going to add to that, but there are other changes that can be made. I've not been killed so many times by Ballistas that the mission ended. I mentioned my own kind of nerf to Prism  in another [very long] topic, so I'll quickly mention it here:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Prism is extremely important to Mirage's ability to not just die. Being one of the most frail frames with no real active way to stay safe, opening a door in Sedna can be the immediate end to almost any Frame. Because it's happened to much, I've gotten to using a Crowd Control ability on the other side of doors to ensure my safety, whether it be Invisibility, Molecular Prime, Chaos, or whatever the frame has -- EVERY frame has an ability that traverses walls. If someone wants to try and defend SoH as an ability to use in such a situation, welp, you don't use Mirage at all.

In trade for the LoS nerf, making an over-all nerf to all blinds so diminishing returns affects it, making the first initial blind full duration, and scaling down probably by half duration up to 3 times [4 times total blinds] until enemies are no longer affected. Sure, you can't 'just become immune' to blinding, but Mirage already has Holograms that damage people but can't be damaged, so there goes logic. This kind of nerf I feel is more fair, as people who crowd control MDs or Interceptions will only be able to cast their blinds a certain amount of times on certain enemies, eventually making it difficult to tell which enemies have been blind-immune or have not yet been blinded -- the risk of casting the ability still exists if you try to over-cast on a group of enemies at the max of your range, then rushing to you with Sunglasses. 

If I want to point fingers quickly, a Loki can do almost exactly what Mirage used to do, being invisible [almost blind] and Irridiating Disarm augment to make enemies attack each other. You'd only need to worry about the handful of enemies that actually make it to the defense target, and with Invisibility, melee should dispatch these now meleeing enemies -- Disarm goes through walls and has no duration [Radiation does]. His cast time isn't ridiculous so he doesn't have to use the [should be Exilus] Natural Talent mod. Mirage is frankly one of maybe 5 frames that effectively use it. 

And you can scream to the skies about how you ONLY use HoM, you're why the Kohm is broken. </3

 

  Reveal hidden contents

And I needed to add this bit in:
"Occasionally, an Ash came close." So it's fine if a character 'comes close' spamming his ultimate ability, but it's not for a character to use a weapon [or just all weapons] more effectively than others.

I've passed the Mirage Sim 'build' to others once I used it. But just because they know about it and use it once in a while doesn't ever come close to me; someone who mains Mirage and understands her movement. An Ash can literally sit in one spot and with an enough Efficiency [whoa, 2 mods!] they can spam Bladestorm and instagib enemies in the first 2 sorties; having to 2 hit enemies in the third. [Oh my!] Your allies can even help your Ash build by putting on Steel charge for you! Not at all broked and not situational.

Or we can talk about how Valkyrs have been immortal and are only slightly less now. Doesn't matter what weapon they have -- just the mods matter -- and you can only really use a few effectively.

An incomplete Mirage build using the standard Simulor is possible, but not nearly as potent as a SynSim, which requires a MR of 12 and/or Genius rank in Cephalon Suda. Ash just needs what? the ability to trade.

 

The new blind of Mirage isn't a gimmick - it's a joke, and a bad one at that.  The LoS is horribly glitched, as you've pointed out, and the Prism casting animation, if you were playing on a large map, would have opened you up to be killed by any enemy, for at least two seconds, counting Speed Drift and Natural Talent being equipped.  Essentially, since Excalibur has a better, less glitchy blind, there is no need to use Mirage's blind in any organised squad, as it would be too inefficient to even consider using.  

Welcome to the overlapping skill-sets of Loki and Nyx - the two Warframes with the ability to trivialise everything in existence in Warframe, that get ignored while more popular Warframes like Mirage, Trinity, and Valkyr get nerfed.  

The diminishing returns idea of Mirage's Prism's blind sounds like an okay idea, but I would argue that there needs to be a recharge time, that once an enemy has gone through, allows said enemy to be hit by Mirage's blind effectively all over again.  This would make it so that in endless missions such as interception and defense, blinding will not become useless after the first few times, if enemies are not killed quickly enough.  Mirage should be able to visibly see this on every enemy, probably through solid objects, as well, making Prism additionally into a radar of sorts?  It could be counted under Mirage's skill-set, as she is the illusionist Warframe, and that would technically be an optical illusion, after all.  

Also, nether the Twin Kohmaks or the Kohm is broken - even with HoM, the damage is so underwhelming that these weapons are not that effective on endgame enemies, especially those with armor.  Plus, the windup for the ramp-up of damage makes Mirage too vulnerable while dealing negligible damage to begin with.  

Also, Valkyr is, for all intents and purposes, no longer viable in the endgame.  The energy costs of Hysteria ramp up too quickly to be countered by killing enemies, and all it takes is a single energy leech or nullifier to end Valkyr's Hysteria and have the suicide bubble kick in, instantly killing Valkyr.  This is also factoring in the use of Warcry.  

And that is why Ash is next on the list of things to be nerf-hammered.  If we're judging based on the standard of what was done to Mirage, Valkyr, Trinity, Mag, Hydroid, and so on, then Ash will be the next smoking pile of rubble, and he will be stuck that way for a LONG time.  
 

On 6/13/2016 at 9:06 PM, (PS4)Silverback73 said:

While eloquent, your situational examination doesn't change the fact that every high ranking Mirage I played with used Synnoid Simulor, spammed the map from start to finish, died the least, and topped to kill chart to the tune of 2:1 compared to the next best score.  Occasionally, an Ash came close.

And seeing how this is a mob-shooter-dungeon-crawl, most situations will favor the synsim if you have any kind of closing speed.

I would consider myself to be high-ranked, at mastery rank 21, and can tell you that I find the Synoid Simulor, with the one Madurai polarity that I forma'd onto it, to be lacking in terms of damage and overall coverage, even while using an Eclipse/HoM Mirage.  I can also tell you that, in my time spent as a Mirage, I was either rolling at all times, or dying at all times, and occasionally both, since Mirage has no decent survivability and the Eclipse DR is far too unreliable to rely on.  This is especially the case when constantly traversing the map to use a Synoid Simulor, and in that case, the issue is not Mirage's 'insane' damage multiplier or 'insane' self-DR or 'insane' multishot bonus - these Mirages that you met were, in my eyes, lucky not to die, in the best case scenario, by being in the right place at the right time and shooting the right place at the right time to stay alive.  In other words, these Mirages apparently and seemingly survived through methods not necessarily unique to Mirage - using the 75% DR of rolling and constantly staying mobile so as to avoid bullets.  Also, you have not mentioned whether or not the maps that you played on with these Mirages were small or large maps, to the benefit or detriment of the Synoid Simulor and Mirage.  Also, before you make such a broad claim as that, show us the evidence you have to back it up.  

"doesn't change the fact that every high ranking Mirage I played with used Synnoid Simulor, spammed the map from start to finish, died the least, and topped to kill chart to the tune of 2:1 compared to the next best score"

If you can prove to us that this is a fact, through gameplay recordings from all players' perspectives, screenshots of end of mission stats, and the builds that every squad member used on everything (essentially, by showing us all the details of the mission and setup, which would be a nice way to prove that your 'controlled experiment', the results of which type of experiment are the only results that we may reliably believe to be true, was indeed a 'controlled experiment'), then be my guest, by all means.  Until then, I would recommend not telling other players that this is a fact, as it is currently only a statement that you claim to be a fact, and we have no obligation to believe you, or to prove you wrong (other than to prevent the potential spread of potential 'misinformation').  

Or, you could just state that your entire post is your opinion, as opposed to making a claim that something is a fact, that you could not prove to be exactly that.  I did plenty of stating that my post entailed my opinion, and nothing more, which I made sure to say.  In my post prior to the post of which the reply that I am replying to, originally replied to, I offered blanket guarantees of what your experience would be if my theories were true (essentially using the reader of my post's experience as proof of my ideas holding water, i.e. by saying 'you will notice...'), and you seem to have nothing to say that would contradict them.  

Also, where did you get the idea that this game is a "mob-shooter-dungeon-crawl"?  Can you please send me a link to your source for this description of Warframe, as a game?  

Also, I appreciate the compliment that my post contained 'eloquence'.  I thank ye quite so as to the manner in which it pertains to this compliment *flips fedora* *MLG420SwAgSc0P3s with a double ladder-stall and 480 degree turn* <Insert 'like a sir' meme here>.  

Also, closing speed is kinda irrelevant if you die while closing said distance!  Just saying......

[RealPandemonium]

On 6/5/2016 at 2:10 PM, shootaman777 said:

<ideas about conclave-style mission difficulty tuning>

"

<enemy scaling graph proposal>  

The conclave+mods thing could work, but might be frustrating and limit the early-mid potential of some builds that use a lot of bandaid/idiosyncratic mods (having lots of loadout slots mitigates this to a degree but I think that a lot of players would disregard them and let Reddit figure out a one-size-fits-all solution for them, as they do now.)  I think it's fair to say that most builds would be lopsided; at low levels they could even be inadequate while at high levels they would be overkill due to exponential increases in power, provided that mods stay at the same values we have now.  IDK if you were around for PVP rail conflicts; they used a somewhat similar system where your mods would be unlocked in order from right-to-left, up-to-down as you leveled up during the match.  This led to weird power spikes over the course of the match and general overpoweredness by midgame.  I imagine the same would hold true of progression as a whole in the star chart under this proposed system.  I do like the idea of keeping the whole game relevant instead of the current "one-time progression, now cheese-mode forever" situation that we have now, even if it is done in a somewhat forced manner.

Regarding the graph, am I correct in assuming that every 10 levels the difficulty would spike upwards by one line?  

Edited June 15, 2016 by RealPandemonium

[(PSN)Silverback73]

5 hours ago, shootaman777 said:

The new blind of Mirage isn't a gimmick - it's a joke, and a bad one at that.  The LoS is horribly glitched, as you've pointed out, and the Prism casting animation, if you were playing on a large map, would have opened you up to be killed by any enemy, for at least two seconds, counting Speed Drift and Natural Talent being equipped.  Essentially, since Excalibur has a better, less glitchy blind, there is no need to use Mirage's blind in any organised squad, as it would be too inefficient to even consider using.  

Welcome to the overlapping skill-sets of Loki and Nyx - the two Warframes with the ability to trivialise everything in existence in Warframe, that get ignored while more popular Warframes like Mirage, Trinity, and Valkyr get nerfed.  

The diminishing returns idea of Mirage's Prism's blind sounds like an okay idea, but I would argue that there needs to be a recharge time, that once an enemy has gone through, allows said enemy to be hit by Mirage's blind effectively all over again.  This would make it so that in endless missions such as interception and defense, blinding will not become useless after the first few times, if enemies are not killed quickly enough.  Mirage should be able to visibly see this on every enemy, probably through solid objects, as well, making Prism additionally into a radar of sorts?  It could be counted under Mirage's skill-set, as she is the illusionist Warframe, and that would technically be an optical illusion, after all.  

Also, nether the Twin Kohmaks or the Kohm is broken - even with HoM, the damage is so underwhelming that these weapons are not that effective on endgame enemies, especially those with armor.  Plus, the windup for the ramp-up of damage makes Mirage too vulnerable while dealing negligible damage to begin with.  

Also, Valkyr is, for all intents and purposes, no longer viable in the endgame.  The energy costs of Hysteria ramp up too quickly to be countered by killing enemies, and all it takes is a single energy leech or nullifier to end Valkyr's Hysteria and have the suicide bubble kick in, instantly killing Valkyr.  This is also factoring in the use of Warcry.  

And that is why Ash is next on the list of things to be nerf-hammered.  If we're judging based on the standard of what was done to Mirage, Valkyr, Trinity, Mag, Hydroid, and so on, then Ash will be the next smoking pile of rubble, and he will be stuck that way for a LONG time.  
 

I would consider myself to be high-ranked, at mastery rank 21, and can tell you that I find the Synoid Simulor, with the one Madurai polarity that I forma'd onto it, to be lacking in terms of damage and overall coverage, even while using an Eclipse/HoM Mirage.  I can also tell you that, in my time spent as a Mirage, I was either rolling at all times, or dying at all times, and occasionally both, since Mirage has no decent survivability and the Eclipse DR is far too unreliable to rely on.  This is especially the case when constantly traversing the map to use a Synoid Simulor, and in that case, the issue is not Mirage's 'insane' damage multiplier or 'insane' self-DR or 'insane' multishot bonus - these Mirages that you met were, in my eyes, lucky not to die, in the best case scenario, by being in the right place at the right time and shooting the right place at the right time to stay alive.  In other words, these Mirages apparently and seemingly survived through methods not necessarily unique to Mirage - using the 75% DR of rolling and constantly staying mobile so as to avoid bullets.  Also, you have not mentioned whether or not the maps that you played on with these Mirages were small or large maps, to the benefit or detriment of the Synoid Simulor and Mirage.  Also, before you make such a broad claim as that, show us the evidence you have to back it up.  

"doesn't change the fact that every high ranking Mirage I played with used Synnoid Simulor, spammed the map from start to finish, died the least, and topped to kill chart to the tune of 2:1 compared to the next best score"

If you can prove to us that this is a fact, through gameplay recordings from all players' perspectives, screenshots of end of mission stats, and the builds that every squad member used on everything (essentially, by showing us all the details of the mission and setup, which would be a nice way to prove that your 'controlled experiment', the results of which type of experiment are the only results that we may reliably believe to be true, was indeed a 'controlled experiment'), then be my guest, by all means.  Until then, I would recommend not telling other players that this is a fact, as it is currently only a statement that you claim to be a fact, and we have no obligation to believe you, or to prove you wrong (other than to prevent the potential spread of potential 'misinformation').  

Or, you could just state that your entire post is your opinion, as opposed to making a claim that something is a fact, that you could not prove to be exactly that.  I did plenty of stating that my post entailed my opinion, and nothing more, which I made sure to say.  In my post prior to the post of which the reply that I am replying to, originally replied to, I offered blanket guarantees of what your experience would be if my theories were true (essentially using the reader of my post's experience as proof of my ideas holding water, i.e. by saying 'you will notice...'), and you seem to have nothing to say that would contradict them.  

Also, where did you get the idea that this game is a "mob-shooter-dungeon-crawl"?  Can you please send me a link to your source for this description of Warframe, as a game?  

Also, I appreciate the compliment that my post contained 'eloquence'.  I thank ye quite so as to the manner in which it pertains to this compliment *flips fedora* *MLG420SwAgSc0P3s with a double ladder-stall and 480 degree turn* <Insert 'like a sir' meme here>.  

Also, closing speed is kinda irrelevant if you die while closing said distance!  Just saying......

Certainly we can question my sample size and individual filters, but I was being truthful.  I can see how my feedback might erroneously contribute to your favorite frame's rework in a negative way.  Being a Voltite, I sympathize. T'was not my intent to be malicious.

[shootaman777]

3 hours ago, RealPandemonium said:

The conclave+mods thing could work, but might be frustrating and limit the early-mid potential of some builds that use a lot of bandaid/idiosyncratic mods (having lots of loadout slots mitigates this to a degree but I think that a lot of players would disregard them and let Reddit figure out a one-size-fits-all solution for them, as they do now.)  I think it's fair to say that most builds would be lopsided; at low levels they could even be inadequate while at high levels they would be overkill due to exponential increases in power, provided that mods stay at the same values we have now.  IDK if you were around for PVP rail conflicts; they used a somewhat similar system where your mods would be unlocked in order from right-to-left, up-to-down as you leveled up during the match.  This led to weird power spikes over the course of the match and general overpoweredness by midgame.  I imagine the same would hold true of progression as a whole in the star chart under this proposed system.  I do like the idea of keeping the whole game relevant instead of the current "one-time progression, now cheese-mode forever" situation that we have now, even if it is done in a somewhat forced manner.

Regarding the graph, am I correct in assuming that every 10 levels the difficulty would spike upwards by one line?  

For the conclave system, the old PVP rail conflicts were where I grabbed the idea of mods unlocking throughout a level to begin with, and I mentioned it in the post, as well.  I remember being destroyed by mainly toxin-damage dealing weapons at the onset of each conflict, but eventually being able to use something like Rhino skin to counter it.  Essentially, it would make the order in which the build takes effect very important.  I'd imagine that this would definitely annoy users that are looking for the one-size-fits-all build, but the point of this is to ensure that there is not a single build that can just be brought as-is to everything, and to make players think about what they bring to any given mission.  It could prove to be difficult to work with, given that Warframes in need of various mods for any degree of survivability or weapons that have lackluster effects and/or damage could be stuck doing that ineffectual damage for a while into a mission, but this is to essentially ensure that every mission would be challenging.  On the other hand, to increase the potential cap on the conclave rating of a given weapon or Warframe, one could apply a modifier to a mission, such as melee only, radiation hazard, and other sortie-esque things, in order to allow everything to be used anywhere, but at an increased difficulty.  

Yes, you would be correct in assuming that. Additionally, the enemy difficulty is essentially a difficulty rating, from 1 being the easiest to 100 being the most difficult enemies that are possible to reliably and effectively defeat.  Enemies above a difficulty rating of 100 would essentially require cheese or lots of ability spam to defeat, in the best case scenario.  The idea is to have the enemies scale relatively linearly to from 1-100 in terms of difficulty, but with a jump in difficulty every 10 levels, so that a significant difference can be noticed from the jump from one level bracket of 10 to another, and the enemies get massively more difficult to defeat, but are still reliably defeatable, with the right builds and skills.  And that's why this is a concept idea at best, since I have no idea on how to implement that.  

How exactly the numbers would work out, is also not something that I could just figure out, as I do not have all the information on how the game currently exists, nor am I the best judge of where this game's players want this game to go.  

[shootaman777]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Silverback73 said:

Certainly we can question my sample size and individual filters, but I was being truthful.  I can see how my feedback might erroneously contribute to your favorite frame's rework in a negative way.  Being a Voltite, I sympathize. T'was not my intent to be malicious.

And you were not being malicious, so that works out rather nicely.  I just argue too much.  :/

I'm not saying not to give feedback, it's just that I don't think leaving potentially negative feedback unchallenged is a good way to go about ensuring that Mirage receives a rework, or at least a positive one.  

I've always kind of been more of a Mirage, Banshee, and Ember (and Hydroid, until I realised that he was, for all intents and purposes, useless; as well as Saryn, which since her rework I am now stuck in one place spam-casting Spores on a Molt while shooting it with a Torid, which I personally find to be rather bothersome, as I used to be able to run around with her and do things, but alas, no more) person, but here I am on the Mag, Valkyr, and Trinity 'Revisions' (nerfs) threads.  So definitely don't worry about commenting on a thread that isn't on your main frame(s), I can tell ya that that's definitely not stopping me, so.... yah xD

[RealPandemonium]

1 hour ago, shootaman777 said:

 as well as Saryn, which since her rework I am now stuck in one place spam-casting Spores on a Molt while shooting it with a Torid, which I personally find to be rather bothersome, as I used to be able to run around with her and do things

As opposed to pressing 1 and shooting an enemy once in a while as you run around pressing 4?

I think that adding a couple of extra steps to the strongest radial nuke in the game is pretty generous; they could have just fixed the -duration bug and been done with it.  

[shootaman777]

15 hours ago, RealPandemonium said:

As opposed to pressing 1 and shooting an enemy once in a while as you run around pressing 4?

I think that adding a couple of extra steps to the strongest radial nuke in the game is pretty generous; they could have just fixed the -duration bug and been done with it.  

In my opinion, to have enough power strength for it to even be worth using Spores for damage/nuking, a Blind Rage is required, which then makes it almost necessary to cast the Spores on a Molt, since it comes at half the energy cost.  Also, it's not much of a radial nuke, it's more of a viral DoT.  Miasma is sort of useless in comparison to Spores, given that it does Corrosive damage.  Essentially, her nuke is not a DoT first ability that needs to be spammed to be in any way effective on higher level enemies, and armored targets?  Forget about it, it'd be better to spam-cast Miasma after one or two Spore casts for all the good it will do for you.  This works well on the Corpus and Infested, by that token (minus Miasma's penalty against Corpus shields).  But then again, this is a Mirage thread, not Saryn and I don't like having le posts deleted so... yah.  

[RealPandemonium]

7 minutes ago, shootaman777 said:

In my opinion, to have enough power strength for it to even be worth using Spores for damage/nuking, a Blind Rage is required, which then makes it almost necessary to cast the Spores on a Molt, since it comes at half the energy cost.  Also, it's not much of a radial nuke, it's more of a viral DoT.  Miasma is sort of useless in comparison to Spores, given that it does Corrosive damage.  Essentially, her nuke is not a DoT first ability that needs to be spammed to be in any way effective on higher level enemies, and armored targets?  Forget about it, it'd be better to spam-cast Miasma after one or two Spore casts for all the good it will do for you.  This works well on the Corpus and Infested, by that token (minus Miasma's penalty against Corpus shields).  But then again, this is a Mirage thread, not Saryn and I don't like having le posts deleted so... yah.  

Just because people spam spores to factory-farm Draco does not mean that that is "the way to play Saryn."  Nuking with Miasma is still viable and arguably more powerful than before.  Radial nukes have fallen out of favor due to the advent of absurd Sortie-level content, but that doesn't mean that Miasma is any weaker than it was before.  

Old -duration bug Miasma with max eff, max range build: 7515.  New Miasma with both procs with similar build: 7014(5471 with 78% duration,) effectively doubled to 14028(10942) due to the free Viral proc.

New Miasma effectively does ~87%(45%) more damage than old bugged Miasma (or ~7%[27%] less damage if you don't count the Viral proc,) with the caveat that now you need to mod for some duration and need a Gas/Toxin applicator to keep energy costs down.  

Miasma was never effective against armored targets past a certain point, and is only penalized against Proto shields.  Miasma is still the strongest radial nuke and Saryn is undeniably stronger and more polished than she was before.  With bugfixes and more adjustment after Damage 3.0 she could be in an ideal state.  

[Mazauk]

I really appreciate the Changes done to Mirage.
Now many Frames are viable options for Crowd Control (Frost, Loki, Nyx, Vauban, Nova, Rhino and more)
Buffing the dmg of Prism was great too because now it is still a viable way to play her.
The game feels way more balanced now. Thanks DE.

[shootaman777]

On 6/23/2016 at 1:52 PM, Mazauk said:

I really appreciate the Changes done to Mirage.
Now many Frames are viable options for Crowd Control (Frost, Loki, Nyx, Vauban, Nova, Rhino and more)
Buffing the dmg of Prism was great too because now it is still a viable way to play her.
The game feels way more balanced now. Thanks DE.

Have you tested out the damage changes to Prism?  

And why would you want to make other things viable by nerfing something rather than seeing a buff to something else?  

Also, how do you define balance?  

[RealPandemonium]

1 hour ago, shootaman777 said:

Have you tested out the damage changes to Prism?  

And why would you want to make other things viable by nerfing something rather than seeing a buff to something else?  

Also, how do you define balance?  

I'll pick this up for him.

1. DPS was increased, period.

2. Saying that they are now viable was inaccurate; he should have just said that frame diversity will increase at the very least.

3. Players not autowinning because of exploitable options.  

Edited July 4, 2016 by RealPandemonium

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

It would be nice if Mirage could retain her Eclipse light buff if she activates it in the light and retain her Eclipse dark buff if she activates it in the dark, regardless of where she goes. afterwards. Too powerful?