Equinox Metamorphosis Suggestions

[Eldritchsqueaker]

I think I'd like to chime in with what I think makes an ideal/good warframe is one whose abilities all make an impact, and are all just as useful as the others depending on the situation, and scale well across most content. Which.. I have trouble actually thinking of many that meet this criteria.

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

7 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

I never said it was unhelpful for the debate. Quite the contrary, I would love to see how you play, and I believe you'd love to show me how I am utterly wrong.

But if you continue to insist on not presenting the video I'll simply have to admit that you were lying.

Which really doesn't help you at all.

Not that showing a video means a free pass of course, but it's better than nothing...

And an increase to casting speed would only benefit her powers that least need help (except for Mend, but that needs much more than extra casting speed to be worthwhile).

In that case I'll try to have it up tomorrow, if not sometime tonight.

[(PSN)B_Psycho2]

Here's how Duality should work. 

 

As you enter the mission, your other half is out as a Specter that cannot be killed.

If you die, your other half dies and you get a free revive at full energy (must be used before the actual 4 revives).

 

[tnccs215]

18 minutes ago, Eldritchkitty said:

I think I'd like to chime in with what I think makes an ideal/good warframe is one whose abilities all make an impact, and are all just as useful as the others depending on the situation, and scale well across most content. Which.. I have trouble actually thinking of many that meet this criteria.

I've been made some comparisons between Equinox abilities and those of other frames. Fun fact: With 16 meters, Provoke is the second shortest range team-buffing ability in game, only being "surpassed" by Elemental Ward, at 12 meters radius. More than that, every other team buffing ability-- Speed, Roar, Warcry-- not only have a base range of 25 meters; they will apply also the effects not based on proximity, but based on a timer (this was an obvious response to the simple fact that Warframe is too much of a mobility game for Teammates to stand close to each other). Provoke, on the other hand, does not. Even Elemental Ward possesses a (band-aid) augment that grants it the same characteristic.

This means that Provoke not only is one of the ability that most demands proximity to other players (which really goes against Maim's nature), it also is one of the few that always demand proximity to the players. And, unlike Chroma, the support facet of Equinox is very, very important.

 

A similar problem occurs with Pacify-- though harder to compare due to the apparent lack of aura like debuffing abilities. Abilities such as Silence, Chaos, Radial Disarm, have between 20 and 25 meter radius. Only outlier I could think of that can be compared to Pacify is Terrify, which has 15 meter range, but in turn both effectively renders 20 (affected by p strength) enemies harmless, also reducing their armor. And all of this while Pacify not only only reduces enemy damage, it also has fall-off over distance.

Would like to say that what save this abilities is the fact that power strength is irrelevant for Equinox but... power strength is only irrelevant for Equinox because so are these abilities.

 

Not to mention how they simply feel like half abilities. Even if they stopped deactivating with Metamorphosis (instead transforming too), you'd simply be able to switch faster between two lackluster frames. Changing form in the right time wouldn't be a way to achieve great power, it would be a way to compensate being underpowered to begin with.

As I said before, it would be like Oberon having to decast Renewal and wait a second before being able to use Smite and Reckoning.

[tnccs215]

50 minutes ago, (PS4)Darth-Escar said:

In that case I'll try to have it up tomorrow, if not sometime tonight.

Thank you.

Dont forget to add your build and armament.

Edited August 11, 2016 by tnccs215

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

13 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Thank you.

Dont forget to add your build and armament.

All done. I realized my commentary audio was abysmal when it was too late. I recommend turning down your volume to ignore it, but whatever. (The vid is unlisted.)

 

[tnccs215]

8 hours ago, (PS4)Darth-Escar said:

All done. I realized my commentary audio was abysmal when it was too late. I recommend turning down your volume to ignore it, but whatever. (The vid is unlisted.)

 

Thank you very much. Will watch and comment when I end putting some personal stuff in order.

[Distruco22]

i could get a Hydroid to 40 minutes ._.

[Antiphoton]

On 10/08/2016 at 2:02 PM, (PS4)Darth-Escar said:

 

^ Disregard this, I'm on my phone and cannot delete it. 

 

Thanks for uploading the video, it was more entertaining than I expected. It's interesting to see how other people pilot Equinox in challenging content. However, I don't think it serves as proof that she is fine. Any frame can get to that point with decent weapons and good parkour moves, like yours.

I believe that you may be considering her from a point of view "in a vacuum", not taking into consideration some aspects of the game - for example, forgetting the frames that you consider easy to use. But we must remember that some of the hardest content in this game is tailored to present a challenge to those frames/weapons (like nullifiers or some of the sortie conditions). That content is there so that players don't rely constantly on Simulor Mirage, Bladestorm Ash, Loki, Tonkor, Naramon, etc. But, if we take frames like Hydroid, Limbo, or Equinox, among others, we find that they are at a greater disadvantage. 

I myself like challenges. If this would be a single player game where you can try every frame but take only one and stick with it forever once you get to the harder levels, I would choose Equinox without even thinking it, even in the state she is now. But it is not. Here, many times I play in public missions. And there are situations in which I say to myself, for example, "these enemies hit hard and are swarming us, the best tactic would be to use my augmented Pacify with 235 range to make things easier for the team". By the time I switch forms, activate Pacify, and look for a few light enemy units to hit me so that the build up of the ability begins, my squad already obliterated everything and is three rooms ahead. And please, consider this as my main point: said example doesn't make me feel that Equinox is underpowered. It makes me feel that her kit is outdated, suited for a kind of gameplay that most of the content in this game does not promote anymore.

Another example is Mend. Let's imagine a mission against infested, one of your squadmates didn't see a few ospreys soon enough, and got a deadly 8 second toxin proc. If he's smart, he'd have brought a weapon with Life Strike, and heals himself in a second. If he's not, by the time you switch forms, activate Mend, kill something, get in range and deactivate it, he'll be dead. Then why does that ability even exist? I assume that it may have sounded interesting on paper, but today it is extremely inefficient, and mostly, if you decide to use it, it interrupts your flow for a meaningless reward. (It is a lot more valuable when playing solo, you managed to get a very nice placed heal in the video.)

As I said in another post, my only motivation for these petitions is that I  love the theme and design of Equinox. I want to enjoy using her, but currently, I do not. I think there is no synergy between her aspects (Rest + Maim seems more like a gimmick to me). In fact, losing the build ups of her third and fourth abilities when switching can be considered as "anti synergy".

My proposed solutions is to allow the effects of the abilities switch to the current form without deactivating. Also, add an effect to Mend while it's active, and be able to do something with the excess stored damage. I wouldn't care if they nerfed Rest & Maim because of this. That should make her fun, dynamic, and useful in groups, without the need to stay in one form for the whole mission. 

Edited August 14, 2016 by Antiphoton

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

On 8/10/2016 at 9:02 PM, Antiphoton said:

 

I wish it was some kind of sick joke, but my second browser just had the same glitch. The forums on phones and tablets REALLY needs to be fixed. (Perhaps I'll download a third browser.)

I think I finally see your point with Equinox. While I do think she's more effective when focused on already being in the right form rather than switching as needed, that does tend to make her restrictive to varying degrees. That does, I guess, also cause some conflicts with many mission types with other players. Most notably, survival, because it's hard to know which form will be more useful in the future. If you're switching for buffs, you'd have to work with what you have which adds to the restrictions. (Though that doesn't make her bad, especially since she can have powerful roles in any missions, I see that is not the point.)

I still think cast times are her real problem. As I said before, Natural Talent is practically a requirement for frequent form switching. It sometimes takes more time time to do a bunch of casting than it does to build up the damage you need for Mend and Maim. That's with Natural Talent on. 

[Antiphoton]

I'm not sure, the build I found to be the most comfortable for me doesn't have space for Natural Talent, and it doesn't bother me that much. The cast times are long, sure, but the effects are not limited by line of sight, so there are work arounds to deal with them. What does bother me is the build up time on some abilities, and the wasted stack on Mend.

[Clowee]

I'm running 5 formas, and no room for Natural Talent (202 str 205 range 90 eff 133 dur).  Not running any augments either because I have not really needed to change anything.

The casting times are not a huge problem at all for me.  I get decent use out of each form, although I spend a lot more time in Day.  I'll switch to Night form if people start dieing, or health gets low with the goal of sleeping everything, maybe popping a quick (tehehe) mend and getting back into day form asap.  You can effectively heal with mend quite well with enough practice, but as it's been stated before most of the time it's a waste due to the massive colossal overkill mega heal.  The skill needs something else like over-shields to really take advantage of stacking damage past 2000 before letting it loose.

Switching forms is a bit of a pain because it costs energy, the temporary bonus is insignificant, and I hate having to recast the power str buff upon switching back. 

 

My biggest problem with switching forms though is just that it's often not worth it even for 80+ lvl monsters beyond the above support functions.  Some of the combos described here are all well and good, but they are way less fast/efficient than just provoke => maim => Slide in with the atterax and wipe out a few mobs while they are stunned, and then pop the AE damage to finish off what still lives.  I would rather save the energy / time.  If i'm switching forms, 9/10 times it's because Trinity is too lazy to cast bless and I prefer not to negligently allow my group to die.

[tnccs215]

Well, first things first.

I want to apologise. Both for my delay, and for being an arrogant cret!n. While I stand for my opinion, I have in no way presented it in a way that would encourage... Anyone to accept it.

I'm sorry for that, @(PS4)Darth-Escar. I'm not the most inherently likeable person, and I really should keep this arrogance in check.

Oh, well, moving on.

In this case, my views are quite similar to those of @Antiphoton (who I rudely haven't answered in another post. Sorry, have been having some inner issues lately and no patience to deal with anything), though I think I should clarify first.

The most important part of what your gameplay shows is not as much what you can do, but what you cant. For example, you spend almost 0 time in day form. There were times in which a bit more of offensive power would be in order, yet you still sticked to Night. This really shows how enormously dependent of Maim Day form is: Not in the way (new) Saryn is, but the way old Saryn was. And I cannot blame you.

Therefore, you stick to Night Form-- for the Pacify benefit, no doubt. One could say this would prove how Pacify isn't useless but, truth is... The way you were playing: The constant jumping, the avoiding damage, makes such an observation impossible. Additionally, it was also impossible to see whether it was an efficient ability to run or not, since you were using Energy Overflow.

One could argue Mend did its job, but you also felt the need to take both a syndicate gun that heals with the syndicate proc, and Medi-ray, a Sentinel mod for healing nonetheless. And your healing was mostly dependent on this items.

So,in the end, and (I'm seriously not being cynical) I truly am sorry, but your video proves that day form is useless than Night form, and that a Frame with high mobility (and some CC from that frosty Jump) can survive from minute 30 to minute 40 of T4 survival-- and thing we all kinda already new, since frames like Mag, even with Polarize, can not survive in any other way.

And... That's basically it. Her powers beyond what is a cheese CC and a not-as-much-cheese Nuke are kinda irrelevant, or at least have little to no effect on the Battlefield. Even if they do, they are substantially subpar compared to other frames' similar-- and the "but she's jack!" Argument does not really holds on that much because there are jack frames with better powers then her, and inferior=/=irrelevant.

And you mentioned how you prefer for her to already be in the right form than constantly changing. However... What's the point of Equinox, then?

Because that trully was her raison d'être. She isn't always in the right form, like a Jack-of-all-trades such as Oberon, neither is she a specialized frame that you only (or mostly) take when you know the circumstances. She was supposed to be an hybrid, able to be have one role or another, but not both.

And if you mean you prefer for proactive play-- as in, to predict what is the next form to be needed, well... This is simply not a game that allows it. Spawning is not that predictable, enemy pathing even less, maps are mostly random, etc. Preventive, tactical thinking is borderline impossible on Warframe. Even in defense it is tricky to predict enemies. This is a reactive game, a game that throws you stuff and you have to adapt. And Equinox, ironically, simply can't adapt. Form changing is slow, recasting's are time (and movement) consuming, and they aren't all that rewarding. Most of the times, you are reduced to use one half frame or another half frame. But never a full frame. I know I already said it before, but those are the main issues. You are not only almost incapable of adapting, you never have actually good tools at your disposal... Except for Rest and Maim.

But, honestly: If Equinox is just that, isn't it better to simply get Excalibur and spam radial blind and exalted blade? Cause, in the end, the results are the same.

Ugh. That's basically my rant. I'm probably gonna stop for a while. This has been more energy consuming than I expected.

[tnccs215]

[duplicate post]

Edited August 15, 2016 by tnccs215
stupid phone

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

@tnccs215 (I never knew direct mentions were possible on this.) Though it may be because I'm used to people who act similarly, I don't think you acted badly. If you are disappointed with how you're acting, then you do need to handle that, but no hard feelings from me.

I guess that mostly settles the Equinox debate. It seems that we all agree on her cast times being a problem, at least. (To varying degrees.)

[Matt89Connor]

On 9/8/2016 at 11:37 PM, lyravega said:

Here are two suggestions, with the latter being the interesting one.

• The form bonuses no longer diminish over time, they are permanent but they give only half the bonus (half of their maximum bonus). Swapping forms doubles the bonuses for the same duration.
• The augment, Duality is changed. If you have Duality equipped, you will enter the mission with your other half. Using Metamorphosis instead allows you to control your other half; you take control of your other half while leaving the current one for the AI. If your other half gets down, it needs to be revived. If your other half dies, you cannot use metamorphosis till you respawn. If you get down, you can still use Metamorphosis to take control of your other half. If the half you control dies, and other half is alive, you automatically take control of your other half. You can no longer get double bonus, the duration buff is gone with the augment.

i like the idea it will be great :)