Specters of the Rail: U2.1 - Nekros Changes

[Gurpgork]

4 hours ago, Airwolfen said:

Getting Simaris standing is not exactly hard with the right methods. :/

And yet Nekros is literally the only reason I would consider grinding Simaris standing. It's way too much grinding for one mediocre and underwhelming Warframe. 

Edited August 22, 2016 by Gurpgork

[PsychoticMarik]

I just wanted to chime in with the others saying its the result of constantly being ignored, and being sick of "fighting the good fight" as another poster put it.

DE quite frankly half &#! nearly 100% of their games content. Nothing is up to par. Even new content lacks basic qol, common sense things from any gamers perspective. You need only to compare warframes gameplay quality with other modern games to notice this, and worse yet nearly every corner of the game is lacking in this sense.

Honestly I think thats the core of this games never ending list of issues. Warframe is a game being developed by non gamers. Thats honestly how it feels, and I'd say the results speak to that. DE come across to me as a dev team that has no genuine interest in creating a truly great game. Just a quick buck. You can accuse me of dev bashing for that comment if you want, but PR bs aside thats exactly how it looks to me.

Health decay even getting passed the drawing board speaks volumes in this regard imho. Not one of us would have implemented that...because common sense as gamers tells us thats excessive and frankly just not fun to deal with, but here it is anyway. Even after we were specifically told it wasnt going to happen.

I dropped by the Nekros thread to post about my dissatisfaction with seeing my favorite frame still not being given proper love, but I knew full well DE would never do anything about it, and I think a rather large portion of the playerbase feel exactly the same way. The posts in this topic alone are pretty telling, but even more telling are the legion of feedback posts in the Nekros topic echoing the exact same request in mass "Remove the Health decay" and yet DE cant even throw us that small bone. This isnt even addressing the feedback for the past frame reworks that have also gone completely ignored. Hell this doesnt even address the other powers that Nekros has that could use some touch ups either.

 

DE appear to be completely disinterested in player feedback(let alone polishing there frame "reworks" at all after they get unleashed)and to me seem to be 100% out of touch with their players, the game itself, and their inner gamer. I honestly can barely be arsed to even keep up with the games updates anymore because its always the same old crap over and over again.

I'm not hopeful for this games future anymore, and I think a substantial part of the playerbase is starting to feel the same way.

 

[RafaelFuchs]

I did a few runs without my frames capped: Solo, I took a 5-15 FPS hit. In a group of 4 Nekros as host, 60-130 FPS hit. In a group of 4 Nekros as client, 60-120 FPS hit. There's such a wide range given because the frame rate would steadily fall till the area was brought into total chaos by the hands of enemies and shadows fighting it out in a glorious light show of blue, green and orange.

So, there is a performance hit, but would otherwise go completely unnoticed since I never came close to falling under my usual 60 FPS lock. There also is a slightly heavier load put on the host compared clients, but the increase is just a few dozen MB at peek.

[RealPandemonium]

2 minutes ago, PsychoticMarik said:

I just wanted to chime in with the others saying its the result of constantly being ignored, and being sick of "fighting the good fight" as another poster put it.

DE quite frankly half &#! nearly 100% of their games content. Nothing is up to par. Even new content lacks basic qol, common sense things from any gamers perspective. You need only to compare warframes gameplay quality with other modern games to notice this, and worse yet nearly every corner of the game is lacking in this sense.

Honestly I think thats the core of this games never ending list of issues. Warframe is a game being developed by non gamers. Thats honestly how it feels, and I'd say the results speak to that. DE come across to me as a dev team that has no genuine interest in creating a truly great game. Just a quick buck. You can accuse me of dev bashing for that comment if you want, but PR bs aside thats exactly how it looks to me.

Health decay even getting passed the drawing board speaks volumes in this regard imho. Not one of us would have implemented that...because common sense as gamers tells us thats excessive and frankly just not fun to deal with, but here it is anyway. Even after we were specifically told it wasnt going to happen.

I dropped by the Nekros thread to post about my dissatisfaction with seeing my favorite frame still not being given proper love, but I knew full well DE would never do anything about it, and I think a rather large portion of the playerbase feel exactly the same way. The posts in this topic alone are pretty telling, but even more telling are the legion of feedback posts in the Nekros topic echoing the exact same request in mass "Remove the Health decay" and yet DE cant even throw us that small bone. This isnt even addressing the feedback for the past frame reworks that have also gone completely ignored. Hell this doesnt even address the other powers that Nekros has that could use some touch ups either.

 

DE appear to be completely disinterested in player feedback(let alone polishing there frame "reworks" at all after they get unleashed)and to me seem to be 100% out of touch with their players, the game itself, and their inner gamer. I honestly can barely be arsed to even keep up with the games updates anymore because its always the same old crap over and over again.

I'm not hopeful for this games future anymore, and I think a substantial part of the playerbase is starting to feel the same way.

 

It's not a pretty reality, but it really feels like this now.  In an environment where it's hard to tell a feature from a bug (and there is scarcely any official acknowledgement,) patch notes are frequently incomplete in material ways, and DE shows that they are months behind in their awareness of what's going on in their game, it's hard to feel satisfied as an informed player.  DE really needs to reach out to veteran players and tap their expertise.  Many veterans would gladly do it for free.  The feedback forums are a slog at best, and absolute rubbish at other times.  We need something better.  

[Dragon-V0942]

Rant

We've been asked to give feedback on the Nekros changes, and we most certainly have given more than enough feedback to get some attention/answers.
But after watching Devstream #79 and hearing nothing in regards to our "feedback" on the Nekros rework, no official answer on our questions and criticisms on the changes, I feel that it's safe to say that we are being deliberately ignored and so far no one of DE has proven us wrong. NOW the posts on Nekros changes are beginning to fade away, possibly what DE intended.
I know this is a rant, more than feedback, let alone nice.  But as someone who was A huge fan of Warframe and one of the few dozens out there in the game that used Nekros as a necro, more then a looter and then having all of that taken away from me, you should understand me being very salty about this. Nekros having an army of 20 shadows was my favorite thing about this game, watching so many NPCs fight on their own and alongside you.
I'm apparently not the only one happy with this, as I have seen over 12 posts so far about this. Concerning 7 shadow cap and especially the health decay which was snuck in at the last second.

The number of shadows were needed, they spread around an area of the map, they drew fire away from Nekros, as well as the defense objective which is what I always used him for.
With my shadows being able to last for 76 secs, I had more than enough time to kill and have my next 20 shadows ready, this encouraged me to wipe out groups of weak enemies and then aim for stronger enemies, encouraging me to do my part to keep my shadows rolling.

 

FPS problem
And they say that reducing the cap to 7 shadows is to "help performance issues"... well, according to Nekros' shadows cause "other" players FPS drop even worse  this is still present.

So whatever was being mentioned as a complaint about Shadows overwhelming minions chewing up FPS is NOT a result of the amount of minions but just the ability activating on its own. The changes to desecrate were welcomed, but it seems some players think it still needs some tweaking.

The changes to shadows of the dead however was not, and it turns out it was completely unnecessary and all the reasons behind it are apparently false as a result of the latest discovery of the FPS problem resulting in the activation of the power alone and not the quantity of minions.  A problem that Ash still has to this day with his blade storm.
So reducing the cap to save performance was not necessary, nor correct.
So I think it's time to correct this by reverting the changes for SOTD back to how it worked before the update.

 

Pleading/Begging

Please DE, don't ignore this, don't ignore us!

This change has caused us to look into this and try and rationalize this, figure out answers...  and it turns out that we may have found some. Now it's over to you to listen to it and take it in!
Please listen to your veterans, please pay careful attention to feedback when you make changes like this.
Things like this can answer so much for both sides.

Please, go through all the forums about Nekros changes and listen, do what you can to make things better for both of us, get help from us.  Veterans are the best thing for you to listen to, not JUST new players.
We are your testers, now listen to us.

 

Do not ignore us, It's time to stop!

 

To everyone else

And to those of you who are reading this, please mention any posts or quotes in regards to the changes that you believe DE needs to hear, this could be our last chance to save Nekros from the permanent nerf, and any other future warframes, and maybe even warframes from the past.

 

Edited August 22, 2016 by D20
Please, don't do demending titles.

[Dragon-V0942]

I have mentioned this post in mine.

I hope this helps.

Even though my post is mostly me being dramatic. T.=.T

[Twilight053]

DE: nah deal widdit lel

Edited August 22, 2016 by Twilight053

[(XBOX)Prime Pedestal]

As far as I was aware the recent Nekros changes mean we can only have 7 shadows active a time? I have 8 active here in this screenshot. There were initially 10 of them but two died between me noticing and getting the pic. I'm not sure if this is a bug or is it to do with the mutalist ospreys having a passenger? I'm not sure if they count as one even though they drop a crawler.

[TrueHawkEye]

Ive gotten 11 once but i think its due to the oversprays or weak enemies that you have killed.

[valt123]

[aerosoul1337]

Even the shadow number is fixed at 7, it still causes "other" players FPS drop, and even worse than it did.

For my experience, it seems to be CPU loading instead of GPU.

For a 4 men team game (with max game setting), my FPS drops a lot (120->50) when a team mate has his shadows. Even they are very very far away (i can't see them at all).

And fps returns back to 120 when his shadows expired.

But when I play Nekros myself, my FPS seems very stable. (This reminds me a bug that blade storm caused other players fps drop like crazy.)

[aerosoul1337]

Excavation missions have serious stuttering issue.

Now Excavation with nekros shadow in your team  = unplayable. :/

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Nice try lol

 

[Airwolfen]

6 hours ago, Eldritchkitty said:

That's still a lot of work just to be somewhat viable, I feel like Nekros has too much of a ceiling of optimization right now to even somewhat work, and even then, I can't think of much he can do. I just hope they tweak him soon.

Well the problem is that he actually did not change much. He still does the exact same thing as before. Gain loot, tank and do mediocre CC even with the augment. The only thing that did change was that he can farm while being an active tank (A thing I still like about the change).

The problem with the rework in that case is not what it turned him into, but that it not turn him into something more.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Airwolfen

[F4talFr4me]

1 hour ago, Airwolfen said:

Well the problem is that he actually did not change much. He still does the exact same thing as before. Gain loot, tank and do mediocre CC even with the augment. The only thing that did change was that he can farm while being an active tank (A thing I still like about the change).

The problem with the rework in that case is not what it turned him into, but that it not turn him into something more.

No it isent "like before, but" at all. they nerfed him to the ground for a Quality of Life change on his Desecrate. a nerf which not justified AT ALL.

Edited August 22, 2016 by F4talFr4me

[F4talFr4me]

Cant we just have 1 freaking awesome customizable unit that works like Spectras? but its undead.. or something? make it unique and scaling or somet. they already nerfed SoTD to oblivion now anyways.

Edited August 22, 2016 by F4talFr4me

[Airwolfen]

20 minutes ago, F4talFr4me said:

No is isent "like before, but" at all. they nerfed him to the ground for a Quality of Life change on his Desecrate. a nerf which not justified AT ALL.

Can you exaggerate even more?

That people see it as a nerf, Sure. But nerfed to the ground and now unusable? Hardly. Took him for a spin in multiple endless runs and I really do not see THAT big of a problem.

[F4talFr4me]

Just now, Airwolfen said:

Can you exaggerate even more?

That people see it as a nerf, Sure. But nerfed to the ground and now unusable? Hardly. Took him for a spin in multiple endless runs and I really do not see THAT big of a problem.

They took his lootbot skill (desecrate), the only thing he was used for and nerfed its energy to insane costs AND loot drop by almost half. Then they took ALL the shadows people could summon (which was ALLOT!) and took it down to a pissy 7 ammount then they gave us a Decay system which is worse than duration in every aspect.

I dont call that exaggerated. i call them facts.

[Airwolfen]

37 minutes ago, F4talFr4me said:

They took his lootbot skill (desecrate), the only thing he was used for and nerfed its energy to insane costs AND loot drop by almost half. Then they took ALL the shadows people could summon (which was ALLOT!) and took it down to a pissy 7 ammount then they gave us a Decay system which is worse than duration in every aspect.

I dont call that exaggerated. i call them facts.

10 energy a body is hardly a lot especially when modding for efficiency (a thing pre-rework Nekros build as well) and I personally do not even notice that the skill is turned on. It drops more then enough energy orbs and health orbs to keep it going indefinitely.

Yes, they took away the amount of shadows you can have but was it a complete nerf into the ground kind of bad? Do you not see what you got back for it? Bombards, Napalms, Heavy Gunners, Bursas, Nullifiers, Techs and Ancients. all with double their Armor and Shields. Raised aggro and the ability to keep them around as long as you wish or dispose of them by letting the decay set in and recast for a new higher leveled crew.

Nekros as he is now takes all that is wrong about scaling in this game and amplifies it. If the enemy cant kill your spawned units because of the armor scaling, the decay will.

[Ironlixivium]

It's the mutalist ospreys and their leaper torso they carry. If any die though you'll eventually get down to 7 again since you can respawn them.

[(XBOX)Prime Pedestal]

Just now, Ironlixivium said:

It's the mutalist ospreys and their leaper torso they carry. If any die though you'll eventually get down to 7 again since you can respawn them.

I thought it may have been thanks :)

[F4talFr4me]

They still run away and need to babysit them every 5 seconds pressing the button for them to come back. you still lose allot of bodyguards, they made it ruin the augment Shield of Shadows, the damage/hp compensation is negated by decay in the first place.

 

10 energy each body even with efficiency is still taking too much, previouse was MUCH less and AoE over a large area. they ruined the loot chance (including health orbs!) and pretty much the nicer things on the loot table got lowered too. it was a straight kick in the teeth and it wasent needed. Nekros was weak before and now he is a more mobile worthless frame.

[TaylorsContraction]

As someone pointed out this might be due to the health decay. All those constant UI element update add an unnecessary load on everyone. They should seriously consider going back to standard duration instead of this mess but keep the recast mechanic to refresh duration and summon any missing shadows. It's literally the exact same behavior we have now with better performance.

 

I went to an ODS as nekros and the moment I summoned shadows everyone's fsp plummeted. I let them expire and everyone was back to normal.

[aerosoul1337]

32 minutes ago, TaylorsContraction said:

As someone pointed out this might be due to the health decay. All those constant UI element update add an unnecessary load on everyone. They should seriously consider going back to standard duration instead of this mess but keep the recast mechanic to refresh duration and summon any missing shadows. It's literally the exact same behavior we have now with better performance.

 

I went to an ODS as nekros and the moment I summoned shadows everyone's fsp plummeted. I let them expire and everyone was back to normal.

I prefer duration as well, but I doubt the simple decay calculation can impact the game so much.

The health can be predicted by client, and update from the host periodically, it is supposed to be a piece of cake.

(Just like all real-time-strategy games, hundreds of unit got poisoned and under enemy fire, it's still a piece of cake.)

 

But my fps decreases even if the shadows are very far away (not visible at all), so it's not the UI. I am guessing some bugs causing unexpected CPU loading.

I can recall a bug several months ago that blade storm caused other players fps drop like hell, and it was proved a bug (not well managed codes) and got fixed.

 

1 year ago, Warframe ran 10x FPS than the Witcher 3 (400 : 40) on my PC.

Both on max settings.

 

Both games have updated a lot of times...

Now:

Warframe FPS in Excavation with Nekros shadow: 40 fps

The Witcher 3 max setting (even with Nvidia hairworks on with animals in sight): 70 fps

 

Edited August 22, 2016 by aerosoul1337

[Eldritchsqueaker]

4 hours ago, Airwolfen said:

Well the problem is that he actually did not change much. He still does the exact same thing as before. Gain loot, tank and do mediocre CC even with the augment. The only thing that did change was that he can farm while being an active tank (A thing I still like about the change).

The problem with the rework in that case is not what it turned him into, but that it not turn him into something more.

Oh you misunderstand me, I'm not saying he was good before. The rework just made some things worse I feel, I was excited for the rework at first but extremely disappointed that they didn't actually fix most of the problems with him while creating new ones. He's still mediocre overall and still basically just a lootbot. Even if he can be more active now while doing so.