Coming Soon: Devstream #79!

[IceColdHawk]

Good day DE. Got a small topic to ask you about.

Nullifiers: The more you patch them, the more the community gets dissatisfied. Where we once could kill them with AoE, atomos lasers or even a glaive throwing in, it doesn't work anymore and thus the problem of the nullifiers just starts to get more noticable. Especially after "fixing" the inconsistency issue about nullies where they are now able to instantly destroy a stacked up frost globe JUST by touching it.

The problem is simple. I suppose nullifier got added to counter ability spamming which is fine i guess. The problem though is, they also counter anything which has not a high rate of fire to quickly dispatch the bubble. AoEs are laughably ineffective. Shotguns and Sniper/Bows just take too long and in general have not so much ammo as an assault rifle. And frames that actually rely on their abilities than being tanky on their own will look totally old. Good example would be vauban whose spells just get deleted by a simple touch by the huge bubble. Also a big problem is their rather high spawn rate paired with their habit of assaulting you rather than sniping you from afar.

So in conclusion, they encourage the usage of bullet spamming (à la boltor prime) to continue with CC spamming or just mindless "inside-bubble-meleesliding" which can be sometimes a suicidal move depending on your frame and which enemy appears to be in the bubble. Not to mention it dispells your ability buffs when you enter it. While the managing of your bullets, aiming and general sniping are just too ineffective to be considered. A good example of that IMHO would be the combas/scrambus. Everyone has their own type of abilities that he/she dispells and not just EVERYTHING. And you can counter them through a well placed shot against the helmet. That is good!

So, the question is, Are you considering to remove or tweak them accordingly to not be so annoyingly unfair compared to other units? Because as of now, they are more of an annoying enemy that restricts build diversity rather than being a challenge.

References:

Edited August 17, 2016 by IceColdHawk

[Heliozzenn]

Lato vandal, Braton vandal and Umbra news ?

[Demonfr34k]

It's been discussed that some frames would be getting updated for Cloth physics, now that Trinity is out of the way

What about other warframes, like Volt, Vauban, Frost or Non-Primed Saryn?

[Mastikator2]

Any word on buffing some of the weaker auras? There's only 2- arguably 3 auras that are really good and quite a few that range from useless to situational (and even then below par).

Buffing some of the weaker ones would do a lot of work to increase gameplay options and variety in game. As long as the buffs don't overshoot it would not contribute to power creep.

[Jamescell]

1.) Prime Warframes are unable to equip vanilla skins and cannot toggle prime accessories (the extra cosmetic changes), forcing players that want a vanilla aesthetic to keep their inferior vanilla frames in order to do so. Fashionframe wonders if and when this will be possible.

2.) Are you open to alternative reward systems such as a token/reputation system in tandem with RNG to supplement the frustrating unreliability of RNG? (Sell parts for rep and use rep to buy prime stuff you want sort of like syndicates).

 

Edited August 17, 2016 by Jamescell

[mirx]

23 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

  Reveal hidden contents

PLACEHOLDER IMAGE for y'all!

More physx!!!

  c:

 

[Chroia]

Again: Mostly same as before (polishing the presentation is a WIP), responses to given answers at the end; and spoilerized for length.

 

By rough order of importance and/or current relevance - and my perception of the likelihood they'll be addressed:
I'll try and condense the questions into bullet points, with context or elaboration below as needed.

1) Are Kavats intended to be strictly better than Kubrows?
Because they very much seem to be (and the scan vs egg pricing seems to support that view.)

2) Can Stealth finisher animations/conditions get a pass?
To make them more fluid, less vulnerability/visibility-inducing? Particularly when sneaking up on multiple units, individual takedowns (not to mention the new alert-ing mechanics) tend to screw you up.
Elevations break them, facing can be finicky, and the vast majority have a lot of unnecessary frames that aren't needed.
Furthermore, having i-frames for them is great, but they root you in the open - leaving you visible and often getting you spotted.
Using one every so often is fine, but using them in sequence (e.g. sleeping or blinding an enemy group) - and especially if you're going "legit" stealth (i.e. not invis) is very clunky.

2b) Also, can they be given a different keybind than melee?
Speaking of "legit" stealth and finicky facing, I'd rather not accidentally poke the Bombard I'm trying to sneak up on and shank, ya know?

3) Not a question: When considering any new Focus/Convergence changes, please keep Spy missions in mind? :'(
tl;dr - Convergence has killed Spy missions as a source of Focus.

4) On that note: any followup to 'touching' the Focus (and Convergence) system, now that we've had time to play with it?
There have been many posts about its issues, including, recently, a very good one by TGDM.

5) Could we get a quick overview on your take of the 'state of the frames'?
How satisfied you are with what was reworked, what (if anything) more needs to be done there, next 'brightest fires', etc.

6) Given Steve's thoughts on disconnecting (or not disconnecting) cosmetics and gameplay, are there any UI improvements in the pipes for managing your synd sigils across your entire arsenal?

6b) Also, any UI addition/streamlining to bring your active Focus tree into the Arsenal?
After all, it is a part of your loadout.

7) Has any progress (of thought or implementation) been put into "Damage 3.0 / Enemy Scaling 3.0 / whatever" since you last talked of it (coming up on 5 months ago, iirc)?
Is it even still a thing?

8) Given that it's obvious that 'all weapon were not made equal', is there any concrete intention to officially tier gear? After all, Scott has said on at least a couple of previous Devstreams that he has some kind of tiering system when creating new weapons.

9) Is 'All Warframes should be overpowered' (or however DE_Steve phrased it) still the intention?
9b) On that note: if 'yes', how do Nullifiers fit in with this vision?

10) Excavation re-revisit? Please? ... Please? From its inception, it was my favorite game-mode. (And given its popularity in the CHT poll asking about previous events, I'm not alone in this.)

11) Have any changes been made to the announced next batch of weapon augments (these), based on the feedback given?

12) And on the topic of band-aid mods, has any thought been given to Covert Lethality, daggers, dual daggers, stealth-prompt attacks, etc?
12b) Actually, backtrack a bit: What do you consider to be 'bandaid's?

13) Can syndicate procs please not activate while you have the stealth multiplier buff up? (Seems both an easier and simpler solution than putting them under player control, though I may be wrong.)

14) Snipers: Scope-sway is irritating and possibly inapproriate (do 'frames need to breathe, have a cardiovascular system?), but I can live with it. That said: Any word on removing hipfire accuracy malus from snipers? Please?
Alternatively, are there any particular pros or cons to  removing it faster so quickscoping is possible?

15) I admit, I've not played Dark Sector, but the Glaive has been a favorite of mine for almost a year now. Any chance that the richochet mechanic will be looked at? I don't think I've ever seen a bounce hit something.

15b) On that note, do you consider thrown melee to be in a good place (what with bounces being, afaik, completely ineffectual - as above -, their attack-cycle length, the inherent 2-3 mod slot tax required to make them usable (Quick Return, Power Throw, Whirlwind(, Entropy Flight), their not being affected by melee combo... and all of which are mod slots you can't use to increase their damage)?

15c) What about having Altfire while in melee-mode immediately throw your thrown melee? Since it doesn't do anything atm.
(Would also dovetail nicely with Reload or Altfire switching modes for the Split Sword, if that ever happens.)

16) You have tracking data on completed missions. Has there been any talk about unplayed or disliked (e.g. here) mission types?

17) How will 'Damage / Enemy Scaling 3.0' affect status weapons' underpreformance in DE Approved Content enemy-levels compared with crit (or even decent straight-damage) weapons?

17b) Will this finally redeem the Sure Shot et al. mods? (+% status, 15% at rank 5 - where the dualstats give 60% at rank 3)

18) Reticule customisation? Particularly in Archwing, the crosshairs dot can be very hard to see.
--- Credit where credit is due: The new Archwing scope is much less easily lost. Thank you for that.

19) Speaking of Archwing - What about removing aura-inheritence and just giving them an aura slot? Are there any particular cons?

20) Any plans to better integrate Archwing into your loadout selection? If nothing else, to make it clear at-a-glance which AW loadout (by loadout name is probably sufficient) is currently selected.

21) Options to disable/limit screen shake and auto-mantle?

22) Exilus slots have been around for a while now. Are they working as intended vis-a-vis modding flexibility?

22b) Similarly, what are your current thoughts on augments vis-a-vis mod slots? Are they working as intended? What are your thoughts about dedicated aug slots? If that's a possibility, at what point does that just become a 'tech tree' - and as such why not just implement it as one?

23) Any realistic chance that revisiting the combo counter. or at least the bandaid mods Body Count/Harkonar Scope is on the radar? Such as splitting the bonus between base duration and the mod, like the Conclave KD/stagger defense mod - Anticipation, or how staggers work in Lunaro, now.

24) I don't expect Banshee's passive to change, sadly, so:
Since Silence isn't actually 'Silence' so much as 'Deafen', and Banshee has innate weapon silencing for a passive. Any thoughts on changing Silence? Possibly into its PvP/Malice version?

-----
Addressed:
Steve shared his thoughts on disconnecting cosmetics from gameplay.

 

Could you please formulate, communicate and adhere to a unified vision of 'what Warframe is intended to be'?

tl;dr-

* Where is Warframe supposed to fall on the 'skill-based shooter <-> Horde mode ARPG' scale?
- Relatedly, where is it intended to fall on the 'skill <-> gear' scale? How easy/hard a fight is a player intended to have if they're severely over/under-modded?

* How static vs. dynamic is Warframe intended to be?
If primarily dynamic - and given the repeated statements (and a freaking anti-afk measure based solely on) that you don't want people sitting in a single spot for extended periods of time - what's the design logic behind low-range 'emanation'-type buffs? (such as Chroma's Vex Armor, Mirage's Total Eclipse Zephyr's Jet Stream and now Vauban's passive.)

Because those encourage players to huddle up (which generally means 'stand still in a common spot') to get any benefit from them. Which is something of a mixed message.
-- "All things to all people", "make your own fun".
Being 'all things to all people' is an admirable goal, but you need, at least a little, to facilitate it - making it less difficult to do.
For example: I like the frenetic, fullness-of-senses of enemy density in a "level appropriate" game of Excavation nm, we don't talk about that survival once the spawns start ramping up. This starts past ~17 minutes, but for the enemy level to begin approaching my mods, I need to wait for ~47-54 minutes before things actually become dangerous.
Now, I recently came across a post (for the first time, incidentally) that says I can't "underclock" my mods to tune my power level to the content due to limitations of the Mod system architecture. Fair enough.
But the point remains that I can't, and even if I have multiples of mods, I need to 1) Guesstimate player-to-enemy power correctly and then 2) shuffle all my mods on all my gear (while not losing track of what my mod setup was before), and then 3) do this again and again, every single time, for any mission that isn't similarly leveled to the last I played with each piece of my loadout.
This is waaay too much manual upkeep to expect, by my lights.
On the flip side, I can't tune the enemy's power either. My only way to influence enemy levels or spawn density aside from snoring my way through the first 45 minutes while I wait for the game to scale up the enemies. Urgh.
So, all things to all people. Wonderful, I can live with that - but give me something to work with.

Given the recent reintroduction of the EMP aura - Are you happy with the current state of Auras in general? Such as:
* The existence of 3-rank auras vs to more standard 5, making them (even) less desirable, because less mod points.
* All the V auras being additive straight damage, which is to say: both lacking in variety and growing less beneficial as your base damage mods improve.
* D auras being: Situational (Infested Impedance), useless (Physique, because it scales off base, unmodded health) and alright (Rejuvenation).
* - auras having Corrosive Projection, Energy Siphon, the Radars and basically every other actually-useful aura excepting Rejuvenation.)
-- It's a system that hasn't been touched in a long while, and will at least be partially expanded with Titania bringing a few more. Beyond that remains to be seen.

 

Edited August 17, 2016 by Chroia

[AM-Bunny]

Thanks for a god tier banner

[NightmareT12]

I want to ask stuff, but sine there's nothing related to the topic that I can think of...

Have you considered revisist older Prime weapons to put them up to par with others? We had some scythe buffs some time ago, which ended the Reaper Prime issue (kind of), but it seems the purpose of Prime weapons as end game content or best content you should be able to get is not really fullfilled in some of them. For example, Dakra Prime is less strong than the Broken War, which has less MR requirement and is awarded for free post Second Dream. Sicarus Prime feels mediocre, Latron Prime is wrecked by the Wraith version. And new Prime weapons seem so powerful in comparision (cue in Fragor Prime).

So that's it from me.

1 minute ago, Mastikator2 said:

Any word on buffing some of the weaker auras? There's only 2- arguably 3 auras that are really good and quite a few that range from useless to situational (and even then below par).

Buffing some of the weaker ones would do a lot of work to increase gameplay options and variety in game. As long as the buffs don't overshoot it would not contribute to power creep.

I feel all Auras should be buffed to have the same Drain -- that is, the same drain Steel Charge provides. Maybe I'd just not touch the total of Corrosive Projection. But the rest? heck yes.

[Manyc]

Something I haven't heard in a long while...

How are we into the Token system on Sortie or similar? Is it ever coming?

[Gravefire]

Quick question ?

With the up coming changes to the fusion systems, a while back you said in a previous devstream that you thought about plans to have a convertor for duplicate mods abundance. With the new energy system will this allow us to convertor the duplicate mods into energy ?

[(PSN)DontKnowMe]

Have you ever thought about reworking/introducing new affinity bonus objectives? (30 rifle kills, 10 melee kills, 10 stealth kills)

Also some of these objectives can't be achieved because they do not fit the mission type. Getting 20 pistol kills in an Archwing mission for example.

[Wolfdoggie]

My loins quiver with anticipation. 

[Zahnny]

I have a few questions.

Whatever happened to Cephalon Cordyl? And will she return?

I noticed an uncanny resemblence while looking at videos and pictures of slow flowing lava, was that used as inspiration for the orange to "stone" look of Infested?

Again, with Infested, do you think we will ever see Infested with more metallic exteriors in the same vain that the Infested from Dark Sector had? If you need proof that Infested could gain that metallic crust, just look at Proto-Excalibur's right arm. Or is Proto-Excalibur considered non-canon? Same with Nemesis Nyx and the Proto Glaive?

[PookieNumnums]

can you share any developments on what we can expect in regards to DS rework, DOJO to Relay or DOJO to DOJO connectyness?

 

also

 

Im only a master founder, but I had hoped that the Grand Masters would get more of a Monument than what lies atop the main concourse. Any plans to really give them something special? Like names caved into a chunk of argon or platinum?

 

and what of legendary cores?

 

also 

some things to consider

tinyurl.com/ashninja : bladestorm rework based on kuji kiri

tinyurl.com/railhub : connecting dojos to a central alliance rail

tinyurl.com/glyphgames : game modes that use glyphs in their objective 

Edited August 17, 2016 by PookieNumnums

[Zeyez]

about some little underused augments that was created before for warframes and weapons... when they will be revised again?

because some of them become even less useful than it was, like Shield Transference (in fact, the augment name needs to change, since Shield Polarize is only Polarize) that doesn't give anything if you use the ability against armored enemies or Entropy Spike for Bolto, that gives 20% chance for 250 explosion damage

the thread is focused on warframe augments and the tweaks

[Gurpgork]

Can we get further changes to Nekros? He has numerous unresolved problems after the rework. In fact, he has more problems after the rework.

 

 

[Vol4ica_]

I got some words about Endo cause there is still too few information about it's balancing. You did not mention it's credit cost in your thread. Does this mean it will cost no credits?
But if it will. Ranking mods is much cheaper with rare cores than with others now. But making cores lose their credit cost efficiency is not very honest for players spent hours on farming rare cores. Especially now with credit rewards amount reducing.

Spoiler

Maybe you shouldn't transfer existing cores into endo forcefully? At least for some time after update, ~few days, in order to GIVE A CHOICE: to use them by ourselves or have a look at the new system and say "WOW!" and decide to let them transfer

 

Edited August 17, 2016 by Vol4ica_

[TwelfthAngel]

A long time ago we were promised cloth physics for Trinity, Frost, and Volt.

Today we currently have Trinity cloth physics.

Any update on when Frost and Volt will get this treatment?

Quote from devstream 44.

"All three Warframes are scheduled to receive a character model update in 2015 to help show off stylish futuristic combat fashion. "

[Kaokasalis]

Now that Nekros have gotten his rework, is Limbo still next in line for a rework and if he is, can you then share any details so far?

Also whats the status on the spear weapon primary we saw in devstream 75? 

Edited August 17, 2016 by Kaokasalis

[PookieNumnums]

23 minutes ago, God_is_a_Cat_Girl said:

Oh Rebecca, you just reignited my hype thrusters.

 

Question: Cat ears cosmetic for the Operator and for Warframes when?

we have devil horns and unicorn horns 

[shadava diadem] [satyri diadem]

[faeline diadem] PLOx

[PEPIYEA]

Any news about sortie currency?

[Keiiken]

What ever happened to the plans for an Avian companion?

[DikkeryDok]

Digital Extremes pls, give us more quests and lore. We do not need useless decoration for platinum. We need something interesting. Not pictures on the wall.

[PookieNumnums]

Just now, Keiiken said:

What ever happened to the plans for an Avian companion?

we just barely got kavats!

 

sandskates are next in line! (not really)