Dev Stream 80: Carrier Changes feedback thread [Megathread]

[ComfyOlivia]

Dear [DE]Scott: We as a community want universal vacuum. period. no mods, no splitting it up into different mods, and inclusive of all companion types.

 

The above reddit post is about Universal Vacuum. It is the #4 highest upvoted post on the subreddit, and it's only a day old. At the rate it'd currently gaining upvotes, it could easily be the top post in the next several hours. Additionally, it is also one of only three posts concerning a suggestion in the top 25. One is about deleting an invisible wall, and the other is also about Universal Vacuum. Here's a little excerpt from the thread (Credit goes to u/crashingtingler)

 

"Dear Scott,

We really appreciate the effort you put into warframe but please dont mess this up. the fast pace of warframe does not pair well with picking up every ounce of ammo, every mod, every endo drop, and every energy orb.

In warframe, resources are required for progression. if it drops, we want it. leaving resources behind is like leaving money on the ground. We have to have it all or it feels like a waste.

Please do this right.

If it is changed to be a mod, we have another serration: a required mod.

No mods so as to make it inclusive of ALL companions."

 

While he can't actually speak for the entire community, the fact that it has so many upvotes in such a little time, means a lot.

Edited September 17, 2016 by CoRRh

[Gsterman]

Said post is the fourth highest rated post on the subreddit, which speaks for itself.

[bl4ckhunter]

22 minutes ago, CoRRh said:

While he can't actually speak for the entire community,

Given that reddit points are added for upvotes and subtracted for downvotes and that post is sitting on a score 1600 and increasing he can and is at least speaking for the majority of the r/warfarme community

Edited September 17, 2016 by bl4ckhunter

[RG870]

According to the Devs 89% of the players are unhappy with the way you collect loot in Warframe, thus using Carrier / Vaccuum. The logical change would have been to improve the way you collect loot (simply make the Tenno pick up loot in an area instead of having to precisely step on it). Unfortunately DE seems to go with another "solution".

It is at least a good move to give Vaccuum to all sentinels, but what about Kubrows and Kavats? We will still see 89% of the people use a bigger diversity of sentinels (my bet would be Helios, Shade and the new Carrier to be used by the majority). But splitting Vaccuum into three different mods is a serious nerf and shows that DE still has not understood why 89% of the people are using it. This is very concerning and I'm not looking forward to that change. Sentinels already are far from being overpowered. Taking away two mods from them to have the same "comfort" as now with one mod on Carrier is a terrible idea.

I hope they come to their senses and simply give all sentinels access to Vaccuum without any further changes / nerf to it. I don't even dare dreaming of pets finally getting something similar so I could start using them instead of keeping them in the freezer.

[robbybe01234]

1 hour ago, mostlyerror said:

But why would you consider taking a utility, used in over 89% of all play time of all players, and making it more onerous to use? Mathematically this is a huge nerf: 1 mod, but has to be carrier, to 3 "mandatory" mods on other companions.

This assumes that all 10 mod slots are already taken.  I guarantee that a non attacking carrier does not need all 10 slots.  Even an attack based carrier can use less than 10.  Also, what makes you certain that anyone would need to use all 3 at any given time? 

 

To anyone incorrectly thinking that even a 3 mod change would be a "huge" nerf to QOL on any sentinels, go back and reevaluate your load out.  What did your carrier need to do its job?  What did the deathcube, that you never used anyway, need to do it's job?  

 

This does not solve the issue of any mandatory mods but in this scenario, where vac is a mod and not a universal internal ability, I have choice.  I can use diriga with a vac or without. 

[Rakosta_Kai]

14 minutes ago, Gsterman said:

Said post is the fourth highest rated post on the subreddit, which speaks for itself.

...It's a valid argument. 

My concern is that due to the fact that you don't have item pack space considerations in this game it may not be a compelling enough argument.

Ideally, Vacuum should have been a (low)MR locked QoL. If they really wanted to slow the pace of combat down they could make it key activated to use.

 

My only real concerns

• The notion of splitting Vacuum into 3 parts.

1. ... It's nonsensical to the point of being needlessly petty.
2. The drop table isn't diverse enough to support such a mechanic.
3. It's a half measure that seems more like a punishment to players in order to address a QoL issue the devs created in the first place.
4. It won't be/can't be fun and I don't see it making it's way out of internal testing tbh. If it does... There will be poop in fans though.

• Dethcube and Djinn needed the attention more

1. The ammo mutation proposed smacks of something intended for Dethcube to begin with as Vaporize is outdated as heck.
2. Djinn's precepts have always been dangerous to use with no real upsides offered to offset it's function.

All that said, I do hope the devs are listening to the fact that: Yes, Vacuum needs to be Universal, but it doesn't need to be made onerous to use.

[robbybe01234]

7 minutes ago, Padre_Akais said:

My only real concerns

• The notion of splitting Vacuum into 3 parts.

1. ... It's nonsensical to the point of being needlessly petty.
2. The drop table isn't diverse enough to support such a mechanic.
3. It's a half measure that seems more like a punishment to players in order to address a QoL issue the devs created in the first place.

Yes, easy upvote here.  My thought process with the change is "Well, if i don't care about health and energy there are 2 new mods." "Well if I don't care about picking up credits there is 1 replacement mod." Essentially might as well be just 1 vac mod then? 

This does appear to be arbitrary choice for the sake of having more choices. Just not necessary.  

[Arkvold]

DE, I'm going to express a fundamental truth of game design.

"Not everything that exists needs to be 'balanced' with drawbacks weighed against the benefits."

The vacuum function, whose sole purpose is to ensure that you get all the rewards from the enemies that you've taken down, is one of these things.  Mod space is precious - of all the limitations of the mod system, mod space is the only limitation that cannot be bypassed or extended.  Forcing us to use three mods to achieve the functionality of what used to be just one is a huge drain on this limited resource in our Sentinels.

Don't get me wrong - I love the fact that Vacuum is becoming universal among sentinels, allowing more sentinels to be used, and that Carrier is getting an actual combat benefit in its new precept.  I love the idea of customizing what you pick up and what you don't.  I just don't think modding should be the way to do it.  I also don't think this goes far enough - Vacuum, as one mod, should be truly universal among companions.  Or even better yet, just make it universal, without a mod upon all Warframes, and give us options in the options menu as to what is hoovered up and what is not.

I mean, let's be real here - vacuum's only gameplay advantage is picking up health, energy, and ammo from a larger distance.  That's the only actual 'balance concern' that exists here.  Everything else vaccuum provides is entirely QOL/convenience, or a useful countermeasure to long-standing bugs - such as levitating items, items stuck in walls and ceilings, and items that drop into abysses and fail to be properly respawned.

In short, vaccuum is one of those things that by and large can go without being 'balanced' - you don't need to introduce drawbacks to it, and it can safely be expanded to truly inherent status without much of a problem.  With the new precept, Carrier will finally be a carrier and not just a floating roomba.  If there's worry about balance when it comes to picking up health, energy and ammo, then consider making vacuum for everything else inherent and make that a single mod - but better still is to just give us options-menu toggles for them.

Not everything needs to be a mod, not everything needs to be balanced for the sake of 'balancing.'  That's how you create unnecessary imbalance.

Edited September 18, 2016 by Arkvold

[Troll_Logic]

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

Hyperbole Detected

Let's knock the pins out from under your scenario at the outset..

...Bless your heart.

I don't think you thought through that very thoroughly.

Maybe you should loose yourself from the negativity... It's causing you to lose all sense of perspective and spout things that don't (and can't) make sense.

 

Before you get too smarmy and condescending, you do realize that DE is talking about eliminating the current vacuum mod and replacing it with three vacuum mods with each mod collecting only a specific item?  Because your reply of 

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

Vacuum already takes a mod slot...Just opt to not have the ammo mod option equipped at all and you are unaffected.

Let's say that you want the Ammo Mod option equipped along with the Vacuum option...

Since each one of them only cost one mod slot allocation you would remove one (1) of those mods you mentioned.

is not would DE is looking to do.

[Troll_Logic]

Read post incorrectly.

Edited September 17, 2016 by Troll_Logic

[Azrael]

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

Since each one of them only cost one mod slot allocation you would remove one (1) of those mods you mentioned.

There are three mods, not two.

[letir]

Just now, Troll_Logic said:

Vacuum is what keeps the space ninjas from having to run around in circles to pick up loot.

Vacuum is a bandaid mod, which serves this purpose. Nothing holding DE from implementing innate Vacuum on the ground, just like they do with Archwing.

[Azrael]

3 minutes ago, Troll_Logic said:

You understand that this opinion 

and this opinion

are philosophically opposed.

Vacuum is what keeps the space ninjas from having to run around in circles to pick up loot.

I think he means that vacuum should be innate and not a mod.

[Troll_Logic]

1 minute ago, letir said:

Vacuum is a bandaid mod, which serves this purpose. Nothing holding DE from implementing innate Vacuum on the ground, just like they do with Archwing.

Well, it depends on how you want to define "bandaid."

There should be a "personal vacuum area" of 6 feet or so, and a mod that increases that area.  "Vacuum" wouldn't be a bandaid if the "personal vacuum area" actually worked.

In the game right now, there is a "usually have to walk over the item to pick it up" area and the "vacuum" mod that fixes the poor "personal vacuum" function.

[Troll_Logic]

11 minutes ago, Lord_Azrael said:

I think he means that vacuum should be innate and not a mod.

Ahh.

Well, I certainly agree with that 100%

[_Vortus_]

An issue I am not seeing mentioned about the upcoming change to carrier is how it will affect lower power and old pc's as well as bad internet connections.    When I am on my older system or laptop in a squad where I have a mediocre or worse connection I have to stand on items sometimes to get them if carrier is not equipped..   If I hit the loot at a run ill walk right through it sometimes and have to go back for it.   Reactant is a good example of what might happen.   Carrier does not pick it up as is.  In a squad sometimes I have to stand on it for a second or two for it to register.   Now making all loot potentially like reactant unless I load special vacuum mods is potentially a huge issue.   Then turning something that is needed into an ammo mutate and increased ammo capacity bonus that most weapons don't need.   Not to mention wasting the 1000's of cores (10's of thousands of endo) I have spent upgrading the prime ammo mutation mods as well as normal ones for the weapons that do need the ammo.

Would much rather Sentinels get a universal vacuum skill, carrier get something else.  Undecided if bro's and those other things should get it or not.

[beckettb]

From what I understand, the new mods will be universal. They will work on all sentinels, though I'm not sure about companions. So, Sentinels will be able to vacuum, and you can use another sentinel, since you don't need ammo mutation.

[robbybe01234]

Okay here. Perfect solution.

Give all Companions 1 extra mod slot, much like the exilus slot on frames.  

Make vacuum a Companion mod that is the only exilus mod for companions. 

Done, there is your toggle without destroying builds. 

[Nemah]

The only thing that will change with this update is instead of 90% carrier, it will be 90% sentinel.

The best analogy I can think of here; On your way to work every day you stumble and injure yourself on the endless damaged pavement (lack of any loot collection),  so every day you put a plaster on it (vacuum), the solution you came up with, is, instead of a plaster, you want to use healing cream, bandage and a wrap (3 new mods). This is not the solution, fix the problem(the damaged pavement in my analogy), give us a reasonable sized innate vacuum and you will have the diversity that you want.

Since someone else mentioned it - Archwing has innate vacuum, but the size is also way too small for the size of map and freedom of movement you are giving us, it is simply NOT fun to play like this, increase the size of the existing innate vacuum and you solve many problems with both the standard game and Archwing.

 

Edited September 17, 2016 by Nemah

[Rakosta_Kai]

15 minutes ago, Lord_Azrael said:

There are three mods, not two.

The general assumption is that the 3 Vacuum mods will each pickup different things as opposed to each of them offering a base pickup functionality but doing it to different distances.

I refuse to accept that DE would be that petty just to encourage diversity... It's just not fathomable to me.

It's just too much of a PR black eye for too small an issue.

Likewise, Such a move hurts the marketability of future PA's offerings.

I fully expect the Vacuums being the same but offering small differences in their function.

... Anything else tarnishes their reputation needlessly.   

[Chimera_Prime]

My personal thoughts on all this,

Overall, 90% of us are using Carrier & Vacuum for our own reasons, but we are using it.

Splinting Vacuum into three is just needless complication. In both the players domain (lost mod capacity in sentinels) and i assume to code up the exclusion criteria for the different vacuums.

We have the function now - but it limits our sentinel choice. So, in effect the split by three is just nerfing our current sentinel load outs. Also it may not even cause us to diversify and therefore fail at your goal.

 

Pre-change - I have a carrier using one mod.

Post-change - I have lost function as i need to make room for three more mods. 

 

You would be actually nerfing my carrier. On the record i purchased it with Prime access. I do purchase prime access regularly to support the game, so carrier was not my reason for purchasing, but just saying... Also, i purchased cosmetics for carrier to get it looking just right, so I'm less inclined to change now I'm settled in with its look (go tech parrot).

Universal vacume? If you just made it available to all sentinels (companions?) instead of carrier, I would maybe go back to Deathcube or something for old times sake, experiment around a bit (people will start to realise how left behind some of the sentinels are). If you split it in three... I would be most unhappy, and may just suck it up, reformat carrier for the three and use the ammo conversion to free weapons from mutation mods. In effect i would just disengage from the companion system even further. And to some degree - you are costing me three mods on the sentinel side, and freeing up two on the weapons side (i like ammo hungry weapons).

Please consider our thoughts DE. When you changed auras you made the system give points rather than costing and said sometimes inverting things just makes the game better (something like that). Give rather than take, make us your players happy. In return we invest more of our time and money in the game.

[MartinVole]

I started this lighthearted poll on the Warframe subreddit regarding the public opinion of universal vacuum and for the most part it has been civil, thankfully, as well as been a good grounds for alternative solutions. I decided to put it here as well. Forgive the puns, it was late when I made it. :(

Personally I have the opinion that it should not be a mod at all but an innate local vacuum that would remove a portion of "meta". I've heard this called OP, but honestly, to me, OP is oneshotting a boss and ragdolling him across the map, and we have that. XD I see no objective harm. Plus hardly anybody buys resources with plat, and vacuum doesn't make more items spawn or anything.

[FLSH_BNG]

Seems like a good way to increase the utility of all sentinels as well as their rate of usage. And with three different mods dividing the items that vacuums can be used on, it creates new decisions that players will have to make when it comes to modding their sentinels.

Keep in mind that we only have ourselves as a community to blame for the changes being made; the DEv's spend a lot of effort and time making each of the different sentinels with different abilities and quirks. That an overwhelming majority of players chose to use nothing but a single sentinel model for it's special utility to the virtual exclusion to all others means that this utility should actually be something available for all sentinels instead.

Now players will be able to bring any sentinel to their missions and still have their laziness catered to. The only thing they have to give up is additional utility on their sentinels that they weren't using anyway because all they care about is the vacuum, so it doesn't matter to them that they'll need three different mods for the same vacuum capacity as once originally required one.

This is just my opinion as primarily a Shade user, so take that for what it's worth. But I see nothing wrong with this decision and can't understand how players could be so convinced of their own entitlement that they think a little directed and enforced moderation is a bad thing just because it changes something that they really like and has only the slightest affect on game play overall.

[MartinVole]

Well, I don't see how bashing a lot of people and calling them lazy helps either. People are entitled to their ideas and they are just as legitimate as the neutral opinion.

I just think it is important that the community... well... communicates. I see nothing wrong with what is said as long as it isn't finger pointing and accusations.

Edited September 17, 2016 by MartinVole
Emphasis

[hammerheathen]

Holy freaking Hell. 37 pages in a day? I think this is the biggest outcry/support on a potential/actual change yet.