Vacuum: Discussions Post Devstream #80

[[DE]Rebecca]

Hello all Tenno!

Maybe you missed it (though that's doubtful from the volume of posts), but Friday's Devstream #80 discussed one of the longest standing feature requests in Warframe:

'Universal Vacuum'

Today in this short but sweet Dev Workshop, we're going to give you an immediate follow up to Friday's conversation.

Monday morning has been all about Vacuum, and it looked a little something like this (watching others, not ourselves):

Spoiler

What needs to be mentioned right away is that a 'Universal Vacuum' is not off the table. The proposed division into 3 types isn't final, and it is something that is being reconsidered (this shouldn't come as a huge surprise based on the amounts of conversations that occurred).

What we want to do is measure. We know where Carrier sits in usage compared to the rest of the options. We want a calculated release of a change that will deliver on giving Sentinels the function of Vacuum, and see how it affects the usage of content in that category. The results are something we'll be sharing as it should be very interesting to everyone invested in this particular topic. The shovel in the ground on this will apply to Sentinels first, but Pets aren't off the table.

This has been a rather quick Dev Workshop, but I hope it can guide future discussions on the topic!

Thanks all!

Rebecca

 

 

[TheGuyver]

Please just do right by us, and keep up the hard work. Also first.

My thoughts on it though is that IF it is broken into three mods, people might feel forced to use all three to get the desired effect of the way carrier used to work. That may lead to the other sentinels not being properly modded, and performing poorly. Djinn is one, it can barely take any hits before it poops out on you during a mission, and it needs every slot it can get. As for pets, why can't we make a clan research item that attaches to their collars with a built in vacuum?

Edited September 19, 2016 by TheGuyverOne

[PsiWarp]

Thanks for the follow-up.

I personally like the options given by the 3 mod proposal, but there are areas where it is still lacking.

1. If only 1 of the 3 types can be equipped at one time on my Sentinel, it feels too limiting.
2. If all 3 mods can be equipped at one time on my Sentinel, it takes way too many mod slots for something that essentially performs the same function on different things.
3. Kubrows and Kavats don't benefit at all from this, leaving Sentinels to dominate the stats after implementation.
4. A "Universal Vacuum," one that basically increases all Warframes' pickup collection radius, is prone to resource wastage. This applies to tactical pickups such as Health Orbs, Energy Orbs and Ammo, so a "Universal Vacuum" ends up giving players no control over what and when to pick up for items in close proximity.

This dilemma isn't unsolvable though, and there can be many methods to make it right. Here is an idea to attempt to appease the player-base at large, I hope devs can find inspiration:

• Create a single mod called "Vacuum" with 3-5 mod ranks. This mod is categorised as Companion, allowing all pets to equip this mod.
• Each mod rank adds an additional type of pickup that is eligible for pets to vacuum up from a set distance. For example, rank 0 = Credits/Resources/Endo, rank 1 = Mods, rank 2 = Ammo, rank 3 = Orbs. This allows players a degree of freedom as to what types of pickups to always collect at a distance, with duplicate Vacuum mods providing more options.
• Increase all Warframes' innate pickup collection radius slightly, so players don't have to be exactly on top of a pickup to collect it. Ideally the radius is big enough for parkour-savvy players to feel an improvement, but still allows room for players to control when they pick up combat-related items.

Thank you again for listening to the community and providing responses. It may not always be what we want to hear, but I know you guys are doing your best every time.

Edited September 19, 2016 by PsiWarp

[Danjal777]

Consider getting rid of pickups, running around to pick up items in a firefight is silly.  What if...you just got the items when you kill enemies, open cabinets, and break boxes?

[(PSN)tpesconi]

Please, think out of the box and like was already said (by Quiette Shy mainly), consider giving this function as a additional passive to ALL Warframes, so we can use any companion or even no companion and still have all the fun.

Limiting this function to sentinels doesn't help new players and doesn't help any other companion.

[trunks013]

I was thinking more like 3 type of vacuum in the way they act 

Like this

1 - Vacuum works with a smaller range but grab everything non-stop ( like what we have )

2 - Vacuum with way more range act like a mag greedy pull but does not attrac Energy and health orbs ( to avoid some camping mechanics)

3 - Vacuum that attract rare stuff like treasures and Medalions ( i know i'm dreaming but cmon a guy is trying something ^.^ )

something like that.

Edited September 19, 2016 by trunks013

[KirukaChan]

Splitting it into 3 is a bit overboard, but 2 would be reasonable. One for things that refill you (health, energy, ammo), and one for loot (resources, mods, credits). I'd use Vacuum if it only picked up loot. I don't like how it wastes ammo and energy pickups currently.

[Domesticon]

I'd say one of my biggest issues with the proposed three vacuum mods is that it is a hard nerf to all builds, for several reasons, you'd likely be making them count as abilities, so if you want a full vaccum, there goes most of the other abilities your Sentinel can do. If it's not abilities, it's new "Mandatory Mods", which you are trying to avoid putting in the game, that will destroy all current builds for sentinels. And all that aside, it just spoils the fun. The gameplay of Warframe has developed to be very fast paced and fluid, having to walk around and pick up every single bit of loot and ammo spoils that. Honestly, I think you should just make Sentinels have the vacuum by standard and focus on making them utility over the combat assistance of other companions, Kavats and Kubrows currently. It's good to hear that you guys are actually reconsidering your actions though, plenty of developers are too certain of their actions being the right ones to reconsider them. Think it over, try to find something we're all happy with.

[God_is_a_Cat_Girl]

Going to be honest here, while I like the idea that carrier will be something than just vacuum and will let other Sentinels shine (well, other than Deth Cube who really needs some utility, sadly because I really like my Deth Cube, but he just doesn't really offer much compared to others), if it gets to the point that you give the mod to all pets you gotta wonder, why not just make it an innate Warframe passive because at that point it feels like an obligatory pet mod.

However, for me what I see the main issue is that to pick mods you have to pinpoint them, which in turn makes vacuum very attractive and not just a better way to pick items, because there's no good way, just Vacuum. If we had a wider pick up radius, most wouldn't need Vacuum as much and Vacuum would then act as "if your range isn't enough, you can sacrifice a pet mod slot for  extra help", but as long as the pick up radius without the mod is the radius of a needle, the Vacuum mod will never be an alternative for a better performance.

Edited September 19, 2016 by God_is_a_Cat_Girl

[AdunSaveMe]

I just don't see any good reason why you would split it up.

Maybe vacuum isn't the only answer though. I've always stood by the opinion that Warframes need a much larger innate pickup radius, so you don't have to physically walk directly on top of something to pick it up. Even a change like that would alleviate a lot of problems.

If vacuum is going to be a multi-companion mod, it should be ONE mod, there's no point splitting it up. If it's going to stop being carrier-specific, it needs to apply to ALL companions, including kavats and kubrows, so that people have more of a reason to use those as well (especially since the kubrow's gathering AI is not great). I reckon this can be handled in a way that pleases most people, but I'm glad we can still discuss it and know it's not set in stone.

But please, whatever you do, don't rely solely on numbers and usage statistics. They only tell part of the story. You will never get people to use all the companions equally, and the best you can do is give the most people the most options by making them all useful in their own ways, and this is something that extends beyond vacuum alone.

[Andy.]

Please, if you do the Universal Vacuum nobody will play carrier anyomre... You just put all 3 Vacuums on the other opinions...

The Ammo change passive of the Carrier isnt quit as useful as you think... Then you can remove the Ammo change mods instantly...

You maybe could change Carrier that he has the Ammo change passive and you can put the normal Vacuum (not the Universal) on the other opinions too.

[Zanoza-chan]

Shade "Ghost" precept need fix!

If you want to make other sentinels more popular by making Vacuum (or couple vacuum mods) for every sentinel, you need to think about fixing Ghost. Invisibility + Resource gathering will push Shade closer to the top! Today Ghost is working so poor in comparsion with Huras' Stalk. That two precepts need to be equivalent or same... otherwise there's no sense in existing cloaker-sentinel (as it is now).

Surely I'll be glad if Vacuum will stay intact but universal for all sentinels. But if you still want to divide it - that would be nice too. That will force the players to think what they need more at the moment - to farm resources or to perform better and keep mana scale for example. If the dividing of Vacuum will come with some reasonable fixes (as Ghost fix) it would be great balance definition.

UPD: To the idea of splitting Vacuum: please don't forget about the moments when mods are falling under the textures (like it happens on Silver Grove tileset). Having the Carrier is not only for lazy Tenno, but also for situations like that. We want to loot the stuff we earned, we don't want to see how the marked mod falls deeper and deeper, and Vacuum now is the only way.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Zanoza-chan

[Fabpsi]

I am looking forward to see the results of this little "vacuum change"-experiment. Thank you for the follow-up^^

Oh and I am on to your secret plans... I want to be a tenno agent too o.o

Spoiler

 

Edited September 19, 2016 by Fabpsi

[(PSN)IIIDevoidIII]

To me, it is a proposition that'd be better to get rid of Vacuum entirely (although, unfortunately, that cannot be done).

Our precious mod slots, Carrier needs less to run well than the other Sentinels. Boasting the tankiest and hardest hitting in its Prime state, and only being used by me as a way of keeping my shields up with some additonal CC, the Vacuum being an added bonus, I don't think we'll be seeing too much of a statistical change with Vacuum being a mod. 

I'd rather propose a preset toggle between the three types of Vacuums in the Loadout menu.

[OnTarasMind]

The main concern I have is if vacuum will only be for sentinels, Because I know there's players who really like Kubrows and Kavats, such as myself, and it hurts not using them because of them not having vacuum/a reliable way of picking up items.

[JerechoNC]

The #1 post of all time on the warframe subreddit is about universal vacuum. 

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/533o01/dear_descott_we_as_a_community_want_universal/

 

you know what we want, DE. just straight up, universal vacuum, innate. 

[Hopolis]

Literally just let us put vacuum on any companion, kubrow, kavat, or sentinel. That's pretty much the only way to make sure that everyone has the freedom to use what they want.

Changing how vacuum works will only result in some new meta where only one companion is used for peak efficiency. That's just the way things are. A literal universal vacuum mod fixes every issue that can and will spring up from this whole idea of breaking something that's already broken.

[asasiner12]

Please either make it a universal passive to all companions/warframes or just one universal mod. Breaking it into 3 mods is just gonna hurt players more including the people who are just using carrier without knowing whats going on in the community. 

 

With that said thank you for responding and listening to the community on such a touchy matter.  

[Deidaku]

I think that breaking down vaccum into 3 mods is a bad idea. People wont even bother to use the Health or energy vaccums if they have a good team  / mod setup.

Just spitting ideas but what if vaccum became a passive for all sentinels and then can be tweaked and changed with mods .

Example ; All sentinels have regular vaccum, sucks up objects like old vaccum used to.

Now we can add dual stat ( maybe corrupted) sentinel mods : 

1. Mod prototype 1 : Absorbs 75% more health from health orbs vaccumed ; but 50% less ammo from ammo drops.
   • let's say my shade sucks up a 50 point health orb. , with the mod at full strenght it becomes 87 hp but ammo picked up by the sentinel are 50 less effective. So instead of 20 pistol rounds, we only get 10.
   • Could be useful for melee centric players  who don't use ammo that much or go sword alone.
   • values can be tweaked to be less op x)
2. Absorbs 25% more energy from orbs ,  but gets only 50% health from health orbs.
   • So we get 31 energy from energy orbs but only 25 hp from health orbs.
3. +25% ammo  gained pickups  but -20%  health and energy from orbs.
   • Best used on gunslinger frames using ammo devouring auto weapons like dex furis or twin vipers. Meaning a frame using those weapon types with a carrier sentinel with built in ammo mutation would basically  become very ammo efficient despite the high consumption.
4. Pickup speed and range increased by 30% :   but , -15%  less ammo & health from pickups.
5. Biosynthesis : vaccuming health orbs when warframe  and sentinel health are full will provide the and the warframe  sentinel with overshields that degrade over time. ( +100% sentinel overshield max  and + 50% oversheileld for the warframe.). Yes I got a name for this one x) 

I don't believe affecting ressource drops or mods drops is necessary or a good idea. People would just pick those vaccum mods  mods , max them , get some boosters and go draco somewhere for easy loot. 

 

I also suggest that sentinels get a "vaccum" slot . because all the prototype I mentionned would be impossible to put in one build without sacrificing sentinel build integrity.

TL:DR: No need to split vaccum into 3 parts. Keep it the same for all sentinels and create mods that add some variety to the vaccum ability instead. Those mods can affect pickup proportions to suits your playstyle. The sentinels also need a "vaccum"/ slot of their own. that doesnt need an adapter please

If you're making vaccum universal : do not turn the base vaccum into a mod. 

Thanks for reading

Edited September 21, 2016 by Deidaku
added TL:DR and talking points about mod and ressource drops... tweaked biosynthesis description. Tweaked ammo mod destription

[Haldos]

Much appreciated for the communication.

Please make a point to continue with this sort of communication in the future as things develop. Details are always welcome.

[corrosivePaladin]

A universal vaccum even short range like 5-10 meters would be great. Not because Potatofriend is almost the only worthwhile companion to have, but because if youve ever played with a laggy host. You know the real strength of Carrier. Letting you pick up items regardless of how poor a host's, or possibly even your own, connection is.

Though I really hope it isn't a mod. Having to sacrifice a slot for some simplicity is kinda lame honestly.

[JesterTheNight]

Whatever you do, DON'T SPILT VACUUM IN ANY WAY, please. One mod for all sentinels should be ok, that's what everyone has been asking for.

[S0V3REiGN]

Honestly, if you split vacuum it's just going to negatively impact the performance of the other sentinels. Truth is part of why Carrier was at the top it's because the other sentinels hardly can compete with their equipment. Dethcube has been bad to mediocre for a very, very long time (still my most played sentinel), Djinn hardly ever makes it alive to extraction on anything that isn't low level trash. Adding vacuum mods won't make those sentinels better, it will make them worse because the rest of the field can also use those mods and the other sentinels are better. Forcing our hand to make sentinels lose 3 mods to add a rather lazy feature isn't improving them.

 

Edited September 19, 2016 by S0V3REiGN

[tocorro]

To be honest, if the mod would be split in 3 that would be a huge disadvantage, because it would force removal of 2 additional mods from a sentinel to retain current usability.

On the other hand if Vacuum was made as a passive for WFs then I'm guessing Smeeta or companions giving invisibilty would be at the top of usage.

Since there is no good way out, then maybe split the mod into 2 (usable on all companions):
- ene/health/ammo
- rest of the loot

[mob9221]

I hope kubrows and kavats get them as well >.<