Vacuum: Discussions Post Devstream #80

[(PSN)Regiampiero]

5 minutes ago, PhantomOfAres said:

So, here's what I don't understand. I don't understand why. What I would love, more than anything, is for DE to be frank and honest about their reasoning behind innate, universal vacuum being off the table. This is obviously a big deal, and most of all, the playerbase doesn't understand. I don't understand. I've been a professional game developer. I've been in your shoes, and had to make choices that seemed bad to the playerbase (hell, I've made things that WERE bad for the playerbase.) I'm normally pretty savvy about these things. The only explanation I can think of is that you don't want the inflation that would come from making resource pickups easier. Even assuming that's the only problem, I STILL don't see the justification. The amount of good will you'd curry would blow the inflation from slightly faster level clears and greater resource pickups out of the water.

So more than any of these other solutions (I agree that 1 mod would be better than 3, I agree that forcing sentinel use by forcing vacuum to be sentinel-only is the wrong solution, and I agree that universal vacuum is the only RIGHT solution,) more than any of those, I want to understand why. I would love to hear a serious, brass-tacks explanation of WHY you don't want to make universal vacuum. Is it an engineering problem? Is it an economic problem? Do you want to balance the usage of sentinels against pets? Your userbase is clear on what they feel the problem is, you disagree. Please, just tell us why.

First thing first, DE has never said that something is off-the table. They may say that they're not working on it at the moment at best, so don't bash them for something they have not done. 

Secondly, if Vacuum became innate no one would ever use sentinels ever again. Carrier is not only the most used, its the only one used essentially. If you remove that feature from sentinels, you might as well remove them from the game. 

[Datsher]

1. 3 mods is way too much, given the fact I still have to fit other mods into my sentinel. Make it one or 2 max. Like 1 for normal pickups (ammo, health, energy) and 1 for mods endo, resources.

2. Give it to Kavats and Kubrows as well.

[PhantomOfAres]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)Regiampiero said:

Secondly, if Vacuum became innate no one would ever use sentinels ever again. Carrier is not only the most used, its the only one used essentially. If you remove that feature from sentinels, you might as well remove them from the game. 

But vacuum on all sentinels is a band-aid to the real problem then, that sentinels aren't really worst using.

I disagree with your assertion - I would happily use other sentinels if I had innate vacuum. But either way, I want DE to explain what they see as the issue, and why they think their solution will help. We haven't seen that discussion, and I can't imagine having a productive discussion without it.

Edited September 19, 2016 by PhantomOfAres

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

Just do a "vacuum seintinal" that sucks everything up. Make carrier what it is a "carrier" ( different load outs, ammo mutations esc esc ) And then buff the other seintinals with passives!!! Status, Strength, Range, Elements, Crits, Armor esc esc.

[(PSN)Regiampiero]

8 minutes ago, achromos said:

If the divide is...  Health/energy, ammo,. And resources in general I personally won't worry about it.  I don't want an built in auto loot radius because I wouldn't be able to efficiently pick up energy, or health orbs when managing my Nekros or health/energy conversion

The divide is most likely going to be Resources, Ammo and Credits. Could be wrong, but I think it would make sense. 

[(PSN)Elvenbane]

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

What needs to be mentioned right away is that a 'Universal Vacuum' is not off the table.

I appreciate that you made this thread Rebecca...and I am ecstatic to hear that universal vacuum is still something DE might consider.

It would be extremely helpful (to me at least) if you could explain the rational for not choosing to add an option for universal vacuum? I can't have an intelligent discussion on this subject without some insight into the thought processes and considerations that make the 3 mod split seem like a reasonable solution...

[(PSN)Regiampiero]

8 minutes ago, PhantomOfAres said:

But vacuum on all sentinels is a band-aid to the real problem then, that sentinels aren't really worst using.

I disagree with your assertion - I would happily use other sentinels if I had innate vacuum. But either way, I want DE to explain what they see as the issue, and why they think their solution will help. We haven't seen that discussion, and I can't imagine having a productive discussion without it.

I would use other sentinels too (like Elios to complete my codex), but we're two people in a very small minority. Most people would go with Kubrows or Kavats. And I don't think it would be a band-aid, its just a matter of mechanics. You want to farm? take a sentinel. Want to kill? take an animal.

The reason why they're just started discussing this is because they've been swamped with a mountain of other updates. This isn't exactly priority, but they're still getting to it and they will discuss it further don't you worry. This is not coming with War within. 

 

Edited September 19, 2016 by (PS4)Regiampiero

[PhantomOfAres]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)Regiampiero said:

The reason why they're just started discussing this is because they've been swamped with a mountain of other updates. This isn't exactly priority, but they're still getting to it and they will discuss it further don't you worry. This is not coming with War within. 

 

For sure! I'm not damning anyone, I'm not on the verge of leaving, I don't want to make it sound like everything is doom and gloom. But they've started this discussion without defining their view on it. I want their view on it, is all. It doesn't have to be now, but it sure would be nice to hear, because so far, their (admittedly short) discussions on the topic have been some combination of condescending and bizarre. I sincerely want to understand their motives, is all.

[bareel]

Pets (Sentinels and others) are exclusively for utility when I play, I typically do not even equip them with an attack option to avoid them stealing affinity and/or triggering alarms etc. The most important utility to me is the vacuum ability although I have in the past occasionally used Shade (for spys) and Helios for codex. The pace of warframe is much more enjoyable to me with vacuum to the point where I would rather respawn or leave the mission then play without it.

In the future my pets will still be primarily for the vacuum ability. If that means I have to sacrifice 3 mod slots I will unhappily do it. If it means I cannot use kubrows or kavats so be it. Ideally it will be a single mod that can be used on any pet OR even on my warframes themselves. Honestly why isn't it a warframe mod option as well? Would solve the kubrow and kavat issue.

[peggisan]

With focus on other sentinals, can we get cooldown timers on their abilities like Ghost, vaporize, etc.

[(PSN)Regiampiero]

1 minute ago, PhantomOfAres said:

For sure! I'm not damning anyone, I'm not on the verge of leaving, I don't want to make it sound like everything is doom and gloom. But they've started this discussion without defining their view on it. I want their view on it, is all. It doesn't have to be now, but it sure would be nice to hear, because so far, their (admittedly short) discussions on the topic have been some combination of condescending and bizarre. I sincerely want to understand their motives, is all.

They're admittedly short because they've let us in on it wile they're still playing with the idea. This isn't new for DE, prior the last two big updates they used to do it all the time if you go back and watch the Dev Streams. Its very unconventional for a company to involve their community this early in the developmental stage of thing, but now you know why. People freak out instead of discussing it. I'm sure in the next dev stream they'll discuss it further, just have patience. This is one of the reason why I love DE and this game, they care and they're different than the money-@#$%^ in charge of other AAA games.  

[Koldraxon-732]

...Now that I have placed my rather lengthly perspective on this, which hopefully combines the perspectives and concepts of others into something what a vast majority could approve of, I await the perspective of the developer(s) and the Lotus (p.s: where did my Nightmares go? I can't just Dream, Lotus) and their opinion, if they have time.

[Danjal777]

30 minutes ago, clemza said:

This can't be. What will happen with nekros and hydroid and other related drop/loot skills (mag, mirage, ...)

Easy solution:

- Making warframes base pickup range increase by x2 (ex: 1meter x2 = 2m)

- Warframe base pickup become x2 more when kubrow or kavat equiped (base x2 + x2 from pets = ex: 1meter x2 = 2m (base) + pet bonus = 2m x2 = 4m)

- Vacuum works on all sentinels (or DE idea, still duno what it will be)

That's simple, enemies killed will be desecrated and you get another chunk of resources, but you won't pick them up because you automatically get them.  Hydroid is the same way.  As for mirage, just have corpses leave a mark on he ground that acts like a mine when you activate her traps.  There's no need to be picking all this stuff up.

[[DE]Momaw]

Reasons why proposed solutions from community don't make sense:

• Loot should never be recovered without the player taking some kind of action. Gaining items automatically as the mission progresses is just begging to be abused by bots and AFK players.
• If you're hiding in a safe hole and nuking enemies before they can get to you without being able to get to where the loot is being dropped, you do NOT deserve to get the loot because you don't actually have tactical superiority. You're hiding and immobilized.
• The portion of loot that you get with Vacuum (basically 99% of everything that's dropped) should be a luxury, which has a cost, and not the baseline. There is a more than sufficient amount of energy and ammo, and gaining items which permanently increase your power like resources and mods should require at least a tiny bit of effort.
• Speed-running is a way to play the game, and should never be as rewarding as deliberately spending the effort to pick up all the loot.  Speed running is when you are trying to get end-of-mission rewards as quickly as possible. If you want the rewards from playing, then play.

 

Reasons why Vacuum can be legitimately useful:

• Clients can have extreme difficulty picking up items if the connection to host is slow or unreliable. Vacuum bypasses this.
• Sometimes there is an excessive number of individual drops, each worth very little individually, leading to a sense of wasting loot if you don't pick it all up or a sense of wasting time if you do

 

To me, the real solution for Vacuum isn't even Vacuum as much as it is reducing the perceived 'need' for Carrier:

• Improve client-side detection for item pickups over slow/bad connections
• Reduce the number of drops, but increase the amount that you get from each drop, to reduce the "carpet of loot" problem. Rather than 10 resource pickups that give 100 resource each, make it 2 pickups that give 500. Same for ammo. This makes it more streamlined for players to work item collecting into their gameplay by dramatically reducing the number of times they need to think about where they are moving.

[(PSN)Majoga]

It's kinda kool with expanding vacuum, but I do have an issue with the sentinels disappearing during Razerwing. Was thinking earlier, what about a Razerwing Augment mod called Puddling (sounds weird but that's what butterflies do), where the butterflies will retrieve drops simular to vacuum. Maybe effected by Power Range also? Is a little annoying skimming the ground for drops while flying or having to fly back to that one spot your Carrier despawned at. Just food for thought idk...

edit: of course as the butterflies all die off so does your vacuum effect.

Edited September 19, 2016 by (PS4)Majoga

[Phaedryn]

Speaking as an engineer, I have to question the competence of anyone who would suggest such a convoluted solution to what is essentially a very simple problem.  You have a native, base, pickup range already coded for all frames.  Simply increase that range to Vacuum ranges and call it a day.  Why *anyone* would suggest going the route that has been suggested in mind boggling.

[-BM-Vimorain]

dividing another of several MANDATORY mods,this time mandatory pet mod will make it more annoying ,as i am guessing it will be ammo,resource and credits Vacuum or something very close . its outright terrible idea .more bogging down basic convenience.it should be built into every frame as basic,like in Diablo,Sacred(I,II) and even Borderlands (where you at lease multi-loot by holding E) . this will let people pick any type and kind of companion for right reasons ! you said you made mistake with Serration , and other MODS ,why repeat it even with convenience mod like this ?

[Gio21]

so if i want to go alone im doomed and i have to pickup a pet to gather my loot cuz i cant :|

[-BM-Vimorain]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Regiampiero said:

I'm on board with this 100% percent. The division of Dyson into 3 mods is:

1. Going to allow us to install them on every sentinel. Finally!

2. Its going to give us a reason to dumb forma in sentinels, or at least me. 

3. Its going to give us the liberty of choosing to farm for everything or a specific thing. I'm guessing (like the boosters) the split into 3 is for Ammo, Resources, and Credits vacuums.  

4. Lastly...And its a looooooooooooong shot. Why not let us equip both a sentinel and an animal companion? They're really two different things, where one is geared for dps, and the other for utility. Just a thought. 

all bad reasons with bad outcome . it will still take up mod where this should not even be topic not case . universal innate vacuum is right answer to this .

[Grachuss]

Splitting vacuum into 3 mods is a horrible idea and a very twisted interpretation of what players have wanted for years. It is also a outright blatant nerf to vacuum. 

Vacuum needs to be made available for all companions in its current form; not split into 3 different mods. The utility of vacuum is to great to not do this. You could make it a mod for all companions but that leaves the issue of it being a mandatory mod. Ideally I would like it to be a passive companion bonus.

 

Also gonna link this again  https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/533o01/dear_descott_we_as_a_community_want_universal/

 

Edited September 19, 2016 by Grachuss

[(PSN)Regiampiero]

13 minutes ago, Phaedryn said:

Speaking as an engineer, I have to question the competence of anyone who would suggest such a convoluted solution to what is essentially a very simple problem.  You have a native, base, pickup range already coded for all frames.  Simply increase that range to Vacuum ranges and call it a day.  Why *anyone* would suggest going the route that has been suggested in mind boggling.

The reason is simple, but like all engineers you over simplify in your head. If they did that, sentinels would be next to useless. 

[-BM-Vimorain]

1 hour ago, xcynderx said:

or even better...added as a passive to companions.

why should i be stuck with sentinels or currently a carrier just to get my damn drops.....all companions should have the current vaccumme as a passive, in addition to whatever they have that makes each companion special....obviously carrier WILL need something new to compensate....like ammo regen :P

why companions,not frames,what if some people dont want any pet ?

[3thereal]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Regiampiero said:

The reason is simple, but like all engineers you over simplify in your head. If they did that, sentinels would be next to useless. 

Sentinels would still have attacks, cloaking abilities, shield recharging, health restoring,  and Status abilities.... far from useless.

[Phatose]

I hold that the responsible thing to do is both split vacuum into 3 mods that can be used by any sentinel, and also keep it as 1 single, carrier only mod that does the functions of all 3.

I'd even go so far as to allow range to stack on carrier if you equip his specific vacuum and 1 or more of the new trio of mods.  So if you equip vacuum and say, "Loot Vacuum" the vacuum range - for loot - is combined.

[Koldraxon-732]

Alternatively, a proposal for a device, that would be equipped in a mod slot on ANYTHING or can be attached/removed freely, that has the space for the Vaccum types would deal with this issue. Then again, I did leave an expanded variant of this thought earlier, where Vaccum would be shattered into single-type vaccums that could be combined into a vaccum that hoovers three different things (ammo/resources/endo, for instance, merged from their individual variants with a fourth mod of one's choosing using transmutation).