Vacuum: Discussions Post Devstream #80

[Roboplus]

Why is it a mod at all? Why is it a thing you have to equip?

The comparison to mandatory mods isn't the most apt, as Vacuum is far from required. But its existence is also far from that of an elemental mod, where the conscious choice to not use one can be strategic. Or a health/shield/armor mod where the abundance of choices available may place it in a much higher priority bracket for some frames while offering very little to others.

At one point there was a theoretical reason to not use Vacuum. Back when drops lasted 30 minutes people would let ammo build up in long Defense/Survivals and grab them when enemies took entire magazines to drop (instead of consuming a 20 Rifle Ammo drop for 1 bullet). But now that they only last 5 minutes (and Team Ammo Restores are easy to acquire) even that excuse is gone. There is no reason to not have Vacuum at all times, if available.

So why isn't it just an inherent thing, not tied to companions at all, and certainly not tied to a mod? You walk near something you pick it up, not because you have to, but because it's convenient.

[zptc]

I feel the issue as perceived by the devs isn't the same as that felt by most of the players. The devs seem to feel the issue is "carrier is used disproportionately, so we want to incentivize use of other sentinels" while the issue the players are vocal about is "carrier offers a large QOL improvement, we want that improvement without being confined to the use of carrier."

While the overall game mechanic of "kill things to get loot to kill bigger things to get more loot" is fun, the mechanical moment-by-moment process of loot Pac-Man (physically running over every single little drop we want) isn't.

Perhaps the devs feel that there should be some trade-off for the ability to gather loot without having to step directly on it. I would ask, should we really be forced to have a trade-off for doing something that serves as a core mechanic?

[-BM-Vimorain]

1 hour ago, -----LegioN----- said:

Dunno, adding universal vacuum doesn't fix anything imo.

Carrier prime is the tankiest swntinel, and turning him into an actual ammo carrier (possibly even with ammo mutation) will keep him as the best choice over other sentinels.

And honestly, even tough I like using one of my kubrows, I  see no reason to change sentinels for a pet with health decay and loyalty meter, so I guess companions need way more than vacuum to be able to compete with carrier sentinels.

does universal vacuum help? Yes.

Is it enough to open more variety? No, imo.

 

"Be clear about the goals" And please do not split the dream vacuum

 

you're utterly wrong . only reason everyone i even played with using strictly and only carrier,or Kubrow that too picks up things is that utility and nothing else . which is why about >5% people use Kavats even if they are new thing . utility over everything . p.s. remember greedy mag ?

[ClatterHD3]

If im correct, a clan member of mine told me that NONE of them even scale as good as a.carrier in late game. The hp it can get and its uses is far beyond what anything (but helios) can offer. If vacuum does gets reworked, instead of a precept, he said he would like it to be a universal passive for all sentinels so that you can focus on more things like increasing how others scale, how much dmg they do, what their precepts should be and add Augments for carrier.

[BlueStar95]

While on the topic, can we get some kind of Vacuum passive on archwing? Or keep sentinels on archwing mod, only sentinels, cats and dogs in space doesn't sound very efficient.

[-BM-Vimorain]

2 hours ago, PsiWarp said:

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.

about your 4th point : toggle function to Universal Innate Vacuum 

[Drazhar14]

Thank you DE for reconsidering after Friday's announcement. I think 3 mods is a terrible idea, as it destroys builds on other sentinels. Please keep it as one vacuum mod. I still think sentinels will be more used than kubrows/kavats, but you can start with having vacuum as just a sentinel mod like you said and based on monitoring possibly add a different vacuum mod for kubrows/kavats in the future if you find their usage hasn't gone up. In this fast paced game, I still consider vacuum a mandatory ability and it would be nice to have this by default no matter what, but hey, this is a start.

[thisbandisawful]

vacuum is desirable because picking up all the loot in the game is a pain. vacuum wouldn't be seen as so essential if ammo wasn't a pickup. also, why is ammo a pickup? it's annoying and the rainbow boxes all over the floor don't look good

what if health, energy and ammo were not pickups, but were awarded a different way during missions? for example, ammo could be a supply drop, like lotus' life support capsules. maybe energy and health could be given to players for achieving certain mini-goals. or on enemy kills - channeling kills, headshot kills, elite baddy kills, melee combo kills?

health orbs barely ever drop without nekros anyway

by getting rid of hp, energy and ammo pickups, vacuum is no longer required. endo and mod drops are uncommon enough that running over them to pick them up isn't the huge pain as energy, hp and ammo are today

please remember to consider the chesa kubrow's role when making loot pickup changes

[Domaik]

Vacuum is needed to help the flow of the game. the game is amazing for the mobility and fast paced combat and mechanics. I think it is against this logic to stop to pick up things. The ammo and energy manual pickups just make it dreadful to play...

I would like to say just make it a thing tied to all warframes so we can use sentinels or kubrows or kavats...why give us awesome companions if we cant use them...

on a second note, if it has to be a mod then make it possible to equip in all sentinels...

But what ever you do, DO NOT SPLIT IT IN 3 MODS please!!!!!!!!!

Edited September 25, 2016 by Domaik

[timur_the_lame]

2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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'

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

 

Your ideas are bad and you should feel bad.  Have you been to the megathread?  Have you seen the vitriol thrown in your (DE's) general direction?  My guess is yes, as we wouldn't have received a response so quickly if you (DE) hadn't.  

If you want people to use other companions, just make vacuum innate to warframes.  This is not a difficult concept, and the fact that you (DE) have failed to address this in over two years as your game has only increased in pace is appalling.  Why would you (DE) hesitate to implement a quality of life change that has been direly needed for such a long time, and is obviously born out by the numbers?  If literally 90% of your players use a single item in the game for a purely utilitarian purpose, the problem lies in the fact that the utility isn't just inherent to the game itself.  Making a vacuum mod which can be used on all sentinels doesn't fix the fact that kavats and kubrows see incredibly limited use.  Putting the mod on all pets doesn't fix the fact that those without pets (newer players), or those who choose to not use them will be missing out on such a basic ability which does nothing other than make your game more convenient, less annoying, and less clunky.

This shouldn't be a difficult decision.

[Skaleek]

Consolidate to 1 type of vacuum please. Sentinels are crowded enough as is in terms on modspace. Basically just change the current vacuum mod from carrier only to companion. That's my ideal fix here.

Edited September 19, 2016 by Skaleek

[Tolaez]

3 mods suck imho

Make it sort of like diablo 3 - gold and health orbs are affected by pick up radius but items are manually picked up. Which in warframe terms means credits/resources/health?/energy? gets picked up, but mods/blueprints/health?/energy? are manual.

Also tie the default vacuum as a warframe passive and make the mod increase the range/speed (applicable to all companions).

 

 

[Kiseok]

Please don't split it up into 3. It just seems awkward for specific items to be picked up while others can't be, considering that everything "Vacuumed" (aside from Life Support) will always be useful. Also, this seems to be a release for Sentinels only, which I personally think is a terrible idea because it provides another reason for Kavats and Kubrows to not be used over Sentinels.

I'm all for "universal vacuum," but I certainly don't believe it's necessary at all as long as the vacuum issue is remedied well.

[Skaleek]

2 minutes ago, Tolaez said:

3 mods suck imho

Make it sort of like diablo 3 - gold and health orbs are affected by pick up radius but items are manually picked up. Which in warframe terms means credits/resources/health?/energy? gets picked up, but mods/blueprints/health?/energy? are manual.

Also tie the default vacuum as a warframe passive and make the mod increase the range/speed (applicable to all companions).

 

 

That's just an overall nerf to vacuum. The whole reason i use vacuum is to get mods and resources since i dont need anything else. If you were to remove that functionality you'd be gutting the skill.

[Stormdragon]

13 minutes ago, Vimorain said:

you're utterly wrong . only reason everyone i even played with using strictly and only carrier,or Kubrow that too picks up things is that utility and nothing else . which is why about >5% people use Kavats even if they are new thing . utility over everything . p.s. remember greedy mag ?

Do you know what an opinion is? 

[doomsdayforte]

All right, well. 

I've posted enough on r/warframe about this so I'll try to summarize my otherwise long-winded feelings. 

Warframe is a high-velocity game where you should spend time killing scores of mooks with your ridiculous weapons and powers.  Instead, Warframe has serious periods of downtime where you must touch each drop that comes off of enemies, at least if you aren't running Carrier.  If you choose to ignore drops, you get to experience the game 'as intended' with wasting no time to find the next fight, but you wind up losing out in the end because you won't have the resources to build your gear or the mods to improve them (or take much longer to get them).  If you decide to focus on drops, you are oftentimes left behind as your allies rush on ahead, so you tend to not really get to experience that thrill of combat, in exchange for being able to build potentially anything and power it up as you wish with your diligent collecting. 

Those who run Carrier have a 'best of both worlds' situation.  They need spend less time running over to resources and Mods and other drops, meaning more time to go kill things.  And this point completely ignores the "I'm about out of ammo/health/energy and need to move 5m in this direction to get a pickup I need, then move another 3m over here, and then..." regarding vital pickups.  Those with Carrier have an immediate advantage in this field over those who don't have/don't use it, even though there is a slight problem with Carrier sucking in vital pickups when you won't benefit from them 100% (wasting drops).  If I'm in critical health and there's a health orb about 30m away and a Grineer has me in his sights, I'm probably dead if I don't bulletjumproll right into it.  With Carrier, at least I don't need perfect accuracy to touch the orb and tank the hit. 

There is talk of 'freedom of choice' in this game, and the way loot works and Vacuum existing kinda takes away from it.  You run Carrier and you can focus more on the gameplay, the high-speed gunmageninja action against everything else.  The only positioning you need worry about is not being in the path of a Napalm bonfire or Tar Moa puddle.  And if you need something as far as ammo/health/energy, you only need to vaguely be close for them to assist you.  Not running Carrier means you get a Sentinel that can actually attack beyond sneeze range or a cat or dog, but then you have to split your attention between the enemies you're fighting and the things they're dropping.  Well, 'have to' but ignoring drops now will harm you later on. 

And the dominance of Vacuum means that dogs and cats go unused.  Poor Chesa was designed to be the dog counterpart to Carrier, but its performance was sorely lacking (but the disarm was really helpful, no lie).  For cats, Smeeta actually convinced several people to switch from Carrier with its ridiculous rare resource drop with Charm, though once it was changed, people went back to the gourd.  Splitting Vacuum into three mutually-exclusive mods is already bad, but making them Sentinel-only means that dogs and cats won't see any more use than what we have now!  Carrier will just be called Wyrm/Prime, or Dethcube, or Djinn, or Helios too.  Why should I 'have' to use a Sentinel if I want an easier time collecting drops? 

Vacuum as it is now is the Dual Zoren from the Zorencopter days.  Or the Tipedo from Directional Melee.  And so on.  The 'fix' for these didn't come in three parts.  We got something that was honestly better if only because we got to use anything we wanted to space ninja ballet through the maps.  And doesn't it kinda kill the idea of freedom of choice if you can only use the mods on Sentinels?  If Universal Vacuum-as-now is considered too powerful, consider that we've had it for ages now--as long as you ran Carrier.  And who didn't?  It was the Forbidden Fruit given the shape of a gourd, and once you've had a taste, who could resist?  The only real downside to overuse of Carrier is that you can't use other pets, and that's not really a big deal given how amazingly good having a wide pickup range is.  On paper, Vacuum shouldn't sound that great compared to Crowd Dispersion or even Fatal Attraction.  "It doesn't even affect enemies?  Pfft."  Who needs the Active Buster when you have the Vacuum Arm equipped?  Granted, maxing the Vacuum Arm would make buying the Active Buster's final ammo upgrade actually feasible...  The difference is that Zenny in Megaman Legends stops having a point once you've upgraded everything.  In Warframe, the Rubedo and the Polymer and the Plastids and the Orokin Cells and so on all have potential use down the road as DE introduces new things to spend them on. 

Let us pick the pet we want and not have it dictate our efficiency with looting.  I'd rather it be an innate passive for all Frames, but if not, make it one mod.  And not an R10 that costs 20 at max with an R/Unairu polarity because we have to decide if we want power or items.  I'm not saying to hand us the world on a silver platter, but just to take Vacuum as it is...and give it to everyone.  Let us actually walk our dogs and our cats or even play with poor neglected Dethcube without it screwing our farming power.  Part of the game is being able to kill mooks with our amazing weapons and ridiculous power...and the other part is using the things they drop to make new toys.  Don't make us choose. 

As for the proposed Carrier ability rework, may I submit one of my own (probably not original)?  Have Carrier drop equipped health/ammo/energy/shield restore plates when you get below 10%/25%/50%/75% of max, delegated by the precept level.  This would make Carrier the somewhat counterpart to the Sahasa Kubrow, which can summon the drops you need provided it has a moment to Dig for you.  Carrier would be the medic of the Sentinels, and since it drops your Team Restore pizzas, everyone nearby can benefit!  Though...you have to stop moving to get the full benefit and Carrier can potentially eat a hole in your resources by overusing pizzas, but it would be an interesting niche that only one pet somewhat touches on.  And it hits the teamplay button hard too.  I know it's a weird idea, but I figured it was different than "Carrier holds excess drops" that's been talked about for years, though that's still a great idea too.

...damn, this wasn't supposed to be long-winded. 

[TimFlint]

3 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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.

Is this going to be like the focus affinity & daily cap nonsense? Where it's a beta, evaluating feedback and thinking about removing the cap? And the "solution with a tweeest" was the little yellow orbs that... don't really do much and you have to run away from the group/defense objective to get them? Also, nerfing farming spots and @(*()$ up spawns on Exterminates?

And a year later and ... that was it? No fixes, changes, evaluation of feedback, announcements like "this is where we want it to go and how we want to accomplish that".

 

Sorry. I'm not really looking forward to another rounds of that. Just... maybe go with a simple solution this once. Think about how picking up ammo, orbs, resources is engaging gameplay... or rather not engaging at all. And then implement a simple solution that makes the "loot system" better suited to WF's gameplay.

[Racter]

Make it a passive Warframe ability. The current version only serves to restrict our choices, the proposed 3 way split would restrict them even further. There simply isn't room to fit all three on a sentinel if you want to run survivability mods or whatever it's actual precepts were. If a Warframe passive if unacceptable, make it a single mod for all companions, or leave it alone entirely.

 

Edited September 19, 2016 by Racter0325

[Jade-Lotus]

What I think would be nice and work well to increase the use of other sentinels and companions is to make vacuum a universal passive on all warframes, with a slight increase to the radius that the items actually have to be in for them to be counted as picked up and stop following you. And for those who might not want to have their vacuum on or only pick up certain items, make it something tied to each individual warframe so that when you're hovering over them in the arsenal, one of the drop-down menus can be for vacuum with options for what gets sucked up and what doesn't. 

[motorfirebox]

What about a half-range universal vaccuum as a default power for all frames, and then three mods that extend its range?

[robbybe01234]

I'd like to explain briefly my preferred experience in Warframe after 1500 hours of ingame time.  I often use my peripheral vision to identify and navigate towards items.

Vacuum allows me to place myself near the item while still focusing on the objective or enemy.  After experiencing this utility, the notion of having to literally place the foot of the frame on the item to acquire it while having to manage combat or stop the progress of the mission to pixel hunt the room is unappealing.  Multiply this by 100 because this is a grind based game and this quickly becomes a needlessly tedious act.  As others have suggested, it is possible that vacuum was a mistake from the beginning as its precept falls out of line with the other combat / encounter based precepts.

The breakup of Vac to 3 mods will not break the QOL of any sentinel because there is room to support it, so that argument is out.  But there are more convenient ways that will, as a side effect boost mod potential of the companions by saving the 1-3 slots for future options (i.e. damage based or survivability based mods). 

Based on my personal thoughts and others I've read on the forums, my suggestions are:

• Implement vacuum toggle inside the Gameplay Options menu (This will satisfy both populations of the Vac users / Non-Vac users and open up a couple slots for companions).
• Add an exilus slot to companions.  Make Vacuum the 1st exilus companion mod. 
• Make a variation of the 3 Vac mods not tied to your original idea as the only real choice would be the item/resource/mod option.  Meaning it might as well have been one univesral mod.  Something that will entice me to use each one at different times.  (i.e vac with health conversion / vac with overshield conversion)
• Allow the vacuum to be functional with all companions. 

Just like you guys did with the Mesa rework, allow the systems to "evolve".

After spending time tinkering with Shooting Gallery she found a way to retain the ability while transferring it to others.  Well done.

After spending time tinkering with the gravity device we found a way to safely attach it to the other companions. 

[Tolaez]

22 minutes ago, Skaleek said:

That's just an overall nerf to vacuum. The whole reason i use vacuum is to get mods and resources since i dont need anything else. If you were to remove that functionality you'd be gutting the skill.

Well its not really a nerf if its a baseline property of all warframes as I suggested. How often do mods (that you want or are worth it) drop in a mission that isn't survival or excavation?

[Sold0ut]

My personal idea would be to really make it an options setting. This would allow some possibilities:

The setting itself I would set in the gameplay tab. It would have these options:

1. Vacuum - All: All resources, credits, mods, Endo (and Ammunition) drops get collected with X meters. Additionally it would collect Health and Energy Orbs in the same radius or a smaller one. This option would also pull in Life Support.
2. Vacuum - No Misc:  All resources, credits, mods, Endo (and Ammunition) drops get collected with X meters. Additionally it would collect Health and Energy Orbs in the same radius or a smaller one. This option would IGNORE Life support and similar items.
3. Vacuum - Resources and Ammunition: All resources, credits, mods, Endo and Ammunition drops get collected with X meters. Health Orbs and Life Support drops get ignored.
4. Vacuum - Resources and Orbs: All resources, credits, mods and Endo drops get collected. Orbs also get collected. Ammunition gets ignored.

Of course this allows for several options from there on, including minor tweaks:

• The option to make Orb suck-in ranges smaller than the other ones. 
• The option to add a mod for ALL Companions (and the Exilus Warframe slot) that pulls in Health / Energy Orbs at a greater than default range. Maybe the current Vacuum range. This would make it an option, rather than a no-brainer choice.
• The option to let players set their Vacuum range with a slider. Full slider is the current maximum range. This would allow people that want to use the All setting the option of reducing the range of item pulls, ammo pulls and Orb pulls, to further help people that want to run builds like Energy Conversion Frames etc.

[Misgenesis]

Should have never made the mod. Making it universal would be throwing limits on us away.

[armedpoop]

Please dont make it into 3 different mods. Just make the Vacuum into its own precept that can be slotted into any sentinel, and change whatever you are going to on carrier. I feel that that is what the best thing to do for us as players.