Ember and Mirage, the fun-killing frames

[Jackviator]

Time for the daily thread on why Ember's 4 (World on Fire) is broken and how Mirage's 1 (Hall of Mirrors) interacts with certain weapons (like our favorite little black hole launcher, the Synoid Simulor) is extremely overpowered/wasn't really thought through all that well.

So, I'll be blunt; Ember and Mirage are the frames you pick when you don't want to have to actually play the game. Whoever is using them reduces the game into essentially a walking-simulator for both them and everyone who has the misfortune of being in the same squad as the player in question. This is especially true on Exterminate missions, where entire rooms are cleared before you even have time to aim.

They are also also completely, utterly brainless. All you need to do in order to "play" Ember is build for strength and efficiency, know how to press 4, and hold down a movement button and the sprint button. There, you now know how to play Ember effectively. Mirage is only slightly more advanced. First you need to equip the Synoid Simulor and/or Telos Boltace, press 1, and then you have to simultaneously hold a movement button and mash the fire button (if using the SynSim) or mash crouch+melee (if using the TelTace). There is no challenge or strategy to either of them.

Now, I can already hear the heavy "here we go again" sighs in the background, as people reach for the keyboard to leave the comments I have so often seen. I'm going to predict those comments and answer them accordingly, purely for the sake of saving time and not having to do so later.

"If you don't like them just don't use them."

Yeahhhno. Warframe is a co-op shooter, not just a single-player game. It is fine to be as OP as you want in, say, Skyrim, or Saints Row, or any other single-player game, because that's your experience, your choice. In this case, the experience of the whole squad has to be kept in mind when designing stuff the players can use. As I and many others have run entire missions where we don't even have time to aim before the room has been cleared via brainless death-aura, that has obviously not been kept in mind here. Another player can definitely ruin the experience for everyone else. Just because I, personally, am not using the frames, does not mean the problem is solved.

"Then just run solo, or with a pre-made squad, or your friends/clan that don't use either of them."

1: The affinity loss is far too great (read: f***ing MASSIVE) if you run solo. 2: Recruit chat devolves into waiting minutes upon minutes for the right person to see the messages you sent out. 3: Friends and clanmates aren't always online, and besides, those 3 ideas are just a band-aid solution anyway.

"Pffft. You're just salty because they're stealing your kills."

I don't give a flying f*** about kill counts. What I DO care about is being able to at least pretend that it is physically possible to contribute to them in missions when either of these two frames are in the squad. See that point above about rooms being cleared in less time than it takes to line up a single shot; it's not fun to run through an empty level, or what may as well be one, because the enemies a room ahead of you are already half-dead.

"Well, not everyone uses those builds."

I'm sorry, what? Realistically, do you think anyone besides people who are at the so-called "endgame," just to screw around, is going to use builds that aren't the meta for particular frames? Sure, Ember can be built for support/buffing if you slap a couple (band-aid) augments on her for her 1 and 2, or for soft CC if you use the aug for her 4, and Mirage post-nerf can act as a worse version of Excalibur for blinding enemies with a slower cast time, but do you think anyone is realistically going to do that vs just clearing rooms in a heartbeat?

"But the abilities, especially WoF, don't scale well past level 50-60ish."

That doesn't matter. Scaling almost ceased to be a factor in this game as soon as Void 2.0 launched. Outside of Sorties and Raids, there just isn't a reason to care about enemy scaling, no reason to go for longer and longer Survival and Defense runs. Endless relic missions are too inconsistent for people to reliably make squads for them anyway, and aren't even always available, plus they got rid of one of the only reasons people did them in the first place, that is to say, getting more than one drop from a key/relic. Like it or not, the star chart (and the relatively low levels that come with it) makes up the vast majority of the gameplay for most players now.

"But things like having to do Invasions 3 times are just annoying to get through anyway, why not speed it up?"

That just points to Invasions needing to be reworked to be more enjoyable, not that it's fine to keep the frames as-is.

"But overall, if these abilities were changed it would just restrict our options, and WF is a game about having options and not restricting your playstyle!"

And yet, these abilities restrict the "playstyle" of the rest of the squad to simply desperately trying to extract enjoyment out of the experience by running ahead of the frame in question, searching for unburned/unexploded enemies, and that's only viable if the player running the Ember/Mirage in question isn't good at parkour/speed running missions. Bit hypocritical, don't ya think?

So basically, what I'm trying to say is that WoF and the way that Hall of Mirrors interacts with certain weapons both need to be reworked, and soon. They are brainless abilities that simply take the fun away from anyone who isn't using them and turn any given mission into a race to the finish line.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Jackviator
adding another example

[Evultis]

This is the same reason Bladestorm and Miasma were reworked. I fail to see why these abilities have been untouched except for the fact that there are other things to be worked on.

[(XBOX)EternalDrk Mako]

Just now, Cephalon_Esrius said:

This is the same reason Bladestorm and Miasma were reworked. I fail to see why these abilities have been untouched except for the fact that there are other things to be worked on.

well ember has been touch as has mirage on more then 1 occasion 

lets not forget equinox maim can out damage everything .... not just the WOF style of slash but the decast nuke with million+ damage .....

but i feel equinox and ember are fine with this kit, but need more synergy with embers 1,2,3  to couple with 4 

in all honesty i use ember as a CC frame not as damage [not saying i dont put out DPS, but thats not my focus]

mirage on other had, ive never really enjoyed, she feels overpower when combined with sy /simulor  

even in squads or solo, i just dont enjoy her  .....

-best regards 

 Mako

 

[marelooke]

In Mirage's case I'd argue the problem is the Simulor, not Mirage.

And fyi, I've never used either Simulor with my Mirage, ever.

Edited November 28, 2016 by marelooke

[Zhoyzu]

This doesnt bother me but i do find it a mild irritant.

 

+1 for well constructed thread.

[PanicPrime]

Ember doesn't bother me too much, at least I haven't encountered many bad ones. But yes Simulor Mirage is a headache. Especially since they apparently don't know how to explode their blorps so you're left unable to pick up power cells. *Shudder*

Edited November 28, 2016 by ChasePanic

[Jackviator]

Just now, ChasePanic said:

Especially since they apparently don't know how to explode their blorps so you're left unable to pick up power cells. *Shudder*

Sorry but I am SO stealing that word to describe the simulor bubbles from now on. It's just too good not to.  

Anyway, I suppose it's understandable that they wouldn't know how to do that. Like I said when describing the school of Mirage, all you have to learn is how to equip the SynSim and mash the fire button while running. It seems alt-fire was never taught at that particular institution.

[LSG501]

11 minutes ago, marelooke said:

In Mirage's case I'd argue the problem is the Simulor, not Mirage.

And fyi, I've never used either Simulor with my Mirage, ever.

This... and I just don't like the simulor either if I try to use it.... Mirage in itself isn't the problem, it's the weapons that are being used with it which can cause the problem.

A simulor is bad enough on it's own but reduce it's requirement via a mirage and then add in a spam fest from the player and well you might as well just skip the level. 

 

As to the reasons you mentioned... there is a LOT of things that need changing when it comes to damage and missions/invasions etc and the way some things are found/received in game. 

Invasions/alerts are often done as quickly as possible because to put it simply players need the resources due to the way that some are put behind artificial restrictions such as needing void and having an expiry date (argon), limited alerts of 4 a day (nitain) or specific alerts for things like mutalist nav co-ordinates or catalyst reactors/catalysts. 

[Helljack84]

Clearing the tile can be done with basically any Warframe with AoE abilities. You could literally remove everything you called out and the next thing are Frost/Rhino/other weapons that do the same thing.

[Xekrin]

31 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

They are also also completely, utterly brainless.

You forgot resonating quake banshee, though she is more for interceptions/defenses.  You don't even need to hold movement keys on her, just spam energy, hit 4 and wait for various waves to finish.  I haven't the faintest idea how they thought that would be balanced.  DE needs more minmax testers because they clearly missed that being a problem when they conceived that augment.

[Jackviator]

Just now, Xekrin said:

You forgot resonating quake banshee

Yeah, I know. It's just that if I tried to address everything that ruins the fun for players, I'd have to find some way to bypass the character/text-limit for forum posts, and my hands would start to cramp. :P

[Jackviator]

4 minutes ago, Helljack84 said:

Clearing the tile can be done with basically any Warframe with AoE abilities. You could literally remove everything you called out and the next thing are Frost/Rhino/other weapons that do the same thing.

To a lesser extent and with a bit more min-maxing, yeah. It's why I'm personally of the opinion that certain powers should simply not have damage attached to them. Stripping enemy armor and freezing them is fair enough for Frost's 4 imo.

[Inarticulate]

One, World on Fire doesn't do enough damage in a wide enough area to do this at the high end of the star chart. Running a fully modded Warframe or fully modded gun is supposed to make low-level content trivial, and Ember just does it better than most other Warframes and guns.

Two, the Synoid Simulor is the "problem" (in quotes because I honestly don't care), not Mirage. I can basically do the exact same with any other Warframe, just not nearly as quickly.

16 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

Sorry but I am SO stealing that word to describe the simulor bubbles from now on. It's just too good not to.  

That makes two of us.

[S0V3REiGN]

Similor's max ammo needs a big nerf, only reason why mirages go around spamming it even if the room is completely empty.

[Jackviator]

45 minutes ago, marelooke said:

In Mirage's case I'd argue the problem is the Simulor, not Mirage.

Fair enough, but you gotta admit that even though the gun itself is obviously OP and deserves a nerf by itself, the way it specifically interacts with Mirage's 1 is so destructive it's comical.

[Fast_98]

How to fix Synoid simulor connections with Mirage. 

1. Add a cap on vertex (kinda like frost bubble)

2. Make it that the orbs can only interact with the clone / originals orb. Meaning that 2 different clones orb can't merge to form a vortex.

3. 1 week of complains and salt.

4. I week later Nerf brigade complains about new meta weapon (tonkor,Ignis, amprex,torid, ect) that goes well with Mirage. 

5. Cycle back to square 1.

[Sar.K.Asmus]

25 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

Yeah, I know. It's just that if I tried to address everything that ruins the fun for players, I'd have to find some way to bypass the character/text-limit for forum posts, and my hands would start to cramp. :P

You don't need to bypass the character/text-limit for forum posts to address everything that ruins the fun for players. I can sum it up for you in just one sentence.

Other players ruin the fun for players.

I have so much fun when i play solo. And i play with other players if i just want the mission reward pretty quick or better ducat chance.

[Soketsu]

1 minute ago, Fast_98 said:

How to fix Synoid simulor connections with Mirage. 

1. Add a cap on vertex (kinda like frost bubble)

2. Make it that the orbs can only interact with the clone / originals orb. Meaning that 2 different clones orb can't merge to form a vortex.

3. 1 week of complains and salt.

4. I week later Nerf brigade complains about new meta weapon (tonkor,Ignis, amprex,torid, ect) that goes well with Mirage. 

5. Cycle back to square 1.

How to avoid all of this, create a pub matchmaking with people who don't care about simulormirageember and every "op" thing and another with forbbiden gear

with some luck,  people like the one who call for nerf go with the forbidden/restricted gear everyone is happy (I hope) and no-one have to call for another nerf to the ground,

 

since they don't want to go solo or go create their own team and they need to go here every week in the nerf crusade, this thing might slow down the nerf call 

I hope we will instead see more buff thread instead of nerf one (I know I may dream a little too much)

[Fast_98]

3 minutes ago, Soketsu said:

How to avoid all of this, create a pub matchmaking with people who don't care about simulormirageember and every "op" thing and another with forbbiden gear

with some luck,  people like the one who call for nerf go with the forbidden/restricted gear everyone is happy (I hope) and no-one have to call for another nerf to the ground,

 

since they don't want to go solo or go create their own team and they need to go here every week in the nerf crusade, this thing might slow down the nerf call 

I hope we will instead see more buff thread instead of nerf one (I know I may dream a little too much)

Sadly it won't ever happen and everything that Mirage touches will be nerfed. Looking at kohm.

[Jackviator]

5 minutes ago, Soketsu said:

How to avoid all of this, create a pub matchmaking with people who don't care about simulormirageember and every "op" thing and another with forbbiden gear

with some luck,  people like the one who call for nerf go with the forbidden/restricted gear everyone is happy (I hope) and no-one have to call for another nerf to the ground,

 

since they don't want to go solo or go create their own team and they need to go here every week in the nerf crusade, this thing might slow down the nerf call 

I hope we will instead see more buff thread instead of nerf one (I know I may dream a little too much)

I'm not sure you got the main point here. I don't see those frames as fun to use, and I think a lot of people can agree with me. They're just fun-vacuums for all involved, including those using them. They remove all challenge, they're brainless, etc etc.

It's not a solution to just say "yo everyone who thinks this should be nerfed, just use it and shut up talking about nerfing it!" Like... what are you even trying to say there?

[ssh83]

Post like this is what's killing the game.

Warframe is all about options and letting people play however they want.

Restricting options kills the main thing that sets Warframe apart.  All for what?  Some dude's ego?

[Jackviator]

16 hours ago, ssh83 said:

 Some dude's ego?

Or, to put it more accurately, the enjoyment of the rest of the squad, so as not to let one person hog all the "ego." It's all in how you phrase it.  

16 hours ago, ssh83 said:

Warframe is all about options and letting people play however they want.

And yet those that utilize certain things in this game limit the options of the rest of the squad to simply running after them/ahead of them, desperately searching for, you know, a source of fun (killing things).

A tad hypocritical, no?

Edited November 29, 2016 by Jackviator

[Epsik-kun]

I won't talk about Ember, but Mirage is an extremely fun frame to play. Mainly because of the Hall of Mirrors and interactions it has with various weapons (Simulor included). Preventing such interactions won't make the game better

I also see zero problems with damage-oriented frames doing damage. Ember is already in a sketchy position due to her limitation to low-level missions. Having a dedicated frame for low-level Extermination speed runs is good. I love it when I get a good Ember in my squad for such missions.

However, the main idea I get from threads like this one is that the lack of skill and dedication results in blaming everything for being better than you. Surprise-surprise, but both Mirage and Ember can be outperformed by a variety of frames and weapons nowadays. Especially given you're addressing Telos Boltace here, which doesn't have too much of a synergy with Mirage due to the way HoM works.

[NyxCrab]

Ember's still in need of some touch ups, like her first and third never seeing use most of the time, her second is fine, her fourth could use some changes, and she needs a new passive or make it so dealing fire damage can give you the buffs too.

 

As for Mirage, just make it so the Simulor orbs from the illusions don't count as from the same weapon so they can't combine. Simulor spam on Mirage would still happen duh, and it'd still deal decent damage, but no longer can you press 1 button and have the simulor instantly merged.

[Fast_98]

1 minute ago, Jackviator said:

Or, to put it more accurately, the enjoyment of the rest of the squad. It's all in how you phrase it.  

And yet those that utilize certain things in this game limit the options of the rest of the squad to simply running after them/ahead of them, desperately searching for, you know, a source of fun (killing things).

The thing is that how would you change ember and Mirage so that they stay effective at high levels and are able to continue doing their job (aka Damage)?You told us the problem but not a solution.