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(Conclave) Frame Passives Should Be Disabled


Vyrn
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As the title states, passives should be deactivated in Conclave. Why?

Not all frames have passives that actually do anything, while other frames have passives that give them a potentially significant advantage. This sort of inconsistency does not make sense in a fair PvP environment, especially considering active abilities are not balanced with passives in mind. I feel it would be much easier (and arguably fairer) to disable all current passives than to try to rework or add passives for those frames without relevant passives. At the very least, remove the passives until appropriate passives can be given to all frames.

Example: Ash's passive does nothing, as there are no Bleed procs. Even Dread's pseudo-Bleed is not affected by it, and, if it were, that would still be only a single weapon out of the hundreds available. Saryn, Nyx, Oberon, and others suffer similar fates--they do not have passives that actually do anything.

Meanwhile, you have frames like Atlas, whose passive gives him a huge advantage against melee users. Considering their knockdowns, whether by slams or combos, do nothing to him when he's on the ground, which just so happens to be where melee is most effective, he has a useful, completely passive defense against melee-users (and certain frames' abilities, but those can more easily affect airborne enemies).

For frames with effective passives, it can be like having a constant 5th ability. The permanent silencing of Banshee's weapons (including melee), Ivara's built-in enemy radar, Valkyr's faster recovery and immunity to heavy landings, and several other passives give their respective frames a leg up in all fights while requiring no input at all. Again, active abilities are not balanced with these passives in mind, meaning these frames are functionally at an advantage.

Melee unfortunately seems to suffer the most from these passives. For example, Atlas and Frost have very powerful passives that can effectively shut down certain melee strategies. While encouraging players to adapt to their foes is a good thing, it doesn't seem fair to give some players such a major advantage for simply selecting a frame without even having to use their powers.

While having differences between frames is good, I feel their abilities already do a fine job, not to mention appearances and varied stats. Passives are just unnecessary and, in some cases, excessive.

Note #1: Chroma's elemental alignment is considered a passive. I don't think it should be and do think that he should have a real passive, but that's another story. If passives were to be removed, I'd ask for his to remain in effect, as it's an integral part of Chroma's identity. Then again, forcing Chroma to use Fire would help make balancing a little simpler and easier...

Note #2: Zephyr's reduced gravity is also an integral part of her identity. I must admit that I am genuinely unsure of what to do with this, as, unlike Chroma's situation, it directly affects all gameplay instead of just several abilities.

Note #3: Inaros' health regeneration is a tricky case due to his lack of shields and inability to use Vital Systems Bypass. It would probably be okay for that to remain, considering his situation. Otherwise, slightly increasing the health regained through his abilities might make up for disabling the auto-regen, I guess.

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I don't really care either way, because all Warframe abilities are notoriously hard to balance, not only the passives.

Just one thing:

11 minutes ago, Vyrndragon said:

Again, active abilities are not balanced with these passives in mind

How can you be sure about that? Given enough games, it should be noticable which Warframes perform better simply by doing a statistical analysis (probably several, tbqh). I'd imagine the devs have the data and the tools to do just that. And if not, it'd be a good idea to work on that.

Strong passives could also be counteracted by lowering EHP or mobility.

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47 minutes ago, Kontrollo said:

How can you be sure about that? Given enough games, it should be noticable which Warframes perform better simply by doing a statistical analysis (probably several, tbqh). I'd imagine the devs have the data and the tools to do just that. And if not, it'd be a good idea to work on that.

Strong passives could also be counteracted by lowering EHP or mobility.

I can't say for certain, and perhaps should not have made such a bold claim, but it certainly feels that way. Frames with relatively powerful passives (such as the frames mentioned here) certainly do not have ineffective abilities compared to frames without a passive. I can't think of any frame, passive or no, with 4 powers I simply would not use. To me, and I know I'm just speaking subjectively here, it feels that all frames are balanced to be roughly the same power-wise, at least regarding active, castable abilities. This is why many passives feel excessive.

As for which frames perform better, that would definitely be nice information to know, but I don't think it would be that simple. There are too many factors, such as skill levels of players, that can't really be closely monitored.

Personally, however, the frames I feel perform better than others on average also have meaningful passives. While that is just conjecture, it is based on past experiences.

In theory, yes, passives could be balanced with EHP and/or mobility tweaks, but that so far has not been the case. The current system makes sense, and I'm not sure if making some frames even squishier or slower than they are now would be a good idea. I haven't considered the idea much, however.

Edited by Vyrndragon
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2 hours ago, Vyrndragon said:

Again, active abilities are not balanced with these passives in mind, meaning these frames are functionally at an advantage.

Yeah? Which of your psychic spies told you this?
I assert to the contrary, and with the same standard of evidence:
All abilities, including passives, are considered when balancing frames.

42 minutes ago, Vyrndragon said:

Also, keep in mind that not all frames had passives when this iteration of Conclave was released. When frames were later given passives for PvE (with some trickling into PvP), their abilities were not altered at all in Conclave unless the ability received some sort of PvE rework as well. While some abilities have been changed since then, those changes were completely independent of and unrelated to passives.

What do you mean by "this iteration of Conclave"? The term is incredibly vague. Am I supposed to be considering passives that were added since the last Conclave update? Since the last major EHP/mobility rework? Since Dark Sector Conflicts?
Also, please identify specific frames. Many passives have no effect in Conclave, despite what the in-game descriptions may have you believe.


1 hour ago, Jackel7 said:

If something should be change/removed its  should be the sniptron vandal. It can pretty much one shot most frames even it the target is aim gliding or etc and at the most 2 shot and a player dies. Unless they using Valkyr, Atlas or Inaros

Thanks for your totally irrelevant complaint.
To hasten your departure from this thread, here is a quick list of facts:
1. The Snipetron Vandal is the weakest of all snipers.
2. No sniper rifle can one-shot any frame, unless it lands a headshot.
3. Aim gliding has nothing to do with damage taken. (Neither does "etc".)
4. Hilariously, being health-heavy, Valkyr, Atlas, and Inaros are especially vulnerable to puncture-heavy weapons.
5. You have discarded your credibility.

Edited by SevenLetterKWord
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15 minutes ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

Yeah? Which of your psychic spies told you this?
I assert to the contrary, and with the same standard of evidence:
All abilities, including passives, are considered when balancing frames.

Refer to the latest post.

Also, keep in mind that many current passives did not exist when this iteration of Conclave was released or for a long while after its release. When frames were later given passives for PvE (with some trickling into PvP), their abilities were not altered at all in Conclave unless the ability received some sort of PvE rework as well. While some abilities have been changed since then, those changes were completely independent of and unrelated to passives.

Unless abilities were somehow preemptively balanced with passives in mind long before many passives were even introduced, I feel it's safe to assume that said passives played no part in the balancing whatsoever.

Edited by Vyrndragon
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56 minutes ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

All abilities, including passives, are considered when balancing frames.

I have no evidence about the passives being accounted in balance or not, however, I guess there's a couple of precedents saying that these weren't taken into account during balance passes until someone pointed it out. Take for example: Excalibur's passive being toned down a couple of times and Mesa's health increase if no melee is equipped being removed from conclave, one being a noticeable dps increase with swords and blahblah, while the other allowed the player to get more EHP than someone else using exactlythe same warframe and build, simply by "sacrificing" melee (a close quarters combat tool useful mostly on ground combat, which is rarely seen even if there's a melee "main" in the match) in exchange.

Said that I can only agree, some passives are too much (weapon silence mods were deactivated for a reason, similar to the reason why overcharge detectors can find only enemies with full energy instead detecting anything), some others being activated in PvP might be too much (try to imagine a Nyx that disarming the enemy during 3 seconds after Mind control expires or her psychic bolts hit and leave them with almost dead, Saryn using her passive mixed with cold procs in their current endless state) while some other frames, as has alredy been pointed out, get no advantage from theirs (like Trinity, who would havehad more use on the old 1.0; Oberon, useless even on big part of PvE; etc.)

Imho, We should be able to choose the proper warframe based in how we feel them while moving, taking hits, and using skills based on our playstyle, not thinking which passive works best with what weapon and then exploit it to reduce the skill needed to make them work. 

 

 

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

I have no evidence about the passives being accounted in balance or not

Great!
So I'll assume the rest of your post is a long-winded joke, then.


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however, I guess there's a couple of precedents saying that these weren't taken into account during balance passes until someone pointed it out.

That's just the nature of feedback and balancing.
Many standard abilities were changed due to feedback. Does that mean all standard abilities should be disabled?

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Excalibur's passive
Mesa's health increase

Those are specific abilities which were addressed on an individual basis. Allow me to remind you that neither passive was removed, merely changed.
If we take the time - a whole three seconds - to look back at the thread title, we can see that this thread proposes the removal of all passives.

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(a close quarters combat tool useful mostly on ground combat, which is rarely seen even if there's a melee "main" in the match)

Melee can be a useful tool in a variety of situations. I seem to remember your playstyle involving fist weapon quick melee knockdowns.

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the reason why overcharge detectors can find only enemies with full energy instead detecting anything

I think you've got a fundamental misunderstanding of how Overcharge Detectors works.
OD doesn't "find" anyone. Nobody is marked on the minimap because of Overcharge Detectors.
It merely displays a faint aura over an opponent if that opponent is in the user's field of view, within OD's range, and at max energy.
Frankly, I even can't say for sure that the mod works at all right now.

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some others being activated in PvP might be too much (try to imagine a Nyx that disarming the enemy during 3 seconds after Mind control expires or her psychic bolts hit and leave them with almost dead, Saryn using her passive mixed with cold procs in their current endless state)

It's not that hard to imagine, Squidward, just try.
Mind Control augment: Target player is disarmed for 3-6s after Mind Control's effect expires. Mind Control has half duration.
If you don't like that, consider these alternatives:
Relinquish is enabled. The proc chance is 20%, the disarm duration is 3s.
Relinquish is enabled. The proc chance is 100%, weapons fire is disabled for one second, but affected players are not switched to melee.

Your other examples are invalid.
In the case of Psychic Bolts, it's the Psychic Bolts ability itself that is fundamentally broken, not any passive interaction.
In the case of cold procs, it's the cold procs themselves that are fundamentally broken, not any passive interaction.

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We should be able to choose the proper warframe based in how we feel them while moving, taking hits, and using skills based on our playstyle

So you accept the idea that standard abilities are important for diversity across Warframes and specialization across playstyles, but for some reason, you're unable to accept that passive abilities serve the exact same role?
That sounds like an arbitrary distinction. Where's the magic line?

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not thinking which passive works best with what weapon and then exploit it to reduce the skill needed to make them work. 

Oh, look!
More buzzwords for my buzzword collection.

Your argument is meaningless. I could say much the same for any other combination:
"Players shouldn't be encourage to think 'Which ability works best with which weapon?' and then exploit it to reduce the skill needed to make them work."
"Players shouldn't be encourage to think 'Which primary works best with which secondary?' and then exploit it to reduce the skill needed to make them work."
"Players shouldn't be encourage to think 'Which mobility works best with which playstyle?' and then exploit it to reduce the skill needed to make them work."

At a certain point, you have to realize that it's not "exploiting", it's playstyle customization; it's not "reducing skill", it's utilizing synergies.


I don't get this joke.

Edited by SevenLetterKWord
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48 minutes ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

Those are specific abilities which were addressed on an individual basis. Allow me to remind you that neither passive was removed, merely changed.

While Excalibur's passive was toned down, Mesa's health increase is supposed to have been removed. at least it's in U19.2.0 patch notes. I haven't seen anything being mentioned about it, so any remnant of it still working is most likely a bug.

53 minutes ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

Melee can be a useful tool in a variety of situations. I seem to remember your playstyle involving fist weapon quick melee knockdowns

I won't even try to deny it, I have even managed to get some kills with the round kick air melee attack, but it doesn't deny that something as simple as a jump is usually enough to avoid the knockdown from a slam attack.

57 minutes ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

I think you've got a fundamental misunderstanding of how Overcharge Detectors works.
OD doesn't "find" anyone. Nobody is marked on the minimap because of Overcharge Detectors.
It merely displays a faint aura over an opponent if that opponent is in the user's field of view, within OD's range, and at max energy.
Frankly, I even can't say for sure that the mod works at all right now.

My bad, that's mostly due to one of my personal flaws in game that needs to be overcome.

1 hour ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

It's not that hard to imagine, Squidward, just try.
Mind Control augment: Target player is disarmed for 3-6s after Mind Control's effect expires. Mind Control has half duration.
If you don't like that, consider these alternatives:
Relinquish is enabled. The proc chance is 20%, the disarm duration is 3s.
Relinquish is enabled. The proc chance is 100%, weapons fire is disabled for one second, but affected players are not switched to melee.

I see your point, even tought you're balancing the power around an augment and not a passive, however, if that specific passive ability had been enabled from the start, one of the options you named wouldn't have been applied on the power until the proper thread had been created and then balanced. don't forget that, as a passive, the whole skill set of nyx would have a temporal disarm added after affecting enemies (would work fine with chaos, which, imo, doesn't have a use on FFA)

1 hour ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

Your other examples are invalid.
In the case of Psychic Bolts, it's the Psychic Bolts ability itself that is fundamentally broken, not any passive interaction.

I guess anything to add about how that skill is broken will be given in the proper thread. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

1 hour ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

In the case of cold procs, it's the cold procs themselves that are fundamentally broken, not any passive interaction.

I know, their duration was buffed not so long agoand that's the reason why frost has suddenly become more popular these days. The point I was trying to make using Saryn as an example, is that her passive would make Saryn + Rime Vault + Glaxion + Lex Prime (or any hard hitting secondary) a no brainer untl it was toned down. But as was pointed in OP, it's disabled, making a point for the removal (or rework) of some frame passives

1 hour ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

So you accept the idea that standard abilities are important for diversity across Warframes and specialization across playstyles, but for some reason, you're unable to accept that passive abilities serve the exact same role?
That sounds like an arbitrary distinction. Where's the magic line?

The magic line lies on having similar base to start working, I personally wouldn't mind if those frames with a null passive (such as oberon) or those with passives that might simply be too powerful for PvP had something else and actually useful in exchange.

1 hour ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

"Players shouldn't be encourage to think 'Which ability works best with which weapon?' and then exploit it to reduce the skill needed to make them work."
"Players shouldn't be encourage to think 'Which primary works best with which secondary?' and then exploit it to reduce the skill needed to make them work."
"Players shouldn't be encourage to think 'Which mobility works best with which playstyle?' and then exploit it to reduce the skill needed to make them work."

At a certain point, you have to realize that it's not "exploiting", it's playstyle customization; it's not "reducing skill", it's utilizing synergies.

Darn! I've just read myself again and realized how fool I sounded in my previous post. I should at least think a little more or ask for opinions before doing more posts with nonsense like that. :s

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The magic line lies on having similar base to start working, I personally wouldn't mind if those frames with a null passive (such as oberon) or those with passives that might simply be too powerful for PvP had something else and actually useful in exchange.

No it doesn't.
Not every frame has to have a passive ability (although it would be interesting).

Look at it this way:
Not every first ability must be balanced against every other first ability. How would you balance Tail Wind against Banish?
Not every fourth ability must be balanced against every other first ability. How would you balance Blessing against Rumblers?
Similarly, not every passive must be balanced against every other passive.

It is sufficient for each frame to be balanced overall, against the spectrum of other frames.

Spoiler
23 hours ago, -----LegioN----- said:

While Excalibur's passive was toned down, Mesa's health increase is supposed to have been removed. at least it's in U19.2.0 patch notes. I haven't seen anything being mentioned about it, so any remnant of it still working is most likely a bug.

Mesa's passive has multiple effects, only one of which confers additional health.

These sidearm bonuses were recently increased to compensate for the removal of her sans-melee health.
"Mesa's health increase" does not account for the entirety of her passive, which is still very much in effect.

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I see your point, even tought you're balancing the power around an augment and not a passive,

You asked me specifically to "imagine a Nyx that disarming the enemy during 3 seconds after Mind control expires".
And I did also propose an implementation for her passive, which is called Relinquish, in case the naming confused you.

Quote

however, if that specific passive ability had been enabled from the start, one of the options you named wouldn't have been applied on the power until the proper thread had been created and then balanced.

And which crystal ball did you see that in?

Quote

I know, their duration was buffed not so long agoand that's the reason why frost has suddenly become more popular these days. The point I was trying to make using Saryn as an example, is that her passive would make Saryn + Rime Vault + Glaxion + Lex Prime (or any hard hitting secondary) a no brainer untl it was toned down. But as was pointed in OP, it's disabled, making a point for the removal (or rework) of some frame passives

No. You are missing the point.
If Saryn's passive were to be active, then yes, it would be overpowered when combined with cold procs.
That is because cold procs are themselves broken.
In this case, Saryn's passive is not OP, it just happens to exacerbate something else that is.

Cold procs always cause problems. Saryn's passive only causes problems when combined with cold procs.
What reasonable individual looks at this situation and says, "Yep, we need to change Saryn"?
The correct response would be to specifically address cold procs, not to say "Saryn's passive is broken! Remove all passives!"

Edited by SevenLetterKWord
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19 hours ago, JonBenj said:

Passives are largely a non issue, there have been no passives that yield a very tangible advantage besides Mesas - which was dealt with.

As I attempted to make clear, I would have far less of an issue with passives if every frame had one that actually did something. 

As for the "no tangible advantages" bit, what of any I have mentioned? Atlas has a meaningful advantage over some of the prevailing melee strategies. Frost's passive can pretty much doom an enemy if they so much as clip him with melee. Ivara has largely increased situational awareness and can see enemies sneaking up on her and locate foes through walls. Banshee is far harder to track around the map and can even safely snipe from afar without instantly being found out.

Those all sound like very tangible advantages to me, especially when you consider, yet again, that their ability sets have not suffered as a result of them--they all happen to have good abilities comparable to, if not surpassing, other frames', even those of frames without passives. Functionally, these frames (and others) have 5 abilities, one of which is always active. Compare that to frames with only 4 abilities, none of which are always active.

If the comparison to a 5th ability is too strong, liken passives to an automatically equipped frame-specific mod that takes up no space. That doesn't sound much better, honestly, considering some frames would have no special mod.

Either way, this is why they present an issue.

16 hours ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

It is sufficient for each frame to be balanced overall, against the spectrum of other frames.

The problem with this is that it does not seem like some frames currently are wholly balanced against other frames. We have no reason to believe abilities were balanced with passives in mind (evidence appears to support the contrary), and that makes the passives just a bonus for some frames. As previously stated, having four abilities plus one constant buff is quite a bit better than having 4 comparable abilities without a constant buff.

With that in mind, it makes sense to strive towards balancing things out. As stated in the OP, removing passives, at the very least until all frames can be given passives appropriate for Conclave, would be a step towards making things more fair for everyone.

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2 hours ago, Vyrndragon said:

As I attempted to make clear, I would have far less of an issue with passives if every frame had one that actually did something. 

As for the "no tangible advantages" bit, what of any I have mentioned? Atlas has a meaningful advantage over some of the prevailing melee strategies. Frost's passive can pretty much doom an enemy if they so much as clip him with melee. Ivara has largely increased situational awareness and can see enemies sneaking up on her and locate foes through walls. Banshee is far harder to track around the map and can even safely snipe from afar without instantly being found out.

Those all sound like very tangible advantages to me, especially when you consider, yet again, that their ability sets have not suffered as a result of them--they all happen to have good abilities comparable to, if not surpassing, other frames', even those of frames without passives. Functionally, these frames (and others) have 5 abilities, one of which is always active. Compare that to frames with only 4 abilities, none of which are always active.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

If the comparison to a 5th ability is too strong, liken passives to an automatically equipped frame-specific mod that takes up no space. That doesn't sound much better, honestly, considering some frames would have no special mod.

 

I'm not disregarding your concerns, and i never outright said that they are not worth considering.

When you describe them, they do indeed sound like tangible advantages, However I'm looking at it in the context of gameplay, most can be circumvented, unwittingly even.

With Mesa EHP aspect - that worked in all situations.

To summarize, yes i agree all frames should have passives of use or none at all, I main Ash, with the most useless passive - I just don't seem to ever find an occasion where the passive counted towards my own demise.

 

Edited by JonBenj
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3 hours ago, Vyrndragon said:

We have no reason to believe abilities were balanced with passives in mind (evidence appears to support the contrary), and that makes the passives just a bonus for some frames.

What evidence? I see only vague speculation concerning intentionality.
Many - possibly all - of the frames you've mentioned have undergone standard ability changes since their passives were introduced.
It is unreasonable to assume that the existence of their passives was not considered when deciding whether or not to perform such a change, and when deciding the nature of the charge itself.
Furthermore, even if there is a case where a frame received a passive and no other changes since, is it so difficult to imagine that a slight buff to the frame was intended and it happened to come in the form of the passive? Frames and abilities frequently undergo rebalancing; the introduction of a passive may easily have replaced another buff. Just because a change doesn't present itself through conventional means doesn't mean it was unintentional.

3 hours ago, Vyrndragon said:

The problem with this is that it does not seem like some frames currently are wholly balanced against other frames.

Let's not be clamoring for content removal based on fear of the specter of imbalance.

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For The record the Only reason I brought up Sniptron Vandel was because its a weapon that has an innate trait much like Telos boltace(spin attack),Orvius(Charge attack+Channeling) and Sniptron vandal punch thru. I first hand has seen this and been on the receiving end plenty of times, and in spite of the fact I seen it more often then the Rubico and any version of the Vectis.  I been in matches(usually FFA) where I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow when somebody who used said weapon ends up with 10+ kills. (An example was when in a FFA match there was a Trinity with Sniptron+Lato Vandel and at the end of the game they had roughly 14 kills; and the closest player had around 9 kills)

  •  Exotic Weapons in conclave (Prime,Vandel,Wraith) aren't meant to overwhelm those who don't have them
  • And other then trading how would a new/player get Sniptron Vandel? 
  • Furthermore OP has a point there are noteworthy differences between warframe stats/passives in PvE to PvP conclave; Example: Ash's Shuriken deals puncture instead of slash. Source:http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Conclave (Warframe section)
  • I personally have been in matches that had somebody running Banshee with a sniper who be picking off players at a distance, possible reasons
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