I'm still waiting on actually Universal vacuum.

[Jackviator]

Remember when DE said that vacuum for pets wasn't off the table? Because I do. And I'm still waiting on it. Because I REALLY want to use my pets, all the Kubrows and Kavats I have in stasis, even this ugly lump of infested flesh that makes up my new pet Charger. But the QOL that vacuum provides is too good to pass up; it keeps drawing me back to using my sentinels.

Actually, that's not correct. It's not that it's too good to pass up, it's just that the game is much, MUCH worse without vacuum. If I'm not using a sentinel with vacuum, after every skirmish, I have to run in boring circles on the ground to pick up all the loot that dropped. It directly conflicts with what I enjoy about the game (the amazing freedom of movement and fast-paced combat) and doesn't even make sense from a purely game mechanics standpoint.

In most other MMOs, once combat ends, it ends. You're safe from enemy attacks, and so it would make sense to have a loot drop system similar to what Warframe has at the moment, where one has to pick up individual drops. In WF, that's just not the case. You are constantly under enemy fire. Constantly. There's almost never a break in combat in most mission types, and so you can't concentrate on collecting loot, which is constantly dropping from enemies in a large, 3-D area, on multiple levels of tile sets. You just don't have time to pick up everything.

My proposal: give an innate 12m of vacuum (the same as we have now with the mod) to all Warframes, without the need for a mod. Give the Chesa Kubrow a different function (it's MR fodder at the moment because of how broken the AI is anyway) like what happened to Carrier, and give Mag a new passive. In this way, we can use whatever pet or sentinel we wish, without having to have the lack of vacuum take away from our enjoyment of the game.

And before I hear the usual counter-arguments to this stuff... hell, I'll just get it out of the way and preemptively respond to them:

• "But then no-one will use sentinels." Why? "because, for starters, you can't revive them."

That just means we need a way to revive them already, another change the community has been asking for for a while now. For example/one idea: they could automatically revive on a short timer so as not to be taken permanently out of the action upon death.

• "But if universal vacuum is implemented, pets will be even more OP!" 

They're not OP anyway, and besides, vacuum is almost purely QOL. It has almost nothing to do with your combat effectiveness, just QOL. (Outside of automatically picking up health/energy orbs that is, which in itself presents a few problems; ideally, as @(Xbox One)ashes of suvius pointed out, the option of auto-vacuuming those particular items should be a toggle in the options menu for those using Health Conversion and Energy Conversion, or those that don't want ot waste the orbs when they're not needed).

 Anyhow, pets and sentinels have different trade-offs. Pets aren't objectively better, in a couple different ways.

A: Location:

You can always count on your sentinel being right next to you, while pets, by their very nature, are erratic. They can only melee attack vs sentinels having customizable guns, leading to them often running off and getting themselves killed halfway across the map due to biting off more than they can chew.

B: Specialization vs Versatility:

 Pets are good at a few focused things (giving you a powerful crit-chance buff, turning you invisible for long stretches of time, etc), while Sentinels are "jack of all trades" type companions, versatility-wise. They can instantly restore your shields when they go down, scan your enemies, point out weak points on them, restore your health, give you overshields and +shield regen rate, etc, and that's just on one sentinel, Helios. Trust me, if vacuum was implemented across all frames sentinels would remain in use for a lot of people because of how versatile they are.

• "lol I don't use vacuum and I get along just fine." 

Cool story. That's completely irrelevant and doesn't add anything to the conversation, but good on you.

• "It's not too much effort to walk 10 extra feet. Stop being lazy."

Were you not paying attention? Not just to my post, but to like 90% of the gameplay?You simply cannot collect everything that drops and also be effective in combat without vacuum, unless you're up against level 10 enemies, so as to not have to worry about breaking cover, face-tanking damage and grabbing that Ammo Drum lying on the ground over there. So either you go down a lot due to you endangering yourself to collect Rubedo, or you miss out on a lot of loot.

• "So just don't collect everything. You don't need it all."

That argument only works past the 100-hour mark or so, once you reach the so-called "end-game," aka having access to all the weapons/frames and whatnot you could want/need. Up til that point, you need all the resources you can get. Not everyone is at the endgame. And besides, with the Hema research costs and DE being adamant on not changing it, something tells me we'll all need all the resources we can get soon enough.

*sigh* looking forward to the comments on this post, _{that's for sure...}

Edited January 5, 2017 by Jackviator

[ograzzt]

3 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

Pets aren't objectively better

They are objectively better. If vacuum will become universal, sentinels will lose one of last things people use them for. You may think it won't affect much, but it will. Sentinels will be used only for auto scans and healing augment sometimes. Maybe for carrier ammo mutation too. Everything else either not really needed or pets already can do it better (like invisibility for example).

[AM-Bunny]

15 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

• "Plus, if this happens, pets will be even more OP!" They're not OP anyway, and besides, vacuum is purely QOL. It has nothing to do with your combat effectiveness, just QOL. 

Are you really suggesting that having a huge automatic pickup range for health and energy orbs does nothing mid-combat and is purely QoL?

[Jackviator]

20 minutes ago, ograzzt said:

They are objectively better. If vacuum will become universal, sentinels will lose one of last things people use them for. You may think it won't affect much, but it will. Sentinels will be used only for auto scans and healing augment sometimes. Maybe for carrier ammo mutation too. Everything else either not really needed or pets already can do it better (like invisibility for example).

Did you read the section of my post below  that sentence? The bit about Versatility vs Specialization goes over that idea pretty thoroughly. They're incomparable in a few ways; pets are very, very good at one or two things in particular, while sentinels are ok at a wide swath of things.

For an analogy, look at Rhino vs Vauban. Booben is the king of CC, pretty much no frame can do it better, but that's all he really has going for him. Whereas Rhino can do a bit of CC when needed, but also has decent survivability and can buff his squad's damage. Sure, he doesn't do CC as well, but he can also do a few things Vauban can't. Therefore, neither of them is objectively better.

Edited January 5, 2017 by Jackviator

[direcyphre]

When DE ever mentions something is not off the table completely, that doesn't really mean you should be expecting it to happen.

[(XBOX)ashes of suvius]

I completely agree with you. Well, mostly. The orb conversion people and stuff have a good reason for not wanting the orbs picked up right away. So give them a toggle for the orbs. Other than that, completely agree.

side note simply because I'm opinionated: I still think they kept it at sentinels only cuz they were fixing sentinel balance, not out of interest of players or game options, but because the carrier prime will be vaulted before too long, thus its time for a new prime sentinel n they couldn't really sell another prime sentinel if the other sentinels all suck still compared to carrier. They dont sell animal pets currently, hence why they haven't gotten vacuum and the newest breed is a shambled together mess of nothing special.

[Jackviator]

16 minutes ago, AM-Bunny said:

Are you really suggesting that having a huge automatic pickup range for health and energy orbs does nothing mid-combat and is purely QoL?

Ok, sure. That's the single exception. But that's just two types of pickups vs all of the rest of the mods, credits, and resource pickups in this game, all of which would be purely QOL in this case.

Edit: addressed that point in the OP.

Edited January 5, 2017 by Jackviator

[_Vortus_]

8 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

Did you read the section of my post below  that sentence? The bit about Versatility vs Specialization goes over that idea pretty thoroughly. They're incomparable in a few ways; pets are very, very good at one or two things in particular, while sentinels are ok at a wide swath of things.

For an analogy, look at Rhino vs Vauban. Booben is the king of CC, pretty much no frame can do it better. Whereas Rhino can do a bit of CC when needed, but also has decent survivability and can buff his squad's damage. Sure, he doesn't do CC as well, but he can also do a few things Vauban can't.

Bad example.  Rhino is an excellent CC frame, every bit Vaubans equal.  And more versatile.  So maybe its actually a good example.  Rhino being Pets, Vauban being Sentinels.    Now make Vaubans special power apart of Rhino as well.   Vauban who?

[Jackviator]

Just now, _Vortus_ said:

Bad example.  Rhino is an excellent CC frame, every bit Vaubans equal.  And more versatile.  So maybe its actually a good example.  Rhino being Pets, Vauban being Sentinels.    Now make Vaubans special power apart of Rhino as well.   Vauban who?

Rhino can only stomp an area for about 20ish seconds at absolute max, with all duration mods, whereas Vauban's Bastilles can last 15 seconds, already about 3/4 of Rhino's maximized stomp, without any duration mods, leading to him being able to push his duration up to where the ability lasts more than 40 seconds.

Moreover, Vauban can recast the Bastille as many times as he wants and all enemies within the radius of it essentially have the timers on when they get put back down reset, but if Rhino recasts Stomp multiple times in an area, all the enemies that are within the area don't have their timers reset, they just take a bit of damage. Basically, Vauban can lock down a large area for quite a long while, but Rhino had best get to killing all the enemies that he stomped into the air, or they'll be coming back down soon enough.

And while admittedly Stomp has a larger range, that can be fixed by just throwing down 2 or 3 Bastilles to shore up the area (due to Bastille costing less energy than Stomp), and it'll have a greater effect than Rhino's Stomp ever could, because any enemy that crosses the border of it either gets picked up as well, or with the augment, repelled back several meters.

So yeah I'd say it's still a good analogy. Vauban > Rhino at CC, but Rhino is more well-rounded.

[_Vortus_]

@Jackviator  When they come down, stomp again.  Repeat.   When Vauban is getting shot from outside his Bastille, he best get to running.  No, Rhino is every bit Vaubans equal.   Now lets give him some of Vauban powers.   No thanks.   Makes Vauban useless if you do.

[nnexenn]

+1 the animal pets are more dificult to mod( they need more formas and the mods like vitality for them are difficult to adquire), more difficult to get, and have a extra cost to maintain them.

if i have something more difficult to get i expect, that will be better.

 

What is the problem with the sentinels being a bit worse than the other pets they still are good companions.

[ograzzt]

51 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

while sentinels are ok at a wide swath of things.

What can sentinels offer against reliable invisibility, instant armor removal, red crits/flat crit chance buffs, and, most importantly double affinitty/resourses buff? Yes, sentinels can do a lot of things, but most of them are totally not needed. I can live without most of them, in fact I'm playing with smeetha 90% of the time even now (yet I was loyal sentinel user for years before). With universal vacuum I won't touch any sentinel at all. So as most of other players.

I understand you want universal vacuum, and yes it could be very useful. But it will also kill sentinels, which is bad for game overall.

15 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

Rhino can only stomp an area for about 20ish seconds at absolute max, with all duration mods, whereas Vauban's Bastilles can last 15 seconds, already about 3/4 of Rhino's maximized stomp, without any duration mods, leading to him being able to push his duration up to where the ability lasts more than 40 seconds.

And you conveniently ignored range of Rhino Stomp and Vauban's abilities. Rhino can stunlock the whole interception/defense map on the level of prenerf Mirage. Vauban can't, at least not without running around the map like crazy and sitting on energy pads. You can't say that Vauban > Rhino at CC, ithey just have different CC specializations.

Edited January 5, 2017 by ograzzt

[Jackviator]

5 minutes ago, ograzzt said:

And you conveniently ignored range of Rhino Stomp and Vauban's abilities

And YOU ignored that I literally did not do that. What you said there is just, well, a lie. Here ya go, if you need proof:

20 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

And while admittedly Stomp has a larger range, that can be fixed by just throwing down 2 or 3 Bastilles to shore up the area (due to Bastille costing less energy than Stomp), and it'll have a greater effect than Rhino's Stomp ever could, because any enemy that crosses the border of it either gets picked up as well, or with the augment, repelled back several meters.

So yeah I'd say it's still a good analogy. Vauban > Rhino at CC, but Rhino is more well-rounded.

I can take critiques, I'm open to discussion, but don't just straight up lie about stuff that was said, or not said.

[(XBOX)ashes of suvius]

I'm tellin ya, animals dont have it because they are planning what sentinel gets primed next. They needed to balance sentinels so they could vault carrier and release the next one n actually have it sell instead of having everyone complain that the new one still sucks vs carrier. The prime access packs are real income to DE, taking steps to keep the next pack relevant come before other content. They'll worry about animals soon with this charger fiasco, but none of this animal stuff was happening til they were good to go with sentinels.

edit in my opinion, if animals get vacuum it'll be after they make money on the next prime sentinel. Right now its the one thing keeping people using sentinels. Its not about whether animals or sentinels are better or even balanced, its that its a risk from a business point of view.

Edited January 5, 2017 by (XB1)ashes of suvius

[(PSN)Mofojokers]

I agree Jack, even did a thread up on it. Insanely tired of hearing lazy this and lazy that.

I just want to use my Inaros built Kubrow and Kavat without sandstorm getting loot stuck in the walls. Forcing me to really use Vacuum to deal with this issue.😕

The second issue came from a bad host connection where i had to stand on the loot for a few seconds for it to register. Where vacuum would do it on the fly even with some dodgy hoster. 😂

Big +100 well done thread Jack.

[ograzzt]

4 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

And YOU ignored that I literally did not do that. What you said there is just, well, a lie. Here ya go, if you need proof:

I can take critiques, I'm open to discussion, but don't just straight up lie about stuff that was said, or not said.

Again, point of the message was completely missed. Well done.

[Jackviator]

2 minutes ago, ograzzt said:

Again, point of the message was completely missed. Well done.

Oh I saw what was said. You're still adamant on how sentinels are supposedly objectively worse than pets. My response? Elaborate on that.

If you actually feel that way, well, explain how sentinels need to be reworked. Constructively add to the discussion so this this thread doesn't devolve into petty arguments, as most do.

[(XBOX)ashes of suvius]

36 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

Oh I saw what was said. You're still adamant on how sentinels are supposedly objectively worse than pets. My response? Elaborate on that.

If you actually feel that way, well, explain how sentinels need to be reworked. Constructively add to the discussion so this this thread doesn't devolve into petty arguments, as most do.

I kind of agree with him that sentinels a lagging a bit behind, especially if animals get vacuum. Reasons: Cant be revived, low dmg even on damage based ones, invisibility being better on animals, the kavats with crits are crazy and no sentinel boosts the players damage the same way, Helios scanning is a niche that can't be filled by pets but isn't a constant need. Djinns effectiveness as of recent sacrifices having a good melee, which kind of defeats the purpose. Carrier ammo ability can kinda be balanced against the fact that doing red crits and stripping enemy armor both save ammo. I could go on. Basically sentinels niches are either done better by animals, or are too niche to really care much about. Plus they are horribly less suited to survival. Plus animals can boost your damage.

ideas for improving sentinels: Boost the damage capabilities of damage oriented ones, update old ones to hold more weight against current mechanics and combat speed. Ask suitable questions of each of the abilities, is the range of djinns ability to draw in enemies enough for current gameplay? Is the invisibility on shade long enough duration? Should it maybe have a range on it that turns team mates invisible too like ash can? Who knows. Add a gear item that can respawn them. When these things were created there weren't nullifiers or corrupted bombards or sorties. I think its time to really take a look at them in a fashion thats deeper than vacuum.

edit: I think that even some of the kubrows could use a look.

Edited January 5, 2017 by (XB1)ashes of suvius

[bubbabenali]

I guess you have to decide: revive you pet or get vacuum from you sentinel.

Or don't stay in a mission for an hour and expect it still to be babymode...

[Shining_Darkness]

2 hours ago, ograzzt said:

They are objectively better. If vacuum will become universal, sentinels will lose one of last things people use them for. You may think it won't affect much, but it will. Sentinels will be used only for auto scans and healing augment sometimes. Maybe for carrier ammo mutation too. Everything else either not really needed or pets already can do it better (like invisibility for example).

WTF? No!

That 12% heal and 2 shield restore mods on sentinels alone are enough for me to prefer them over cats/dogs even if they had vaccuum.

And that me not even mentioning much better dps if fully modded/crowd control though status/free unused ammo conversion/status debuffs like corrosive/viral and all that only sentinels have.

Even if vaccuum was universal I'd still use sentinel really, just not 100% of a time but more like 90% of a time.

Edited January 5, 2017 by Shining_Darkness

[Herosupport]

it would be nice has a compromise for DE to come up with pet armor that acts like vacuum and the bp can be either purchased on the market or researched in the clan dojo.

[ograzzt]

6 hours ago, Jackviator said:

explain how sentinels need to be reworked

Why should I do your job for you? It's your thread and it's you are the one who should suggest something interesting for sentinels, something what will let them still be needed after adding universal vacuum. All I see in this thread from you is "I want moar" and weak attempts to convince people that sentinels will still be widely used even when vacuum won't be tied to sentinels only. Don't you remember the graph of sentinel usage before they changed vacuum last time? Or are you that naive?

[Jackviator]

1 hour ago, ograzzt said:

Why should I do your job for you? It's your thread and it's you are the one who should suggest something interesting for sentinels, something what will let them still be needed after adding universal vacuum.

Or... you could maybe add something constructive to the discussion, contribute an idea or two, if that's not too much to ask. Because it's not my thread, it's the thread of whoever wants to contribute constructive ideas to the discussion. So if you want it to be yours, then, well... contribute ideas. Pretty simple.

1 hour ago, ograzzt said:

Don't you remember the graph of sentinel usage before they changed vacuum last time?

Yeah I do. Dunno why you would bring it up (it doesn't strengthen any of your points, kinda just comes out of the blue, etc) but anyhow, some context: it showed that almost 80% of the entire community was using Carrier, because Carrier had Vacuum, and Vacuum was such a massive QOL improvement to people's games that it was rare to see a sentinel that was NOT Carrier being used. That kind of utter monopoly was improved, a bit, when the mod became equippable on every sentinel, but it's still a long way from being finished, because, well...

Lemme put it this way: whenever I see Kavats or Kubrows in a mission, I am genuinely surprised, because the amount of people I see using them instead of sentinels is such a small number as to be nearly insignificant. That's the state they're in.

Would you rather the situation stay as it is? Because if that were the case, I'd say you're being a tad hypocritical. Because as it stands, while you're afraid that truly universal vacuum, and the rise in people using their pets, would "kill" Sentinels, well... Kubrows and Kavats are currently "being killed..." by Sentinels. Hell, they've been in the process of "being killed" by sentinels for a long time; It's been that way for years, as shown by that graph, and it needs to change.

By all means, suggest ways that Sentinels might be buffed, and I do agree that some of them (Shade, Diriga, Djiin) need buffs, but don't just try to shut the discussion down because you're afraid what's being discussed would mean the "death of sentinels." If you're so afraid of that, contribute some ideas as to what could prevent that.

Kinda the point of a discussion forum.

Edited January 5, 2017 by Jackviator

[(XBOX)ashes of suvius]

6 hours ago, Jackviator said:

Or... you could maybe add something constructive to the discussion, contribute an idea or two, if that's not too much to ask. Because it's not my thread, it's the thread of whoever wants to contribute constructive ideas to the discussion. So if you want it to be yours, then, well... contribute ideas. Pretty simple.

Yeah I do. Dunno why you would bring it up (it doesn't strengthen any of your points, kinda just comes out of the blue, etc) but anyhow, some context: it showed that almost 80% of the entire community was using Carrier, because Carrier had Vacuum, and Vacuum was such a massive QOL improvement to people's games that it was rare to see a sentinel that was NOT Carrier being used. That kind of utter monopoly was improved, a bit, when the mod became equippable on every sentinel, but it's still a long way from being finished, because, well...

Lemme put it this way: whenever I see Kavats or Kubrows in a mission, I am genuinely surprised, because the amount of people I see using them instead of sentinels is such a small number as to be nearly insignificant. That's the state they're in.

Would you rather the situation stay as it is? Because if that were the case, I'd say you're being a tad hypocritical. Because as it stands, while you're afraid that truly universal vacuum, and the rise in people using their pets, would "kill" Sentinels, well... Kubrows and Kavats are currently "being killed..." by Sentinels. Hell, they've been in the process of "being killed" by sentinels for a long time; It's been that way for years, as shown by that graph, and it needs to change.

By all means, suggest ways that Sentinels might be buffed, and I do agree that some of them (Shade, Diriga, Djiin) need buffs, but don't just try to shut the discussion down because you're afraid what's being discussed would mean the "death of sentinels." If you're so afraid of that, contribute some ideas as to what could prevent that.

Kinda the point of a discussion forum.

u could respond to people that are contributing to the discussion rather than focusing on the person you feel is not. I gave plenty of examples of both how sentinels are falling behind and how id like to see them get looked at and buffed

[Zeclem]

ah, another vacuum addict that thinks you need to get every bit of ferrite that has dropped.

firstly, only reason to use sentinels are either ammo box or vacuum. ammo box is only good on a limited amount of loadouts even. no reason to use medi-ray when lifestrike can heal you in a single hit as well. on the other hand lets see what kavats have(sorry kubrow players, except huras they objectively suck)

1-aoe armor shreds that proc all the time

2-a cc that leaves enemy open to finishers.

3-a flat %60 crit boost thats near constant and is aoe(this effectively makes tons of builds op as hell that werent viable before)/charm that is less reliable but still very, very strong.

4-actual survivability and combat potential.(kavats are super easy to keep alive even in endurance runs, and they do very much noticeable damage)+ you can revive them.

so you actually think this change youre suggesting wont make sentinels irrelevant? just cus you think that you need to gather every single loot you wont even use doesnt make kavats or huras kubrows any weaker. thing is they are far stronger than sentinels. people are just too lazy to take an extra step or two.

WTF? No!

That 12% heal and 2 shield restore mods on sentinels alone are enough for me to prefer them over cats/dogs even if they had vaccuum.

And that me not even mentioning much better dps if fully modded/crowd control though status/free unused ammo conversion/status debuffs like corrosive/viral and all that only sentinels have.

Even if vaccuum was universal I'd still use sentinel really, just not 100% of a time but more like 90% of a time.

much better dps? on sentinels? *dies from laughing*

Edited January 5, 2017 by Zeclem