Devstream 87 Overview

[Blacque]

4 minutes ago, Lyravain said:

My clan also had issues funding the Hema. Even with 4 players that have been playing for years, we ran out of mutagen samples before filling up even half of it. Unfortunately, we can't, in good conscience, kick our buddies out, even if they haven't played in months. Sucks, but we got it done.

Maybe if clans could monitor players and, if someone hasn't logged in for longer than, say 90 days, it would log them as 'inactive' and reduce the research costs? Dunno if it would work though -or how well it would.

Inactive players aren't playing the game.  My clan has a standard for being in it.  All we has is to use common sense and play the game.  The higher ranking you earn in our clan the more time you can be away while maintaining your spot.  Outside of being ousted due to poor behavior, you can always get invited back to our clan if you were removed due to absence.  Even more so if we're told ahead of time that you'll be away we'll save your spot.  However if a player of a lower rank is away for a month, chances are they weren't serious about the game, or even the clan.  There is a responsibility in my opinion of the clan leader to their clan mates.  Regulating the costs and active players is a not so fun job, but necessary. 

I fought tooth and nail to keep our clan small.  However we needed to expand so we did so and it came with increased costs.  Do I lament it?  YES I DO DANG IT, but we had more players who were groovy.  We downsized once out of necessity and grew again and currently adjust as necessary.  Leading isn't always fun unfortunately. 

With that said I suppose an auto inactive tool could be useful.  It would be amazing if it operated alongside officer specific terms.  You're x rank if you're out of play for y time you're labeled as inactive, with adjustable costs.  I'd love that.  As for now I keep tabs and remove players as necessary. 

[Kereler]

On 2/3/2017 at 5:41 PM, Fukushu said:

I said it in Bunny's overview, so now I'll say it here with a little more clarity since I've had time to sit and come up with a valid argument to what seems like a poorly thought out idea and hope it gets seen.

Eximus Unit "weak points". If the stream was anything to go by, this idea was met relatively poorly by a majority of the viewers, and I was one of the viewers voicing my concerns. The way I see it, I question DE's definition of a weak point since that doesn't normally mean "shoot this part so you can damage the whole". I know this is till the "experimental phase" of developing this feature, but if it's added as is after being given such a negative response, the forums will ignite similar to the Hema resource cost. Not only did Rebecca having trouble shooting a single point with a shotgun on a fast moving, constantly twitching and rolling mob seem like an oversight, the number of points that spawned on the Eximus' back was a major issue I saw due to how quickly enemies can turn around, leading me to believe a lot of players are going to rely on CC 'Frames or constant knock-downs to take them out, making these "challenging" enemies nothing more than a complete nuisance, especially in large numbers, which is another thing I fear none of you have taken into consideration a la Eximus Stronghold Sorties and Infested Survival/Defense missions (since the Infested seem to have the highest Eximus to regular enemy ratio).

If I may make a suggestion, I'd recommend you actually make these act like their name suggests: weak points. As an example, Dark Souls 3 has a boss named Highlord Wolnir who, in my opinion, is an excellent example of how this feature should work. As a boss, he understandably has a large health pool, but when attacked directly, he takes minimal damage, but he has three actual weak points in the form of golden bracelets, two on his left arm, one on his right. After hitting a bracelet a few times, it shatters and takes out a large amount of his health. Repeat the process for each bracelet, and he's dead; no "Oh, he has a sliver of health left and needs a few more hits" a la The Four Kings of Dark Souls, just straight up dead since his bracelets are set to kill him once they're all shattered.

In short, make these "weak points" into actual weak points! Shoot the Eximus itself? It still takes damage, but reduced. Break one weak point? Big chuck of health down. Break 'em all? Dead Eximus. That way, instead of feeling forced to hit the weak points just so you can unload who knows how many shots into the enemy, players are properly rewarded with a quick kill for taking the time to choose their shots carefully.

So basically like a better Lephantis boss

[Blacque]

4 minutes ago, Kereler said:

So basically like a better Lephantis boss

Well the way I see it there's a divide in the mindset.  Stronger opponents without the pesky scaling and meta needs.  There's a great deal Warframe has to offer outside of the enemies, weapons, even their frames.  Using Lephantis as an example.  The first stage has the boss knock you down as it rips up through the earth.  Its second stage has pools of acid around it.

Environment, atmosphere can have a great deal to do with it.  I just imagine that larger enemies that are exceedingly mobile that operate in the environment with a sense of awareness and tactics would be worth while.  Something that can give you pause and force you to flank, bait, combine abilities, parkour, etc.

[Urlan]

22 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

That was precisely my point in the next sentence though: You witnessed some of the first player feedback on this idea, real time. I couldn't even pull off the necessary removal in controlled environment! We then imagine what that means in the thick of it (as that hasn't been experienced by any of us yet), and the results are less than ideal. 

I think that is a good point, in their natural state, Eximus tend to move in packs of normal enemies hiding within. Perhaps if this is what we are currently going to have to deal with, a good idea might be to demo them in an event or tac alert situation and judge them through giving more exposure. Honestly, I don't see this system as the best path, but if the players can give hands-on input to the system, it might be adjustable to something that can work within the current game environment without breaking the game.

[RaginGoblin]

First of all i think invulnerability would add too much complications to an already difficult to kill target.

I do think that maybe adding some sort of eximus variants would be nice, specially if the idea is to differentiate combat encounters and change the pacing.
Maybe treating them as minibosses instead of just ramping up the stats of normal units.

i.e For infested units: adding VERY LARGE, very obvious set of limbs (picture starcraft zerlings with their back spikes) that could incapacitate tenno until damaged (L4D hunters anyone?). Also, if grineer units get the same treatment i think something like an extra piece of armor would do the trick. Again, very large and obvious. Destroying that armor plating would stagger the unit (kinda like sargas ruk but way less tanky).

 

Edited February 6, 2017 by RaginGoblin
spelling

[(XBOX)CannyJack]

I hear rumor that the Eximus change is already being walked back to "damage multiplier" spots, but if that's just rumor, please make it fact. Invulnerability mechanics are mechanics that make us stop playing (and I don't mean "turning off the game" I mean "can't do the things the game is about: shooting guns, swinging swords, and using powers"). I'm relatively new to the game, but seriously - I have guns, swords, and powers, please avoid mechanics that render all three useless. 

[(PSN)xXBearPawz]

So we just gonna pretend charger skin aint here yet? Lol pc hasnt gotten it yet which stresses me out more due too the fact im on console 

[KaizergidorahXi]

1 hour ago, Blacque said:

You are absolutely right.  It is not reasonable and has been addressed for the future.  However and forgive me because there's no way to say this without coming across as a complete asshat.

You and your small group of friends funding the Hema does not represent the entirety of the community.  It does not represent a lot of the players who have Mutagen Samples pouring out of their various tenno parts.  It's an unfortunate hiccup that in future content will not repeat itself I HOPE: sincerely.  In your case there are options however, in recruiting, gaining active members.  Things that are in the game that promote the experience of the game like active players.  I share your pain in that my clan has a lot of active players but they rarely visit the derelicts.  Myself and a few others nailed over 10k of the 50k sum.  We have a ways to go.  However as much as I hate to admit it I adore that there is something for me to pester the clan about to get us together to work toward a cause.  The spirit of the cost is understandable, even appreciated.

Get the players to work toward something!  I support this!

It should have been handled a bit more carefully I agree.  Even so I apologize if my statement came off as harsh but I feel it is something to consider.  It's not meant to offend.

No, I get it. But again, it's silly to pretty much require a full clan in order to get a weapon none of the clan wants in order to get future content. But that's just my (and many others) opinion. There have been many, MANY threads about this, but nothing changed. Guess DE has started to become deaf to their community.

[venon23]

On 05/02/2017 at 5:22 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Just want to bump and quote one of the most important parts of this Overview: Weak Points (http://www.giantbomb.com/weak-spot/3015-296/) 

The giantbomb gamer community says ''Weak spots are usually used on enemy NPCs that are slightly more important or powerful than normal cannon fodder enemies. Sometimes, the weak spot will be the only vulnerable spot on the enemy." 

Right now in Warframe, cannon fodder enemy heads are largely uncommunicated weakspots. Getting headshots yields more damage. Pretty conventional practice in shooters. 

Our devstreams show the rawest aspects of what is going on. This is intentional - we often adapt to changes, get real time feedback. The overview of this Devstream hours later included one of the likely adaptions to Infested Eximus Weakpoints: they may not be completely preventative of damage. I'll also add the setting I played it in: this was a sandbox room outside of the developer branch of the game. These units don't even exist in a developer/testable mission setting yet. That's just how work-in-progess this is - totally ready to adapt! Please ensure you've read this detail before you continue to add reactions 'round the web. 

Admittedly using a shotgun did not demo well: the enemy was too fast, I couldn't really aim. You witnessed some of the first player feedback on this idea, real time. Weak points: how can we make them more interesting? Maybe if you target them you get additional damage bonuses - turn the concept upside down? Lots of great ideas flowing around. I encourage you to remind yourself to be constructive; productive before pitchforks! 

the best way of doing this beca was while enemy have that thing atatch too him he takes less 90% of dmg but not 100% imortal that way we can consider meele combat and caster frames will still work only have too focus that thing first too kill the target better

that way we can say well trinity give us 75% dmg reduction so we are on the same lvl then the enemy

Edited February 6, 2017 by venon23

[Lyravain]

1 hour ago, venon23 said:

the best way of doing this beca was while enemy have that thing atatch too him he takes less 90% of dmg but not 100% imortal that way we can consider meele combat and caster frames will still work only have too focus that thing first too kill the target better

that way we can say well trinity give us 75% dmg reduction so we are on the same lvl then the enemy

Personally I think that damage reductions are just a patch, really. They don't deal with an issue, they just hide away the symptoms. Besides, new players have loads of issues with infested as-is sometimes. While this would be a better way of dealing with the issue than outright invulnerability, I am of the opinion that a better answer would be to give all Eximi new tricks. From new types of Eximus units to new abilities, an improved AI etc. Something to make us feel challenged beyond 'big numbers'.

[ZAXNIGHTMARE]

Why isnt a mini zanuka? why? :c

[TennoSimons]

Bard feedback:

 

I know that autotune has gotten out of hand, but when Bard's can just chuck four different (identical looking) grenades out, it sort of take the fun out of my space ninja rock star fantasies. Would love to have some of her powers involve rocking out on sci fi instruments.... or at least spinning a disk like a dj. Or at the very least singing or screaming (Rhino and Valkyr can). Or preferably both. 

[Lyravain]

21 minutes ago, ZAXNIGHTMARE said:

Why isnt a mini zanuka? why? :c

No idea, I think they're hyping us >.>

'Cause if we can get infested doggies, I want our robo-kitties darn it!

[Jarcu]

On 2/5/2017 at 2:07 PM, Molagstar_Molakath said:

I mean, we can't say it does not need challenge, it is a game, not a procedural wallpaper

 

Yeah, but my point is...best illustrated with an analogy. 

Trying to pull out a tiny splinter, personally filling out your tax forms, and trying to make voice recognition software work properly while in a hurry are all challenges.  Few would call them fun. 

Edited February 7, 2017 by Jarcu

[G-I-D]

Housekeeping: The Name for the Bard Frame. How about Tremor?

[(PSN)JAKK_Jekkel]

I was wondering if anyone could give me the link for the bard warframe name ideas?

[(XBOX)CannyJack]

On 2/7/2017 at 9:17 AM, GameOrDerp said:

Housekeeping: The Name for the Bard Frame. How about Tremor?

If we're still throwing names out there, musical terms with a somewhat "warframey" sound are Lyre (or Lyra), Gavotte, and Motif.

On the other hand, if we think about "bard"-like terms, and mush them around a bit to be more Warframey, then something like Skalla (from "skald") might work. 

[NovusNova]

On 07/02/2017 at 8:46 PM, (PS4)JAKK_Jekkel said:

I was wondering if anyone could give me the link for the bard warframe name ideas?

"Say her name – the Bard Warframe is currently being named by the Design Council!"

If your not in the Design Council then there is no link to be given.

[main_antagonist]

If these weak spot growths are an infested only thing until something similar can be developed for the other factions perhaps only have it appear on the eximus ancients?

As it is I'm often forced to bring one weapon with radiation to disable the passive damage reduction from the healers, because some players don't seem to take healers as much of a threat especially when it gets to the point that the enemies are scaled very high. They rush in don't understand why they aren't able to kill anything anymore and the healers soak up all the damage. 

If this these invulnerability/damage reduction growths were implemented on the Ancient Infested units exclusively people might learn to make them priority targets and learn the mechanics of each of the passive buffs all 3 variants of the ancients provide, Disruptors reduce ability duration and energy drain per hit which isn't so bad because people can still bull rush enemies and chop or shoot them up, Toxic ancients give everything extra toxic damage per hit which is manageable as long as you have some sort of life steal etc.

The main problem yet again is the Ancient healers ... The fact they can grant damage reduction to other Ancient variants makes them the biggest threat, time and time again I see people rush into or get swarmed by an infested mob and they aren't able to kill the mob they thought they could take on they get punished for it very quickly! Hopefully if it was Ancients only that get these growths people new players and veterans would prioritize them and treat them as an enemy unit to be respected and dealt with quickly. In turn this would get players in the habit of destroying the healers first after they got familiar with the damage reduction growths appearing only on ancient variants.

In my opinion the Ancient healer is the scariest infested unit to deal with when you are swamped trying to find it knowing that you can't kill anything around you finish it off. The others ancient variants are fodder to me.

[The_Splentforcer]

On 5/2/2017 at 10:12 PM, Lyravain said:

Don't sell yourself short, Rebecca. You got decent aim -there are better people, yes, but there's also tons who are worse at it. You can't judge a game's community by the 'top tier' alone.

In fact, your shotgun showed a very, very obvious issue; such an enemy is tackled only by a full-auto weapon. Anything that isn't full-auto is at a tremendous disadvantage. We don't need such weapons to be further ostracized by the community. Similarly, it points out that, without a decent (if not huge) amount of Crowd Control, these enemies are too much of a hassle to kill. It pushes the notion that 'CC or nothing', making frames with less CC even less liked by people. Lastly, you had a single enemy you could focus on -this is the same as being in the Simulacrum and expecting combos there to work the same in a mission. As 'no plan survives contact with the enemy', we can safely assume that in an actual fight, we'd be having many more issues.

Neither me, nor any of the Tenno who disagree with this, want to bring in pitchforks. In fact, most of us would welcome a legitimate challenge. But invulnerability is not a legitimate challenge, it's just a way to extend the life-span of an enemy through unfair means. Lots of Tenno have given great ideas that I hope you will consider before bringing more invulnerabilities into the game (you admitted in the same DevStream you were considering reducing instances of invulnerabilities, so why would you want to add more?).

Copying from another thread I've made, here are my ideas. They are not the most 'polished' (as I don't know how your coding works, I've done some programming, but every program is understood only by the one to program it, and sometimes not even then), and they are not necessarily the 'best'. But you can pick, choose, combine and ask us, which ones we consider to be the most 'fair' challenges to add.

• Increase AI (proper cover, not charge solo etc etc).
• Increase size (a psychological factor). It would make Eximus units pop up way more than a little orange aura around them.
• Provide a random, drastic resistance to a damage type, determined at spawn individually (or go the way of Sentients, giving them a high resistance to the first element that hits them).
• Give them faction abilities that counter-play our plays. Since Grineer are most counterplayed by Frost's Bubbles (there are other ways, yes, but this one trivializes them the most), give all Grineer Eximus the ability to teleport (only, you know, not in front of our guns) and call reinforcements there. Corpus mostly play by messing with us, so give them an (radial) EMP that disrupts our visuals (not to the extent of the bursa's flash bang, god but that hurts my eyes), damage our shields and if need be turn off channeled abilities (i.e. Exalted weapons, but not Snowglobes/Iron Skin, they already have units for that). Since Infested are primarily melee and suffer great losses by the time they close in, give their eximus a portable Volt shield their buddies can hide behind (even if that shield only reduces incoming ranged damage rather than completely negate it).
• Provide Eximus units with resistance to CC. They are elite units and so could, conceivably, not be as affected by Molecular Prime, Cold Procs, Freeze status, Bastille etc. Immunity should be the purview of the bosses.

I am sorry if I sounded a bit too aggressive. I just happen to love Warframe, spent 2.9k hours on it (a fair bit of my life) so I would like to avoid unnecessary problems by you having to balance, rebalance, nerf, buff, rework, add, remove and edit things... when you can just ask your community of people for ideas and opinions through polls. Make no mistake, we love Warframe and we want the best for it, it just makes us a bit more emotional.

so why not keeping the idea of a hard endless game mode, where they will be a bit more eximus spawning, keeping your idea fresh

and in that mode you will start with lvl 50-60 ennemies, so you dont have to grind 25 minutes until high level units shows

We won't say it enough : INVULNERABILITY IS TOTAL CRAP & DUMB ! I don't even need to put further explanations, theres enough argues that shows its a stupid idea

 

But otherwise, i do believe the dev team cannot be that dumb, they know that if they put this in game : their player base will drastically drop

They are doing the same kind of update mistakes than companies like from software ! (nerfing some game mechanics that made the online play way better, fixingstuff that shouldn't have been fixed, eat) 

if you keep doing like this : who will play ? only a few elite players ? If only a few plays, where's the money ?

Warframe is a mmo like, you have to consider that there are players that do not have a lot of time to invest in the game, players that play casually, players that keep playing because they love the game, others elites players ect...

You have to be worry about this fact. Do not expect players to keep playing forever. 

Players would be glad to see a "true challenge" like what Lyravain said, they won't feel being considered as idiots, and they may enjoy better the game ! 

 

 

On another hand, I said it before, the dev team can't be that dumb, they know if they put such a mechanic, it will break our patience. 

But i do believe, those years where we were complaining about many updates that made everyone upset (trinity nerf, the awaited oberon rework, the trash weapon tier not getting buffed, the enemy scaling ect....) , I think its not because the dev team is stupid or something, I do believe there must be conflicts inside DE's management, like two different sides with different priorities about the rentability of the company, but I won't go further because it isn't the thread, just wanted to nail that

 

you make a game harder by forcing players to adapt properly to take risks or to synchronize with others, not by forcing them to dodge any hit and burst the face of the mobs with over damaging weapons. 

The hack'n slash feel is way too present in te game, it has to tend to something else, to really make warframe a quality game or something,

 

Warframe is a game with a huge potential, but it has to take further steps, to assume its mistakes and to deal with it, you don't progress by fooling yourself and saying that everything is rosy in the garden. 

so better put the invulnerability ideas in a trash bag, and think deeper about your concepts and ideas before (EVEN) showing a showcase in the devstream

and please...ASSUME some of your mistakes in terms of balance ! (*cough, caustalyst nerf, but that post is getting nasty)

 

 

Wake up DE, I know you can do way better than this

I don't want warframe to die, I putted way too many time and money in it !

Edited February 9, 2017 by The_Splentforcer

[Lyravain]

6 hours ago, main_antagonist said:

If these weak spot growths are an infested only thing until something similar can be developed for the other factions perhaps only have it appear on the eximus ancients?

As it is I'm often forced to bring one weapon with radiation to disable the passive damage reduction from the healers, because some players don't seem to take healers as much of a threat especially when it gets to the point that the enemies are scaled very high. They rush in don't understand why they aren't able to kill anything anymore and the healers soak up all the damage. 

If this these invulnerability/damage reduction growths were implemented on the Ancient Infested units exclusively people might learn to make them priority targets and learn the mechanics of each of the passive buffs all 3 variants of the ancients provide, Disruptors reduce ability duration and energy drain per hit which isn't so bad because people can still bull rush enemies and chop or shoot them up, Toxic ancients give everything extra toxic damage per hit which is manageable as long as you have some sort of life steal etc.

The main problem yet again is the Ancient healers ... The fact they can grant damage reduction to other Ancient variants makes them the biggest threat, time and time again I see people rush into or get swarmed by an infested mob and they aren't able to kill the mob they thought they could take on they get punished for it very quickly! Hopefully if it was Ancients only that get these growths people new players and veterans would prioritize them and treat them as an enemy unit to be respected and dealt with quickly. In turn this would get players in the habit of destroying the healers first after they got familiar with the damage reduction growths appearing only on ancient variants.

In my opinion the Ancient healer is the scariest infested unit to deal with when you are swamped trying to find it knowing that you can't kill anything around you finish it off. The others ancient variants are fodder to me.

For now it is an infested only thing. However, it's still a horrible design idea and we need to let DE know that we expect better from them than the laziest design choice to increase 'time to kill' something' in the hopes of making it more 'challenging'.

Healers are a priority target in any game. If you play with people who don't get that, I feel for your pain. Often, I have to carry a single-target, high-dps weapon specifically for them -even if at that time I want to mess around with the Javlok, I have to keep a secondary that can take them out with minimal time.

Thing is, those invulnerability points change nothing about making a target a priority -they just make that target a nuissance to be killed. If you watch the Devstream, Rebecca needed thirty seven seconds to take down one. It would at no point make Ancients more of a priority target (if people haven't learned to prioritize them by now, there's no hope to teach them, regardless of what mechanic you give them). It'll just make Charger and Leaper eximi that much more aggravating to kill. Because, guess what, this is designed to be applied to all eximi. Including our beloved Parasitic and Toxic. Also, Toxic Ancients are a pain in the rear already with how much damage they're able to put out in high-level content -they don't need any more surivability. Many squads I've been in have been wiped becase we let a Toxic Ancient get too close- which is the point. They're already high-priority targets. They don't need more going for them.

Ancient Healers are an issue in dealing with infested -they give a nice damage reduction to allies and heal themselves whenever you attack an ally. Thing is, they kind of also pop out. You know they're there, you can see them tower all over the other Infested. Now imagine having an invulnerable Parasitic Charger, somewhere in the middle of the oncoming horde, and there's nothing you can do about it. They will get close to you, ignoring everything you throw at them unless you hit their specific weakpoints. Good luck stopping that, mate.

Ancient healers are a pain to deal with -they are kind of meant to be that. As are Ancient Disruptors (reduces damage from warframe abilities, radial attacks and gives CC resist) and Toxic Ancients (just one of them in the Sorties can wipe an unprepared team). The fact that you play with people who can't/won't/don't bother prioritizing targets makes them much harder to deal with. However, for me, they actually represent a legitimate challenge; they make the Infested hard to deal with, unless you take their leaders out. Which is cool. You know what's not cool? Not being able to take out Eximus units on some invulnerability gimmick.