Nyx Assimilate fix is a massive nerf

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

57 minutes ago, FlinttheImmortal said:

Ok.  Here goes.

DE: It is a bug.  The Assimilate augment was never meant to ignore friendly fire in the first place.  It needs to be "fixed".

Players: A bug it may be, but it gave Nyx more utility than just Chaos spam.

Let's expand on the player side of the argument and look at what an augment is supposed to do (I'm going to quote/paraphrase myself from another post).  According to the Wiki:

When installed, Warframe Augments alter a Warframe's powers to perform additional effects, enhancing that power's utility.

Now, let's look at Assimilate.

Before the "fix," Assimilate allowed a Nyx to move and attack while using Absorb - at the cost of reduced ability range and only being able to walk.  This opened up a new avenue of play for Nyx players - the ability to tank.  Enhanced utility.

After the "fix," what are we left with?  Quite simply, a reduced range Absorb - the ability to move and attack afforded by Assimilate is rendered trivial every time an unknowing player, or outright troll goes blowing by an Assimilate Nyx with a bullet hose, Tigris Prime, Synoid Simulor, Tonkor, etc.  Reduced utility.

The "fix" renders Assimilate entirely situational at best (ie. good for solo play only) and at worst it is a nerf to Absorb that allows for player griefing/trolling.  In the latter case, it would be best to just replace Assimilate with another mod in a Nyx build. 

Therefore, was a "fix" really required in this case?

Thank you, this ^

Furthermore, If Nyx absorb/assimilate augment was "always" supposed to deteriorate by "friendly fire" then FROST'S bubble should do the same. let's keep it consistent DE. 

Edited March 12, 2017 by (XB1)FCastle74

[Treebiter]

While I appreciate that there's a lot of passion and emotion flying around about this topic, could I please ask a couple (okay, 3) things:

1. Spamming the boards with multiple threads on the same topic isn't helping, despite your best intentions.

2. Keep it civil. There's no need for calling DE names or making threats. We have 't even heard an official line on this yet.

3. Please refrain from tagging Rebecca. She'll come back to the office tomorrow with enough alerts as it is. Pestering her will only serve to annoy her and won't help the discussion.

I know I'm just 'some guy on the internet' and not an official spokesperson for this issue, but we had a good, constructive discussion going on in this thread. Spamming the boards and throwing around vitriol will only serve to turn people against us.

Thank you everyone.

[(XBOX)ViciousLithium]

On 3/9/2017 at 10:03 PM, -_Shiro_- said:

Yes please. The fix for this ability isn't allowing friendly fire on it, the fix would be removing this unwanted feature of Nyx's ult. Limbo can't force teammates to stay in the rift anymore, and Volt can't force teammates to use his speed buff anymore. So why oh why, would we allow teammates to sap Nyx's energy at a absurdly high rate?

This. Right. Here.  There was so much effort during the rework of Volt to allow players the choice as to whether or not their physical movement was allowed to he altered by Volt.  Some people found it very unpleasant to move that fast, and others would sometimes be trolled into going full on speed demon in areas where it was a hindrance.  So a mechanic was put in place to allow players an opt out choice to improve their experience.  Nyx builds a giant energy pool, goes to defend an objective,  and is drained of 500+ energy in half a second from an ally Tigris?  How does that even make sense?

Edited March 12, 2017 by (XB1)ViciousLithium
Autocorrect

[Zendadaist]

Hugely disappointing and uneeded nerf. It's like a perma rad proc on your team. Assimlate Nyx is now only useful when soloing - so much for a team game.

[theSultrySultan]

I'm saying nothing new here but I have to throw my hat into the ring as well, as Nyx is my favorite frame.  I've been playing her a lot since the patch dropped, seeing if I can still make her work outside of just Chaos spamming (a job which is essentially better handled by a permanently invisible ult-augment Loki).  I run a build with very high duration and range to make 1 and 3 most useful, using 4 as a way to safely clear rooms before moving on to the next area, as most missions have some component of mobility to them.  I've now found that Nyx is near-impossible to use in group play, particularly against sortie-level enemies, as one of my means of survival, my 4, now actually detracts from my survivability by draining all my energy, making it impossible to use Quick Thinking and Chaos to stay alive.  Pressing 4 now, particularly with my build that attempts to make good on 3 of Nyx's 4 abilities, is actually negative progress and almost always results in a quick crash to 0 energy followed by death.  This problem becomes even more noticeable on cramped tilesets .

I don't think this fix intended to have this effect, nor do I think it was made as a deliberate nerf to Terminator Nyx; rather, I believe the change was made to have Nyx's 4 have continuity in how it functions between the augmented and non-augmented versions.  That's a fine goal, but when the end result is a massive nerf, I think the problem of mechanics transparency needs to be addressed in another way, perhaps by simply adding to Assimilate's tooltip that it "takes away" the ability to be charged by friendly fire.

As a side note, the effect this change has on making your allies have to "play around you" runs counter to so much else in the game's design of just letting everyone go hog-wild and blast everything in sight.  Warframe is not a slow, contemplative shooter like Rainbow 6 Siege, where the challenge lies in careful coordination, and while it could be said that a change such as these simply requires more careful team play to work around, little else in the game functions this way.  As such, in practice Assimilate Nyx will seem like a burden to teams rather than a boon, an exceptionally rare example of an obstacle placed in your way by a player rather than by an enemy (a core deviation from most of the game's mechanics that I can't imagine will be welcomed).

[Lancars]

From 500 energy to nothing in a few hits. Absorb is so useless now... thanks.

Honestly now all she is. Just use Chaos thats all she has now.

Edited March 12, 2017 by Lancars
MORE SALT.

[(PSN)mazraj99]

Totally agree

It s kinda funny how it took them a while to make this so called fix

[(XBOX)The Carbonite]

5 hours ago, FlinttheImmortal said:

Ok.  Here goes.

DE: It is a bug.  The Assimilate augment was never meant to ignore friendly fire in the first place.  It needs to be "fixed".

Players: A bug it may be, but it gave Nyx more utility than just Chaos spam.

Let's expand on the player side of the argument and look at what an augment is supposed to do (I'm going to quote/paraphrase myself from another post).  According to the Wiki:

When installed, Warframe Augments alter a Warframe's powers to perform additional effects, enhancing that power's utility.

Now, let's look at Assimilate.

Before the "fix," Assimilate allowed a Nyx to move and attack while using Absorb - at the cost of reduced ability range and only being able to walk.  This opened up a new avenue of play for Nyx players - the ability to tank.  Enhanced utility.

After the "fix," what are we left with?  Quite simply, a reduced range Absorb - the ability to move and attack afforded by Assimilate is rendered trivial every time an unknowing player, or outright troll goes blowing by an Assimilate Nyx with a bullet hose, Tigris Prime, Synoid Simulor, Tonkor, etc.  Reduced utility.

The "fix" renders Assimilate entirely situational at best (ie. good for solo play only) and at worst it is a nerf to Absorb that allows for player griefing/trolling.  In the latter case, it would be best to just replace Assimilate with another mod in a Nyx build. 

Therefore, was a "fix" really required in this case?

^ This guy gets it. The way I saw Assimilate when I first started using the augment was that the downsides were the extremely reduced movement speed, reduced bubble size and the fact your team-mates could no longer pump damage into your absorb ability - making it different from the standard "absorb everything" to where it was just absorbing enemy fire made the augment usable in groups because you didn't need to worry about errant shots from your team-mates (or straight up trolls who pump damage into absorb just to waste that Nyx player's energy pool).

[tverik]

I agree and made a post on this. DE needs to revert this.

[Lancars]

Just now, tverik said:

I agree and made a post on this. DE needs to revert this.

During an infested fight with assimilate. I was over 500 energy. As soon as i turned on absorb my energy was all gone. 563 energy to 0 in the blink of an eye this is Terrible. I'm shelved nyx cause of this cause all she is is Chaos and thats it. Mind control is useless without the augment and the pys bolts don't seem to do much and eat energy even with mods.

[tverik]

2 minutes ago, Lancars said:

During an infested fight with assimilate. I was over 500 energy. As soon as i turned on absorb my energy was all gone. 563 energy to 0 in the blink of an eye this is Terrible. I'm shelved nyx cause of this cause all she is is Chaos and thats it. Mind control is useless without the augment and the pys bolts don't seem to do much and eat energy even with mods.

Looks like they want to make nyx a boring press 3 warframe instead of actually being able to support your team in other ways than pressing "3" over and over.

[Lancars]

Turns out I'm late to the party >:C

[Lancars]

15 hours ago, PrimeDCookieMonstah said:

I start to think that everyone opens same topic just to get upvotes -.-". There are so many Nyx Assimilate topics right now... like what the... Use that search function for once, jesus.

I was late to the party but also your voice can get lost in these threads and then they die and nothing gets done about the problem.

[TenGaugeBoson]

FFS DE

I know you can't make everyone happy.

But you are getting better at making everyone mad.

Remember Carrier?

Remember the contention, then when you gave us what we wanted how it went away?

Who wants to play a game that isn't fun?

It is rewarding to overcome difficult enemies sure, but not when you have to farm them. Then it becomes work and not fun. and annoying and crappy and why dont I just go play another game?...like chess.

After getting so annoyed farming kuva last night I literally started playing chess on steam....And it was so much more fun than playing Nyx.

I love this game. Itis the only game I play anymore.

This game is the only reason I have windows 10. I would rather be running Linux.

The day I leave this game I will reformat my hard drive and load up Ubuntu and won't be able to come back.

If you are gonna keep nerfing the fun. please give us Linux support. whichever is easiest for you of coarse.

[Vance.Stubbs]

Simulor Mirage completely trivializes 95% of game content!? Better nerf Nyx barely anyone plays in pub!

[Chroia]

12 hours ago, Hellhound122 said:

there are way more things Nerfed that should have been way more focused on, or things changed that shouldn't have been,

I'm pretty sure that's a logical fallacy.
The fact that other things are worse doesn't make this any less bad than it is.

And given that DE prioritize (by a huge margin) putting out the "brightest fires", I'll take what I can get.
If any of the things that (imo) need changing actually get some popular support, that's the one I'll be talking about at that moment.

[Hixlysss]

On 3/10/2017 at 11:15 AM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Luckily I hadn't finished the Sortie yet and there is a Defense mission up - this sets the field for one of my favourite Nyx Assimilate strategies. Hopping in a Defense Shotgun-Only Sortie with my 'Terminator Nyx' to protect the Ally after this change was the perfect testing ground for me - especially in Public matchmaking where you're never sure what others will bring to the table.

I'm conflicted about what I found - I expected to see the sky falling, especially with a full Public team with Shotguns! With my Assimilate build, I was still able to maintain Godmode Assimilate for each wave, stopping in between to hustle for drops and stock up on energy. I only removed my '4' in combat once to run to a fallen Squad mate to quickly reactivate it.

When the final Wave hit things got a little hairy - as they should - and I had to adapt with quick movements and Energy restock, only losing my Absorb once.

Is more testing necessary? Absolutely - that goes for everyone in this thread who has claimed we've ruined something that they themselves have not tried out.

It has been a while since Nyx has gone under any serious discussion so we'll see how far we can open this door based on the constructive feedback that takes place.

An excuse to play even more Nyx though? Sign me up.


 

But from what I'm understanding, the issue stems from trolling. Specifically the fact that team mate damage adds to the COST of the bubble, thus a friendly shot of a high powered weapon will increase it's cost massively and thus...turn off the bubble forcefully via a team mate. It's not something done accidentally, it's done on purpose for the sake of trolling, as such a dev sadly can not test such a thing, and attempting to test it under a non dev account would be difficult at best.

I have a proposed solution to this, well two. First, could make it NOT take friendly fire damage but I doubt that is what the devs want. Secondly, reduce the amount of damage it takes from friendly fire. The second option is honestly, in my opinion, the better option of the two. It reduces the problem by a potentially significant amount depending on the amount of FF damage is reduced, thus making it harder, but not impossible, to troll.

[ChameleonBro]

On 3/10/2017 at 1:12 AM, Asherax said:

Ran Akkad with a Nova in the party - watched my energy go from 700 to 0 in about 5 seconds.  The explosions seems to count towards friendly damage to shield.  I've never seen energy disappear so fast.

 

Players do SO much more damage than NPCs, that its laughable how quickly a player can knock out a nyx energy.   If this was indeed a bug all along, then perhaps reduce the damage and or energy drain to a smaller ratio - maybe 25%. 

But really, I dont think anything was wrong before.  I never found it unbalanced as you traded invincibility for slow movement, etc.

As it stands, this has made nyx unplayable in a party.   Energy just disappears way to quickly.

IMO, this is a change that needs to be reversed.  Or certainly readdressed.

 

Edit: Vauban Vortex also bad; big energy drain if you stand too close

The slow speed wasn't a problem with the Ack and Brunt stance

[(PSN)babblez_nopo]

DE, I got a question for you. Fix the things that needs to be fixed, and stop ruining the game. Please revert this nerf, or else you will kiss my arse

[OvisCaedo]

I guess, in fairness, removing friendly fire charging should not be an effect of the augment. It's a change that should just happen to the base skill, since it's just not a well thought out mechanic to begin with.

Edited March 12, 2017 by OvisCaedo

[KX297]

24 minutes ago, OvisCaedo said:

I guess, in fairness, removing friendly fire charging should not be an effect of the augment. It's a change that should just happen to the base skill, since it's just not a well thought out mechanic to begin with.

True enough.

I despise friendly fire in general. 

It is never a fun mechanic, and it is the main reason I usually didn't use the base absorb much.

I'd like to see the friendly fire charge removed all together.

Edited March 12, 2017 by KX297

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Another question: Why does Absorb need Drain AT ALL?

Now, listen to me, removing the drain alltogether may sound broken at first but fact is, it is allready in the game. Mag has it to be preciese, with bullet attractor.

Bullet attractor valuates a boosted sum of friendly and hostile fire, makes it aoe for its duration and releases everything then in a massive blast when the duration expires. It is not as controllable but stronger in the first place and costs energy of a second ability.

 

Can't we just addapt this concept onto Absorb?

[Fluffysbeans]

44 minutes ago, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

Another question: Why does Absorb need Drain AT ALL?

Now, listen to me, removing the drain alltogether may sound broken at first but fact is, it is allready in the game. Mag has it to be preciese, with bullet attractor.

Bullet attractor valuates a boosted sum of friendly and hostile fire, makes it aoe for its duration and releases everything then in a massive blast when the duration expires. It is not as controllable but stronger in the first place and costs energy of a second ability.

 

Can't we just addapt this concept onto Absorb?

Absorb needs to be a channel simply because the split-second that you have out of the ability while casting is going to get you killed in a high level mission. Magnetize doesn't attach directly to the frame, and also is scaled off of duration. Holding power drain on Absorb means that it can be extended nearly indefinitely, but on a weaker scale, while Magnetize's trade-off is a duration based, stationary skill that instead does much higher damage. 

It's funny that you even mentioned those two in conjunction, especially considering Nyx and Mag are my two top-used frames.

[sv650racer]

NYX is my main (well I guess you can call it that) on 2 platforms.

I personally never tank with Assimilate, and I only use it as a panic button or to revive people. This "fix" is unnecessary, if you want to curb people from using it as a 24/7 shield, make it's drain rate increase as duration increase like Sound Quake and Hysteria. 

Edited March 12, 2017 by sv650racer

[FireSegment]

19 minutes ago, sv650racer said:

if you want to curb people from using it as a 24/7 shield, make it's drain rate increase as duration increase like Sound Quake and Hysteria

yup, this might be what would happen after all this fuss is over

Edited March 12, 2017 by FireSegment