Aura System Discussion 9.1.4 Thread Merger

[Pandemoniuhm]

So I LOVE the idea of upgrading artifacts and making them more powerful. I even agree with them costing warframe energy to equip more powerful versions. Two things I -do not- agree with are the base mod costing energy(You're effectively punishing us to have what we had before) and the aura slot coming pre-polarized. You're essentially telling people they HAVE to forma at least once if the pre-polarized slot for their aura doesn't match the one they want to use, or else take the heavy penalty of double mod cost. Allowing them to be polarized to increase the available mod energy on your warframe(since they now cost energy) is great, forcing people to polarize before they can use their warframe effectively is not.

 

Why would I ever want a V polarity on my volt, when the whole point of volt is to be a caster type frame that uses abilities more often and shoots less often. All the V polarity auras are amp damage. I don't think whomever put the details in for this new system thought much about what auras would be useful to certain frames.

 

Edit: Also, Artifact cards were really useful as something you could easily swap depending on mission type. Having them be mod cards and having a polarized slot severly limits their adaptive nature. Is this intended, or was it just not thought about?

Edited July 13, 2013 by Pandemoniuhm

[Kachocalvo]

So I LOVE the idea of upgrading artifacts and making them more powerful. I even agree with them costing warframe energy to equip more powerful versions. Two things I -do not- agree with are the base mod costing energy(You're effectively punishing us to have what we had before) and the aura slot coming pre-polarized. You're essentially telling people they HAVE to forma at least once if the pre-polarized slot for their aura doesn't match the one they want to use, or else take the heavy penalty of double mod cost. Allowing them to be polarized to increase the available mod energy on your warframe(since they now cost energy) is great, forcing people to polarize before they can use their warframe effectively is not.

 

Why would I ever want a V polarity on my volt, when the whole point of volt is to be a caster type frame that uses abilities more often and shoots less often. All the V polarity auras are amp damage. I don't think whomever put the details in for this new system thought much about what auras would be useful to certain frames.

 

Edit: Also, Artifact cards were really useful as something you could easily swap depending on mission type. Having them be mod cards and having a polarized slot severly limits their adaptive nature. Is this intended, or was it just not thought about?

 

Exactly my thoughts.

[Hogfather]

Yup. I said the same just not as eloquently

[MrHeartless]

So I LOVE the idea of upgrading artifacts and making them more powerful. I even agree with them costing warframe energy to equip more powerful versions. Two things I -do not- agree with are the base mod costing energy(You're effectively punishing us to have what we had before) and the aura slot coming pre-polarized. You're essentially telling people they HAVE to forma at least once if the pre-polarized slot for their aura doesn't match the one they want to use, or else take the heavy penalty of double mod cost. Allowing them to be polarized to increase the available mod energy on your warframe(since they now cost energy) is great, forcing people to polarize before they can use their warframe effectively is not.

 

Why would I ever want a V polarity on my volt, when the whole point of volt is to be a caster type frame that uses abilities more often and shoots less often. All the V polarity auras are amp damage. I don't think whomever put the details in for this new system thought much about what auras would be useful to certain frames.

 

Edit: Also, Artifact cards were really useful as something you could easily swap depending on mission type. Having them be mod cards and having a polarized slot severly limits their adaptive nature. Is this intended, or was it just not thought about?

I shudder to think...maybe they want us to have multiple frames for different scenarios. That would explain this move but as people have their favourites, its absurdly restrictive. I hope it gets adjusted soon.

[orangle]

+1 my exact thoughts too

[Archwizard]

So I LOVE the idea of upgrading artifacts and making them more powerful. I even agree with them costing warframe energy to equip more powerful versions. Two things I -do not- agree with are the base mod costing energy(You're effectively punishing us to have what we had before) and the aura slot coming pre-polarized. You're essentially telling people they HAVE to forma at least once if the pre-polarized slot for their aura doesn't match the one they want to use, or else take the heavy penalty of double mod cost. Allowing them to be polarized to increase the available mod energy on your warframe(since they now cost energy) is great, forcing people to polarize before they can use their warframe effectively is not.

 

Why would I ever want a V polarity on my volt, when the whole point of volt is to be a caster type frame that uses abilities more often and shoots less often. All the V polarity auras are amp damage. I don't think whomever put the details in for this new system thought much about what auras would be useful to certain frames.

 

Edit: Also, Artifact cards were really useful as something you could easily swap depending on mission type. Having them be mod cards and having a polarized slot severly limits their adaptive nature. Is this intended, or was it just not thought about?

It's like we're thinking on the same wavelength.

 

I don't mean to sound overly dramatic (though it probably will sound that way), but I almost get a sense of betrayal from this change. There was no warning, no consultation, it was practically slipped under the rug, in the fine-print of the patch notes, until we saw it with our own eyes.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Archwizard

[Daonitre]

While I agree with the majority of first post, I don't even see the aura slot being based on the warframe itself. IMO have the "aura slot" be given it's own panel in the arsenal (button left of sentinels maybe?) to de-clutter auras from the general mods, and allow the cost to be based on the mastery level of the person using it (This would still allow leveling the item as well as restricting higher level auras from being abused by low mastery players). I'm not completely for the polarity attunement either, but IMO that's one of the "grey areas" which can go either way for me.

[fatfree]

This better be a bug... why the hell is it a V-polarity when every single aura mod I can see has a bar polarity? Makes no sense to me. Maybe they just put the wrong polarity in by accident?

[eldorel]

@fatfree: It's not a bug. some of them have V and D polarities. You just didn't have any of the amp artifacts.

[Gereinath-Hunter]

It blows my mind that Ember's aura isn't an energy polarity or that Rhino's aura isn't a defensive polarity. The only ones that sort of made sense I've found were Excalibur and Ash's V polarity due to Steel Charge being V polarity and their strong melee motif, and Trinity's defensive polarity given that she's a support frame.

 

The best thing to do would be to not give them a polarity, make the base cards roughly the same as the old ones if not a little weaker, and allow them to be upgraded to go beyond what they were at the cost of more points off a frame's energy. That way it allows for more upward expansion and fine-tuning without penalizing the player or making them feel like they're being punished for playing high-end, forma-specialized, finely tuned frames before 9.0 hit. I have most of the frames out there but Ember was always my favorite. I've had to give up Fireball and tune my defensive mods to rank 2 or 3 just to put back on energy siphon at the rate it was generating energy pre-9.0.

 

-Bea

[fatfree]

@fatfree: It's not a bug. some of them have V and D polarities. You just didn't have any of the amp artifacts.

 

Ah, so I'm permanently screwed. That's convenient.

[Archwizard]

The original appeal of artifacts were that they could enhance your allies' gameplay in subtle ways without costing you anything.

Now it costs you.
And due to the polarities, they cost you a lot.

 

Honestly, if you're going to claim they have anything to do with the old Artifacts, I feel that auras shouldn't cost anything to equip at all. Maybe have them only upgradable by fusing them with the exact same mod while keeping them at 0 cost the whole way up, or at least until the point they're roughly equal in effect to the old artifacts. With their own polarity so we don't have any of this "It'll only fit an amp mod!" business moving forward.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Archwizard

[eldorel]

I somewhat agree that the already polarized slots are a bad idea, also using the frames pool of Mod points isn't very good either.

Also the point of the "artifacts" was that players had a special ability that was the result of an item and provided a nice buff FOR THE ENTIRE TEAM at NO EXTRA COST TO THE PLAYER.

This gave the game a little bit of extra variety when running with different players instead of every volt being identical.

Now in order to use a specific AURA, a player has to potentially go through the forma process AND use up some of their warframe's potential. This is a drastic change.

Costing precious mod points to use just means that many people aren't going to bother using them unless they are running with friends.  After all, now there is a penalty for equipping them.

This is just going to make running with PUGs even more miserable.

Aura/artifacts should either be treated as regular mods, or treated as special items that don't affect the frame's point pool.
 
If the first option is taken, give all AURA's a new polarity type and polarize the extra slot for them.
If the second option is taken, give the frame's aura slot a separate point level that increases with rank (max 5 points).

For bonus points, combine the 2, and give the aura slot a polarity and a separate point pool that can be increased either with rank OR by spending a forma.
Also allow players to equip a regular mod using that pool of points (remember: the max point value of 5 limits this use).

[Thaumatos]

The original idea of the artifact was mostly outside of the frame you've chosen. It was like having another part of your "character" customizable. Frames are a chosen set of skills and abilities you bring to the fight, as are weapons. Artifacts acted in the same manner. Now, they're simply part of the frame.

My way of doing it? Have a separate slot for "Artifacts" as you had previously and base their available strength on your mastery rank.

[jonathan8883]

Aaaand they still haven't fixed all the excess V-slots that come baked into some of the frames.

[NueHoujuu]

I would have to agree with the sentiments here generally.

 

I will however go into specifics about certain aspects I specifically dislike since I feel like expostulating.

 

 

First I think that making aura adjustable only through the arsenal screen is somewhat counter to the idea of equipping auras to help the group, as you can't equip the items fast enough to be able to actually optimize how you are helping the group.

 

This is one area where the old system excelled, in that you could equip artifacts rapidly as people joined a lobby to adjust to needs of a given mission and group. Now we're talking enough menu negotiating and searching that 10 seconds is probably up by the time you've found the mod and moved it to the slot, much less hit "apply". And by then someone else may have changed what they were using.

 

 

 

Related to the above, the second thing I don't like is that unless I'm missing something, you can't tell what auras your team is using in the first place. I'm not a huge fan of that.

 

 

Third I dislike the fact that they draw power from the warframe energy pool. However this is not unbearable if not for the fourth thing I really don't like which is...

 

 

The much maligned Pre-polarized aura slot. This is easily the aspect of the changes that bugs me the most because now I will need to go and unpolarize that slot on pretty much all of my frames...which is all of them but 3 at this point. That's a lot of formas, and more importantly a lot of hours. But I don't really want to do that either because if that changes I'll be out a lot of formas and have wasted quite a few hours.

 

 

All that being said I like the idea of powering up auras and I can see how this makes sense in conjunction with drawing from the warframe power pool  so as to balance it but there are so many other aspects about the new system that are not at all nice that I find myself unable to be terribly enthusiastic.

[Ahzanti]

I have to just say I now feel Like I got riped off!  The old artafacts better they worked for the whole team for free.  I also thougth after the one livestream that they said they would NOT use mod points because we get so fricken few of them.  Eaven with a reactor on trinity she is now totaly useless.  They did not up her base energy pool and energy vampire is still crap so unless your going agens a boss dont bother with trinity  she is now totaly useless.  I would rather 50plat and get a orcan reactor type thing that give me a free slot to use the aura cards not this bs.  On top of that they did not make going through the mods any easier!  Now unless you remember what artifacts you has pre 9 you, a newbie, would not have a clue that it is an oria card.  Good job fing up the artifacts.  Yes if you can not tell I am pissed about this.

[yasha_mikage]

I could deal with this system except for the fact that the Aura slot is pre-polarized... that bothers me so much as it means nearly everyone will have to unnecessarily burn an extra Forma just because of their choice of Artifacts (Aura, w/e).

[cheukyi6]

I simply hate the artifact mod system now, it draws from the warframe mod slots :/

[blue1964]

So I LOVE the idea of upgrading artifacts and making them more powerful. I even agree with them costing warframe energy to equip more powerful versions. Two things I -do not- agree with are the base mod costing energy(You're effectively punishing us to have what we had before) and the aura slot coming pre-polarized. You're essentially telling people they HAVE to forma at least once if the pre-polarized slot for their aura doesn't match the one they want to use, or else take the heavy penalty of double mod cost. Allowing them to be polarized to increase the available mod energy on your warframe(since they now cost energy) is great, forcing people to polarize before they can use their warframe effectively is not.

 

Why would I ever want a V polarity on my volt, when the whole point of volt is to be a caster type frame that uses abilities more often and shoots less often. All the V polarity auras are amp damage. I don't think whomever put the details in for this new system thought much about what auras would be useful to certain frames.

 

Edit: Also, Artifact cards were really useful as something you could easily swap depending on mission type. Having them be mod cards and having a polarized slot severly limits their adaptive nature. Is this intended, or was it just not thought about?

Very well put Pandemoniuhm A+++  ...I totally agree with what u r saying...what bothers me most is that now we're being forced to forma the aura slot to fit the warframe ...I hope this is just a mistake on Polarizations... personally I do like the previous method better...

Edited July 13, 2013 by blue1964

[Xylia]

"Volt is a warframe for players who want an alternative to gunplay."

 

......

 

"Let's tailor his Aura Slot to......... RIFLE AMP!" (and Steel Charge.)

 

Yeah, nice.

[Nykxx]

i have a mixed feeling about this update to the artifact system. While i like the idea of having auras to enhance teammates, and being forced to customize my frames more (choosing energy regen on ash is now no nobrainer anymore) i dislike the fact that you cannot change your artifact before the start of the mission. 

 

I like having a health regen for infested in the group and an enemy radar on defense missions. now i have to choose before i go into a mission and also could get problems with my mod energy, because of polaritys. If i use steel charge to boost my melee with ash and after a mission or two join a team and want to switch to energy regen, i have to change my complete mod setup, because of the different energy cost of the aura.

 

So in the end this update will remove the flexibility in the end and you will just slot a specific aura for each frame. This also lets people use the Armor ignore, slow infested etc. Auras less, because when auras are pretty much fix on the frame, you dont want something situational there.

[Mokona512]

it sucks, they essentially reduced the power of all of them, then they added the option to upgrade them so you can waste like 12 slots on getting back to the power they used to have.

 

if you are going to pull this crap, atleast keep the same power level as before as the base, then allow users to upgrade them.

 

energy siphon is completely useless now, and the polarity for each warframe is the most useless one possible (opposite of what ever the user would ever want to use, so mods tend up taking more than they would otherwise.

 

just about all of the cards are not even worth using now compared to what you give up to add them.

 

Hopefully they will undo what they did in update 9

Edited July 13, 2013 by Mokona512

[Winterbraid]

So far it seems one of the first activities of many people in U9 will be to spend a Forma to de-polarize that Aura slot on their frame. I can count myself among that number as well. That alone should be enough to indicate a problem.

 

I was thrilled at first when I saw that Artifacts became upgradeable. But causing them to both take up mod energy AND practically require a Forma is pretty harsh and hits newbie and casual players the most (because advanced players will just shrug it off).

 

I predict it will be pretty rare to see good Aura loadouts in public games. Which will surely prove problematic, between their increased impact on gameplay and the increased mission levels.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Winterbraid

[Xylia]

So far it seems one of the first activities of many people in U9 will be to spend a Forma to de-polarize that Aura slot on their frame. I can count myself among that number as well. That alone should be enough to indicate a problem.

 

I was thrilled at first when I saw that Artifacts became upgradeable. But causing them to both take up mod energy AND practically require a Forma is pretty harsh and hits newbie and casual players the most (because advanced players will just shrug it off).

 

I predict it will be pretty rare to see good Aura loadouts in public games. Which will surely prove problematic, between their increased impact on gameplay and the increased mission levels.

 

Esp since Casuals cannot afford to potato every Warframe.....

 

When you only have 30 slots....

 

Can you REALLY justify spending 6 slots (7 if it is the wrong polarity) on an artifact when it really doesn't give you all THAT much of an impact, esp since some of them have been nerfed to all Hek and back?

 

Basically, No Potato = Don't even bother equipping an Aura. Those points can be put to way better use on nearly anything else...Redirection.....Vitality.... Streamline... Focus... you name it.