[Update 20] Octavia Feedback Megathread

[LMG3864]

I have 3 problems with Octavia that really limit my enjoyment of the Warframe:

1. Resonator always prioritizing picking up the Mallet over distracting the enemy. I can toss the Mallet in a different planet and the roller will still go to pick it up before doing anything else. I wouldn't mind if I actually wanted the roller to carry the Mallet around, but since the enemy will not attack it once it picks it up then I'd rather avoid it. I've even gotten used to just using the Mallet to "tell" the roller where to go, mostly because of the other two problems.
2. The damage on the Mallet seems dependant on your team not killing the enemy before they can shoot it. But I can just toss it away from my team to work around that... which leads me to the third problem.
3. The enemy for some odd reason seem to ignore the Mallet more often than not unless it's dealing damage. I toss it in the middle of a firefight, they don't shoot it. I toss it before the firefight, they don't shoot it. I toss it before they've even seen me, they sometimes shoot it. The Infested have been the worst offenders so far, as they seem to never attack it no matter what I do (although it could be my teammates killing them before they can, which loops back around to the second problem).

The first problem could be fixed by either making the charmed enemies actually shoot the Mallet, or at least making the roller ignore Mallets that are too far away. The second problem is more of a design flaw, which would require a whole revamp of the ability, so no can do there. Now the third problem I'm not quite sure what's causing it. It could be line of sight issues, as I do know for a fact that when the enemy are on any sort of incline they tend to go blind to anything slightly above or bellow them, or it could be an issue with the attack priority of the Mallet itself (which could be fixed by raising said priority).

I really hope some of these issues could be adressed; so far I'm losing a lot of interest in Octavia very quickly. The Mallet rarely works, the roller isn't really "fun" to use (toss and forget), Metronome seems nice (and actually works) but more often than not I just end up forgetting about it or can't listen to the music properly to time it, and Amp doesn't really help if it has nothing to amplify. I always seem to end up just spamming rollers over anything else so I can be somewhat helpful. For now I guess I'll just use Octavia to make random tunes with the Mandachord on my spare time.

[anyse]

Rollerball and Mullet combo is cool ...But please let us use them separately

 

Co'z both of them can be use as CC but what if we want Mullet to protect this side of the room while Rollerball

lure enemy to run around at the other side? as of now Rollerball will run to Mullet no matter how far and pick it up and

run around randomly on his way 

 

Can you make it ...like ...if we don't throw the Rollerball 5m near or not in Mullet range it will leave it be

and not go and pick it up? I think her ability will be more strategically use in more situation

[Rin01]

Ok, after putting some more time into Octavia I have a little more feedback:

 

 - As stated before, I still feel that no matter how good your song is, it doesn't take long for it to get very repetitive. So if possible I would really like a way to switch songs while in missions. Whether it is manual or automatic switching, doesn't matter to me really. I just feel there needs to be a way to break up the mind numbing repetition some how.

 

 - Regarding her skills, I feel Mallet, Resonator and Amp are ok. They are pretty self sufficient and can be used easily without too much issue. There may be some bugs that some have experienced, but the general feel and function of these skills (minus the bugs) is good in my opinion. Metronome on the other hand I have had a very hit and miss experience with. While the concept of the skill is great, it needs some serious work before it can be as good as it deserves to be. Here are the two issues I have with it:

  1) Because the timing is tied to the melody rather than the percussion (beat) it can sometimes be very difficult to time your actions to get the buffs. If it was tied to the beat I think getting the buffs would be a lot easier. You could of course make a melody that coincides with the beat, but then you are limiting your musical creativity for the gameplay, and that would a bit of a shame really.

  2) Quite often when running certain missions with another Octavia, it can be almost impossible to time your abilities when you have someone else's tune playing nearby, especially when your Mallet & Resonator are off elsewhere and the allied Octavia's song is drowning out most of yours. Having the ability to either turn their volume down, or to only hear your song from any Octivia would help in these situations. Alternatively, have it so that you always hear your Mallet (beat), over everything else, no matter how far away it is. This way you will always hear your song's beat and can more reliably time your actions.

I think if Metronome was timed off the beat rather than the melody, and if you could always hear your beat, it would make acquiring the metronome buffs a lot easier and more consistant. Of course, it may still be difficult for non-Octavia allies to time their actions to match your beats, but the most important thing is that the frame itself should be able to activate the buffs with relative ease. At the moment it isn't easy and in some cases it is impossible.

The only way I have found to make Metronome reliable is to fill every slot with a note and turn the volume off. Then you can simply spam actions rapidly to get the buff more reliably. This makes using Metronome easier and more reliable, but feels like it is exploting the system and not using it as intended. It also means that your song is missing a melody. The buffs that Metronome gives are fine, but the way they are activated needs fixing.

 

 

Edited April 7, 2017 by Rin01

[BornWithTeeth]

Can you please, please make a way to completely and totally lock a song's save slot, so that no changes to that song can be made and nothing about the slot can be overwritten at all unless you deliberately uncheck the option for it?

 

I just logged in and found that a song which I had spent goddamned ages working on had been overwritten by the Default Anthem. I immediately logged right back out because I was insanely disgusted and am now just done with Warframe for the day. 100% goddamned done. I swear to god, it is taking all of my patience to post this in Feedback instead of screaming about it in General Discussion.

 

Just so that it gets sufficiently communicated, even though I'm not using all caps and I'm refraining from profanity: I am completely disgusted with Octavia, and this has genuinely just ruined her for me as a Warframe. I'm done with her. She's not getting Forma, she's not getting an Exilus adapter, she's getting put in her box and I'm not taking her out again, and the next time you guys announce a new Warframe with interesting mechanics, I'll be rolling my eyes because I know how unpolished it's going to be.

Edited April 7, 2017 by BornWithTeeth

[DustyFlash]

I'm not sure whether this is a bug or the ability itself, but Metronome is very poorly optimized for low-end pcs (Low-End for Metronome: Anything bellow i5, 4GB of Ram, and Nvidia 860)

In the video I drastically drop frame rate, and she is really cool for a warframe but the fps drops make her unplayable, not sure what makes metronome itself so laggy. And I recently tested high graphics, I had 60fps, and when I activated metronome it went down the same way like in the video.

Overall the frame looks good for a supportive frame. The 1st has its limitations and the 2nd is made to be cc, the third ability seems like a very good ability overall rewarding the player for paying attention and fighting to the beat and the 4th ability is good for a decent damage buff. But she is still unplayable for people with "low-end pcs".

At the same time she can become quite annoying in missions, not because of the songs, (since theres an option to tune them down) but because it drops frame rate for everyone near Octavia with Metronome active.

EDIT: Possibly found the issue, the ability Metronome might be using Dynamic Lighting (wich when enabled drops 20 fps in the infested area of the ship for me) and I have it disabled although the ability force enables it somehow.

Also since the most recent hotfix 20.1.1 wich optimized the Mandachord itself has no effect on the ability metronome and its fps issues.

Edited April 9, 2017 by DustyFlash
Update on the issue

[DonOctavia]

I understand that  frame in u wanted to create a dance party where full squad needs to dance to be effective. If all in team dance its fun to play with octavia. So u got that goal. This frame is verry different for others. Main reason why ppl dont understand that frame is cz they all have to dance to get 100 % use from buffs. If only one is not dancing octavia will not do dmg. I like that concept. Trails also work in that way. Its a teamgame. For me just fix the problems i ve posed before and work around music making. 

 

Spoiler

On 3.4.2017 at 2:01 AM, DonOctane said:

Boiler Eximus also takes 0 damage from octavia. Just spawn 5 Boiler eximus + 5 Charger at simaris. All enemys in that group will take 0 dmg. 

 

Spoiler

On 31.3.2017 at 2:46 AM, DonOctane said:

Octavia dealing 0 damage to enemys after some time. Tested with Grineer and Infested. At infested for me its looks like aura of ancient stacks so they will not take damge. I killed some enemys with meele and they started to get damage from octiva. Then the bug returned. For Grineer if can´t say why they did not get damage. Have a look at my screenshots.

 

 

 

[Insizer]

23 hours ago, StealthDragoon said:

No it doesn't, it makes Mallet mobile after it has taken damage, making Mallet a mobile circle of pounding doom. You are doing it wrong. :)

Perhaps I am.  I tend to pop both at basically the same time.

[QQSausage]

With her ,it's very easy to solo Alad V as well as some bosses in raid mode just by her skills 

She is now the nullifiers killer XD !!!! 

[HyliusTheLightCelestial]

Considering this is the first post I've ever made, despite how long I've been playing (few years), should hopefully add a little weight to how much this is bothering me.

Please give me a separate option for Octavia's music to decouple it from the standard music volume.

I play with music muted (not just this game, basically all games). I keep it off so I can hear Teamspeak when playing with friends, or in long missions just listen to my own music collection. As such, Octavia has been sitting unranked in my inventory for almost 2 weeks now until I decided to try it today, see if maybe I could enjoy it without being able to hear the music. I cannot, it's just so bland without it to me. While technically music, it's more of a sound effect, and that's before taking into account the third power. It's a similar conundrum that I face when doing quests: I muted Ordis because I was annoyed by the constant Liset droning, but now all his unique lines are muted in the quest dialogue. I either have to enable and remember to disable after, or just do without (what I end up doing). Unfortunately, Octavia is giving me the same deal, and at this point I'm probably just gonna do without the entire frame.

Apologies if this isn't quite the place for it, best I could find on a quick scan of the forums.

[AhziDahaka]

My feedback on Octavia is as follows:

 

I personally don't have a problem with Resonator and Mallet combining because with a range build and her ult I can easily CC a hilariously massive area.  She's brilliant crowd control and I don't even care about dealing any damage with her abilities.  I really like this part of the frame and don't see the need for any significant changes here.

Metronome, however is a bit problematic, simply because it punishes you by dropping accumulated buffs if you miss the beat.  Shooting to the melody is usually not conducive to actually killing anything, so your buffs get taken away from you right when you need them.  Even reducing the power of her buffs to compensate for not reducing said buffs when you fire your weapon off-beat I would say is a fair trade.

 

Octavia's biggest problem is the limitations of her mandachord though.  First off, she really needs a full octave's range for notes.  Since putting multiple notes together in one beat increases buff strength for a synced action on that beat, you're encouraged to do just that--but doing so causes your beats to share more of the same notes, so they sound more similar and you lose what is already precious little range.  A full octave would really help with that, as would maybe allowing us to double-up on the same note.

Additionally, songs are too short.  Octavia really shines in longer mission types, but hearing the same 16 measures over and over again in those long missions really starts to wear on you.  Please give us 32 measures in 8 sections to work with, and then let us build playlists so her activated powers will automatically go from one song to the next.  To make it even better, provide the option to place or remove a delay between specific songs so if 16 or even 32 measures still isn't enough, one can use the playlist feature to seamlessly combine multiple songs into one composition.

 

In short, Octavia is really fun, but I'm worried that once the new car smell is gone and the novelty has worn off, short and repetitive songs will prove a bit too annoying and Metronome's issues might leave a buffing support build somewhat unviable, limiting her mainly to just crowd control builds.

[FLSH_BNG]

I'm really just pleased that we're limited to pentatonic scales so we can't have any harmonic dissonance from some player with their sound off while everyone else's ears bleed.

[Vafthrudnir]

4 hours ago, FLSH_BNG said:

I'm really just pleased that we're limited to pentatonic scales so we can't have any harmonic dissonance from some player with their sound off while everyone else's ears bleed.

Even then you could just turn off octavia music at all.

[DonOctavia]

Add possibility to end octavias 1 by hold down num 1 to make it safer to loot and not get shot down. Would be nice if her 2 also can get a faster end by holding num 2.

[Demon.King]

On 4/8/2017 at 9:16 PM, HyliusTheLightCelestial said:

Considering this is the first post I've ever made, despite how long I've been playing (few years), should hopefully add a little weight to how much this is bothering me.

Please give me a separate option for Octavia's music to decouple it from the standard music volume.

I play with music muted (not just this game, basically all games). I keep it off so I can hear Teamspeak when playing with friends, or in long missions just listen to my own music collection. As such, Octavia has been sitting unranked in my inventory for almost 2 weeks now until I decided to try it today, see if maybe I could enjoy it without being able to hear the music. I cannot, it's just so bland without it to me. While technically music, it's more of a sound effect, and that's before taking into account the third power. It's a similar conundrum that I face when doing quests: I muted Ordis because I was annoyed by the constant Liset droning, but now all his unique lines are muted in the quest dialogue. I either have to enable and remember to disable after, or just do without (what I end up doing). Unfortunately, Octavia is giving me the same deal, and at this point I'm probably just gonna do without the entire frame.

Apologies if this isn't quite the place for it, best I could find on a quick scan of the forums.

This is already a thing. It's in the audio settings...or in the mandachord if you are playing Octavia and want to mute your own songs...

Edited April 10, 2017 by Demon.King

[ganjou234]

On 4/9/2017 at 10:38 AM, AhziDahaka said:

Additionally, songs are too short.  Octavia really shines in longer mission types, but hearing the same 16 measures over and over again in those long missions really starts to wear on you.  Please give us 32 measures in 8 sections to work with, and then let us build playlists so her activated powers will automatically go from one song to the next.  To make it even better, provide the option to place or remove a delay between specific songs so if 16 or even 32 measures still isn't enough, one can use the playlist feature to seamlessly combine multiple songs into one composition.

 

In short, Octavia is really fun, but I'm worried that once the new car smell is gone and the novelty has worn off, short and repetitive songs will prove a bit too annoying and Metronome's issues might leave a buffing support build somewhat unviable, limiting her mainly to just crowd control builds.

 

[HyliusTheLightCelestial]

8 hours ago, Demon.King said:

This is already a thing. It's in the audio settings...or in the mandachord if you are playing Octavia and want to mute your own songs...

It's not that I want to mute mine, I want mine UNMUTED (and possibly others as well) but keep the regular music muted. As of last I attempted (Friday) I could not get this to work. There's plenty of options that I know of for doing the opposite (having background music while muting mine or other Octavia's songs), but as of then all I get is the initial sound effect of an ability activating and then silence. I'll try again when I'm home just to be sure, though.

[TheMadjackal]

12 minutes ago, HyliusTheLightCelestial said:

It's not that I want to mute mine, I want mine UNMUTED (and possibly others as well) but keep the regular music muted. As of last I attempted (Friday) I could not get this to work. There's plenty of options that I know of for doing the opposite (having background music while muting mine or other Octavia's songs), but as of then all I get is the initial sound effect of an ability activating and then silence. I'll try again when I'm home just to be sure, though.

You do realise there's an option for that right... it's like not that hard to find it...

 

The sound of octavia ability have a max range, if you are too far or there's a door between you and the mallet or resonator it mute their sound.

[Demon.King]

15 minutes ago, TheMadjackal said:

--

I think he means that he wants the background music muted WITHOUT muting his/other Octavias.

If that is not possible, I'm pretty sure it's an oversight on DEs Part. They should separate her sound from the music slider.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Demon.King

[EinheriarJudith]

Resonator needs some sort of catch up mechanic. i always leave it behind when parkouring. the buffs from metronome should not cancel if you miss a beat.  other than that love this frame.

Edited April 10, 2017 by EinheriarJudith

[HyliusTheLightCelestial]

7 hours ago, TheMadjackal said:

You do realise there's an option for that right... it's like not that hard to find it...

 

The sound of octavia ability have a max range, if you are too far or there's a door between you and the mallet or resonator it mute their sound.

I have this maxed out, along with all relevant sliders in the Mandachord menu. Both myself and my friend (who has the same setup) get nothing from self or allies. I really do hope it's an oversight and is corrected in the future.

[Igneova]

Octavia is very limited to her creativity. I know how music theory works but It's hard to apply when there is only one major scale (D), the beats per minute is locked on 120. It's difficult to get notes and rhythms right when there are 16th notes only. I have songs I want to create but it's difficult and frustrating. Since there isn't anyway to change the key of the instruments , there is no way to make notes match perfectly. I have attempted many times but I can never make them sound like the originals. We have notes stuck on one key, We have notes stuck on 16th notes. There is barely any effects to give guitars and bass a ring to it. I can't get funky strumming and muting of notes to get the funky jive I want. Stuck on four bars, than a vast amount to make a full song. I am bored with Octavia, frustrated, and depressed. I know Octavia has a lot of potential and I hope, just like all other players, that there could be more change and creativity.

Edited April 20, 2017 by LoneSurvivor173
more opinions

[Igneova]

7 minutes ago, LoneSurvivor173 said:

I feel like the creativity of Octavia is limited. The beats per minute is limited to 120 and I wish that we could adjust it to any kind of range, if it is too much than 80-140 beats per minute adjustable. Even notes are limited, I want to use whole notes, half notes, quarter, tie, and 8th notes. I have been wanting to create Night Fever by Bee Gees on Octavia but it's difficult without proper rhythm and notes. I am hoping that Octavia has a lot of potential to make any kind of music. Also that her manta chord has 4 bars which can be repetitive. I'm hoping that we can extend the bars as much as want,  what I am saying is that it could continue after 4 meaning that the new bars will count on ( 1 becomes 5, 2 becomes 6, and so on.)      I really hope that Octavia will have a lot of potential to make music, I am really looking forward to creating songs in game, I even look forward to many key changes and majors as well.          I hope for the best.

I know anything is possible, and I hope warframe will be the game I always like Thanks DE

[PopeUrban]

Alright, 4 forma and many missions later:

Octavia is fun, and after a few patches it isn't overly difficult to hit your own notes for 3. The synergy between her 1,3,and 4 works really well, creating a lockdown dance hall that only requires octavia and her allies to dance to the music in order to successfully murder things. Due to the constant need to refresh buffs from 3, this creates a much more fun and active bunker build than the mag and frost versions, as you focus on upkeeping your buffs and picking out problem enemies that blunt the effect of your mallet or screw with your ability to keep the music flowing.

I have two major problems with octavia:

1: She makes chumps out of Nullifers, and that is boring.

I know its popular to complain that nullifers make the game unfun, but in my honest opinion, nullifers do something that the other enemy factions should have avaliable. Most warframes built for endgame content fear very few things. Those things are nullifers, corpus space rollerbladers that lock out powers, and massive single hit aoe enemies like bombards and eximus units. Octavia is still pretty vulnerable to space rollerbladers and the splash damage from bombards and eximi but the mechanics of her mallet basically remove nullifers from play before they have the ability to do the one thing they're designed to do: counter warframe powers so that their allies have a chance to take advantage of the breach. I think Nullifiers add fun to the game as easy to kill but high frequency disruptions to what would otherwise be completely passive party compositions. Octavia's mallet, however, completely murders their shields before they have any hope of removing it, leaving my only real threats when playing her being energy disruption and direct power disruption.

I think Nullifers should work like arctic eximi in regards to the mallet, protecting everyone in their shield and themselves from its effects in order to present the player with a more regular threat to their dance party. Its range is long enough that there's nothing all that difficult about seeing the giant shield and disabling them before they can pop the mallet, and I find it extremely satisfying to pop an arctic eximus shield and watch everyone under it get a face full of sonic waves. Allowing nullifers to do their job properly would create more such moments combined with the gamble arctics already present: how long should i let them protect these guys feeding damage to by mallet, and at what point have I waited too long?

 

2: The roller ball is an actively detrimental ability to the rest of her kit.

I literally only ever press 2 when I'm waiting at extraction just to hear my bassline. I actively discourage others from using it, and they sometimes chat me back 2 missions later 'i thought it frame was mastry fodder until I stopped pressing 2 like you said'

I don't press it when moving from place to place because by the time i get where I'm going I may want to drop another mallet that I don't want picked up and moved around. I don't press it while I'm actively locking down an area because it stops enemies from shooting my mallet, moves my mallet out of the LOS profile I placed it for (and placement of the mallet is a big part of playing octavia). I don't press it because even if it didn't do those two things, it's going to take my mallet out of range of my ult.

It's even detrimental to her 3! Any octavia worth her salt is stealthed pretty much 100% of the time. Then here comes the rolly ball to pick up whatever stray out-of-range rocket, grenade, or gunfire that would have otherwise been directed at the mallet and puts it on an uncontrollable collision course with the stealthed octavia. It not only makes the enemies it charms more difficult to deal with, it can actually make every enemy it sees more difficult to deal with.

Literally everything it does somehow makes all of my other abilities less effective. It's not just bad synergy with her kit. It is actively hostile to her kit. How this ability in this state got further than the design stage boggles my mind. It's not just a bad ability. It is an ability so bad it actually makes the other abilities of an otherwise good frame actively worse.

Further, why does octavia even need a second charm in her kit? Mallet does more damage, is more controllable, and does literally everything the ball does except move. Its energy cost is so low that there's no practical benefit to casting a second benefit just to have it follow you around when you could spend the same energy and just drop another mallet.

For it to be useful it needs to:

Stop drawing fire away from mallet.

Stop removing mallet from the field.

Stop randomly drawing fire in TO its owner.

I reccommend completely rethinking its function.

There is no reason to completely do away with the "roving ball of sonic destruction" concept, but it needs to be compelling to use in situation where her other abilities are not. When you're on the move, you're often using the stationary 1 and 4 only occasionally, but you're keeping up 3 since it follows you around. What if this ability were, like 3, useful when on the move as well as a compelling way to carry the remaning duration of 1 and 4 with you as you leave a locked down area?

Just be a Roller - Really, just have it use the normal roller AI and seek out enemies rather than the mad unpredictable running in circles. This should keep it away from stealthed octavia in most cases.

No more charm - Seriously, there's no reason for this to even be a thing. This ball should draw no more aggro than your standard kubrow. Mallet is an AMAZING charm and having one on the ball is just redundant. The amount of utility octavia already adds to a team does not necessitate an additional 'failsafe charm' to offset the reduced impact of her mallet if her team is drawing the majority of fire.

Mallet "Lock In" - When cast, it should "lock in" any currently present mallet. It will move to the mallet's location, pick it up, and the mallet's current damage output and range will freeze at that point. This includes the damage and range increase from octavia's 4, allowing you to "pick up" a critical aspect of that ability as well. If a second mallet is cast while the ball is still present, the one it is carrying should dissolve, but the ball should leave the new one on the ground. This allows the user to choose whether or not they want the mallet to be picked up based on the casting order of the abilities while still requiring the basic limitations of mallet to function.

Beat synergy - You know what's a cool ability? Nova's 1. In order to actually be useful on the move, how about adding a little pulse to orbit the ball every time its owner or her allies accurately hits the note scheme for buffs from 3? This damage effect would replace its current damage mechanics. Visually, you just have a little mote fly over from the warframe to the ball as part of the "flash" that results from hitting notes properly. Every time the owner successfully gains a buff from 3, all those motes choose enemy targets and fly at them, dealing damage, just like nova's 1. This makes it useful on the move, just like 3, meaning octavia has a slightly more potent toolkit on the move, as well as a compelling reason to cast it unattached from the mallet as supplemental damage.

Don't get me wrong. I love Octavia. I love the mandachord and hope, like other users, its range and depth sees some expansion. However until dropping the bass stops dropping my dps and dropping rockets in my face I'll settle for just being able to use my entire composition in a fight with a clear conscience!

Edited April 11, 2017 by PopeUrban

[Talvu]

So I've finally gotten the chance to play with this frame, some good some bad.

I think that the disco ball and mallet issue could be addressed by allowing Octavia to have 2 instances of mallet out at once and only allow the disco ball to pick up one at a time. But other wise these are pretty good abilities

Her 3 is hot stinking garbage, it discourages playing the game sensibly, it does not reward the player enough to warrant the change in playing is such a poor manner, and it discourages song variety by reducing the number of viable songs due to mechanics.

Suggested fix

Metronome now grants a buff that increases move speed, grant's multi shot, and melee damage. This buff starts out a 0% but increases over time to 100%, the % of buff gained is dependent on the melody per bar and it takes 4 bars to gain full 100% buff, so each bar represents 25% buff. Nocturne is removed from this ability as this frame really isn't a stealth frame when the whole point of it is to play it and play it loud.

[Callback]

The way they handled volume for allied Octavias is wrong.  Don't put a generic option in the full menu.

 

Put a slider on the player in your squad menu when you press esc.  Let players adjust on the fly based on individual players and what they may have to offer.  Maybe default it to off if multiple are in a squad, and let players choose if they want it to always default off in options.

 

With this change, unrestrict the mandachord.  We need more freedom!  Maybe make it an "advanced mode" option when editing so players who don't know what they're doing can still have the simplified pentatonic version.