The Second Stream Podcast: Oberon Revisited, 'Priest' Warframe, New Boss Fight & More

[[DE]Taylor]

After a bit of a delay, the Second Stream is back with a couple new voices - NeoNess007’s and my own! Drew had to step out to tend to some unexpected Crewman duties, so I took the wheel this week. 

Listen in to hear community thoughts on what transpired in Devstream 90 (including the Oberon Rework, Ambulas Clan Event, Trade Chat, new Warframe, and more), and a few extra tidbits that came up along the way.

Guests:

@Momaw
NeoNess007
H3dsh0t (audio wasn’t recorded, unfortunately, but he was there in spirit!) 

[Lele.]

What are you looking for in regards to a Warframe rework?

If refers to Oberon: I WANT ANOTHER SUPPORT. Pleese, super Renewal.

I have a dream: Renewal who works as a Blessing.

[StarCommanderVong]

2. What are you looking for in regards to a Warframe rework?

Personally, I like abilities to have a cohesive theme with the warframe itself. Excalibur, the Holy Sword, has abilities based around using his sword. Nyx, goddess of night and chaos, sews chaos throughout the battlefield and turns her enemies to her friends. Atlas, titan of the earth, uses the ground itself to fight against his enemies. Ivara, bow of the warrior, is all about using her bow and arrows to destroy her enemies.

Oberon... Heals? Confuses? He's... Not very cohesive, either thematically or just mechanically.

[-Vondred-]

In your opinion, how useful do you think filtered Chats will be for trading?

This game would do well with a some kind of auction.  

If you're just browsing through trade chat, it can be a real hassle trying to catch up, or miss something you're actually looking for.  And before you know it, it's gone.

If players can just place what they're selling or wanting in a different mechanic then chat, it'd be easier to search it.  Even display if a player is online or not for that trade.

[KisaPrime]

#2. I like it more when they scale better in the game and have a more coherent theme than random powers. I never understood how Oberon powers fit his theme but I don't know too much about the fairy kind to begin with. Plus I think he should have his abilities work with Titania since he's the fairy king and she's the fairy queen. 

#3. I'm used to playing puzzle/adventure games and you're always having to come up with some interesting way to kick the bosses butt. Would be awesome to have one that makes us actually have to think to kill them, instead of just blindly shooting until they die. Though so far with the new clan event boss rounds, that looks freaking awesome. I'm going to have to really think that day when ever it comes out and I hope it's a good challenge. 

I wish we had more bosses that talked like Tyl Regor, I always fight him just to hear him speak. :D 

#5. From what we know about the exorcist (that's what he looks like to me), I dislike this warframe and probably will only use him like I do Oberon, only for MR points and then never using again. I really hope that none of his skills do anything like what they found when dating mining info about him. Sure most of the reason for that is because his skills sounded close to a frame concept I've been working on. The chances of it getting noticed is a zillion to 1 but I still hope that one day my tessenjutsu master/sentient comes to life. I just hope his skills are changed to not sound close to that, if he does I'll just be depressed and have to change all of that. I just really hope all the data mining info is 100% fake.

[zeroatlas.]

oberon is not usefull
adding more chat channels will make it for people would have
to move between multiple channels to try to sell multiple types
of stuff  and same for buying stuff .

[Urlan]

38 minutes ago, Darkfeather21 said:

2. What are you looking for in regards to a Warframe rework?

Personally, I like abilities to have a cohesive theme with the warframe itself. Excalibur, the Holy Sword, has abilities based around using his sword. Nyx, goddess of night and chaos, sews chaos throughout the battlefield and turns her enemies to her friends. Atlas, titan of the earth, uses the ground itself to fight against his enemies. Ivara, bow of the warrior, is all about using her bow and arrows to destroy her enemies.

Oberon... Heals? Confuses? He's... Not very cohesive, either thematically or just mechanically.

Oberon is a Paladin that smites people with Radiation (holy energy in this case), protects his allies with Hallowed Ground (related to a paladin aura and sanctifying ground), and heals allies though not as well as a pure cleric (Trinity) with Renewal and through health orbs by finishing foes with Reckoning. His debuffs are mostly from his Radiation association (holy energy) but his also blinds and/or knocks down these enemies with his righteous power.

Why is a Paladin dressing like a White Stag? White Stags, similar to Unicorns later are considered sacred beasts connected to both martial and spiritual authority. Often White Stags or Unicorns are used as symbols of holy knight orders due to this; similar to Kirin (Kyrin) in some eastern cultures. Oberon's deluxe takes from a mix of trees and butterflies to attach the warframe more to his namesake as Oberon, the Fairy King with bonus points for some of the wing looking almost like a monarch butterfly.

As far as potential passives, it depends on which element of Oberon we would want to embrace. Oberon, the Fairy King is immune to all mortal means, sickness, and resistant to magic (powers) but can be dealt normal fatal wounds by iron though not steel funny enough. Paladins are immune to ailments and toxins and give off aura, usually leadership, bravery helping deals, or healing. Probably the best middle-ground would be either a greatly reduced or total immunity to elemental statuses while passing off physical status as cold iron related.

Edited April 18, 2017 by Urlan

[Hollow171]

When is this update?

[Naruchico]

4. In your opinion, how useful do you think filtered Chats will be for trading?

Its pretty simple, ADD A AUCTION HOUSE.

I don't understand why you refuse, you can even tax it say 5-10% plat on items sold, there is quite literally no good reason there isn't one....put em in relays and stop being silly.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Naruchico

[(PSN)THE_HUNTER96929]

If by filtering you mean that there is a search function then yes do it, if you mean filtering as in getting rid of those saying stupid stuff, then no leave it be

[EmptyDevil]

Unpopular opinion, but I completely disagree with Inaros being balanced, as said in the podcast. His death passive needs a massive buff, and his high health pool needs a drawback IMO. Shields are arguably not so useful, so his lack of shields isn't really a bad thing.

[CroqueMortTime]

3. What characteristics do you enjoy in Boss Battles?

- no invincibility

- no awkardly hidden weakspots

- no multi-stage

- finishing in less than 2 min with a high damage weapon / ability

 

(buuut I guess I'm kind of alone on that one...   :-/   )

[(PSN)EmilsTekcor]

personally as I have said I believe oberon should stay a jack of all trades, but I think his abilities need some changes I would love to see his hallowed ground center at him as a circular formation that has constant energy drain; has a few buff such as damage, armor, and health drain.

His healing ability would be nice to have a small buff, but more importantly it should be a constant healing that doesn't go away if at full health so if you take damage it would just keep healing. I do however think his scaling should be reversed for this one as it would play into building his other abilities for power strength.

 His 4th could also be another buffer if I'm being wishful so it could have increased chance of energy and health drop from enemies that have been hit and they carry the health conversion and energy conversion mods effects respectively. 

Now for bosses I am a fan of the dark souls hit it till it dies method, but if I had to be specific I'd like bosses that are dangerous yet avoidable. It's far too often that I find myself either needing to just tank it or worry about not getting hit. I guess I am saying that I would like bosses to feel dangerous maybe even take multiple attempts to take down, but if they have their patterns understood they can be avoided and taken down with relative ease. 

[Urlan]

2 hours ago, EmptyDevil said:

Unpopular opinion, but I completely disagree with Inaros being balanced, as said in the podcast. His death passive needs a massive buff, and his high health pool needs a drawback IMO. Shields are arguably not so useful, so his lack of shields isn't really a bad thing.

I would agree with his Coffin's drain life needing a buff and shields not being useful in this environment of the game but I don't feel that Inaros needs an additional debuff for not having shields. Within the game environment of enemies scaling differently than player, Inaros's stats make sense and give him the durability to last through another bracket of enemy unlimited scaling. I would agree however that if enemies scaled by the same rules players do, that his durability should likely be decreased but likely not to the extent that you would suggest as shields would likely be more useful, though still less so than life.

[Grimlar]

Oberon

In theory 'Jack Of All Trades' (JOAT) frames like Oberon should be useful in most parties, but generally it doesnt quite do enough for me to take it in preference to other frames. The damage isnt enough, the healing isnt enough and the other benefits dont outweigh the downsides.

 

Warframe reworks. Simple enough to say, hard to do.

Fix what (if anything) is broken, improve what isnt. Ideally avoid big changes, improve skill synergies, stay true to the original style of the frame. improve scalability for high level play without low level god mode.

Its an opportunity:

to apply the benefit of hindsight to the frame,

to adjust to changes in the wider game,

to adapt to the way players use the frame, either to accomodate or to steer clear of major play styles.

-

Boss Fights.

No invincibility phase unless there is a clearly defined method for the player to terminate that phase. No stages when all the player can do is run around/wait. There should always be something the player can do to progress the battle, even if its only to move things on to the next phase.

-

Trade.

I play the game to do missions not sit in chat. I dont have time to waste watching a load of scrolling text. Filters wont help me. I dont want trade chat at all. Nor do I want an auction house.

I want a trading post where I can post a trade (using one of my daily trade allowance) and someone can meet my asking price, (using one of their daily trades,) make me an offer or not bother. No automatic adjustment of price, there are too many possible trade options to be limited to a single 'currency'. Keep it basic, keep it simple. Although some kind of filter/search on trades would be useful.

-

Too early to say about the new frame

[Xaero]

I'd be happy if enemy scaling was removed and our damage output was brought up in line.

Make the difficulty be increased not by numbers but by introducing enemy tiers: the higher the tier, the trickier the enemy is to kill. Make mobility's purpose more than just rushing through the map.

Tone down the increase of damage the mods give us so we could discard them in favor of utility mods without making weapons useless. Modding system would be much more interesting and diversed if it served as a mean of expressing our playstyles, not a set of straight must-have upgrades just to make the weapon work.

[Urlan]

3 hours ago, Ksaero said:

I'd be happy if enemy scaling was removed and our damage output was brought up in line.

Make the difficulty be increased not by numbers but by introducing enemy tiers: the higher the tier, the trickier the enemy is to kill. Make mobility's purpose more than just rushing through the map.

Tone down the increase of damage the mods give us so we could discard them in favor of utility mods without making weapons useless. Modding system would be much more interesting and diversed if it served as a mean of expressing our playstyles, not a set of straight must-have upgrades just to make the weapon work.

I can agree that removing enemy scaling would be a needed step before attempting to remove mandatory mods for more conditional or utility mods in the future. Much of our occasional power creep is to make the items more appealing compared to enemies that quickly out-scale our upgrades for life, damage, and ability stats.

[Xekrin]

15 hours ago, [DE]Taylor said:

Multi-stage fights

Just to be clear multi-stage fights means a different stage every time.  Fights like Raptor, Kela, and I guess the majority of boss fights we have now, are NOT multi-stage.  They are the same stage repeated over and over.

Doing the same process 5 times just feels like a waste of time, especially if we have to do it 5 times in a row to kill a boss.

[AdunSaveMe]

We don't need bandaids to trade chat, we need a warframe.market-like system. Not automated trading like an auction house, but something to facilitate players meeting up, WITHOUT making them babysit a chat box in their liset all day to get anywhere, copy/pasting a message every two minutes and hoping somebody happens to see it. It just needs to allow listing for trades (looking to trade item for item, accepting offers etc.) and the problem is solved.

Chat-based trading does not work on its own. Warframe.market still has all the aspects of trade chat, except it's ten times better. It doesn't automate, it just cuts out the chat babysitting.

Also, this "easier trading means less money" that people throw out is not a reason. It is an excuse, and a bad one.

Edited April 19, 2017 by AdunSaveMe

[(PSN)EmilsTekcor]

On Wed Apr 19 2017 at 7:10 AM, MarrikBroom said:

Yes. Look at Warframe.Market and roll that into the game proper. You see what someone is selling, what someone wants. However you must contact the other party to actually make the transaction or otherwise negociate. You cna't just walk off and expect plat to rain down. The biggest downside of Warframe.Market is it's outside of the game and I'm full screen due to being on a toaster box. Roll that into the game, possibly as a revamp of Maroo's Baazar, and it'd be pretty swank.

No I'd like being able to put things up for sale and buy them on a player based automated market like every mmorpg ever.

[Finedaible]

1) Jack-of-all Trades warframes can be good - just look at Equinox - but It has to be unique enough to stand out from other warframes with more concentrated roles.

2) I've always had a certain liking of BrOberon since he was my first warframe build as a new player about 3 years ago. However with time and how enemies have evolved, Oberon has been sort of left behind (same can be said of Hydroid but i won't talk about him now). For most players I've talked to, he primarily lacks damage scaling, falling off pretty quickly as enemies levels increase. As a healer role, Renewal is a very weak ability and hard to mod around without compromising the other abilities' scaling, and even then it's not actually doing anything until it catches up to a player, consuming energy to do... nothing. Renewal would be a kickass ability if it was a toggled regeneration ability for the team, something you can attempt to sustain rather than have to recast all the time. 

3) I kinda like boss battles that involve environmental awareness and strategic attacks. For example, having a uber tanky boss that can be manipulated to enter a magnetic field that makes him more vulnerable, or destroying the environment to cause a certain reaction with the boss. Kela De Thaym fight was pretty well done in my opinion, and is one of the more interesting boss fights to be added.

4) I don't really have an opinion on filtered chats at the moment.

5) I'm excited for "Bobo", the next warframe, probably because he's quite stylish, but i can only form a decent opinion after seeing/using a warframe's abilities. I do hope his abilities are unique and cool/fun to use. I like synergy between abilities but I really like synergy between warframes as well. Any expansion to Warframe's lore is welcome and I look forward to that.

[Guardian1123]

Jack - of - all - trades (like Equinox and Oberon)  are good 

Filtered Chats not needed

"BOBo"  the 33rd warframe , so excited but what is his passive and his abilities?

 

Boss Fights I love the Multi Stage ones

[JudgeXion]

As many said, no constant invulnerability faces during boss fights. 

Vay hek  is a bad boss. Small face hit box, flying, random movements and invulnerable most of the time. 

While a boss like leviathan is more interesting with a stage 1 followed by a stage 2 even if it's slightly invulnerable from time to time it's not as frustrating as Vay hek. 

 

The new frame Bobo I haven't even seen yet. 

[Cenvirya]

3 hours ago, (PS4)EmilsTekcor said:

No I'd like being able to put things up for sale and buy them on a player based automated market like every mmorpg ever.

That's nice kinda like eso builds, but don't think we have enough items in wf.

[Chroia]

1. In your opinion, how useful are jack-of-all-trades Warframes like Oberon?

That's a very context-sensitive question.
For faffing around the star chart? Sure. But - for context - you can successfully faff around the star chart with a formaed Mk-1 Lato.

Oberon's rework was serviceable/reasonably good - for the time, at the time... some 2+ years ago? But Warframe's grown since, and seen some amazing toolkits added (Nidus' being the go-to exemplar, I believe).
His rug gained status immunity (as did Renewal finishing - which is greatly less useful), and all his nukes were given added CC effects - and they're still good, absolutely speaking. But, as with the rest of his kit, they're not that individually all that hot relatively speaking, and his toolkit doesn't make up the shortfall.

Further, JoaTs were not created equal.
Just looking at vanilla skillsets - no augments:

* Rhino has damage/status cancel, a universal damage buff and a high-ranged nuke/hard CC and some mobility.
* Nezha has damage/status cancel, group status cancel, a fairly unusable heal, mid-ranged nuke/hard CC, and loads of mobility.
* Excal has an underwhelming huge-ranged-but-target-limited-and-LoS-restricted nuke/hard CC, a significantly better huge-ranged-though-still-LoS hard CC/melee damage buff+finisher prompts which combines with his amazingly powerful ult... and some mobility.
* (Could make a case for Frost, Mag and Volt being JoaTs, but tl;dr)
* Nova has a fairly useless 1, a god-tier nuke kept balanced by usability restrictions, teamwide mobility and a god-tier CC+damage amp.
And Equinox is amazing (though her actual flexibility is limited by Night and Day needing different amounts of Power Strength (read: none and not-none, leading to MAD syndrome,) despite losing all her mend/maim stacks on morph.

Compare with Oberon:
* Multitarget static-damage (so, no scaling) nuke with built-in Rad procs (scales, but random = unreliable).
* Percentile-base-armor boosting rug (so, useless unless you've already got good armor - in which case you likely don't need it), that needs - on the bright side, grants status immunity, but needs large amounts of range to be usable, and awkward positioning to recast/upkeep. Oh, and it does negligible damage.
* An explicitly reactive (can't pre-cast, auto-disables when target's at full health) Heal-over-time that also has an activation delay in the form of travel time. (Which'll remove status upon a full heal. So basically never, in my experience - between travel time + HoT time vs actual status duration.)
* A fairly high damage, but minimum range (barring Absorb/Assimilate) nuke, with added subsequent CC via Rad procs and blinds - and a couple other effects.
So, to suit the one-liner summaries of above: an unreliable non-scaling CC/nuke, an effectively unusable team buff, a non-emergency self- and effectively unusable team-heal, and a short range but powerful nuke/CC.

Among his other issues, Oberon's skillset still assumes you have a group playing together all within 15 meters of each other - a thing that, due to the ever growing hordes of ability resistant/immune, damage resistant/immune, AoE TPK/CC enemies, is less and less often the case... unless you're in a precon team, bunkering up somewhere... which is a game-style that DE's been actively discouraging for around 2 years now.

 

So yeah, the question depends a lot on the context.
> Other (post an explanation below)

 

2. What are you looking for in regards to a Warframe rework?

I'm looking for it to correct problems with its existing skillset.
Why do you (almost) never hear requests for a rework for Loki, Nova, Inaros, Nidus, etc.? Because their skillsets work, no rework needed.

I consider Nidus' skillset to be nearly-ideal in its interactions.

His 1 is a line nuke.
His 2 is a CC/reposition.
Each works independently. They don't need to be used in tandem to work.
But, oh, the results when you do... >:]

His 3 is a CC or buff, and survivability skill. It works.
But it also synergizes with his 1, being another origin point. Which means it also synergizes with his 2.

His 4 is an area heal that spawns maggots. It works.
But - being an area heal - it synergizes with his 3.
And - given that is spawns maggots - it synergizes with his 2(, and was subsequently made to rely on his 1).

Compare and contrast with Saryn, and the reason I hate her rework - Where Nidus has synergy, Saryn has dependency.
And if you don't know what I'm talking about, have someone talk with /u/ThatOddDeer on Reddit.

So, back to the question: What am I looking for in a frame's skillset?

None of the options touch the main point, but closest are
> Cohesion between abilities
> Scalability
> Interesting and diverse powers

 

3. What characteristics do you enjoy in Boss Battles?

The boss battle should be a reward, not a chore (which is why I hate being forced to grind them for frames).

Lephantis has spectacle.
Alad V/Zanuka's boss fight is an interesting dynamic.
Reworked Tyl Regor's arena is interesting, but you never really get to enjoy it... and he's an invulnerability boss with invulnerability minions.
The Jackal, when level-appropriate, is one of the most fun boss fights in the game, imo. If only he didn't spam his stomp->fall off platform->repop on it->repeat, and his missile swarm were dodgeable.
The Raptors would be an interesting fight, if they were more interactable/less OP.
Razorback was likewise engaging, if not very interesting.
Kela's rework was an improvement.

So, what do I want? Anything that'll engage me.
This can be
> Strategic attacks
> Non-combat aspects, or
> Other.
Just move away from bosses being oneshotting sacks of invulnerable HP.

 

4. In your opinion, how useful do you think filtered Chats will be for trading?

> More change is needed

Background: Not a fanatical trader. I've probably made upwards of 40k plat in total, across 4 years.

I refer you to NeoNess007's comments on the topic.
If I'm playing Warframe, it's because I want to be playing Warframe.
Trade chat is manages to be both dull (stare at thousands of lines of text scrolling past) and demanding (make sure you're always paying attention, or you might miss the ONE thing you're looking for, or not register it before someone else does), all while being not-playing-Warframe.

And yes, some people enjoy the feeling of making a lucrative trade (buying low or selling high). But I don't find it worth the time or effort. It is excruciatingly unenjoyable.
I just hop on Warframe.market every so often, and if I find something within my price range, I'll buy or sell.

5. How excited are you for “Bobo”, a.k.a. the next Warframe?

> I want to see his abilities first

Aesthetically, he looks good, but a frame is nothing without a skillset.