Equinox Ability Need Reworked

[(PSN)TomRed20019]

Equinox Warframe is just simply not fun to play with cause I don't see the ability doing what the ability suppose to do on enemies. 

I find a Warframe ability not doing any damage to enemies just don't use that Warframe.

[GrayArchon]

Not all warframe abilities deal damage. Equinox's Pacify & Provoke with the Peaceful Provocation augment slows enemies down up to 80%, which is pretty impressive crowd control. Besides, her Maim ability deals crazy amounts of damage when charged up.

[Tain_OSkoom]

In my opinion, the rework that Equinox could really use would be to make each of her halves remember her buffs while dormant.

That is: if I ramp Pacify up to its maximum, then switch to Day Form, do Dayquinox things, and then switch back to Night, then Night should just pick up where she left off with her old buff levels.

I know some people would prefer the buffs get transformed as Equinox transforms, but that doesn't quite seem to fit with her dual personas theme.

[tnccs215]

Hi. Former Equinox mainer here. I'd like to give a short summary of my two cents regarding her - truth is, while Equinox is somewhat simple to use once you get used to her, her issues are anything but simple. They are rather complex and nuanced, and need more than short exclamations. 

Indeed and ironically, lack of damage dealing capabilities is the least of her worries. Rather, her issues pertain much more to pretty much everything else. 

As the game stands, Warframe effectiveness is not a luxury, but a rule. Indeed, with so many powerful frames, they are differentiated less on how well they affect enemies, and much more on how you play them in order to do so. That is, each frame has a central playstyle, around which they are designed. 

And Equinox fails exactly on this regard: she punishes you for using her playstyle. Any attempt to change form is undermined by power deactivation - making her cumbersome and simply annoying to try and use. 

Some people argue that these punishments serve as a compensation for the fact that she technically has access to powers covering every possible role, preventing her from being too effective, preventing her from having the power of frames simultaneously. There are two ironies here, thought. The first, is that these punishments don't prevent this by any relevant amount - they simply slow and stop the player down, in a way that is not enough to make the player less effective, but enough to upset them (i.e. it takes a lot more fun than it compensates for her supposed power). The second, is that there are already systems in place that do prevent her from being the equivalent to two Warframes, and they are indeed ingrained both in her very concept, and Warframe power system. 

These systems are the Aspect system, and the fact your abilities are always relegated to one of four buttons. The first dictates that you can never access all your powers simultaneously (preventing her from being two frames at the same time), and the second effectively robs her of one power, meaning that each aspect alone does not have as many tools as a normal frame - even if their powers are just as good as any from any normal frame. The result is that, by definition, she is not the deity among ants everyone fears she could be - any added punishment serves only to encumber her beyond reasonable measure. 

Making matters worse, her issues go far beyond her punishments.... 

2 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

Equinox's Pacify & Provoke with the Peaceful Provocation augment slows enemies down up to 80%, which is pretty impressive crowd control. Besides, her Maim ability deals crazy amounts of damage when charged up.

Indeed it is. It is also an augment - an augment for an extremely lackluster ability, and an augment that further intensifies her already too intense punishments for playing her as supposed. 

Peaceful Provocation is amazing CC, that much is undeniable. However, it also forces you to choose between being a CC Goddess with two useful abilities in night form,  or actually playing Equinox. It goes from one extreme to the other. And it's impossible to argue that it serves "to compensate for such a big power", because you don't have much to work to begin with. Essentially, you choose between too much power with many setbacks, or no power at all with some setbacks. Is that a fair trade? Is that fun? 

I'd accept Peaceful Provocation to have some build up, but I'd love at least to be able to have an Equinox in which I don't need augments for all her powers to be useful. Currently, however, that is simply not true. 

I mentioned I am an ex Equinox main. And I think that speaks volumes. I simply reached a point in which I accepted that, no matter how much I tried, I couldn't have fun - and it was not due to discrepancies between me and the conceptual frame, it's due to discrepancies between me and it's execution. 

She is too cumbersome, not fluid enough, too strong on some places and not strong enough on others. And she really needs to be tweaked. 

[GrayArchon]

Spoiler

Long post

What you say makes a lot of sense. I'm going to be embarrassing honest: I've barely played Equinox at all. Just enough to put, like, 2 forma into her. So I really don't know what I'm talking about. I was mostly responding to OP saying all her abilities were useless because they didn't deal damage.

I did notice an inkling of what you so eloquently laid out while I was playing her, but didn't think much of it since I usually only utilise two abilities of any frame I play.

[Paradoxbomb]

Err, which ability? You're being way too vague here OP, I can only assume that:

A) Whatever ability you're talking about doesn't do enough damage for your liking (or isn't even a damage ability to begin with).

B) You don't have a grasp of how her abilities are supposed to work (ie. which ones are offensive and which are CC/defensive) or just aren't building her right.

That said I still do agree that Equinox could use some looking at; both forms have abilities that are substantially more useful than their counterpart abilities, and as Tnccs said switching between her forms feels more like a detriment than something beneficial, but you gotta be a bit more specific as to what what you're problem is with her powers.

Edited August 12, 2017 by Paradoxbomb

[tnccs215]

16 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Long post

What you say makes a lot of sense. I'm going to be embarrassing honest: I've barely played Equinox at all. Just enough to put, like, 2 forma into her. So I really don't know what I'm talking about. I was mostly responding to OP saying all her abilities were useless because they didn't deal damage.

I did notice an inkling of what you so eloquently laid out while I was playing her, but didn't think much of it since I usually only utilise two abilities of any frame I play.

I'm genuinely heartwarmed by that comment. Yes, the OP criticisms are awfully misguided, but she has issues, and I've seen an overdefensive and dismissive posture by the community towards them. Too many mentions of her positives traits and not enough of her negatives. 

And well, the more you'll use her, the more you'll notice it. It's... Rather discomforting, and never really goes away. Like being in the wrong relationship. 

[SorainRavenshaw]

19 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

I'm genuinely heartwarmed by that comment. Yes, the OP criticisms are awfully misguided, but she has issues, and I've seen an overdefensive and dismissive posture by the community towards them. Too many mentions of her positives traits and not enough of her negatives. 

And well, the more you'll use her, the more you'll notice it. It's... Rather discomforting, and never really goes away. Like being in the wrong relationship. 

I'll be honest, I like using Equinox and her concept. But your point about being forced to pick one role or another is entirely valid.

For me the biggest failure is on the form switching itself. You get some decent buffs, damage and speed vs Armor and Shields. Only those buffs fall away very fast and ramp down steeply. Now, you might argue the point is to keep switching forms to keep the buff up... except that doesn't work out. With a very simple generalist setup, I get '30 seconds' or so of duration on the buff from swapping forms. Except that by about 10 seconds in, the buff has fallen off so much it's unnoticeable.

Frankly, given the effects even at full strength aren't that great, I don't see why they fall off at all. Why not simply have your form determine what's being enhanced? If I have to choose between higher armor and more shields, or more speed and more damage, I'll consider it. As things stand now, I only care about what form I'm in for what abilities it comes with. A bug could disable the buff portion entirely and it could take me months of playing her before I noticed. That's not right to me.

[tnccs215]

38 minutes ago, SorainRavenshaw said:

I'll be honest, I like using Equinox and her concept. But your point about being forced to pick one role or another is entirely valid.

For me the biggest failure is on the form switching itself. You get some decent buffs, damage and speed vs Armor and Shields. Only those buffs fall away very fast and ramp down steeply. Now, you might argue the point is to keep switching forms to keep the buff up... except that doesn't work out. With a very simple generalist setup, I get '30 seconds' or so of duration on the buff from swapping forms. Except that by about 10 seconds in, the buff has fallen off so much it's unnoticeable.

Frankly, given the effects even at full strength aren't that great, I don't see why they fall off at all. Why not simply have your form determine what's being enhanced? If I have to choose between higher armor and more shields, or more speed and more damage, I'll consider it. As things stand now, I only care about what form I'm in for what abilities it comes with. A bug could disable the buff portion entirely and it could take me months of playing her before I noticed. That's not right to me.

I entirely agree. Frankly, the fall off mechanic demonstrates a certain lack of awareness by DE regarding the implications of her design - which is somewhat understandable, they were experimenting and were only starting to make more wacky frames - but she's two years old, and two days after her release the reasons why the fall off were entirely obvious and explained in the forums. 

As I see it, the aspect system (i.e. the fact she is divided in two isolated forms) mean that, unlike pretty much every single Warframe to date, she must, by default, sacrifice half of her powers if she wants to use one of the other set. And that means that, by default, even if form changing was instantaneous, there always must be an reason for you to change form. The result? By definition, she is a reactive warframe, and that means that the pacing of her playstyle is defined not by herself, but by the environment. Some Warframes, such as Harrow, are designed in such a way that they are to use all their powers whenever possible, juggling between the various interactions and synergies. This is a perfectly valid playstyle, of course, and I'm mentioning it to counterpointing it to Equinox's: whose very defining feature is regulated by the current situation. 

And this means that the fall off system actively work against her. It incentives form changing, yes, but does so without any care or regard to her environment. If the situation demands more defensiveness, it will chip away your armor and shields just as fast as when it demands almost nothing. The final result: the buffs will sometimes feel too weak,and others not strong enough - and will therefore always feel useless. 

I don't actually care too much whether the buffs should be weaker and permanent or stronger and temporary - but I definetly think they should never fall off over time. 

[GrayArchon]

I agree that the buffs shouldn't fall off over time. What if her form switching was taken out of her power set and attached to her roll move, like they did with Limbo? It might be a long shot, since that ability already has an augment. Obviously it wouldn't solve her deeper problems, but it would be an easy fix to a single problem.

[tnccs215]

1 hour ago, GrayArchon said:

I agree that the buffs shouldn't fall off over time. What if her form switching was taken out of her power set and attached to her roll move, like they did with Limbo? It might be a long shot, since that ability already has an augment. Obviously it wouldn't solve her deeper problems, but it would be an easy fix to a single problem.

I can see where you come from.... But God, no. Plane-changing has little to do with Aspect changing. Indeed, I'd argue it's the polar opposite: Limbo controls the environment, while Equinox adapts to it. Limbo changes Plains whenever he sees fit, Equinox changes aspect whenever she has to. Therefore, while it makes sense for Limbo to enter and exit the rift through a movement key, it doesn't make that much for the same to happen to Equinox.

And even if she did change through rolling- for what? She doesn't need more powers, she needs better versions of the powers she has. Hell, metamorphosis taking up a power slot serves as a balancing feature, taking that off would just excuse her currently existing power deactivation - which, mind, if it already encumbers her as she is, imagine how awful it would be if it was even easier to accidentally swap Aspects. 

No. Limbo needed a complete overall. His powers were redundant and disjointed, down to the conceptual core. Equinox needs improvements, no doubt, but only at the execution level - her conceptual frameworks, both of her playstyle and powers, are rather solid by themselves: the issues lie in how they were executed. No point to completely changing a playstyle when you just need to improve it.