Plains of Eidolon: Facts & Fundamentals of Focus 2.0

[Wrath_666]

I'd rather they just deleted the focus system and left it like that. I'm glad I'm not a new player as I'd get thoroughly confused and give up.

It would be nice to ditch the whole operator sketch, it's irritating, winds me up in kuva missions and the quests they are used in.

Whatever I write is pointless though so I'll go and read the dev notes about Em8er.

 

[-ToH-Eternity]

Also the channeling should get rework, it's just not efficient and strong enough to use.

[OniDax]

16 hours ago, Atekron said:

I don't said that Destiny own "open world", I said that DE trow out their "kingpin system"(which was also heavily inspired by Shadow War) and jump on "open world" train clearly as response to Destiny 2

Isn't Shadow of Mordor open world? Also, I doubt they went open world in response to Destiny 2. I suspect they went open world in response to all of the open world games that came out or are coming out within the next year: Horizon Zero Dawn (released early this year, announced 2015), Ghost Recon Wildlands (released early this year, announced 2015), Assassin's Creed Origins (announced at E3 but leaked earlier this year), Breath of the Wild (released early this year, announced 2013), Anthem (teased and rumored as far back as 2014), and, yeah, Destiny 2.

2 hours ago, NeithanDiniem said:

Where the hell did you hear that DE threw out the kingpin system? They specifically said the kingpin system took a backseat to Plains of Eidolon because the plains added more to the game. They are going back to the kingpin system and the dark sector rework once the plains launch. Also the open world system is far more relateable to the system for instanced open environments from dozens of earlier games that came out before Destiny even was a concept.

It's too bad they didn't realize that the game they based the kingpin system on was an open world game, and that, therefore, it would've been a great idea and an appropriate idea to integrate their WIP kingpin system into Plains of Eidolon. Oh well...

[Chroia]

On 9/29/2017 at 10:48 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

The core purpose of this rework is to shift the goals of the Focus system, from supplementing Warframes towards making your Operator more combat-ready.

Alright, so we've got a concept: Focus is primarily intended to augment the Operator, with possible, incidental improvements to the actual frames. Is that accurate?

 

On 9/29/2017 at 10:48 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Let's start with some very important facts about all your accrued Focus Points and installed Lenses:

 

1. All installed Lenses have been removed and returned to your inventory. You should give yourself time to study the new system before you reinstall them.
2. All spent Focus Points have been returned so you can respec your skill trees.
3. There are Focus Lenses (1.25% Affinity Conversion), Greater Focus Lenses (1.75% Affinity Conversion), and now (name not final) Eidolon/Ostron Lenses (2.25% Affinity Conversion) Blueprints for this last category—requiring multiple Greater Lenses to craft—will be awarded through the Plains of Eidolon Bounty System.

Neat.
All good stuff.

 

On 9/29/2017 at 10:48 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Now we shall talk Passives, Residuals, and Actives.

Actives are, obviously, actively used abilities.
Residuals are buffs activated by whipping out the Operator, in some form, and remain for the duration of the mission.
Passives are things like the +operator ammo energy pool/regen, and always active.
Is this correct?

I'm thrilled that just tapping 5 will activate them - meaning improving the abilities won't directly conflict with actually using them, unlike in Focus 1.0 - where it requires the ghost-op, which has a lengthening cooldown the more upgraded your tree -, if Residuals are permanent once activated... why aren't they simply passives?
So you've made me double-tap 5 on mission start, every single mission (and on host migration, and possibly on death, depending on whether they're kept or wiped).
How does this (repetitive, irritant piece of makework) contribute to a positive gameplay experience? (Honest question, no intonation intended - the wording's descriptive, not derogatory.)

 

On 9/29/2017 at 10:48 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Operator Abilities (Void Dash, Void Blast, Void Mode)

Does this mean that the Void Punch is gone/replaced by the Op-weapons, or am I reading too much into this, and it simply isn't considered an ability?

 

Do you feel the effects are appropriate to the fluff of the schools now, or will you be changing the fluff (either swapping them around, or rewriting them)?

 

What context are these abilities supposed to be useful in?
Primarily I'm referring to the listed Unairu Residuals:
Mobs gain HP way way faster than they gain damage, making damage return strictly a star-chart mechanic.
Armor, similarly, isn't an adequate defense, unless you have multiple thousands of it.

Is the intent still "No cooldowns"?
Because that doesn't really mesh with 'press X every Y seconds to maintain buff' - it's basically a 'use on cooldown' ability, and adds nothing but mechanical, brainless upkeep.
(Talking about Operator Ability -> Warframe buff)

 

On 9/29/2017 at 10:48 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

We are also including cross-Focus nodes you can unlock within different trees!

<snip>

Cross-Focus Unlocks

For players who delve deep into their focus trees, two passive nodes from each tree can be made “universal” once maxed!

Are these specific nodes, or player-chosen ones?

 

-----

 

Now, about the actual abilities:

Naramon example -
If the <High threat enemies> are high enough level to threaten your Banshee; being slower and less athletic than any warframe, does your Op actually have the tools to - starting from the same position as your 'under fire' frame - 1) close the gap without getting smeared, 2) enough to engage them with the augmented beam without getting smeared from closer range, 3) for long enough for the unreliable ("High chance!" Why do you hate reliability so much? Serious question.) beam to disarm said Techs?

Unless the schools are intended to supplement a frame's kit, wouldn't it be hugely less dangerous, more effective, and faster to simply use your frame's CC ability? Sonic Boom's pretty good at it, for example.

Residuals - *shrug* okay?

 

Zenurik example -

 

As shown, time and again, in high level content- unless it comes with defensive measures (Regen+Link, Cataclysm, Snow Globe, E Shield, etc.) or CC (automatic rad procs + proc immunity, Maggots) being stationary is being dead.
I don't see either of those in the example.

Residuals - So a mini Arcane Energize and an insufficient bandaid for channeling (unless it's a total multiplier, then maybe.)
Okay, and not so much. Channeling needs a rework, this isn't going to cut it. Just means that Life Strike will be cheaper.

 

Unairu example -
Crippling damage: Until VIP enemies become outstandingly more dangerous than the mooks, individual debuffing isn't worth using. Maybe against bosses, but I suspect it'd be subject to their CC resist, so so much for that.
Sundering some of its armor?
A) Most of a Nox's DR comes from the locational DR (which, btw, is a straight nerf to nuke abilities, since they always target the torso), so sundering some of his armor will be of limited use.
B) That thing I was saying about reliability, before? How significant will "some" armor shred be, in the context of high-end DEAC? (Say, Sortie 3, or Earth night, if that's equivalent.)

Residuals - Addressed before this segment.

-----

 

On 9/29/2017 at 10:48 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

2) Convergence Orbs will boost Focus gains from 6x to 8x for the duration. 

But no changes to how or when they spawn?
Ugh. :|

I have, in my screenshot folder, a subfolder called 'this is why I hate Convergence'.
It's a few hundred screenshots deep, so I've not gotten around to bothering to upload it.

tl;dr - I take a screenshot every time a Convergence Orb spawns.
I don't know whether 'disproportionately' is accurate, but an unpleasantly large portion of them look like this:

 

Same mission, btw.

Guess who just popped Maim to clear out the room?

etc.

[lflakes]

I was wrong :V that was pretty good

[BlueberryIsWar]

46 minutes ago, Ghost23d said:

after watching this thread grow over the past few days and reading some of the criticism's leveled at DE from both sides of the fence, those who are happy...ish with the changes and those who are massively upset by them, us their even the slightest indication that the devs have even bothered to read through any of these posts?? I mean we are in the final phases of seeing PoE before release. Are any of the points made in this thread even going to make a difference? Or is just having a place to vent frustrations with a game developer enough to make everyone "happy"...

 

I doubt that the devs read it and I get why at least some of them don't want to. If you put a lot of work in something it can hurt to hear very overblown critic, even more so during a crunch phase.

But that's what community managers are here for. They should assemble the opinions of the community and communicate them to the devs / designers / etc. in an organized manner. So the question is, do the community manager their jobs? Do devs ever listen to the opinions the community manager bring forth? Have the community manager even enough time to do that part of their job with all the side jobs they have to do, like the streams, voice acting, etc.?

Sadly we don't know. 

[Tau.]

A big question remains that I haven't seen any word on. Currently the operators have a finite pool of energy that they draw from for all actions and regenerate only with inactivity, seriously constricting their options. Any say on whether their energy or action economy will be getting a rework as well?

Sustainability is necessary for the viability of the warrior operator concept. 

[Kaotyke]

45 minutes ago, SpaceBad said:

A big question remains that I haven't seen any word on. Currently the operators have a finite pool of energy that they draw from for all actions and regenerate only with inactivity, seriously constricting their options. Any say on whether their energy or action economy will be getting a rework as well?

Sustainability is necessary for the viability of the warrior operator concept. 

There is a Node with energy regen speed in the Cross Focus nodes.

We dont know how much is the increase, maybe it will be enough.... maybe it wont.

We only have the bones of information here.

[BornWithTeeth]

@GhostLacuna

I guess I just want there to be a record that when DE previewed the Focus rework, there was a massive thread which went to 26 pages in just over 24 hours, which could be summarised as:

 

And then everyone looked at it and said "Holy crap, either you picked bad examples to preview, or the Focus rework has some very dodgy mechanical decisions involved. Guys please, maybe either show us more, or reconsider it, because this doesn't look good."

[BlueberryIsWar]

@BornWithTeeth

Which also sums up this thread perfectly.

Well, except the first page.

[Eldirian]

12 hours ago, DreamsmithJane said:

People keep saying this, and it cracks me up. You realize Zenurik 2.0's void dash as described here is basically a free team energy restore, right? It's literally a buffed up Energy Surge, but without the cooldown. "What's Energy Surge?" It's the passive on the other branch of the Zenurik tree. The one you ignore, because less than one energy orb's value on a 3-5 minute cooldown isn't worth increasing said cooldown. But this? This is different. We'll have to wait and see what the numbers look like, but an ability compared to Energy Overflow as "an active, more powerful party-wide buff" that enables you to "charge up quickly" certainly sounds like it should provide bigger numbers.

By all means, voice your concerns, but this kind of "sky is falling" knee-jerk reaction helps no one.

One thing I learnt from WF is that you should never depend on your squad and that's why I ignored this path in Zenurik school (and the reason I always bring many pads with me). I'm not all against these changes. I am thankful that certain other schools' abilities will be available in school of my choice. Hopefully they will add the ability to put your school configuration into loadout options of warframes. And I really love being able to activate passives just by going into operator mode. This thing should be available since The War Within.

And I stand by my word. Back to energy pads.

[BornWithTeeth]

2 minutes ago, BlueberryIsWar said:

@BornWithTeeth

Which also sums up this thread perfectly.

Well, except the first page.

Nah, there's that @tnccs215 guy, who has an absolute stinker of a post on the very first page of this thread outlining a bunch of glaring issues with what we've seen. Fine work.

[BlueberryIsWar]

That is true. Probs to @tnccs215 for presenting opinions on a page full of one liners. :)

[phoenix1992]

1 minute ago, BlueberryIsWar said:

That is true. Probs to @tnccs215 for presenting opinions on a page full of one liners. :)

@BornWithTeeth 
Because he edited it like 3-4 times, based on observations and gathering more information, including from mister Borh with Teeth.

[BornWithTeeth]

1 minute ago, phoenix1992 said:

@BornWithTeeth 
Because he edited it like 3-4 times, based on observations and gathering more information, including from mister Borh with Teeth.

Yes, but that's fine. It results in a neatly compiled list of immediately observable issues, right on page one of the thread. I have absolutely no monopoly on feedback, each of us is just one voice.

[DreamsmithJane]

12 hours ago, GhostLacuna said:

You trade an mission long 4 energy per second for a limited time stationary energy regen spot. We dont even need hard numbers to tell they wont even be close to the same usability. 

Unless you can do that over and over without a large cooldown the new version is inferior. 

Maybe it's not supposed to be the same usability, because they don't think "stop thinking about energy at all for the rest of the mission" is a healthy mechanic. As for "without a large cooldown", it works on void dashing. You think they added a large cooldown to that? I mean, it could have a cooldown, IDK. Doesn't seem likely, though. Like I said, voice your concerns, make sure they know what you're excited for or worried about or whatever else. But given how little we know at this stage, declarations of "inferior" or "useless" that I'm seeing around here are quite premature.

10 hours ago, Deodus said:

They do cost resources but it's not like they cost much. And the initial pulse of restores is instantaneous, I pretty much never wait for the following pulses, I just spam them along the way :

So in other words, you waste four times as many resources as I thought. Yeah, they do cost much. 9k credits, 3k nanospores, and 500 polymer bundles for a stack of 10 is "much" when you're dropping them like that in every mission. Unless you have literally nothing else to spend them on, and even then, farming those things is a pain. But hey, it's your time.

1 hour ago, GhostLacuna said:

There has been zero indications that a dev has read any of the dev shop threads at all.

Maybe that's because the people responding show a startling lack of reading comprehension. We have people going off about these residuals like they aren't identical to the passives we already have. Like that Energy Pulse residual? "Duh, it picks up energy orbs for you? We already have vacuum!" NO! It's literally the same thing as the Energy Spike passive we already have, which they would know if they payed any attention to anything in the focus system outside of Energy Overflow and Shadow Step. And here's the thing: if everyone in the team has that residual (the first one in the new Zenurik tree), they effectively get to collect every energy orb four times. If two of your teammates have it, it's better for you on average than a full set of Arcane Energize, and more reliable as well. "I guess we're back to using energy restores!" I sigh forever. There are other examples, too, but I don't want to drag this out. The point is, the information is there, and the sky is not falling. More importantly, what isn't listed here is that focus passives shown on Prime Time evidently improve operator survivability on a similar scale to many warframes (i.e. health increases in the hundreds of percent, among other things). So all that to-do about how paper-thin operators are? A little out of date.

So do you really expect DE to respond to utter nonsense replies based on a complete lack of understanding? What are they supposed to say? Do you want them to just do whatever they're told by people who clearly have no idea what they're talking about? Don't get me wrong. I take no pleasure in disrespecting people like this. But some of this angry ranting is really unnecessary, and reading comprehension would solve it, so I'm obviously a little frustrated. And honestly, there are some good points and legitimate concerns brought up here, particularly involving questions of whether some of these actives really fit with the theme of their schools. Unfortunately, they get lost in the garbage heap. And even some of the best points are delivered with a tone less of a concerned player, and more of a child yelling at their parents, "You're ruining my life!"

[phoenix1992]

Just now, BornWithTeeth said:

Yes, but that's fine. It results in a neatly compiled list of immediately observable issues, right on page one of the thread. I have absolutely no monopoly on feedback, each of us is just one voice.

Speaking of which I still await your feedback about the feedback.

[BlueberryIsWar]

Just now, DreamsmithJane said:

Maybe it's not supposed to be the same usability, because they don't think "stop thinking about energy at all for the rest of the mission" is a healthy mechanic. As for "without a large cooldown", it works on void dashing. You think they added a large cooldown to that? I mean, it could have a cooldown, IDK. Doesn't seem likely, though. Like I said, voice your concerns, make sure they know what you're excited for or worried about or whatever else. But given how little we know at this stage, declarations of "inferior" or "useless" that I'm seeing around here are quite premature.

Yeah, I am sure you will run a Melee Channeling build tomorrow.

"stop thinking about energy at all"

Yeah, like I usually don't have to think much about Ammo or Stamina. What exactly is wrong with that? And I still won't, I will either use energy Pizza or just join the Limbo party. Seems what you want, that every caster plays Limbo all the time. Enjoy playing public in a permanently cellshaded world. You do deserve it a bit.

[blazinvire]

I think my only real concern about operators is the flow of gameplay, which has already been voiced.

I remember from one of the devstreams or something, there was mention of a sort of tag-team idea with Warframes and their Operators, which seems to be what you're aiming for with the whole residuals and combat operator, but I think it's gonna need a lot more work to make it feel like a true part of the game rather than something glued awkwardly onto the side.

Flitting in and out of our warframes is an intriguing idea, but I think we need more interactivity, Operators directly assisting their Warframes and vice versa, some kind of way to use both at the same time or easily in tandem.  Turning our Warframe into a unique kind of specter might be nice, one that actually backs us up or jumps in front of bullets to deflect, or focus fires on targets you effectively mark in some manner.
But when I think of tag team, I sort of envision the smaller and more clever things, like Warframes being able to toss their ghost operator's out in the middle of a fight, so the player still controls the warframe while the operator performs a specific task before zapping back, or having the Operator pop out behind the Warframe and juice them up with a void beam to overload their powers.  Little cooperative options here and there to open up tactics and give you options for different kinds of enemies.

[BornWithTeeth]

21 minutes ago, phoenix1992 said:

Speaking of which I still await your feedback about the feedback.

Sorry, I'll review that!

[AuroraSonicBoom]

2 hours ago, -Sztalker- said:

Also the channeling should get rework, it's just not efficient and strong enough to use.

It just doesn't have a niche. More damage isn't some super rare effect that only channeling and a small handful of other buffs can grant you. Just like the physical damage types apart from slash, if it ever wants to become useful in generic gameplay it needs a utility effect stacked on top of it. Sure, you could say that channeling destroys the corpse and is beneficial for stealth play, but apart from being a really minor advantage it doesn't help your typical run and gun type play.

Have bullets reflected by channeled blocking always stagger and open up enemies for finishers. Give channeled attacks a secondary effect based on the proportionally biggest combined elemental damage type modded. Killing enemies with primarily magnetic damage? Get energy back. A channeled blast damage kill causes an blast wave within 5 meters. Gas? The killed mob explodes into a large gas cloud that frames can pass through to receive a toxin aura, Nox style.

Channeling can be made interesting and worthwhile, but DE needs to actually be willing to expand on it.

[DreamsmithJane]

35 minutes ago, BlueberryIsWar said:

Yeah, I am sure you will run a Melee Channeling build tomorrow.

"stop thinking about energy at all"

Yeah, like I usually don't have to think much about Ammo or Stamina. What exactly is wrong with that? And I still won't, I will either use energy Pizza or just join the Limbo party. Seems what you want, that every caster plays Limbo all the time. Enjoy playing public in a permanently cellshaded world. You do deserve it a bit.

Where did I say anything about channeling? We all know the mods suck (except for Killing Blow), and that system is one that needs more attention.

...We don't even have stamina anymore. And if you think there's nothing wrong with never having to think about how you're using your supposedly limited resources, then why don't we just remove them all? No energy, no ammo, heck, let's get rid of health and just make everyone invulnerable! ...Of course there's something wrong with not having to think about that. How is dropping an energy restore any different from using the Zenurik 2.0 powers anyway? Still not the same as passive regeneration following you everywhere. And if people want to play Limbo, they're doing it already. As for your implication that other caster frames can't/won't be played without Energy Overflow...it's just depressing that you think so.

P.S.— Do you even know what "cellshaded" means? Cel shading has nothing to do with colour saturation. Trying to sass me...LMAO, good luck.

[Daskrieg]

On 9/29/2017 at 12:48 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Your Banshee is under heavy Corpus fire - a barrage of Supra projectiles are coming toward you. As a Naramon Tenno, you engage Transference and enter Operator Mode and Void Blast an enemy with a Disarming Blast. Your beam has a high chance to disarm all enemies unlucky enough to be caught in its path! You return to your Warframe and make quick work of the now weaponless enemies.

Your Mesa is going to work, protecting your defense point from hordes of Grineer. Suddenly, your Frame runs out of energy! With no Energy Restores equipped you quickly switch to your Operator and Void Dash onto your objective.This creates a bubble where you land in which you and your teammates can charge up quickly to 'Make some Peace'.

Your Atlas is rocking out on a mobile defense mission, when suddenly you a nasty Nox comes your way! Switching to your Operator, you Void Dash through the enemy, sundering some of his armor and crippling his damage output. You remain in Void Mode near your teammates to grant them invisibility as they deal with the enemy from the safety of the shadows.

Loki—alone in the Plains—is doing as he pleases. He decides to play a bit of a trick on some Grineer Tusk units he detects nearby. By slipping into Transference his operator cloaks himself ; each second spent cloaked significantly increases the damage of the next attack. After enough sneaking, the Operator fires and the Grineer are no more.

Your Rhino is strong, and together with the Saryn in your squad you're pummeling droves of enemies in a Survival mission. Time marches forth and so it goes, your body count climbing higher and higher. As you check out your HUD you see Saryn is taking heavy damage. With impeccable agility, you begin Transference and Void Dash through her to grant complete immunity to damage for a limited time. When you return to your Rhino, you Stomp, and the killing continues. So it goes.

 

 

 

first scenario.

Easy answer, i have the zakti, corpus don't agree with gas damage, one or 2 bullet jumps with a few volleys of zakti shots and no more corpus.

second scenario.

not paying attention to my energy pool and letting that happen is almost a myth, unless i forgot to mod for duration and efficency this is a very rare scenario to encounter plus, im most cased a normal mesa player would deactivate the ability and start using the weapons they brought in while maiking use of her 2nd and 3rd abilities, cause not sure about others but i always make sure i have a melee, primary and a secondary that will be more than capable of making the grineer remember who really owns the firepower in this area.

third scenario.

pretty sure someone just forgot that if you use your first ability with atlas you do plenty of damage and cannot be killed while using it, pretty sure that nox is about to have his day go from really bad to really ugly.

fourth scenario.

what kind of pranks are we thinking about here, pretty sure that while invisible we still have the stealth damage bonus and why wait for a damage boost just to wastye it on a group of cannon fodder, pretty sure i would just sneak up and slaughter them with stealth damage boosted gunblade fire and move on.

fith scenario.

solution is simple, use stomp, the saryn will spobably by now have everything and its relatives affected by a viral proc and then all she does is her use her 4th to apply its dot and cc effect, drop a molt to pop more spores or just apply more spores pop them rinse and repeat, rhino alive, saryn alive, infested......melted.

the drawn out switches to operator while informative for the bonues from the rework may be nice but were nowhere near bad enough to really be worth all that effort.

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

7 hours ago, A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n said:

We know they aren't changing the core Operator abilities like Void Dash and Void Mode, so we do kinda know how we'll fight the Eidolons with our Operators: the same way we fight Kuva Guardians. IIRC, the thing that's changing is Void Beam.

I understood that to, but in the PoE Prime time dev build the other night Rebecca ran around a little bit as the operator and then went back into her frame stating "she didn't want to ruin the combat part" so I'm expecting there to be more to it than what I'm seeing here and what I saw on Prime time. 

-maybe we will be able to stay in "dash mode" (as our "sprint") and maybe we could use our void beam at the same time, maybe time will slow down while in "void mode" idk

I just don't think we have enough information yet other than focus examples Rebecca stated from this thread. 

[DatDarkOne]

2 hours ago, A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n said:

It's too bad they didn't realize that the game they based the kingpin system on was an open world game, and that, therefore, it would've been a great idea and an appropriate idea to integrate their WIP kingpin system into Plains of Eidolon. Oh well...

You know maybe the Kingpin idea and how they would implement it brought about the idea for PoE.  

As for the whole everything is a copy of Destiny,  Destiny itself is just an inferior copy of Borderlands 2.  LOL