Lack of Universal Vacuum Hinders Companion Diversity and Pet Updates

[TheBrsrkr]

2 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Vacuum is one thing that affects companion diversity that could be fixed tomorrow. 

This is where we disagree. What I keep saying is Vacuum is simply not as important a factor as you seem to think it is when it comes to pet diversity. Not many people say "hmm this Kavat has the same health, shields and armor as me, gives me red crits and strips armor along with other useful things. . Too bad it doesn't have vacuum, so I'll go farm 10 fieldron for Helios to scan stuff and pick up loot for me". If it was the old Carrier vacuum that dominated sentinels then I would agree, but that's long gone now. Vacuum isn't going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back, it's just one more thing on a list of other, heavier things that make people choose sentinels over pets. 

[DeltaPangaea]

6 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

This is where we disagree. What I keep saying is Vacuum is simply not as important a factor as you seem to think it is when it comes to pet diversity. Not many people say "hmm this Kavat has the same health, shields and armor as me, gives me red crits and strips armor along with other useful things. . Too bad it doesn't have vacuum, so I'll go farm 10 fieldron for Helios to scan stuff and pick up loot for me". If it was the old Carrier vacuum that dominated sentinels then I would agree, but that's long gone now. Vacuum isn't going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back, it's just one more thing on a list of other, heavier things that make people choose sentinels over pets. 

If it's 'not that important' then why is it not a thing?

[TheBrsrkr]

1 hour ago, DeltaPangaea said:

If it's 'not that important' then why is it not a thing?

Because, as I said before, it isn't as simple as copy pasting the mod for Kubrows and slapping it on. As I said before.

I don't care if companions get vacuum in any form.  Sure, whatever, fine. Go ahead. What I care about is the topic at the title of the thread, which says a few things at once :

Universal Vacuum is a good thing

Vacuum is what makes sentinels better than companions

Adding Vacuum to companions will increase the amount of people using them

The increase in people using them means DE will update them

None of these points are as cut and dried as they seem to be, and  most of them are wrong in my opinion. I am here to discuss that. 

 

To answer your question, even if it was a thing, why should I put up with the inconsistencies, maintenance and cost of a companion when I have a sentinel with different utility but exponentially more consistency? 

[DeltaPangaea]

14 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Because, as I said before, it isn't as simple as copy pasting the mod for Kubrows and slapping it on. As I said before.

I don't care if companions get vacuum in any form.  Sure, whatever, fine. Go ahead. What I care about is the topic at the title of the thread, which says a few things at once :

Universal Vacuum is a good thing

Vacuum is what makes sentinels better than companions

Adding Vacuum to companions will increase the amount of people using them

The increase in people using them means DE will update them

None of these points are as cut and dried as they seem to be, and  most of them are wrong in my opinion. I am here to discuss that. 

 

To answer your question, even if it was a thing, why should I put up with the inconsistencies, maintenance and cost of a companion when I have a sentinel with different utility but exponentially more consistency? 

Well I mean if not for Vacuum, I'd use a pet. I got a Helminth Charger I've just got sitting there who I'd like to use, but she stays in the boot because worrying about loot isn't fun.

And as a point of note, Kubrow and Kavat pathing is STILL broken, with them getting stuck on doors and slight inclines incredibly easily. This apparently began with the Plains update, which was... three and a half weeks ago? Almost a month, and they haven't been fixed. An entire class of companion has been broken in a significant fashion for almost a month.

Something to think about.

[TheBrsrkr]

19 minutes ago, DeltaPangaea said:

.

And as a point of note, Kubrow and Kavat pathing is STILL broken, with them getting stuck on doors and slight inclines incredibly easily. This apparently began with the Plains update, which was... three and a half weeks ago? Almost a month, and they haven't been fixed. An entire class of companion has been broken in a significant fashion for almost a month.

Something to think about.

And how will a thread on adding universal vacuum fix that better than a thread on, I dunno, the actual issue? 

 

20 minutes ago, DeltaPangaea said:

Well I mean if not for Vacuum, I'd use a pet. I got a Helminth Charger I've just got sitting there who I'd like to use, but she stays in the boot because worrying about loot isn't fun. 

I have Helios and I don't even use Vacuum on it. I have fired up, which I should really remove, and Coolant Leak, which is next to useless. You can just walk to pick up the loot if you worry that much. This 3m universal Vacuum is a boon to me at least, so I can just slide and bullet jump through a room and pick up everything I was going to pick up anyway. 

 

If you really want to use a Helminth Charger, why would vacuum hold you back instead of the fact that the thing is ugly as sin and an abomination to mankind, cost more to maintain than a sentinel, needs interaction in your ship to be at optimal efficiency, necessitates that all other pets be frozen and generally be a nuisance since people tend to shoot at them because they're too alike to enemies? Of you can put up with everything else, what makes vacuum so special? 

[DeltaPangaea]

1 minute ago, TheBrsrkr said:

If you really want to use a Helminth Charger, why would vacuum hold you back instead of the fact that the thing is ugly as sin and an abomination to mankind, cost more to maintain than a sentinel, needs interaction in your ship to be at optimal efficiency, necessitates that all other pets be frozen and generally be a nuisance since people tend to shoot at them because they're too alike to enemies? Of you can put up with everything else, what makes vacuum so special? 

Because not having vacuum necessitates I change how I play to something I enjoy slightly less. I would have to go and revive my abomination every so often, but it also has the benefit of being a living thing rather than the nothing that a Sentinel is, so I care about it more. And as for 'maintenance', it's 'pet the dog' and some DNA stabilizers. For a new player it might not be as easy to maintain, but one pack is a single low-risk game in the Index, and lasts for over a month.

[TotallyLagging]

10 hours ago, Symmetrion said:

Because some people are just inherently argumentative. Vacuum is a convenience. It's certainly not "necessary", but it is incredibly handy. I've played both with and without, and my preference is so far into the "with" side that I simply will not play without it anymore. I don't even pick up Ayatan Stars half the time because it annoys me to have to stop everything I'm doing to run over and pick it up.

Vacuum is just too handy. It's not handy in a game-breaking way. You could definitely get by without it, but not having it doesn't add a single benefit. Not having it is simply removing a feature. It's like taking the headphone jack off a phone. It doesn't give anything; it only takes away. I'm sorry, but there's nothing immersive about that.

Warframe is too fast-paced and drops too plentiful to ignore the convenience of vacuum. I admit I'm curious about non-sentinel pets, but end up not using them for this specific reason. My poor kubrow that I got way back when they were first released is still sitting in a stasis chamber. I just rediscovered her last night after completely forgetting her for a year or two.

There have been lots of arguments against just making the loot radius bigger, but none of them make any kind of game-enhancing sense. It's just cantankerous for its own sake, and I think it's safe to say majority opinion agrees with me.

yep that's pretty much spot on, and you also pointed something that pro-vacuum people need to understand when they make threads

 

vacuum is by no means necessary or a core mechanic of the game, but there's absolutely no bloody reason to not implement is as an option that anyone can turn on and off whenever they want other than ego

i can't believe the community have to argue about one of the most basic features of videogames, good god

Edited November 5, 2017 by TotallyLagging

[Kimimoto]

On 10/28/2017 at 4:50 PM, Bobtm said:

And all of this is objectively false, and that's the problem.

You, along with most of the playerbase, are glued into the mindset that Vacuum should rightfully be automatic and there's no justification otherwise.

The reason DE themselves is against the idea of universal Vacuum is explicitly because it's not something they want as automatic.  Most looting games don't have an automatic/free Vacuum in them.  Usually any instance of a Vacuum-like effect is something players have to expend a slot of some type to obtain, be it an enchant slot, a gem slot, or (in Warframe) a companion slot.

Autolooting is generally viewed as poor design in a game because the developers of a given game want players to have to pay attention!

Then they wouldn't have added Vacuum in the first place. Also no? Look at WoWs Autolooting, it's something you can toggle in the options and is very convenient. It even AoE loots all the bodies around you, what a QoL option.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Kimimoto

[Eljureo]

There should be 5 m universal vacum. And regular vacum mod should be avaliable on all companions not just sentinels.

[Kimimoto]

100% agree, but there needs to be a way to disable Vacuum. The recent passive Vacuum goes against player choice for those who don't want Vacuum. While I 100% push for UniVac, everyone needs to be happy.

[DeltaPangaea]

3 minutes ago, Kimimoto said:

100% agree, but there needs to be a way to disable Vacuum. The recent passive Vacuum goes against player choice for those who don't want Vacuum. While I 100% push for UniVac, everyone needs to be happy.

I mean to be fair, what we got is practically negligible.

[Kimimoto]

Just now, DeltaPangaea said:

I mean to be fair, what we got is practically negligible.

Pretty much, but I still stand by the idea that we should have the most amount of options so everyone will have the choice.

[BlackCoMerc]

16 hours ago, Ceryk said:

They've said they want to remove a lot of those mods you've listed. They haven't done it because removing them require reworking a lot of things in the game that they either haven't been able to decided what to do about or bigger priorities have arisen that have put those plans lower on the priority list. Personally think Damage 3.0 should be the top priority so we can get rid of the Mandatory Mods, but that's less likely to interest most players over new content and silly things like Umbra frames.

Could not agree more.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

7 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

This is where we disagree. What I keep saying is Vacuum is simply not as important a factor as you seem to think it is when it comes to pet diversity. Not many people say "hmm this Kavat has the same health, shields and armor as me, gives me red crits and strips armor along with other useful things. . Too bad it doesn't have vacuum, so I'll go farm 10 fieldron for Helios to scan stuff and pick up loot for me". If it was the old Carrier vacuum that dominated sentinels then I would agree, but that's long gone now. Vacuum isn't going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back, it's just one more thing on a list of other, heavier things that make people choose sentinels over pets. 

You're in denial while not having enough expierience to confirm or disprove your own opinion. We've talked about it before. It's not just a matter of me trying to dismiss your point because I think I have more expierience than you. I'm about 73% sure you'll dismiss your own point yourself if you had enough expierience with companions. If you want a place to start, try getting your hands on Huras kubrow. Like, right now. And start maxing your mods. Playing without maxed mods is just silly, m8. It's the first thing you're supposed to do in the game. It's called "progression" (at least whatever is left of it after Void 2.0).

[AperoBeltaTwo]

6 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Because, as I said before, it isn't as simple as copy pasting the mod for Kubrows and slapping it on. As I said before.

As I said before, we need passive vacuum. Not a mod. Bandaid mod won't solve the issue properly and would only make everyone angry. It would make devs angry because they'd think they "caved in". It would make people angry because they'll lose a customization slot to another mandatory mod that all companions would have to have. Mod is just a bad solution. It has to be a part of the looting mechanic that you could turn on and off in the menu.

Edited November 5, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[Azamagon]

Just chiming in on a little nuance thing here.

While I ofc would like to have innate 12 meter Warframe-vacuum (biased as a player of the game), I can see the merit in this following suggestion:

14 hours ago, MirageKnight said:

On topic, I'm all in favor of innate 6m Vaccum centered on our Warframes, with an exilus augment mod that extends the range of that innate Vacuum to 12m. This naturally leaves us free to use whatever pets and sentinels we want and not have to worry about picking up loot and resources as much and concentrate more on actually playing Warframe.

That (along with keeping the Vacuum mod on Sentinels) feels interesting, imo. Because, this doesn't make Vacuum the extreme "all or nothing"-choice (as it currently is, pretty much), but rather a real improvement-choice, making you think more like "hmm... do I want to improve my convencience further, or am I fine enough with how it is at the moment?". Note that I'd probably put the innate radius to 7 or 8 meters. If your improvement is noticeable (like about 50% better or so), but not in also the lines of being about 500% better (as is the current case of ~2m vs 12m), it feels like you actually have a choice to make.

While some would say that it's subtle (or even pointless), it still imo makes a massive difference in regards to what feels like an actual choice or not. And that is something that DE needs to learn the difference between. "All or nothing"-choices are BAD (because they don't actually feel like choices, but they rather feel mandatory), but reasonable improvement-choices can feel good without feeling mandatory. This obviously goes a bit in tangent with other mod numbers too. I mean, why wouldn't you use Multishot and Serration on most Primary weapons, when those 2 alone improves your damage by about 5x the normal damage?! Numbers need severe toning down, and the extremes of "all or nothing" choices need to take a hike.

Same issue could be said of Energy, another hot topic. If we had, say, an innate 1.0 energy regen, then stuff like Zenurik's Energizing Dash or Energy Siphon would be a matter of feeling that you are IMPROVING your 'frames innate energy-reliability, instead of a case of where you feel you have anything at all or not.

And that is something I think is what Scott wants / intends for us to have: Meaningful choices. But then he also have to realize that extremely high numbers and the "all or nothing"-choices are NOT the way to go, because then they don't feel like choices.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Azamagon

[TheBrsrkr]

8 hours ago, DeltaPangaea said:

Because not having vacuum necessitates I change how I play to something I enjoy slightly less. 

This is the part I do not understand, since  I use Helios without vacuum because it just didn't seem as helpful to me as Helios attacking things. Vacuum is far from necessary and far from important. It should not affect your gameplay to such an extent that you exclude more than half of the available companions. Simply put, while it is a significant factor, it is not or at least should not be as significant as you make it out to be. 11.5m,  which is realistically slightly under 10 due to positioning is not that big of a range. You're not missing anything important. Why throw away all the utility of a companion for that?

 

3 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

You're in denial while not having enough expierience to confirm or disprove your own opinion. We've talked about it before. It's not just a matter of me trying to dismiss your point because I think I have more expierience than you. 

What, exactly, have I said with the inexperience that I have that invalidates any part of my argument that has not been confirmed by you, personally? I say the AI sucks, you say the AI sucks. I say Link mods are frame dependent, you say link mods are frame dependent. I say companion buffs are erratic at best but still useful,  you say companion buffs are erratic at best but still useful. If you old point to one thing other that "you just don't understaaaand" I would acknowledge this as something to keep in mind. You haven't. 

3 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

A. Playing without maxed mods is just silly, m8. It's the first thing you're supposed to do in the game. It's called "progression" (at least whatever is left of it after Void 2.0).

And what, exactly, would this change? Would the AI get better? Would the buffs be less erratic? Would the mods depend less on my frame? Would the annoyance of spending money on something I don't want, need or like fade? Would I like my combat drone less? I don't need to do these things to confirm things that you and others have confirmed in this very thread. 

3 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

As I said before, we need passive vacuum. Not a mod. Bandaid mod won't solve the issue properly and would only make everyone angry. It would make devs angry because they'd think they "caved in". It would make people angry because they'll lose a customization slot to another mandatory mod that all companions would have to have. Mod is just a bad solution. It has to be a part of the looting mechanic that you could turn on and off in the menu.

I already stated why it is not as simple an issue as that, didn't I? Talking about the spawning system? The rate of acquisition? Planned wastage? Sentinel lifespan? And you did say that sentinels survive with Primed regen, while ignoring that people still kill themselves to get back their sentinel even with primed regen, which means that they still die a lot, along with the fact that it can be removed depending on how you play and therefore your skill level? Mine survives because I pay attention to its health and use Rejuvenation on all my frames but Limbo, but from what I understand I am the minority. The issue is not as simple as "stick it on a frame and remove them mod" I'm afraid. Almost like every other issue in the game. 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

31 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

That (along with keeping the Vacuum mod on Sentinels) feels interesting, imo.

How so? It's a mandatory mod slot wasted. A mod slot you could put something else into.

We already had a 6m vacuum for a brief period of time. People hated it. It would still hinder the pets.

Look at it this way. There isn't really an awful lot of difference fundamentally between pets and sentinels. Yes one is a fleshy thing and the other is a floaty thing, but in their root they're just companions. We had an issue in 2016 when 73% of people only used carriers as their companions. After the "vacuum within" update people started using all sentinels, basically spreading these 73% between them. As I said, at their root pets are just companions, thus same logic should be applied. Vacuum simply changes the flow of the gameplay in an incredibly favourable way. That's why a lot of people prefer running it all the time. That's why a lot of people think that losing this flow of the game for a pet that only works half the time isn't worth it. If people weren't forced to lose quality of life for picking certain equipment it would simply free the people's choice.

 Convenience and quality of life should never be a subject of choice in games. What we're debating here is, basically, a "choice" between having only half of your keyboard/controller/whatever when you play or a whole controller. It's not a subject of a "meaningful choice". It's common sense that playing with a whole controller is better. Vacuum is the same thing - that's why people use it so much. 

 Vacuum is a difference between being a space ninja or a blubbering idiot with a broomstick.

48 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

Same issue could be said of Energy, another hot topic. If we had, say, an innate 1.0 energy regen, then stuff like Zenurik's Energizing Dash or Energy Siphon would be a matter of feeling that you are IMPROVING your 'frames innate energy-reliability, instead of a case of where you feel you have anything at all or not.

Or you could remember the melee combo counter that simply doesn't work without bandaid mods. Bandaids and QoL restrictions =/= meaningful choice. Meaningful choice is when you're allowed to choose whatever companion you want without hindering yourself while actually augmenting your gameplay in an interesting way. There's nothing interesting about being forced to turn your attention away from shooting, fighting, using abilities and actually playing Warframe; when you run out of ammo or energy, and now you have to turn around and pick some tiny spec of the right colour off the floor two meters away just because your already present in the game passive vacuum can't reach there.

 The only meaningful choice that was supposed to be made on this issue should have come from devs years ago when they first introduced parkour 2.0.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

22 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

What, exactly, have I said with the inexperience that I have that invalidates any part of my argument that has not been confirmed by you, personally?

22 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

And what, exactly, would this change? Would the AI get better? Would the buffs be less erratic?

Minmaxed warframes and gear have completely different capabilities compared to the basic ones. The fact that you don't know this is what attracted my attention in the first place. You don't seem to be lying, so I assume you simply don't know. There are people in warframe who intentionally play in a very roundabout way "to keep things fresh" - is what they're telling themselves. Some people don't use potatoes or forma on principle. Some, I guess, don't max mods. But when you don't max the gear that was meant to enhance the capabilities of companions and then say that their capabilities are lacking... well. Certainly pets' AI is dumb, but even if it would have your own wits and skills it would still need enough HP to survive hitscan weapons. And when you were saying how bad pets' Ai is, it didn't strike me that you actually knew what exactly is the problem. 

 Basically, I'm trying to say that you've been arguing for argument's sake here. No offence, but when you don't know what you're talking about it's extremely apparent. Same as when I see certain DE playing Warframe, I know that they have no idea what the hell they're doing... despite being with the project since its inception...but that's whole another issue. 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

1 hour ago, TheBrsrkr said:

I already stated why it is not as simple an issue as that, didn't I?

UV is an obvious place to start fixing problems. It's one thing of all the problems you've listed that could be solved by just changing a single value in the code (change 3 to 12). That's it. Problem solved. 

 Ai and other issues can't be solved as easily.

 On the other hand we've already seen how giving vacuum to a wider variety of companions increases their popularity and significantly improves the diversity of the players' choice. There's absolutely no reason to think that it won't work with pets in exact same way.

Edited November 5, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[BlackCoMerc]

17 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

How so? It's a mandatory mod slot wasted. A mod slot you could put something else into.

We already had a 6m vacuum for a brief period of time. People hated it. It would still hinder the pets.

Look at it this way. There isn't really an awful lot of difference fundamentally between pets and sentinels. Yes one is a fleshy thing and the other is a floaty thing, but in their root they're just companions. We had an issue in 2016 when 73% of people only used carriers as their companions. After the "vacuum within" update people started using all sentinels, basically spreading these 73% between them. As I said, at their root pets are just companions, thus same logic should be applied. Vacuum simply changes the flow of the gameplay in an incredibly favourable way. That's why a lot of people prefer running it all the time. That's why a lot of people think that losing this flow of the game for a pet that only works half the time isn't worth it. If people weren't forced to lose quality of life for picking certain equipment it would simply free the people's choice.

 Convenience and quality of life should never be a subject of choice in games. What we're debating here is, basically, a "choice" between having only half of your keyboard/controller/whatever when you play or a whole controller. It's not a subject of a "meaningful choice". It's common sense that playing with a whole controller is better. Vacuum is the same thing - that's why people use it so much. 

 Vacuum is a difference between being a space ninja or a blubbering idiot with a broomstick.

Or you could remember the melee combo counter that simply doesn't work without bandaid mods. Bandaids and QoL restrictions =/= meaningful choice. Meaningful choice is when you're allowed to choose whatever companion you want without hindering yourself while actually augmenting your gameplay in an interesting way. There's nothing interesting about being forced to turn your attention away from shooting, fighting, using abilities and actually playing Warframe; when you run out of ammo or energy, and now you have to turn around and pick some tiny spec of the right colour off the floor two meters away just because your already present in the game passive vacuum can't reach there.

 The only meaningful choice that was supposed to be made on this issue should have come from devs years ago when they first introduced parkour 2.0.

This really ought to be the "mic drop" post on this issue. Really should be.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

5 minutes ago, BlackCoMerc said:

This really ought to be the "mic drop" post on this issue. Really should be.

Ok.

[zornyan]

Ive gotta ask this, but do people really have this big of an issue collecting resources without vacuum? How do you people think we got along pre U10? Do you think it was posts on the forums crying all the time? Or do you think people just got on with it.

 

are people really that desperate for the next bit of alloy plate or salvage? Don’t you have stockpiles of this useless resource by now?

[AperoBeltaTwo]

3 minutes ago, zornyan said:

Ive gotta ask this, but do people really have this big of an issue collecting resources without vacuum? How do you people think we got along pre U10? Do you think it was posts on the forums crying all the time? Or do you think people just got on with it.

A lot of people playing right now just didn't play warframe back then because it looked like crap and could barely stay afloat. I remember seeing warframe trailers when it just started. It seemed like a claustrophobic mess back then. So yeah, only people who didn't care about it were playing. Typical survivor paradox.

6 minutes ago, zornyan said:

are people really that desperate for the next bit of alloy plate or salvage? Don’t you have stockpiles of this useless resource by now?

Of course not. Vacuum affects ammo and energy availability, significantly changing the very flow of gameplay. Alloy plates were never the main issue. In another thread I said that it would be just fine if vacuum only affected gameplay drops. Cause it's really not the issue of alloy plates. But ofc at this point making vacuum segmented would be dumb, since pets are pretty much the only instance when you have to play without full-on vacuum. Making it the first and most hindering problem of animal companions. It's also the easiest to fix, as I mentioned earlier.

[zornyan]

1 minute ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

A lot of people playing right now just didn't play warframe back then because it looked like crap and could barely stay afloat. I remember seeing warframe trailers when it just started. It seemed like a claustrophobic mess back then. So yeah, only people who didn't care about it were playing. Typical survivor paradox.

Of course not. Vacuum affects ammo and energy availability, significantly changing the very flow of gameplay. Alloy plates were never the main issue. In another thread I said that it would be just fine if vacuum only affected gameplay drops. Cause it's really not the issue of alloy plates. But ofc at this point making vacuum segmented would be dumb, since pets are pretty much the only instance when you have to play without full-on vacuum. Making it the first and most hindering problem of animal companions. It's also the easiest to fix, as I mentioned earlier.

But then for example you have a kubrow hat can give you free energy drops, so you’re basically taking 1 second longer to collect orbs, whilst getting more orbs overall, therefor increases energy effeciency.

 

or ammo effeciency, smeeta gives a large flat crit buff, meaning your weapons do more damage which helps ammo economy since less bullets required to kill.