Lack of Universal Vacuum Hinders Companion Diversity and Pet Updates

[AperoBeltaTwo]

56 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

It takes a certain amount of hubris to say that you know more about a gamethan a developer of the game you're playing. Words. La. 

 I've seen them play. Hubris has nothing to do with it. I wouldn't be talking to people on the forums right now, if I didn't see it myself. I've been on Steve's last stream on Twitch. It's like he had seen the game for the first time. If I didn't encounter a similar case before with a different game and different devs it wouldn't have baffled me so much. Back then I used to believe that DE were better than a mistake like this. Playing Warframe is their job requirement... god.

Edited November 5, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[zornyan]

2 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

 I've seen them play. Hubris has nothing to do with it. I wouldn't be talking to people on the forums right now, if I didn't see it myself. I've been on Steve's last stream on Twitch. It's like he had seen the game for the first time. If I didn't encounter a similar case before with a different game and different devs it wouldn't have baffled me so much. Back then I used to believe that DE were better than a mistake like this. Playing Warframe is their job requirement... god.

The issue is posts like this don’t help at all, arguing “oh it’s mandatory” does little to help.

 

on the reddit the mods at the devstream had a list of off camera questions to which they’ve given the answers, one of them was to Steve/Scott about univac.

 

they said that it’s not an easy choice for them, and they’re stuck between game balance and community cries, but overall it’s actually very stressful for them because they just get bombard with cries of “omfg this is S#&$ give us universal vacuum “ which actually according to the reddit team, seemed to put their backs up in a “we don’t deal with terrorists way”

 

steve and Scott are both very stubborn basically, sitting there saying how dumb these decisions are seems to piss them off more than anything and make them want to say “no”

[Azamagon]

1 hour ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

1) Ask yourself a simple question, why have less than 12 meters? Is there a reason apart from you feeling like "it would be too much"? If carrier had first came out with 8 meter vacuum, we would be arguing over 8 meter range today. The point is, 12 meters is a random number. What's the point in replacing it with another random number that for some reason you feel should be less than the first one? People are used to 12m vacuum. Let them have it.

-

2) vacuum isn't just another "quality of life mod". Vacuum Is The Quality of Life. It affects so many core gameplay mechanics from shooting to ability use, to interactions with mission-specific items that difference between with or without vacuum is like two completely different games. Warframe with vacuum is fast-paced, active, 3-dimensional, agile and a bit erratic. Warframe without vacuum is you dragging your feet on the ground looking for a tiny ammo pickup just to use the gun you like a little longer while being forced into mostly using melee weapons. It's beyond "interesting choice" anymore. It's a difference between Warframe and Janitor-simulator. 

 I know 2 games where vacuum is present in some form: "Nier: Automata" and "Ratchet and Clank". Neither of those games as far as I know (i didn't play them) places any specific restriction on their respective vacuum.

 Vacuum is just a QoL mechanic for fast-paced games with a lot of loot pickups.
 Warframe needs UV exactly because it's a fast-paced game with a lot of loot pickups.

3) Playing with both keyboard and mouse isn't 100% mandatory either. But it sure as hell much more comfortable isn't it? It's not a question whether we need vacuum in the game or not. We already have vacuum and the absolute majority of players is using it all the time while ignoring pets entirely. This thread isn't so much about UV as much as it is about pets. We already have Vacuum in the game. If DE wanted to have a proper manual pickup system, they shouldn't have added Carrier in the first place. It's too late. 

 The question is, if pets should suffer further by not having vacuum? Current vacuum incentivizes to never use pets, if you want to keep the QoL and faster pace of the game.

It's simple. Before "Vacuum Within" most people only ever used Carriers. After "Vacuum Within" people started using other sentinels and now mostly use sentinels,

Universal Vacuum would do for the pets what "Vacuum Within" did for the rest of the sentinels.

4) Or we could have had some form of the current Naramon focus passive from the very beginning and avoid the issue entirely. While also allowing for less mandatory bandaid combo counter mods and more customization mods like, idk, additional effects on hit or something. Actually interesting mods that do something unique. Instead of just allowing people to use a mechanic that was already in the game but completely unusable because of a lasting design flaw.

 I understand, it's easy for me to talk about it after so many years. But, if talking about combo counters in particular, this design flaw could have been avoided if people in charge of Warframe development actually payed attention to what they add to the game and how it works. Issues like 3 seconds combo counter could only be explained by DE never actually playing their own game. And then bandaid fixing random issues with another mandatory mod.  

-

1) Well, to be honest, the suggested values aren't set in stone either. I mean, we could get 12 meters innately, while the Sentinel/Pet and WF vacuum mods could add +1 meter per rank each, with 4 ranks on the mods (so, 12 + 4 + 4 = 20 meters if fully modded for it). How's THAT for options? The point is at least that if you have a solid base, then options to improve that within reason, THAT's an actual choice.

2) I know. Which is why I'm of the opinion: Go all out on innate vacuum. But potentially having options to improve that FURTHER is actually interesting to me. Be that with a base of 8m or 12m, doesn't matter. It's the design-philosophy of that approach which I find interesting, and I find it a viable approach to the whole univac-ordeal, as it caters to both sides of the coin (players want univac + Devs wants us to make choices)

3) Oh come on! Vacuum is NOT even close to the same level of critical QoL-issue as not using both keyboard and mouse when playing on PC (Not having vacuum would be like... missing your V-button or something, rather than not having your mouse)! You know it too, no need to exaggerate like this.
Aside from that exaggeration, yes, I also want the pets to let us have innate vacuum. I've never gone against that opinion. But even then, having improvements beyond that (via our pet/sentinel and/or our WF), I find an interesting idea (and wouldn't care less if it DIDN'T get added along with innate vacuum. Just saying that I like that "cherry on top").

And as a sidenote: You wanna know something interesting? When the Carrier was being a highlighted in the Design Council, i was one of the very first players to say that vacuum should NOT be a mod only for one sentinel (but rather a mod as it is now), as it would seriously skew players into only using that sentinel (note; This was way before pets existed, but if they existed, I'd promote it as a mod for pets AND sentinels). So yeah... I was well aware of the univac issue a looooong time before many others, even before it came out. Just wanted to clarify that (as in trying to say, I'm not an idiot, and I understand video game design quite well)

4) Actually, when you think deeper about the melee combo counter, upping the combo counter (and sustaining it) is not just a random "QoL"-thing, it's an actual powerboost, akin to equipping Pressure Point and such, but with its own mechanics. Sure, I do find the timer a tad too short by default (and/or disappearing too aggressively), but one can certainly work without such mods. If you use Maiming Strike and Blood Rush (or similar mods) it's definitely not NECESSARY with a combo counter time-booster (in fact, I run quite a few such builds without Body Count / Dritting Contact etc). Enemies aren't powerful enough to need such an immense boost in damage anyway. And it's also because of my playstyle; I vary the weapons i use, midcombat (which is why the Body Count etc doesn't feel necessary to me). Then there's also Condition Overload, working similarly for me, as in not needing to up the timer of the combo counter either. There are always options.

So, what am I trying to say? Well, that the combo counter being short (it is, but not necessarily by much) is not necessarily something an ISSUE, but an intended knob in regards to catering to various playstyles. So if you are going all in with melee, upping the combo timer and/or using Naramon is one of the most potent ways of boosting it, so why not see those things as a tool for that, rather than as an design issue?
At least, that's my opinion on that.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Azamagon

[TheBrsrkr]

13 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Go look up tennocon 2016. DE voiced a statistic stating that 73% of the playerbase being using Carriers at the time. I wonder, why?

There are three types of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics. There are, of course, several reasons for this other than "Ammo case is the best thing ever".

 

First one being, ironically, ammo case is really good. A lot of people don't want companions because they just don't really need them or care for them. What everyone needs, however is guns, and guns need ammo. Ammo Case provides both easy and constant ammo regeneration regardless of the weapon. A godsend to some people, and handy to have for literally anyone. 

 

Another thing is that vacuum was literally the best thing to have for a very long time, and only carrier had it. Meaning that people had carrier and nothing else. Why would they stop using it if it still had the same function they got it for plus another function useful for everyone? 

 

Another is laziness to switch over to a new one. Is it really worth the effort? Do you really notice your companion that much if it doesn't kill something for you? A lot of people grabbed Taxon simply because you can build him with some stuff you have just lying around, while the others like Djinn, Helios, Shade and to an extent Wyrm are out of the way and require a bunch of resources you have to actually farm. For Taxon it's 2 Neurodes and a bunch of garbage resources like Salvage. Is it really worth the hassle? 

 

Finally, you have to remember that the starting out rate for Carrier would be astronomically high since for something like 3 years it was literally the best sentinel and the first one to get buffs when primed which would skew the stats immensel. If there was no other sentinel that could compete, and you already had one, switching over would just be unnecessary. 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

15 minutes ago, zornyan said:

they said that it’s not an easy choice for them, and they’re stuck between game balance and community cries, but overall it’s actually very stressful for them because they just get bombard with cries of “omfg this is S#&$ give us universal vacuum “ which actually according to the reddit team, seemed to put their backs up in a “we don’t deal with terrorists way”

steve and Scott are both very stubborn basically, sitting there saying how dumb these decisions are seems to piss them off more than anything and make them want to say “no”

Then play the F**ing game and know for yourself, is what I'm saying! There would be no vacuum issue then. At all. UV is one of those issues that require developers' personal gameplay expierience to solve. That's all that was required in the first place!

 

 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

9 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

There are three types of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics. There are, of course, several reasons for this other than "Ammo case is the best thing ever".

First one being, ironically, ammo case is really good. A lot of people don't want companions because they just don't really need them or care for them. What everyone needs, however is guns, and guns need ammo. Ammo Case provides both easy and constant ammo regeneration regardless of the weapon. A godsend to some people, and handy to have for literally anyone. 

There was no ammo case back then. Carrier had vacuum as its main precept instead. See, this is what I'm talking about.

12 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

Finally, you have to remember that the starting out rate for Carrier would be astronomically high since for something like 3 years it was literally the best sentinel and the first one to get buffs when primed which would skew the stats immensel. If there was no other sentinel that could compete, and you already had one, switching over would just be unnecessary. 

People started using other sentinels a lot after all of them got vacuum. The rest of them used to be just as unpopular as pets.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

Sorry, I'm tired guys. Gotta go for today. Thanks for the conversation even if we disagree. Have a pleasant time of the day.

[Azamagon]

30 minutes ago, zornyan said:

The issue is posts like this don’t help at all, arguing “oh it’s mandatory” does little to help.

 

on the reddit the mods at the devstream had a list of off camera questions to which they’ve given the answers, one of them was to Steve/Scott about univac.

 

they said that it’s not an easy choice for them, and they’re stuck between game balance and community cries, but overall it’s actually very stressful for them because they just get bombard with cries of “omfg this is S#&$ give us universal vacuum “ which actually according to the reddit team, seemed to put their backs up in a “we don’t deal with terrorists way”

 

steve and Scott are both very stubborn basically, sitting there saying how dumb these decisions are seems to piss them off more than anything and make them want to say “no”

Just a quick response to this (then I have to go away from the forums, been here far too long today!):

You see, this is exactly why we have to deal with this in a polite and constructive way, and find compromises. We have to try to see the developers PoV too (which is what I've been trying to do here).

If we are too demanding and/or aggressive about issues, ofc the Devs might respond negatively and stubbornly about it (even if I find that to be a rather childish behaviour, it's still very human to do so).

[Myrkek]

Forgive me if this has been brought up before, but 9 pages, and I'm on a time crunch

I've played without vacuum, and for me having it makes a difference. It's easier for me to play and have fun if I don't have to worry about running around grabbing every pickup and ammo box by myself

Spoiler

like a peasant

I like my kubrow, I put a crapton of forma on her, but I never use her because no vacuum, and I personally would like if I could just put the vacuum mod on her. It would take a slot, I'd have to sacrifice on her build for it, and I'd probably even have to put another forma on to fit it. I think that'd be giving up enough to allow it.

[BlackCoMerc]

How does staring at the floor, walking over small colored icons IMPROVE THE GAME PLAY EXPERIENCE? 

I absolutely LOATHE the fact that Ayatan Stars CANNOT be vacuumed. I am BEYOND SICK of stopping, getting perfect position and having to watch my frame squat down and pick them up. It adds nothing, slows down the game and is just a waste of time.

And now people think we should have to spend similar, if slightly less, effort, to get ALL loot. I mean, sure, we don't have to stop and pick up ammo...but without vacuum, We still have to move carefully over every individual piece of loot.

How does this MAKE THE GAME BETTER? How does this IMPROVE THE GAME PLAY EXPERIENCE?

[TheBrsrkr]

36 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

There was no ammo case back then. Carrier had vacuum as its main precept instead. See, this is what I'm talking about.

Then we go back to the time where Vacuum is the objectively best mod for any sentinel in the game, and people used it as such? Golly gee, I'm surprised. Not really. Anyway, didn't the change to vacuum come in November  2016? I'm sure it was then. 

Edit: it was October. What are you talking about? 

 

36 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

There was no ammo case back then. Carrier had vacuum as its main precept instead. See, this is what I'm talking about.

People started using other sentinels a lot after all of them got vacuum. The rest of them used to be just as unpopular as pets.

Again failing to mention that vacuum had twice the range it did before and came on the objectively best sentinel available at the time, Carrier Prime. 

Edited November 5, 2017 by TheBrsrkr

[TheBrsrkr]

18 minutes ago, Myrkek said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

like a peasant

 

There are no peasants on PC. 

[Cloudyvisage]

Kavats have a unique bonus to them that makes them effective, Helminth is high DPS, survivability and utility, Sentinels are utility and with the addition of Riven mods can also do good damage.

Normal Kubrows have no more durability than Kavats, less damage than Helminth, less utility than Sentinels, Kavats and the same utility as Helminth. The most relevant buff would be to making Kubrows more unique in some way, if they made it so all the dogs had the item retrieval that... Chesa? Has, then that would be a nice way of working around this.

Sentinels are utility, Helminth is DPS, Kavats are unique boosters, Kubrows... Should be durability, I suppose. All of them have some features of the other but not at the same levels.

[DeltaPangaea]

43 minutes ago, Cloudyvisage said:

Kavats have a unique bonus to them that makes them effective, Helminth is high DPS, survivability and utility, Sentinels are utility and with the addition of Riven mods can also do good damage.

Normal Kubrows have no more durability than Kavats, less damage than Helminth, less utility than Sentinels, Kavats and the same utility as Helminth. The most relevant buff would be to making Kubrows more unique in some way, if they made it so all the dogs had the item retrieval that... Chesa? Has, then that would be a nice way of working around this.

Sentinels are utility, Helminth is DPS, Kavats are unique boosters, Kubrows... Should be durability, I suppose. All of them have some features of the other but not at the same levels.

It's worth noting that the Charger is basically just a Kubrow, just with a different method of acquisition. It uses the Kubrow incubator, a kubrow egg, the kubrow skeleton, the kubrow AI, one of its precepts is exactly the same as another kubrow...

[Ardhanarishvara]

On 10/28/2017 at 2:44 PM, AperoBeltaTwo said:

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. 

I just wanna throw some credits on this because it reminded me of something, so I'm gonna turn a half-formed joke sentiment into a full argument:

And yet, common sense is not always correct sense. Keyboard sacrifices the ability to in-between eight directions as well as the ability to move at degrees. Controllers lack the fluidity and allowance for reflexive movements of a mouse. Would it naturally not mean that someone should attempt to create hybrids that marry the two? Well behold!

Spoiler

Ergo, it follows to argue that perhaps having universal vacuum is not correct sense, no matter how commonly held the idea may be. Just as half a controller can be made to work, why can we not have... half a Vacuum?

Personally, I fall into the camp that worries about what universal vacuum will do for energy economy/availability and potential evolution of gameplay styles which rely on using the environment as a way to safely stockpile energy. So why not give Pets half a vacuum? Make them suck up resources, but not health/energy/ammo.

Or, the more elegant, but more complex solution...

Spoiler

The Steam Controller of Vacuums. Pets will still suck up energy/health/ammo, but instead of directly offering it to you, they will stockpile it, and you siphon it from them. Mod for dropping it all at once, or a bit at a time. Mod for radiating them out to the entire team but not being able to choose how often, like a living energy pizza. Mod for teammates being able to access your pet's stockpile. Mod for increased stats as they carry more. Mod for not picking up energy at all, but instead 'sipping' from the energy, building up a charge a lot slower but leaving orbs available on the floor.

From then on you've got a whole new avenue for gameplay and builds, without sacrificing quality of life.

Edited November 6, 2017 by Ardhanarishvara

[AperoBeltaTwo]

13 hours ago, Ardhanarishvara said:

I just wanna throw some credits on this because it reminded me of something, so I'm gonna turn a half-formed joke sentiment into a full argument:

And yet, common sense is not always correct sense. Keyboard sacrifices the ability to in-between eight directions as well as the ability to move at degrees. Controllers lack the fluidity and allowance for reflexive movements of a mouse. Would it naturally not mean that someone should attempt to create hybrids that marry the two? Well behold!

  Reveal hidden contents

Ergo, it follows to argue that perhaps having universal vacuum is not correct sense, no matter how commonly held the idea may be. Just as half a controller can be made to work, why can we not have... half a Vacuum?

Personally, I fall into the camp that worries about what universal vacuum will do for energy economy/availability and potential evolution of gameplay styles which rely on using the environment as a way to safely stockpile energy. So why not give Pets half a vacuum? Make them suck up resources, but not health/energy/ammo.

Or, the more elegant, but more complex solution...

  Reveal hidden contents

The Steam Controller of Vacuums. Pets will still suck up energy/health/ammo, but instead of directly offering it to you, they will stockpile it, and you siphon it from them. Mod for dropping it all at once, or a bit at a time. Mod for radiating them out to the entire team but not being able to choose how often, like a living energy pizza. Mod for teammates being able to access your pet's stockpile. Mod for increased stats as they carry more. Mod for not picking up energy at all, but instead 'sipping' from the energy, building up a charge a lot slower but leaving orbs available on the floor.

From then on you've got a whole new avenue for gameplay and builds, without sacrificing quality of life.

No offence, but all three designs are sh*t.

Gamepad\Mouse thing requires you to keep one hand up in the air and the other one on the table, which is... good luck playing like that.

Steam controller looks like a cheap sex toy that would chip bits of paint and plastic if you touch it.

And your not-vacuum suggestion requires players to chase around pets with their mad Ai just to take the loot back from them. Also, it would require a whole lot of coding, including in-mission cross-player looting (which we don't have in the game at the minute as far as my understanding goes). While UV could be done tomorrow by changing a single value in the code.

Edited November 6, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[Otakuwolf]

We now have a tiny 3m innate Vaccum and they sayd "...no we don't want to give you 10m Vaccum"...

Ok, first of all: 3m is not what we wanted, if 6m was not enough back then what does it make them think 3m is ok ?

Secondly: Why not ? what is the argument against it ? DE seems to be so much against it but they never stated WHY. If they are so stubborn to not give us such a HUDGE quality of life change we have been asking for years at least they should be trasparent and tell us WHY they don't want it so we can either A) Understand theyr reasoning, or B) Talk about it and reach a compromise all together.

[PrimoValkyria]

On 11/5/2017 at 1:45 PM, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Go look up tennocon 2016. DE voiced a statistic stating that 73% of the playerbase being using Carriers at the time. I wonder, why?

And that's all you have at your core argument, your own speculation presented as a fact. You have no idea why those people decide to use carrier, you're using statistics to prop up a generalization that those 73% agree with you. I wonder, how many people played the game, and quit and only had carrier as their first sentinel? 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

54 minutes ago, PrimoValkyria said:

I wonder, how many people played the game, and quit and only had carrier as their first sentinel? 

Oh, right. True. I didn't consider the possibility of aliens mind-controlling 73% of the playerbase into playing with Carriers only! 

...are you even joking? What other reason could there be for people to so exclusively using Carrier except the Vacuum QoL? Health and armor bonus on carriers don't stop people from using varuous sentinels now, wouldn't have stopped them before. Carriers didn't have any other traits beside that. If you're intentionally trying to BS with me, just stop. 
 

[PrimoValkyria]

6 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Oh, right. True. I didn't consider the possibility of aliens mind-controlling 73% of the playerbase into playing with Carriers only! 

...are you even joking? What other reason could there be for people to so exclusively using Carrier except the Vacuum QoL? Health and armor bonus on carriers don't stop people from using varuous sentinels now, wouldn't have stopped them before. Carriers didn't have any other traits beside that. If you're intentionally trying to BS with me, just stop. 
 

Ammo Case? Indifference? Again, you should probably run a survey or something to gather data instead of forwarding your confirmation bias. 

Edited November 6, 2017 by PrimoValkyria

[AperoBeltaTwo]

2 hours ago, Otakuwolf said:

We now have a tiny 3m innate Vaccum and they sayd "...no we don't want to give you 10m Vaccum"...

Ok, first of all: 3m is not what we wanted, if 6m was not enough back then what does it make them think 3m is ok ?

It wasn't done for the players. 3m UV is a crutch for manual pickup system. Scott did it to mitigate situations when items fall into corners and crevices of the map where you can't reach them manually. Basically the game itself forced him to introduce this.

2 hours ago, Otakuwolf said:

Secondly: Why not ? what is the argument against it ? DE seems to be so much against it but they never stated WHY. If they are so stubborn to not give us such a HUDGE quality of life change we have been asking for years at least they should be trasparent and tell us WHY they don't want it so we can either A) Understand theyr reasoning, or B) Talk about it and reach a compromise all together.

There is no reason. And it wouldn't be "huge" at this point, cause people basically mostly play with vacuum anyway. It ued to be 73% 2 years ago. Now with added sentinel variety it should be even more than that. The only difference UV would make is that people would start playing with pets more. That's all. 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

5 minutes ago, PrimoValkyria said:

Ammo Case? Indifference? Again, you should probably run a survey or something to gather data instead of forwarding your confirmation bias. 

There was no ammo case back then. 

[DeltaPangaea]

5 minutes ago, PrimoValkyria said:

Ammo Case? Indifference? Again, you should probably run a survey or something to gather data instead of forwarding your confirmation bias. 

Ammo Case didn't EXIST at the time.

Ammo Case was invented solely so Carrier had its unique aspect after Vacuum was made universal.

[PrimoValkyria]

2 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

There was no ammo case back then. 

Okay, from previous posts you are asserted that carriers are still the main choice, so I offered an explanation to why people may use it (now). 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

Just now, PrimoValkyria said:

Okay, from previous posts you are asserted that carriers are still the main choice, so I offered an explanation to why people may use it (now). 

 I never said it's a main choice now. Even tho it probably is, but way less than it was before. 2016 statistic I mentioned referred to both Carriers use. Now I guess it should be around 80% for all sentinels combined with deminishing carrier prime usage due to being vaulted. Just think about it, 73% used to play with Carriers only. But a few months after all sentinels got vacuum, Carrier usage would have plummeted and now it should go even further down. And people are using other sentinels more freely thanks to the single change DE made. I have all reasons to expect pets' popularity increase in a similar fashion. People used to mostly ignore the rest of the sentinels in a similar fashion they ignore pets now. What are we even debating here?