Dev Workshop: The Features of Focus 2.5

[ProjectDolphin]

Just when I thought the idea of investing in Lightning Dash could add a new dynamic to my Zenurick gameplay. Well, there goes another node I will not be investing in anytime soon.

Please remove energy penalties for focus nodes. If not in 2.5, maybe 3.0?

[tocorro]

Will Brilliant Eidolon Shards be refunded as well?

[Fari]

12 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

Lenses will not be refunded this time around.

PLEASE? On a previous devstream it was stated they explicitly would be refunded for 2.5 as well, and exclusively because of that I've been putting lenses in things I wouldn't actually have done in the long term. It was clearly a stupid decision of mine, that I shouldn't have done, but it was specifically because of what was stated to be the case, on something that was "soon" enough that I figured minds wouldn't be changed about it....

While we're at it, maybe being able to see the tier of lenses on a given piece of gear. Because I've been putting them wildly on things, with the belief it was temporary I don't know what things I put greaters on (with the intent to turn into eidolons once the system refunded them again) and which have eidolons in them.

 

Also, please... I don't mind the concept of ability 'upgrades' being more expensive in concept, but stuff like making void dash or shade step upgraded means LESS total jumps, which is an extreme loss, far more than what are still non scaling upgrades. It's what, a few electric procs that mean at least one less void dash in a row? That's a huge loss for a tiny gain.

 

The worst part is both shade step and void dash cost increasers both lead to less total dashes because of how void dash works.

[DreamsmithJane]

2 minutes ago, tocorro said:

Will Brilliant Eidolon Shards be refunded as well?

Answered here:

 

[Rage_Face]

Kind of a long shot request, but oh well. 

Can we pretty please get missions that award focus similar to syndicate missions? Just so we don't have to feel compelled to use a specific build with a specific frame on a specific node in order to farm focus efficiently. Please, we need an alternative to farming focus away from the convergence orb since it's still tied to affinity. 

[3thereal]

2 hours ago, Ardhanarishvara said:

EDIT: And to the folks in general going "Oh, RIP Lightning Dash", you realize that you regain +10 energy every time you dash through an enemy, and that if you're using Lightning dash, you're going to be dashing through enemies with it, right? Not to mention the permanent +10 energy regen you've got on at all times in Zenurik.

This isn't even a significant nerf. It's like... a thing that exists. It's not notable in the slightest.

Like at most I figure this takes one dash off if you go from 100% energy to 0% energy and hit no enemies along the way. As if that's not still a significant distance with Void Dash and Void Capacity maxed out. It's not like anyone dashwarps that far in anything but the Plains regardless.

Dash is mainly used to mobility (for example on the plains), adding additional cost will remove the number of consecutive dashes that can be performed. In those situations, lightning dash will not be restoring energy since you're not dashing into enemies. Secondly, even when you are using dash to fly at enemies you should be aiming for landing near them (not through them which would restore energy) as if you hit them you simply ragdoll them and make them go flying which negates the purpose of having a small lightning orb to deal damage  near the end of the dash since they often fly out of range of the damage dealing orb. The Dash regaining energy was  implemented in focus 1.0 since it's only use at that time was to disarm the Kuva Guardians which made sense mechanically. The dash is still used for that but it's main purpose now is for dashing around large tiles up to/away from enemy groups. Therefore that node is going dumped by everyone like 95% of the Focus nodes that increase energy drain.

 

TLDR; Dash is used for mobility; Lightning Dash is rarely used to dash through enemies. Increased Cost means less mobility which means the node will be dropped from use.

[(XBOX)RAG is NAROK]

12 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

-Lightning Dash (costs 10 energy per cast)

Is that Warframe Energy or Operator Energy?

 

12 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

Unairu:
-Void Spines (reflects 100% damage at max, up from 25%)
-Stone Skin (adds flat armor, 60 for both warframe and operator at max)

You know what I miss most about Unairu DE? The ability to turn enemies to stone. Why couldn't this tree still focus on doing that while also giving us armor?

[PenetrierBiber]

Great changes, thank you very much for your efforts!

This will encourage me again to farm focus... I almost gave it up with the old system.

I look forward to get the exponential system, the soft cap idea is great. Because although I spend a lot of time in the game I always have to much to do every day and there wasn't a chance to reach the cap too, beside my other tasks. Maybe I should give up my job :-P

Serious again - a boost to focus farm at the beginning of a day would be great. Decreasing the more you earn. Thanks again :-)

[3thereal]

1 minute ago, (Xbox One)RAG is NAROK said:

Is that Warframe Energy or Operator Energy?

Operator Energy

[3thereal]

9 hours ago, RadYogh said:

Well... Right now operators are useful only for 3 things:

1) Quickly void dash through the plains (short range only, on 500m+ range arching is a lot faster)

2) Safely revive somebody (though if his drone dies - he would have to die again to resurrect using X to revive his drone... (and I don't know why after so many years DE didn't fixed that damn thing - why there is no way to make the drone immortal or make it more tanky and somehow revive it unlimited amount of times per mission?...)

3) Eidolon hunting... (though what you get doing eidolon hunting is useful only for eidolon hunting)

Surely it's better than previous veruin of focus, but.... That's it. 

Don't forget Kuva, Killing the Stalker and Sentients on Lua.!

 

Also the Passive buffs from the Energize Dash or Rejuvenating Dash are nice along with some of the new Arcanes.

[Valarfax]

I don't understand the nerf to lightning dash? It's already barely worth investing the focus into given how much more useful other nodes are, but now you'll essentially be investing into a nerf for yourself? Nobody uses void dash for damage, it's for mobility so... having fewer dashes is just a straight downgrade. If you're gonna have us invest into a downgrade at least make it so that it gives us extra focus pool slots not takes them up. 

Not to mention Blazing Dash, which does more damage, doesn't cost any extra energy per second so I'm not quite sure what the thought process is here. 

 

Really nice buff to Unairu btw, might actually use it now. 100% damage reflection is nothing to scoff at.

- Oh the buff comes with sort of an armor nerf too. At least, for the higher armor frames. Unfortunate but still, 100% damage reflection is a lot more fun. 

[(XBOX)RAG is NAROK]

38 minutes ago, 3thereal said:

Operator Energy

Okay, then I'm not terribly worried. If it was warframe energy I would say it felt counter intuitive, seeing as most of us use this ability to get energy for our frames.

10 minutes ago, Valarfax said:

I don't understand the nerf to lightning dash?

Its probably because most of us invest in it for the whole energy restoration zone. Makes getting energy for our frames a lot easier (even easier then the original zenurik if you ask me). Honestly, I don't think the change is all that bad, it just means those of who use it for the energy zone need to be more mindful when we use it.

[Inumayobaka]

15 minutes ago, Valarfax said:

I don't understand the nerf to lightning dash? It's already barely worth investing the focus into given how much more useful other nodes are, but now you'll essentially be investing into a nerf for yourself? Nobody uses void dash for damage, it's for mobility so... having fewer dashes is just a straight downgrade. If you're gonna have us invest into a downgrade at least make it so that it gives us extra focus pool slots not takes them up. 

Not to mention Blazing Dash, which does more damage, doesn't cost any extra energy per second so I'm not quite sure what the thought process is here. 

 

Really nice buff to Unairu btw, might actually use it now. 100% damage reflection is nothing to scoff at.

- Oh the buff comes with sort of an armor nerf too. At least, for the higher armor frames. Unfortunate but still, 100% damage reflection is a lot more fun. 

You do realize that say, a Level 60 Bombard's missile at your Warframe would kill you but when 100% reflected to that Level 60 Bombard, is like.. barely any damage dealt?
So, you go down with 100% damage reflect but Bombard takes like.. 50 damage?

[Valarfax]

2 minutes ago, (Xbox One)RAG is NAROK said:

Okay, then I'm not terribly worried. If it was warframe energy I would say it felt counter intuitive, seeing as most of us use this ability to get energy for our frames.

Its probably because most of us invest in it for the whole energy restoration zone. Makes getting energy for our frames a lot easier (even easier then the original zenurik if you ask me). Honestly, I don't think the change is all that bad, it just means those of who use it for the energy zone need to be more mindful when we use it.

Yea but they didn't nerf energizing dash, they nerfed the upgrade after it. Most people invest into Energizing Dash and don't bother with Lightning Dash because it's just mediocre damage at best, it's sort of a waste of focus points. But now it'll just be a straight downgrade too, making your dash cost extra energy.

[Inumayobaka]

3 hours ago, Ardhanarishvara said:

Void Stalker ain't useless. It's just not something you go into Void Mode specifically for, generally speaking, but you keep it as a nice, temporary bonus to something else. Like when you go to revive someone, you pop out into operator in void mode and raise them up and when you go back to your Warframe, you've got added crit that I'm... pretty sure Blood Rush scales off of, which makes it good for crit-based melees like Jat Kusar.

Now, Void HUNTER, that's really questionable. Like maybe if you do a spy vault as operator it could be handy, but that's about it.

As for Void Radiance, I think that's meant to slightly increase safety if you're attacking as operator, as obviously you wanna hit and hide from the void dash. But the important bit is that it comes inherent to Void Strike, which is already a decent node but will be getting a SIGNIFICANT boost.

EDIT: And to the folks in general going "Oh, RIP Lightning Dash", you realize that you regain +10 energy every time you dash through an enemy, and that if you're using Lightning dash, you're going to be dashing through enemies with it, right? Not to mention the permanent +10 energy regen you've got on at all times in Zenurik.

This isn't even a significant nerf. It's like... a thing that exists. It's not notable in the slightest.

Like at most I figure this takes one dash off if you go from 100% energy to 0% energy and hit no enemies along the way. As if that's not still a significant distance with Void Dash and Void Capacity maxed out. It's not like anyone dashwarps that far in anything but the Plains regardless.

You know that Lightning Dash is still a Void Dash, right?

This means, when I'm on the Zenurik Focus, I am not just using Lightning Dash to kill enemies but also to traverse?

Unless you mean to tell me that we are supposed to make that node active/inactive based on whether we are killing enemies in a mission or not?

No.

You want to be both killing enemies with Lightning Dash and be using the Void Dash itself to traverse.

This is why the energy cost introduction ruins that ability now.

Finding enemies to Void Dash through since I have Lightning Dash active to travel around sounds ridiculous, don't you think?

[Valarfax]

2 minutes ago, Inumayobaka said:

You do realize that say, a Level 60 Bombard's missile at your Warframe would kill you but when 100% reflected to that Level 60 Bombard, is like.. barely any damage dealt?
So, you go down with 100% damage reflect but Bombard takes like.. 50 damage?

Yea, I don't expect to be able to afk and have all the enemies die. But it might be a nice little bit of bonus damage for anything other than super high armor grineer.

[(XBOX)RAG is NAROK]

2 minutes ago, Valarfax said:

Yea but they didn't nerf energizing dash, they nerfed the upgrade after it. Most people invest into Energizing Dash and don't bother with Lightning Dash because it's just mediocre damage at best, it's sort of a waste of focus points. But now it'll just be a straight downgrade too, making your dash cost extra energy.

Oh... well in that case I have no feedback sadly. Due to how expensive Focus 2.0 has been I haven't been able to invest in anything that I didn't think would help my frames or my operator. Hopefully with some of these new changes I will have enough points to invest in more options.

I still think DE missed a golden opportunity with turning Unairu into the medusa focus tree. Really wish I could turn more enemies to stone with Equinox (since she is the closest thing we have to a female/medusa frame in game at the moment).

[Valarfax]

Lightning Dash was more of a flavor thing honestly. If you had extra focus points to blow on something you could make your dash have a cool little lightning effect. Not that anyone really has extra focus points to blow yet. But now I can't really see many people investing into it even if they DO have a surplus of focus.

And you're right, Unairu could definitely use a lot more work. But at least they've taken a few steps in the right direction.

[(XBOX)RAG is NAROK]

4 minutes ago, Inumayobaka said:

You want to be both killing enemies with Lightning Dash and be using the Void Dash itself to traverse.

I do have a slight question. If DE made it so that Lightning Dash only applied when you actually dashed through an enemy (and exacted the cost then) but when you don't its just your standard Void Dash (or technically Energizing Dash), would this be that big of an issue.

I am just asking out of curiosity, I haven't had a chance to use Lightning Dash and I'm not sure DE is very clear with their plans for Lightning Dash (aside from the energy cost).

[Valarfax]

Nah, wouldn't really be an issue anymore in my opinion. But it would still be an unnecessary nerf. The damage is not that great, so it just feels weird to nerf it at all. It wouldn't be an issue anymore, but I would still scratch my head and go "why?". 

[Hououza]

I think my personal biggest concern, is that whilst these changes are very welcome, they still fail to address the core issue with Focus: the only optimal method for acquisition is exploitation of the stealth affinity multiplier mechanics, and it cannot be simply acquired through normal gameplay at anything approaching a reasonable rate.

I accept the desire to retain convergence for the time being, but without a significant boost in gain rates, tempered by the previously discussed diminishing returns system, focus remains an insurmountable grind wall that can only be conquered by task specific actions, rather than simply enjoying the game.

[Valarfax]

19 minutes ago, Hououza said:

I think my personal biggest concern, is that whilst these changes are very welcome, they still fail to address the core issue with Focus: the only optimal method for acquisition is exploitation of the stealth affinity multiplier mechanics, and it cannot be simply acquired through normal gameplay at anything approaching a reasonable rate.

I accept the desire to retain convergence for the time being, but without a significant boost in gain rates, tempered by the previously discussed diminishing returns system, focus remains an insurmountable grind wall that can only be conquered by task specific actions, rather than simply enjoying the game.

Agreed. But, I'm hesitant to give DE too much flak for not handling this as I believe they are working out the best way to accomplish this. We'll likely see this in Focus 3.0. I personally would prefer to do away with convergence entirely, as not only is it annoying having to go pick it up but since it usually spawns quite far away I've found myself having to leave my team or objective many times in search of it. It just distracts from the overall flow of the game rather than adding anything meaningful to it, in my opinion. 

[kowalsky386]

Nothing about focus gaining...

So the main problem still stands...

Guess we have to wait for focus  3.0? 

 

[Zharun]

Great so instead of removing additional energy costs for abilities in all trees you are actually adding more thereby instantly rendering those focus nodes completely useless since they reduce the operator mobility by reducing the number of consecutive void dashes or slashing the time spent in void mode for some tiny benefits that will never outweigh those losses.

Sad really, now zenurik has 3 downgrade abilities that nobody in their right mind will use.

I had a few extrapoints lying around a while ago and thought what the hell why not put them into Void Static, might be a bit of added flavor and fun. Well... even at max rank where it only drains 1 energy/sec I tried it in the plains and immediately went out and turned it off again because even then it reduced void dashes from 7 to 6 which is horrible for a basically 0 benefits node.

Please reconsider those changes and review abilities with downgrades because they will never be worth the lost mobility or invincibility without some HUGE buffs to their effects.

 

[BloodScythe91]

53 minutes ago, kowalsky386 said:

Guess we have to wait for focus  3.0? 

 

IF there EVER is a focus 3.0