Simulacrum and its needed updates.

[Fallen_Echo]

Hello there, Tenno!

Today i wanna talk about the Simulacrum and its needed updates.

As many know it already the Simulacrum is one of the most important place a player can unlock as it grants access to an infinietly replayable test area to find out build strenghts, enemy weaknesses, optional strategies and to find bugs.

Due to this every QoL update targeting the Simulacrum is a welcome one soo lets see what can we still improve here.

 

Lets start with the problems:

1. The base area doesnt have wall. This problem is pretty straightforward, you cannot effectively test out weapons if every shot can push the enemies down the ledges.

How to fix it? Simply add a force barrier to the ledges. No more ruined experience because your target decided to fall into the deep "hole" in this simulation.

Bonus: It would be nice if we could get a movement restrictor too, soo enemies dont even move or react to push/pull effects. Im not sure what others think about it but i hate that ancients play that annoying idle animation of theirs continously or the fact that many weapons push the targets away while i want to test out their effective DPS.

2. We dont have a neutral target. We only have enemies to test on what we met and scanned.

For basic testing it would be nice if we could have a simple target dummy what we could set its health, shield and armor modifiers on it. Perfect for precision testing and bug hunting.

3. Our mods are limited and fixed what seriously hinders the actual value of a simulation area.

The simpliest fix for this problem would be to give the players an access to a Simularcum mod pack. In this mod pack every existing mod is showed with every level range possible. IF you ever wanted to test out how would your build work with a level 4 blind rage you know this struggle, you would need to get another one just for testing but with this change you could do it without wasting trades.

4. The area is as far from "reality" as it can.

Now this might be not straightforward for most people but it would be nice if we could simulate tilesets too. If the system would apply tileset based spawn system too we could effectively make combat simulations and could test out several bugs too.

5. We need ways to cripple ourselves.

Ever run a certain sortie or nightmare run where the strange modifiers played against you? Well it could be great to apply these effects to us just for the sake of advancing testing quality.

6. We need a way to spawn allies for us.

We can now invite players to the simulation with us but this is slow and not everybody is free for extensive testings. So how about letting us spawn specter variants of frames with customizable mod loadouts? Ever wanted to run faster than hitscan bullets but dont have a Volt nearby? Spawn a max strenght Volt and some other speed booster frames and find it out. Combined this with point 5 grants excellent chances to test several problems and find out great team compositions.

Now some QoL changes:

1. Add in an advanced damage system report to the Simulacrum.

For extensive testing we need to know numbers. How many hits we achieved, what was the damage of each one, what was the effective status and crit rate, which shots critted or procced status and how much damage they done, how much was the damage that got resisted and by what and soo on...

These are the information what is needed by every min-maxer, tester and bug hunter.

2. Add in enemy alliance.

Different factions should only be hostile to others if it is commanded. While this does not really change the quality of a test it would be still a nice addition.

3. Add in realistic enemy level settings.

When was the last time you seen a level 100 bombard spawning along with a level 100 butcher? This thing never happens, so for realism sake add in an option to scale the levels of enemies realistically if desired.

4. Add in a FUBAR mode. (warning this acronym contains swearing, search it at your own risk)

Those who are not familiar with the word it practically means a situation where everything is lost mostly used in military, movies and in some games. If the player tick in this option he gets spawned in a random generated tileset with randomised enemy factions, levels and modifiers. This is a sandbox one-against-all mode where one could test his mind and persistence.

5. All unlocked mode.

Similar to the upper all mod mode, there should be a way to use every possible weapons and frames ingame for testings.

 

Finally to make this more interesting Simaris should get new ways to introduce players to these changes.

There should be several small quests where Simaris send us out to get specific items, scans and such to upgrade his systems.

Such as:

Data cluster hunt: Simaris gives out a special scanner what is requied to scan the cephalon memory fragments to get additional data for his simulation.

Anomaly hunt: Simaris tasks the players to enter places where there are active anomalies to gather data. The players must enter various anomalies with their frames for Simaris to gather information on how their frames handle such effects.

Community founding: Upgrading such system is expensive so a community founding based even would be great to motivate players. (also great way to get rid of excess materials in the system).

 

This is all, for now.

If you have any other suggestion on what could get put in the Simularcum please feel free to post it.

[p3z1]

53 minutes ago, Fallen_Echo said:

5. All unlocked mode.

Similar to the upper all mod mode, there should be a way to use every possible weapons and frames ingame for testings.

I could care less about everything else really. this is probably the MOST important one of them all

[Midas]

Should be noted loki’s Disarm and various abilities do not work on allies in the simulacrum. Was about to criticize your realism leveling but I see you stated it as optional. Many players need selective levels and mobs for damage tests. Overall good layout and you have my +1.

[(PSN)TheHypothes]

I'd mainly be happy if we could toggle a wall on/off from the console. That's literally all I want lol. Any other upgrades would be welcome too.

It'd also be nice if we could just travel there from Liset, but I'm fine to not have it.

[SigmaBlack]

hace 7 horas, Fallen_Echo dijo:

4. Add in a FUBAR mode. (warning this acronym contains swearing, search it at your own risk)

Those who are not familiar with the word it practically means a situation where everything is lost mostly used in military, movies and in some games. If the player tick in this option he gets spawned in a random generated tileset with randomised enemy factions, levels and modifiers. This is a sandbox one-against-all mode where one could test his mind and persistence.

OMG, THIS WOULD BE SOOOOOO MUCH FUN!

No, really, imagine that: a party of 4 about to enter the FUBAR, watched by hundreds/thousands of viewers on a stream, just to actually be received with a napalm fire/bombard rocket to the face in the first second.

Good laughs for everyone and their mom included. You have my +1 if only for that.

All the other things? Spot on, mate. Ridiculously well done job 

[PrivateRiem]

What the simulacrum used to look like. Yeah, it was ugly, but the floor wasn't full of holes everywhere for no logical reason.

The current simulacrum, on a technical level, is great, but the updated map is god awful and has been god awful since they released it.

[Fallen_Echo]

9 hours ago, SigmaBlack said:

OMG, THIS WOULD BE SOOOOOO MUCH FUN!

No, really, imagine that: a party of 4 about to enter the FUBAR, watched by hundreds/thousands of viewers on a stream, just to actually be received with a napalm fire/bombard rocket to the face in the first second.

Good laughs for everyone and their mom included. You have my +1 if only for that.

All the other things? Spot on, mate. Ridiculously well done job 

Not just that, imagine going in armed to teeth into the "arena" thinking you gonna fight grineer when suddenly John Prodman spawns accompanied with 4 frost eximus juggernauts all set in an enchanted viral damage sceniario.

This is a true endurance test.

[(PSN)Crixus044]

I honestly miss the old simulacrum map, but this is just a personal issue.

What the simulacrum needs is an expansion of levels. We got 9999 levels, yet we can only play with the 100s. Sure daily content only goes up to 100 (different issue for different time), but it's very hard to test some of the more powerful builds because honestly, level 100 is too low, and for us endurance runners, it's even harder. In a devstream, the highest level enemy they could spawn was 5000. I see no reason why not to bring this into the game. 

The 20 enemy count is alright, but i would like to see an expansion to 50. It's not like killing more powerful in a test lab will help me break the game. It does make builds that require combo counters like melee and snipers much easier to test.

I have a more detailed post here

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/893224-simulacrum-improvements/