Dev Workshop: Spores Revisited (Saryn)

[MageMachine]

While I like the fact we have a spread range and recast again, I'm a bit confused by the spore ramp changes.

While adding a cap is a good way to curb edge cases, atm it is easy to hit 3 spores per target, and considering how old spores dealt so much more damage via toxin spread, why nerf her ramp across the board when you're already implementing a cap that solves the place she's a issue in?

[LIKE_A_PR3DAT0R]

i like this change (hope they will work this time , and hope for no spore glitch for the entire game.... ) , but i don't like the fact that spore will not spread once the enemy die for the tick... i will leave the 8m range....

 

[Leqesai]

7 minutes ago, LIKE_A_PR3DAT0R said:

i like this change (hope they will work this time , and hope for no spore glitch for the entire game.... ) , but i don't like the fact that spore will not spread once the enemy die for the tick... i will leave the 8m range....

 

While this is sort of a bummer the extra range on ally kill should help the spread of spores tremendously.

[Top_Kekkonen]

Removing Spore tick damage spread will destroy Saryn.

[azerial1337]

It would be way better to just have her 1 release a cloud of spores instead of targeting. Super on flavor/theme and is way less awkward than to try and target something specifically.
it would be cool because the cloud could be affected by ability range and duration.
thinking once an enemy gets hit by the cloud they then spread spores as per normal.

[Showerwalker]

Problem with Saryn is that compare to end-game frames such as Chroma, Harrow, Nidus and Octavia, her scaling damage depends wayyy too much on enemy number than enemy level, even with this rework there are no other way for players to manually increase spores dmg by putting in more effort, whether by killing more enemies or completing certain tasks, and instead - just hit 10 and wait, very similar to before, kinda defeats the rework's purpose. (I know dying-to-tick no longer spread, but due to the current range bug, we already have to reapply spore several times, keep reading)

IMO if Saryn really have to be reworked into a scaling warframe thats fun and not a tool player use to deal with Onslaught specifically

is her survivability..

Spoiler

her survivability would really need some work, and it seems to be overlooked in all of her reworks, compare to the frames mentioned above, her only tool close to survivability is her 2, and sometimes it really isn't as reliable, lots of players use her 2's regen-augment in end-game just to push 20 or so level further (~15mins more mission time?), before going back to hide and spore to not risk losing stack entirely, despite dying-to-tick won't help spread, because Saryn'd die to 2-3 hits anyway, you just can't force players to play otherwise, I means she's a pestilence frame, why does she feels more like common cold than a plague.

 

PS:

Spoiler

right now focus provide nothing for the current warframe gameplay come on DE, I mean apart from 2-3 nodes, the rest only help you to genocide eidolons for more focus that helps you genocide more eidolons, which is definitely not why Focus was introduced and promised in the first place, hint hint look at Path of Exile for some inspiration. And it's stupidly tedious and burnt-out xp-based progression system is really pushing the game to an unhealthy extreme, too many fresh players, too many, are spending more time in xp farms instead of exploring the game, I mean they're doing it willingly though, which sorta says something about warframe's current player pool...

 

Anyway, this new rework is definitely a step up. good stuff !

[Top_Kekkonen]

1 minute ago, Showerwalker said:

Problem with Saryn is that compare to end-game frames such as Chroma, Harrow, Nidus and Octavia, her scaling damage depends wayyy too much on enemy number than enemy level, even with this rework there are no other way for players to manually increase spores dmg by putting in more effort, whether by killing more enemies or completing certain tasks, and instead - just hit 10 and wait, very similar to before, kinda defeats the rework's purpose. (I know dying-to-tick no longer spread, but due to the current range bug, we already have to reapply spore several times, keep reading)

IMO if Saryn really have to be reworked into a scaling warframe thats fun and not a tool player use to deal with Onslaught specifically

is her survivability..

  Reveal hidden contents

her survivability would really need some work, and it seems to be overlooked in all of her reworks, compare to the frames mentioned above, her only tool close to survivability is her 2, and sometimes it really isn't as reliable, lots of players use her 2's regen-augment in end-game just to push 20 or so level further (~15mins more mission time?), before going back to hide and spore to not risk losing stack entirely, despite dying-to-tick won't help spread, because Saryn'd die to 2-3 hits anyway, you just can't force players to play otherwise, I means she's a pestilence frame, why does she feels more like common cold than a plague.

 

PS:

  Reveal hidden contents

right now focus provide nothing for the current warframe gameplay come on DE, I mean apart from 2-3 nodes, the rest only help you to genocide eidolons for more focus that helps you genocide more eidolons, which is definitely not why Focus was introduced and promised in the first place, hint hint look at Path of Exile for some inspiration. And it's stupidly tedious and burnt-out xp-based progression system is really pushing the game to an unhealthy extreme, too many fresh players, too many, are spending more time in xp farms instead of exploring the game, I mean they're doing it willingly though, which sorta says something about warframe's current player pool...

 

Anyway, this new rework is definitely a step up. good stuff !

Chroma is not end game bud.

[SyBuhr]

Very much appreciate some of these changes.

Hopefully you can throw in a QoL change, to allow spores to remain on enemies who become corrupted in void missions? Right now, Fissures cure the spores, so it's pretty useless to use them.

[Showerwalker]

Just now, Top_Kekkonen said:

Chroma is not end game bud.

oops, forgot. used to be, not as good anymore, I'll still leave it in, since he's passable for sortie so, at least we have that.

[Aldrr]

Sound changes overall.

Although, in my opinion, if an enemy dies to a spore then the spores should spread to nearby enemies--- otherwise Saryn might go back to the energy hungry casting frame she was.

How about a penalty on the spreading spores to "take some of the edge off?" A damage drop (not a total reset to base) so that the new spores have to ramp up again on the new enemy?

and/or

a reduced spread range for spores that killed their hosts

[myuushii]

On 2018-05-24 at 4:56 AM, Khlamydia said:

Basically, I see Warframes pathing AI is just too poor and or slow to justify removing this spread on death feature. It's keeping the wave based missions fun and fast without making them into a tedious chore to complete. Tedium isnt fun.

If you have to hunt down every single dude to spread the power around, why am i not just killing the enemy with the gun in the first place?

This. Especially the latter part. Why bother using spores instead of just trashing enemies with OP weapon #162? I just switched to Energy Syphon aura thanks to the corrosive spores but I might as well ignore spores altogether if they become such a hassle to maintain and contribute to dmg. Just slap the armor aura on it and run armor stripper weapon X instead. 

I did immensely enjoy the new Saryn playstyle but now we're entering phase where constant nerf/buffs and changes are going to happen until nothing seems to fit and the original idea of her kit won't exist anymore. Someone mentioned to simply weaken the spores that spread by death tick as they keep "passively" spreading (but can get overriden by the other variants of spores spreading). I feel like that would fix this whole issue much simpler and more elegant.

Also the one ability that should have been looked at was Molt imo. It barely contributes to survival as it is just a decoy ability, the only thing you get is a very expensive heal by losing a mod slot (which is fine and works). But since you have to move around a ton, and enemies most likely die in your previous location, you'll just draw fire elsewhere. Plus I still get hit a lot in somewhat close proximity of Molt. I just kind of swapped Molt for Toxic Lash with the ability I barely use. Although I don't want it to allow casting spores back on again. I feel like it should have a greater lure effect or something, or directly help Saryn survival for a short moment after casting instead of the speed boost which is just there to run away from Molt and basically waste energy instead of just jumping. (I know I'm exaggerating the uselessness of Molt but that's what it feels like to me whenever I cast it).

[Rankii]

7 hours ago, Huanthus said:

The thing is that spore damage does not reset at the moment there are not infected enemies it just starts decaying so the staying power would remain the same while being active,  also it eliminates the necessity of going only range and enables other builds,  i had a fairly balanced build even fitting in 2 augments on it but had to change it to a more glass canon one due to not being able to Compete in damage or kills per secind to full range Saryns.  I actually welcome These changes

Dragging down other players so that you can compete is a scummy mindset.

[amadeusgrim]

3 hours ago, Chroia said:

2 damage per sec per spore, before Strength modifier.
3 spores per enemy, 10 enemies max. That's 60 damage per sec at base, nowhere near 300.

i dont think you read that right

Changed: Damage growth is determined per enemy infected, so 2 damage (can be modded with Ability Strength) per enemy infected by Spores every second up to a maximum of 10 enemies. So, using that same example, 5 infected enemies would set the damage growth to 10 damage every second (Modded damage growth of x * # of enemies infected up to 10). Reaching 10 infected enemies would set the maximum damage growth at 20 every second.

according to this the growth of damage is capped at 10 every second at 10 enemies . if we have 3 spores on 10 enemies which increase at a rate of 10 an enemy meaning each enemy would contribute a growth in damage of 30 because its per spore. meaning if we have 10 enemies i should be seeing that 30 x 10.

[amadeusgrim]

6 hours ago, Huanthus said:

Do have it still hard hitting enemies will one or 2 hit you and if there is a swarm not even molt will help due to some of them not targeting molt and still hitting you

well i use steel fiber too so that couples to give me good survivability. arcane is like insurance when im getting peppered  and i make sure to cast molt most the time

with miasma when im ready to

[(XBOX)B0NGR1P54JESUS]

I'm a console player and haven't really been keeping up on her like I'd like too. Starting from the beginning...she was released, then nerfed big time, to where she is now on console...I heard she got reworked to a point where she was almost OP. Is this a seperate rework in this post or the rework of the rework?

[amadeusgrim]

5 minutes ago, (XB1)B0NGR1P54JESUS said:

I'm a console player and haven't really been keeping up on her like I'd like too. Starting from the beginning...she was released, then nerfed big time, to where she is now on console...I heard she got reworked to a point where she was almost OP. Is this a seperate rework in this post or the rework of the rework?

this is the rework after she became op

[Emolition]

I don't know if this is correct but it feels like it. The spores don't seem to stack with othere saryn spores so if you have 2 or more saryns in the group it near impossible to spread spore. First 1 to get the spread pretty much keep it until the spread is wiped out.  Not sure if this could be fixed without it becomming to OP or if it just something else that blocks the spread.

[(PSN)Eluminary]

These changes seem mostly fine, I was worried you guys were gonna end up killing her but she should remain pretty good in ESO with these changes.

 

 One thing I would like to see is her perform a little better with other Saryns.  Currently spores compete against each other and it kinda diminishs the effectiveness of each.  it would be nice if  an enemy could be infected with multiple Saryn's spores.

 

 I know you can avoided this by making your own team but I typically just go matchmaking, which many others do aswell.

 

[TheGuyver]

Well, I guess I'm just going to start using Equinox 24/7 for Maim like everyone else does with these changes. Since her 50+ meter AOE murder wheel seems to be totally safe from any sort of changes.

[Konachibi]

Also to note on the whole 'spores don't spread if the tick kills them', all this will do is make Saryn players use a weapon like the Ignis and run around spraying randomly, it'll be just as effective.  Since I've been farming focus in Sanctuary Onslaught with Saryn, my usual tactic was to Spore something, kill it, then play 'chase the corpses' so that all subsequent enemies that spawn will run towards where the spores are so that when the final enemy is spored on the edge of the map, I can kill it so that it spreads to the enemies chasing me from behind to keep the flow going, like a fatal version of the mexican wave.  All I'd have to do to keep this same tactic working is to swap my weapon out from the Hema to the Ignis and fire randomly while chasing the corpses to make sure the spores keep going.  You think you're making Saryn more active by making her have to shoot things, but you're not, you're just forcing players down a particular route of using a specific weapon to better benefit her abilities while getting the same exact effect, which destroys all creativity.

The simple case is this.  Spores is and forever will be a 'fire & forget' ability so long as it works under the idea of 'apply to an enemy, kill enemy, other enemies become spored'.  No matter how much you tweak it's damage output or it's spread range or how it is spread, it will ALWAYS be 'fire & forget' because that is simply how it is designed to work.  You go on how she takes charge in Sanctuary Onslaught, a mission type that relies heavily on warframes being able to deal out a lot of damage constantly, but Saryn is a damage-type frame.  She's not a support or a tank or a crowd controller, she's a pure-bred damage frame, just like Ember and Mag and Mesa and Valkyr and Nova and Mirage and so many others.  They're MEANT to take charge in a mission that involves killing things in rapid succession, that's what DPS frames do!  Your concern over this would be better spent on working out how frames like Limbo or Nyx could better benefit from Sanctuary Onslaught because right now they're practically useless in it since their abilities aren't designed for mass murder.

[Huanthus]

12 minutes ago, Rankii said:

Dragging down other players so that you can compete is a scummy mindset.

Its not dragging down, nor its scummy mindset, it is about fun factor if im the one doing all the damage or other person is the one and all players in a group are DD then 3 people are wating their time because they cant kill anything,  being carried once in a while is not bad per se but if you cant enjoy a game mode due to a set and forget mechanic its not fair to anyone you are almost forced to play that way killing also the creativity factor in builds. 

Also if your solution is to  just leave group and requeue again that cannot be accepted because this is a cooperative pve game,  hence this change that rewards all players not just saryn glass cannons with lots of range is the right choice. 

[MunsuLight]

Il y a 5 heures, Zilotz a dit :

How about making it a bit better for us?

like

  Masquer le contenu

Spread Condition	Old Base Range	New Base Range
When shooting a Spore	16m	16m
When hitting (but not killing) an enemy with Toxic Lash active	16m	16m
When killing an enemy with or without Toxic Lash on	8m	16m
When an ally kills an enemy	8m	16m
When a Spore’s tick damage kills an enemy	8m	8m

That will still let spores spread on edge of attack so they wont die off too fast.

I kind of agree with that post ... 

I think of all the proposed change .. you shouldnt remove the Spore tick kills an enemy interaction.. 

Rest seems pretty fine .. The damage wont ramp us as crazily as it was.. but it would still be good for most content.. and a little nerf for her ESO

And you should really put "more aggro" on her molt .. Rest of her kit is pretty fine ..

[Konachibi]

15 minutes ago, Huanthus said:

Its not dragging down, nor its scummy mindset, it is about fun factor if im the one doing all the damage or other person is the one and all players in a group are DD then 3 people are wating their time because they cant kill anything,  being carried once in a while is not bad per se but if you cant enjoy a game mode due to a set and forget mechanic its not fair to anyone you are almost forced to play that way killing also the creativity factor in builds. 

Also if your solution is to  just leave group and requeue again that cannot be accepted because this is a cooperative pve game,  hence this change that rewards all players not just saryn glass cannons with lots of range is the right choice. 

The problem with that is that frames aren't really designed to synergise with each other, they only synergise with their own abilities.  While the game is co-operative based, no player is going to forfeit their own powers for the sake of the other players in the group.  If they have the power to destroy every enemy within a 50 meter radius, they will do it.  Nerf Saryn to give other players a chance to get shots off and people will just start using Equinox instead, or a high range Octavia or Oberon or Mesa or any other frame that can drop enemies in a heartbeat, hell, even Nezha can nuke an entire room of enemies in a single press of 4 with the right build.  This is the reality of warframe as a whole, no matter what the group setup is, there'll always be one player that can and probably will carry and control the group, either through the use of particular weapons, builds or the frame they're using. 

The only way to stop it happening is to rework and nerf the vast majority of damage dealing frames so that their abilities can't 1-shot everything, which would then mean everyone in a group would have to work together, but it'd also completely kill solo play and make it impossible for players to progress through the starmap without using public matchmaking since the good damage dealing frames are all on later planets or quests locked behind high MR, which will still suck for them due to players with absolutely terrible connections causing horrid lag and making some missions unplayable in that group, or the player being forced to wait around in endless missions until everyone is prepared to leave.

You simply cannot stop frames from doing what they do best.  Saryn passively kills everything with Spores, Ember passively kills everything with World On Fire, Equinox passively kills everything with Maim, Mirage passively kills everything with Prism, Nova passively kills everything with Molecular Prime... it's just what they're meant to do.

[LuminousShot]

I love these ideas. It appears like an all around solid design, especially due to the decay mechanic instead of instantly removing the buildup. Also, the workshop itself explains everything a lot better than the last one. There are just a few more questions and ideas from me.

The decay mechanic in combination with nullification is a bit unclear.

Assuming I have a buildup of 1000 and a duration 100%, on the next decay tick I should lose 100 damage without active spores. What exactly happens when I have a nullification effect. Will it be percentage lost + 30% (i.e. 30% with active spores and 40% without) or will it be percentage lost * 1.3 (0% with active spores and 13% without)? Both value ranges seem wrong to me, especially in regards to the conduit. Even if you jump inside with active spores on an enemy, the gain will be next to nothing because of the time slowdown (which I believe doesn't affect any effects on the warframe, just the movement) and over the duration of 5+ seconds (which many say is too long anyway) you'll lose over 80% of your buildup. For the conduit specifically it would be more sensible if we lost 30% once, especially since we lose another 20% when we have to recast the ability anyway. That way we'd come out with about 50% of our buildup remaining.

Picture this, you're stuck in the admittedly very pretty transition animation, but it's ruined because your eyes are glued to your spore damage that gets completely gimped while you're unable to do anything about it.

[lihimsidhe]

9 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

*We’ve outright removed spread on enemies that die to a Spore’s tick damage. Being the only wholly passive way to spread Spores, it allowed for that “set it and forget it” play style we were trying combat with Saryn in the original workshop. 

This would be fine in a game where the AI wasn't braindead AF that easily encouraged 'set it and forget it' gameplay on so many levels to begin with.  The clearest way I can exemplify this is Atlas's Tectonics. If you mean to tell me that a cyborg soldier thousands of years in the future can't mount a chest high wall that my 10 year old daughter could if I simply asked her nicely to, then that mentality to balance mechanics around AI that is enfeebled and impaired beyond belief will perpetually increase balance workload and scope exponentially more than it ever needs to be.  In other words... if DE assumed that the Grineer/Corpus/Infested had common sense + a communication network they would PROBABLY think of countermeasures like, "Hey we keep getting rekt by Spores... let's send in our future reinforcements with anti Spore countermeasures." or w/e the most spammed ability was over time.  Until the AI programmers are allowed to go wild past let's say level 100, this power fantasy vs balance dichotomy will always be so much more needlessly back and and forth.

The approach DE has towards AI reminds me of the movie 'Signs'.  You mean to tell me that none of those aliens even thought for a second about raincoats????  That plothole envelops the entirety of Warframe's AI.

As for Saryn herself....

Spore

Going by the Saryn Prime trailer she was designed to combat Infested.  Infested are a faction that barely has armor.  With that said her Spore having the default element of Corrosive directly contradicts the lore.  That's akin to the Frost Prime trailer conveying his main element is Cold to combat the flames of whatever but in game his default element is... electricity.

Additionally DE is making Spore so much more complex than it needs to be. If we go by the most devastating plague in human history with an example being:

"The Black Death was terrifyingly, indiscriminately contagious: “the mere touching of the clothes,” wrote Boccaccio, “appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the toucher.” The disease was also terrifyingly efficient. People who were perfectly healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning."

It sure sounds like dead bodies could still spread the plague.  So thousands of years in the future yet Saryn < less lethal than the Black Plague.  Is this why the Orokin had such a tough time with the Sentient?

Make the enemies smarter and more capable.  Don't contradict Saryn's own lore or make her weaker than what has come before in IRL history.

Molt

The main issue I have with this is... the only reason it works as a distraction is because once again the enemies are dumb AF.  If Molt posed an actual threat like emitting a small gas cloud it would make more sense why enemies would shoot it.  Left as is, without a narrative explanation of why they shoot it Molt's bread and butter rests entirely on the enemies being extraordinarily dumb.

Also how Molt's texture briefly appears on Saryn looks COOL AS #*!%. There seems to be a lot of potential to go deep into what this ability could be other than a speed boost and a pinata for the dumbest enemies in all of sci fi.

Toxin Lash

This ability is nearly perfect as is.  Please just make the Contagion Cloud augment scale of the inflicting weapons mods as well even if it's in a very minor fashion.

Miasma

This attack should inflict Corrosive, Gas, and Viral damage with their respective procs.  Why?  Because I know for certain that someone at DE had to see Naraku from the series Inuyasha use his Miasma attack, push it up as a suggestion, and it got turned down for w/e reason.  I'm here to say that employee was right.  Make it visually appear to be an actual 'gas cloud of death and disease' and just load up on the most potent toxin hybrid elements Warframe has to offer.

I really want DE and Warframe to succeed to insane heights because that brings us all closer to a Warframe anime and in such an anime, Saryn would not be using a Corrosive Spore to combat a faction that has virtually no armor, the antagonists would not be attacking a Molt for no reason, and where an attack called Miasma would be an actual cloud of death and disease.