Eidolon Captures Are Too Limited

[Hecking_Birb]

The Eidolon cap meta. Everyone who's done one knows how it always goes: Volt, Chroma, Harrow, Trinity. Trinity heals lures, Harrow protects the team during spikes, Chroma deals with synovas, and Volt deploys charged shields so the plot devices can deal more damage to the Eidolon's shields. The meta never moves, and if you try to take something other than those 4 to a team that's serious (as in a team that wants to get it done fast), you're sure to be met with backlash. Why? Well, because there's no reason to take any other warframe to this. Sure, sometimes the Harrow can be swapped for a Limbo or an Oberon or an Ivara (w/ Empowered Quiver), but the other three are absolute musts.

The problem is, in my eyes, a really big one. This means there's no variety in captures, leading to every single one feeling the exact same, save for what role you play in it, and that's a real shame. It's a really fun concept that I do genuinely enjoy, but only every once in a while, which is clearly not what DE intended considering how the Eidolons are integrated with the Quills, Focus, and Arcanes. You have to do a lot of them to get big gains, just like you need to do a lot of fissures or a lot of survivals for what you want. I do, however, have a solution.

DE needs to allow the Eidolons to be affected by way more things. A larger variety of warframes being able to do much of anything to an Eidolon means that teams can finally see some real variety in what's chosen. Blinds, such as Gara's passive or Excalibur's Radial Blind/Howl, would be able to stagger the Eidolon (but not really blind it like a normal enemy), perhaps making it more vulnerable or just to interrupt an action it's about to perform. Frost's Snow Globe would be able to defend against projectiles from the Eidolons, and since it's defense from all angles, this means Volt would have serious competition. It would also be interesting for Freeze to actually freeze certain parts of an Eidolon, such as its legs to stop it in place, or its gun arm to keep it from firing. It would be brief, and not affected by any mods, but long enough that it's valuable. There's a plethora of other warframes, but I wanted to give an idea of how this very fun activity can go from limited and repetitive, to varied and interesting.

TL;DR: More warframe abilities should be able to affect the Eidolon in some way, as to allow for greater variety in team composition.

[Fishyflakes]

Alright if this is a shill for Limbo and Ivara with an augment then I agree the meta is a much more sane choice.

Hopefully the next Eidolons in Venus are more difficult though so we don't get this +200 Hydro caps to get a decent squad shenanigans.

[Hecking_Birb]

Just now, Fishyflakes said:

Alright if this is a shill for Limbo and Ivara with an augment then I agree the meta is a much more sane choice.

Hopefully the next Eidolons in Venus are more difficult though so we don't get this +200 Hydro caps to get a decent squad shenanigans.

Difficult and different. Hopefully.

[Zavenosk]

Venus isn't going to have a day-night like Cetus has.  I am hoping, however, that there is some sort of timegating. As nice a sentiment as expanding the capture meta is, we all know that the playerbase in general will meta the frack out of anything and everything. By limiting the number of rewards in a time period, the meta could be less what gets things done fastest for what people prefer to use - within their roles, of course. 

[-QUILL_PETER-]

But you can do eidolons with whatever frame you want. What you fail to realize is that there will always be a meta. No matter how thin you slice it, a particular assortment of frames and gear will always be slightly better, and thus used the most.

[taiiat]

32 minutes ago, Hecking_Birb said:

The meta never moves, and if you try to take something other than those 4 to a team that's serious (as in a team that wants to get it done fast), you're sure to be met with backlash.

only because 99% of the community is simply copy pasting from Youtube/Twitch as usual, and since they are uneducated about the game, won't color even slightly outside of the lines they were given, even if those lines only cover a small portion of the entire canvas.

Volt is a crucial keystone to the entire Squad part, and Trinity is the most practical Healer - but outside of that there are plenty of choices that can be almost imperceptibly effective. but people don't use or try them because they don't think for themselves.

 

making the Enemies react to more types of things in the game would be great, but that's not going to really change anything. neat features but the masses apparently won't understand how to use them.
just look at how many random Harrow's that struggle to press one button every time they hear a really loud ping sound. it's so simple and they have trouble with even that.

15 minutes ago, Zavenosk said:

Venus isn't going to have a day-night like Cetus has.  I am hoping, however, that there is some sort of timegating. As nice a sentiment as expanding the capture meta is, we all know that the playerbase in general will meta the frack out of anything and everything. By limiting the number of rewards in a time period, the meta could be less what gets things done fastest for what people prefer to use - within their roles, of course. 

that literally makes no sense. the MORE your opportunity to play is gated, THE MORE of a necessity the simplest form of Efficiency is. because you need to make the most of what little time you're allowed to play in the first place.
rather than something that is available at all times, meaning efficiency isn't crucial because you could still get your stuff later or a bit slower overall.

right now, the reason why the game is toxic in regards to Eidolon Hunting, is because there is a very specific timeframe that the Players looking to play that are ALLOWED to play it at all. the difference between getting a couple triple Captures done per night vs 5 or 6 is upwards of 300% efficiency as otherwise.
where instead if you could play it 24/7, the efficiency gain of completing a set a minute or two faster would be single digit percentages because you could simply play more to increase your Rewards.
but since you can't do that, completing an Eidolon Hunt a minute faster is a very big increase to Rewards over time. and so, being efficient is then very important. you don't really see this elsewhere in the game, because the efficient choice doesn't really have any impact on the speed of Mission Rewards (at times a small one). if they could only play that Survival Mission once every 4 hours though, then the efficient options would be used by everyone. because they need to get the most out of what little opportunity they were given.

 

limiting Mission availability will in absolutely no way "allow people to use what they prefer to use". it does the exact opposite.

[Chewarette]

3 hours ago, -QUILL_PETER- said:

But you can do eidolons with whatever frame you want. What you fail to realize is that there will always be a meta. No matter how thin you slice it, a particular assortment of frames and gear will always be slightly better, and thus used the most.

The problem lies more with the 4 mentioned Warframes than the fact that a Meta will exist for every single content.

I mean, Trinity is meta because she's the only one able to efficiently heal the Lures (healing with Oberon is painful, Equinox will never be able to stack her Mend, Harrow cannot kill stuff on range, Limbo needs an augment and manually heal Lures one by one...). Volt emphasizes the greatest strength of any high-damage weapons : Crits. Chroma is the only frame with a x5 damage buff (for some reason Mirage +500% is not as powerful as Chroma's, plus I'm not even sure you can be in Damage buff from Eclipse during the night in Cetus ). Harrow not a big deal though, could be replaced.

For sure there will always be a meta. Like picking Magnetic damage will be a bit better to deal with Corpus, but you'll not be 100% useless with Corrosive. But in the case of Tridolon hunting, the difference between Meta and not-Meta is huge.

I agree there should be some different things to Eidolon. Simple fixes like

- Prevent Chroma from stacking from self-damage (don't really understand that's still the case after nerfing Trinity and Nidus links for the reason that "it's overpowered"). That would still be possible to stack but with a bit more complexity, I would be okay with that

- Allow a few other Warframes' spells to affect the Synovias (for example, Synovias being affected by Banshee's Sonar would make her totally viable in Eidolon hunting)

- "0" damage should never increase Snipers combo damage, wtf is this DE 

Edited July 2, 2018 by Chewarette

[Tenno.Rukasu]

Well I did some hunts +700, and you can use others Warframe besides meta ones. Chroma can be switched for Rhino or Octavia, Harrow for Oberon or Limbo, Trinity for also for Oberon. And Eidolons shields can be done without Volt shield.

Issue isn't with Warframe, problem is the community. They are just not open minded. Some players are creative and do like new stuff, moving away from the meta. But others, like 90%, are not initiative and just wanna do the optimal and highest damage possible.

But must say, that particular squad is effective. Chroma dmg, Volt shield +200% critical dmg to amps, Harrow protection and critical buff, Trinity healing and dmg reduction. Don't think that others Warframe can beat that combo. 

[Hecking_Birb]

I don't notice a Warframe meta much of anywhere besides Eidolon caps, since nowadays most everything works for everything. It's specifically Eidolon caps that have this issue, purely because such a specific set of abilities actually do good work, and the rest aren't worth bothering with.

Certain warframes are picked more for certain missions, of course. Volt's good for sabotages, rescues, and captures, Excalibur does well in Exterminate, Saryn, Vauban, Frost, Gara, and a few others are great at Defense, Harrow, Nidus, Rhino, Octavia, and a few others are great at Survival, and some other examples I forget. That's not really a meta though, that's just using frames that have a good skillset for that mission. Wukong is good for Orokin Interception, and certain bosses, but falls short at just about anything else. I used to see countless people posting in recruiting about Bere levelling with certain frames, but now, nobody seems to care about organized XP farms at all. Hydron works so well in pugs and gives so much that not going there is just extra work. I haven't seen someone require a certain frame for a certain mission for so long, except in Eidolon caps.

The meta does not exist until a meta is required.

[TioMegaManX]

That may explain why people leave the squad after a Teralyst if I dare to join (that is, public, not a group) with anything except those frames, I can tear down eidolon joints with ease just with my rifle of choice but apparently I am always the weakest link just because I try to stay alive.

[Julian_Skies]

On 2018-07-01 at 11:15 PM, taiiat said:

That literally makes no sense. the MORE your opportunity to play is gated, THE MORE of a necessity the simplest form of Efficiency is. because you need to make the most of what little time you're allowed to play in the first place.

rather than something that is available at all times, meaning efficiency isn't crucial because you could still get your stuff later or a bit slower overall.

right now, the reason why the game is toxic in regards to Eidolon Hunting, is because there is a very specific timeframe that the Players looking to play that are ALLOWED to play it at all. the difference between getting a couple triple Captures done per night vs 5 or 6 is upwards of 300% efficiency as otherwise.
where instead if you could play it 24/7, the efficiency gain of completing a set a minute or two faster would be single digit percentages because you could simply play more to increase your Rewards.
but since you can't do that, completing an Eidolon Hunt a minute faster is a very big increase to Rewards over time. and so, being efficient is then very important. you don't really see this elsewhere in the game, because the efficient choice doesn't really have any impact on the speed of Mission Rewards (at times a small one). if they could only play that Survival Mission once every 4 hours though, then the efficient options would be used by everyone. because they need to get the most out of what little opportunity they were given.

 

limiting Mission availability will in absolutely no way "allow people to use what they prefer to use". it does the exact opposite.

Actually, if something is available at all times THEN efficiency becomes important. Why? Because you can get the reward as often as you want in the available time frame.

What one needs is not a time gate on attempts (like the cetus time cycle), but a time gate on rewards (like sorties). That way it doesn't matter if you're super efficient or not because there is a cap on efficiency, how many rewards you can get on a given day.

Perhaps one a day is too little, but endless a day is also too much.

[taiiat]

8 hours ago, Julian_Skies said:

Actually, if something is available at all times THEN efficiency becomes important. Why? Because you can get the reward as often as you want in the available time frame.

not even remotely.
since the majority of people in the world play a game for 4 hours or less per day (i.e. one game gets literally 100% of their free time), having a limited opportunity means making the most of it is crucially important. since they only get to get those Rewards within this time frame and not until possibly even the entire next day, so getting as many in that 45 minutes as possible is priority #1.
if those same Players could spend all of their time getting Rewards, then it doesn't matter because they can easily get the same as a perfect Squad does in 45 minutes currently, across many hours(but probably more than that ofcourse).

no time restriction lets min/maxing Players get a lot of Rewards, but the important part is that it lets the rest of the Players have a more reasonable opportunity to play for their Rewards at all.

 

restricting how many Rewards you can get vs when you are allowed to play would be another option sure - though that's separate from the binary situation that was being presented(specific time span once in a while vs no timelock restriction).
not all that effective either though, as that means everyone plays a single Mission (since it would probably be one Reward per night cycle) and then logs off again. or even just stops coming back because the hassle of logging in to play when you can only get one Reward and ergo will take months to have even a remote possibiltiy of completing an Arcane set on their own..... well that's a lot of hassle. quite bad, but in another way.
it's not even like Raids where there was other Rewards you could get 24/7 to keep Players playing them even when they got their one Reward per.

 

On 2018-07-02 at 2:38 AM, Tenno.Rukasu said:

Well I did some hunts +700, and you can use others Warframe besides meta ones. Chroma can be switched for Rhino or Octavia, Harrow for Oberon or Limbo, Trinity for also for Oberon. And Eidolons shields can be done without Volt shield.

i absolutely agree(that you can use basically anything you want) except for Volt - for Matchmade unorganized Squads, they aren't likely to have any Focus based spacekid buffs, so then Electric Shield is just too good to pass up, if you ask me.
they gotta have some spacekid buffs and the lowest common denominator for that, is Volt.

Edited July 4, 2018 by taiiat

[(PSN)Crixus044]

This meta you speak of is the laughable copypasta combo that i see players run constantly, tryna be like the guy they saw on YouTube. Most of the time, because players don't understand enough of the game, they may not even be doing the comp correctly because they just don't know what to do. Taiiat said it pretty well, that the community needs education, and quickly, because honestly, there are faster ways and SO many different comps, it ain't even funny.

Simply put, there will always be a meta. This meta may not be the best, but it's the most popular. This can never change, and balancing around the meta, or nerfing the meta is exactly what causes a new meta to come up. It's called the wack-a-mole effect. You wanna be the best? Find it out yourself. There's always room to grow for a player. The beauty to warframe is that there's more to this game than what meets the eye.

Edited July 5, 2018 by (PS4)Crixus044

[Hecking_Birb]

On 2018-07-04 at 11:28 PM, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

This meta you speak of is the laughable copypasta combo that i see players run constantly, tryna be like the guy they saw on YouTube. Most of the time, because players don't understand enough of the game, they may not even be doing the comp correctly because they just don't know what to do. Taiiat said it pretty well, that the community needs education, and quickly, because honestly, there are faster ways and SO many different comps, it ain't even funny.

Simply put, there will always be a meta. This meta may not be the best, but it's the most popular. This can never change, and balancing around the meta, or nerfing the meta is exactly what causes a new meta to come up. It's called the wack-a-mole effect. You wanna be the best? Find it out yourself. There's always room to grow for a player. The beauty to warframe is that there's more to this game than what meets the eye.

Can you tell me about these "better ideas"? I'd honestly like to know, so I can test them out in a squad that'll let me.-

[Althaline]

On ‎2018‎-‎07‎-‎05 at 4:28 PM, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

there are faster ways

Please, elaborate.

Seriously, that's some beautiful poetry in your post, but what is this "faster way" that we can use to get more captures per night?

[GPrime96]

On 2018-07-01 at 8:28 PM, Hecking_Birb said:

The Eidolon cap meta. Everyone who's done one knows how it always goes: Volt, Chroma, Harrow, Trinity. Trinity heals lures, Harrow protects the team during spikes, Chroma deals with synovas, and Volt deploys charged shields so the plot devices can deal more damage to the Eidolon's shields. The meta never moves, and if you try to take something other than those 4 to a team that's serious (as in a team that wants to get it done fast), you're sure to be met with backlash. Why? Well, because there's no reason to take any other warframe to this. Sure, sometimes the Harrow can be swapped for a Limbo or an Oberon or an Ivara (w/ Empowered Quiver), but the other three are absolute musts.

The problem is, in my eyes, a really big one. This means there's no variety in captures, leading to every single one feeling the exact same, save for what role you play in it, and that's a real shame. It's a really fun concept that I do genuinely enjoy, but only every once in a while, which is clearly not what DE intended considering how the Eidolons are integrated with the Quills, Focus, and Arcanes. You have to do a lot of them to get big gains, just like you need to do a lot of fissures or a lot of survivals for what you want.

Since you need Lures to get rewards like Articulas or Riven Transmuter after you captured all three Eidolons while keeping yourself alive, that’s where the Limitations is mostly about. Keeping Lures alive with Constant healing while keeping yourself alive by avoiding losing energy so you keep healing the Lures and keep up the damage/Armor buff your frame have. Being Efficient is so important for the team when Eidolon Hunting since one Mess up can cost your Team a Capture. That, is the Problem. Not this^^^

[Hecking_Birb]

9 hours ago, VPrime96 said:

Since you need Lures to get rewards like Articulas or Riven Transmuter after you captured all three Eidolons while keeping yourself alive, that’s where the Limitations is mostly about. Keeping Lures alive with Constant healing while keeping yourself alive by avoiding losing energy so you keep healing the Lures and keep up the damage/Armor buff your frame have. Being Efficient is so important for the team when Eidolon Hunting since one Mess up can cost your Team a Capture. That, is the Problem. Not this^^^

If more frames could affect the eidolon, then there would be more ways to sustain efficiency 😉