Some Suggested Tweaks for Limbo

[Paradoxbomb]

A few QoL changes I feel could give Limbo some much-needed "finesse" for his riftwalk passive and Banish ability, as well as making banishment a bit more accessible and a bit less annoying to teammates:

• Ability to enter/exit the rift without dodging - This is a bit nitpicky of me, but I find there are times when having to constantly slide about in order to get in and out of the rift can be a bit cumbersome, so it would be nice if pressing the roll button while stationary allowed Limbo to enter and exit the rift without moving. The same thing could apply to banished players exiting the rift as well.
• Single and Multi-target option for Banish - Something I personally miss in Limbo's kit is the ability to single out a target without unintentionally banishing other enemies and players. Since certain abilities can now use button taps/holds to alter their effect, it would be nice if Limbo's Banish could be updated so that tapping 1 casts a single-target banish and holding 1 casts the current AoE (or vice versa). Additionally, so as to be less intrusive towards teammates, only single-targeted casts would affect players, reducing the odds of unintentional banishing your allies.
• Banish generates a rift portal - While accidental banishment of players is all too easy, on the flip side players who want to enter the rift either have to stay next to Limbo to use his portals or request to be banished every time it's required, which I imagine even on a coordinated team with voice chat could eventually get tiresome. So in the interest of making Banish more "'casual friendly", I'd like to suggest that enemies generate a rift portal behind them when Banished (like the one Limbo himself generates whenever he riftwalks) allowing players to enter the rift of their own accord should they want to take out any isolated enemies.
• "Press ___ to exit rift" prompt - I think this one speaks for itself, simply have a text prompt appear on the screen of players currently in the rift, to alleviate the issue of players unfamiliar with Limbo's mechanics being stuck and requiring the Limbo player to have to explain what to do.

[mactrent]

I'd expand your "Banish generates a rift portal" to also includes Rift Surge's bounce-banish, or even go so far as to say each Rifted enemy is a Portal, so long as the interaction is intentional rather than something you step into by accident.  An even stronger suggestion is automated plane switching, where attacking an enemy switches you to the plane it's in.  Given other ways to enter the Rift, Banish doesn't even need to affect other Tenno by default.

I understand the non-dodge thing, and it could make things better for PC players, but the controller button-space would make this tricky to add.  I'd like to see this added, but don't currently know of any good suggestions.  I'd hate to see Warframe have a single button/combo forever locked to "opt out of buff", but that might be what this kind of thing amounts to.

I also really want the prompt for the current power-set.  It wouldn't be that hard to implement (just more pixels on the screen), but it also sets a weird precedent for Warframe, which doesn't explain anything else that way.  If we're going with narrow power changes, that's still the best bet, but I might prefer a deeper dive into the Rift mechanic, rather than leaving it as something that actually requires such a prompt.

 

[Paradoxbomb]

28 minutes ago, mactrent said:

-snip-

I'm a bit iffy on Rift Surge generating rift portals, given it's "infectious" nature. I didn't outright mention it in the OP but for the sake of not littering the map with portals per each cast of Banish, there should be a cap on the number of rift portals on the map at any given time (say, three, after which the oldest instance is replaced with the newest). A similar situation could apply to Rift Surge, with a max of three rifts being generated upon surged enemies exiting the rift. As for automated plane switching, it's an interesting concept although I'm curious how it'd work if you're hitting multiple enemies on both planes at the same time, such as with melee or a gun with punch-through. Seems like it could get a bit disorienting.

I'm not familiar with controller setup, but from what I can assume the issue is holding down L1/LB is dedicated to crouching/sprinting while tapping it is dedicated to the roll, in which case my only real solution to that would be for tapping L1/LB to prioritize exiting the rift (meaning you'd have to double tap it if you're in the rift and want to perform a roll, but I can't see that as being more of an inconvenience than the current forced roll to exit). But again, I'm not familiar with the control scheme for controllers, so correct me if I'm wrong on how the crouch/roll/sprint key actually works.

Warframe definitely should explain a ton of it's mechanics more clearly, but while it can generally get away with being vague Limbo's skill set in particular warrants an overt prompt more than most abilities or mechanics, given how it can be outright obtrusive to players that are unfamiliar with it. And I feel ya on adding more depth to the Rift mechanic, it's something I'd like to see as well eventually, although I'm just suggesting these tweaks under the pretense that the DEvs currently have no intent to make substantial changes to it anytime soon. Hence why they're nothing particularly groundbreaking.

[mactrent]

Rift Surge was going to be a mini-cataclysm ability before it became a radial banish; that would certainly be infectious.  If we were able to have an alternate (and easily available) method for teammates to get into the Rift when they wanted, the current "portals" as a mechanic wouldn't be necessary, so no worries on overloading.  There's a whole thread (well, at least one) that goes into specifics on automated shifting, so I'm sure there are answers to any questions.  I think the primary suggestion for the situation you mentioned was that projectiles "lock" onto the plane of the first enemy you hit, and thus only switch you (or not) based on that.  Shotgun pellets would, I assume, all lock to match the first pellet that hit.  Since being in the Rift in that setup would be less important than just being in/out of phase with the enemies you're looking at, the vfx of the Rift itself could be toned down to help with disorientation, and just fade/shade the enemies according to your plane match-iness.

No matter what plane you're in, rolling is a good way to reduce or avoid damage; overloading that same binding to do the same thing minus the actual movement seems a fair enough improvement, though still not perfect.  You still couldn't roll for speed without switching out of the Rift, though to be fair, if you'd die while you're speed running on material plane, you can afford to slow down a bit to stay invincible.

I'm really of two minds (as you could probably tell above) on the whole "Warframe treats its players as intelligent people and doesn't handhold" thing.  Other mechanics in the game that make it so you can't do something or kill something are usually 1) obvious physical barriers (snow globe, cataclysm, tectonics, even magnetize), 2) visibly tethered to a teammate (parasitic link, shadows of the dead at least with augment..?), or 3) limited to a very few enemies, usually with distinctive effects (mind control, shadows of the dead?).  If you're not able to figure something out in a single mission, you can look it up later, and then there's nearly always an easy remedy (avoid the very few enemies with distinctive effects, shoot from in/outside the zone, etc) that you can remember for later.

To be fair, just like after that first mission you spend jumping at Nekros' shadows, you generally at least know how to check for the Rift indicator, but the effects on Rifted enemies could stand to be boosted/refined (several more suggestion threads), especially since the number of Rifted enemies isn't capped within an order of magnitude of Nekros' bone-buddies.

Edited July 16, 2018 by mactrent