[Sug] Warframe Overhaul

[Thorkoal]

Before you read any further, I'd like you to know that what I write below is my concept for this game, simply a way that I would like this game to be. If you agree or disagree with any topic, please comment below :)

This will be a long post, and I only do these in games that I see potential to become, not a good game, but a great game. Please be patient and read it all.

The Game

Warframe is a co-op multiplayer game, up to 4 players, with no PvP whatsoever. This is already rather odd, as most games you see, especially online games, either include PvP or are PvP-exclusive. The graphics are fenomenal, the art is remarkably beautiful, reminding me of Mass Effect or Starcraft. The gameplay is quite rewarding as I feel like a an elite master of all martial arts put together when I cut through my enemies with almost no effort. The animations could use a little more work but are already astonishing, giving a sence of inertia when switching running directions very fast.

Overall, this game is a very small spark in a really big pile of tinder. Both the devs and the community must work together to ignite the flame.

The Lore

You play as a warframe warrior, a Tenno, awoken from a very long cryosleep at a time when the Grineer, a distorted and decaying human race motivated by fear and envy and all that bad stuff, has taken over the Solar System.

The Corpus, a race of robots and what seems like humans dressed in white with impenetrable cubic helms, are also another race that, stated only in the website, control all traded goods and look for Orokin artifacts (which I dunno what they are but seem rather important) to create weapons to kill the Tenno and if need be, the Grineer.

I actually love the intro, as you already feel part of that universe, even though they tell you nothing about your own race except you wear awesome armor, shoot weird-looking (yet some of them are awesome) guns and slice enemies in half with awesome swords. They give you a purpose, but I believe we need more than that if we are to actually understand what's happening and why we're slicing our enemies in half.

The Problems

My major concern right now is, in one word: Platinum.

There are no bigger downers than having a great F2P game that you are forced to pay, rather than persuaded to do so. From what I understood so far, you have to pay to get more Slots in the Inventory and to get more than 2 Warframes. But the biggest, most heartbreaking feature is that Pro thing on weapons and warframes... Who the hell came up with that idea?!

I understand that you have to make money, but this is a F2P game, and like all F2P games, it should be Free to Play.

Look at the wonderful example of LoL. You pay for cosmetic stuff. Look at Planetside 2. You also only pay for cosmetic stuff. Do that! :D So, get rid of the Pro System, get rid of all S#&$ty payments you have to make that limit our gameplay.

Make more cosmetic stuff like those panels where you can pick all the colors and make us pay for stuff like that, that would not get in the way of fun, instead only boosting it. I prefer paying to look like a badass, that to pay to be one.

The Matchmaking is broken but that doesn't concern me as I know you'll fix it, even though I don't really care about it and you'll see why I'm saying this in a moment.

Not enough information on the skill trees of weapons and warframes, especially on the melee weapons. And please, dont use the same terms for melee weapons as you use for guns, fire rate is not a melee thing.

Not enough Warframes. More will be added in the future, as I've heard from some of the devs.

The Overhaul

Warframe is a game with a LOT of potential. So, instead of suggesting stuff that would indeed change some of the things that make this game, I'm suggesting something... rather different.

The Tutorial

You awake. For centuries, you've been sleeping. Now, the universe calls for you. You appear to be in some sort of space craft, but looks very old. You are naked. A familiar female voice speaks to you. She calls herself the Lotus and she is here to guide you. She also has no idea why you woke up but so did every Tenno aboard the ship. After the cryosleep, you have to follow a protocol. You are told to move in certain ways (this tells you the controls). After all that "movement", you feel like something crashed into the ship. The alarm sounds. She warns you that there is no time, you have to escape!

You wear your warframe (Excalibur as a training warframe, even though it might remain your only warframe if you wish it to be as it is as good as any other) and you're given the controls again and a waypoint towards the ship's hangar. You follow it with some obstacles that will also tell you some more controls like crouch and jump. You stand near a window and you see 4 alien ships shooting at the ship you're on. You see the shields go down and a shell flying through a window. The room is partially destroyed and the vacuum of space is sucking all the air out. You're told to hack(introduction to hacking) the nearest panel to lower the metal shield that stops the air from escaping. You proceed towards the hangar.

You find that the hangar is massive and you run towards the nearest ship. You see other Tennos escaping from that hangar. You start the ship and you exit the hangar, evading the enemy fire. As you leave, you see the ship you just exited and it is huge, with multiple hangars spewing out more Tenno ships. You start making your way towards one of the enemy ships to disable it from the inside. As you aproach it, the Tenno mothership explodes, with only a few Tenno still inside. The rest make their way towards the enemy ships to disable them. You find a pistol, a machine gun and a sword inside your ship and you equip them. You kill every alien inside and meet with another Tenno (NPC). You both reach the bridge. You take a seat in the captain's chair, overlooking the other 3 ships being boarded. Lotus assists you in navigating the ship's logs and you find some interesting things.

They were Grineer. Lotus tells you that you must stop them from corrupting the galaxy and that is your purpose.

They have spread across the Orion Belt, colonizing every earth-like planet with the purpose of gathering resources for their wars between each other and sometimes the Corpus.

You find out about the Corpus and some other mysterious races still unknown even to the Grineer.

The other Tenno sets off to warn all the others to their purpose and you return to your ship.

This is now your "main menu". Everytime you log in, you are in your ship. You are not wearing any warframe.

A cutscene shows you the various rooms in your ship, including the galaxy map room, the "foundry" (if u still wanna call it that O.o), and some other stuff. The ship is a stealth class frigate with 2 decks. It's not meant to have a pilot, it's only meant to have a AI, a Captain and other passengers.

The current lobby has a map of the Solar System. That map is now the Galaxy Map, much like Mass Effect. Yes, galaxy map, not solar system map. You would have guessed that such an advanced species would have learned how to colonize distant star systems (the simple fact that they colonized a gas giant should be a pretty clear indicator of that...). The ship's systems are controlled by Lotus. You point to a particular part of space and Lotus takes you there. You can board other Tenno ships if you want.

A modular ship system would be implanted so you can upgrade it with better stuff like a better warp drive to travel farther or certain equipment for certain missions. Traveling will take time, just enough that it makes you feel like you're actually traveling. You even see the warp bubble if you look through a window.

You can do stuff inside your ship like try new weapons, look at the archives for some lore or chat with your friends or clan, or all at the same time :D

I would not include mining because it would be against the lore. You can, however, raid mining facilities or labs for resources and get them from enemy drops.

And this is what I had in mind for Warframe, a real universal map where you could meet other Tenno agents and work with them. This would mean that stories would be created by you, rather than a linear campaign that you can play with your friends. This way you have replayability, fun and a unique adventure for everyone.

Missions

Right now, missions are pretty well done. Most things like the map and the mission objectives themselves are proceduraly generated. This created variety but I believe it needs some more work to truly make it unique. Right now, you can't select a room with people to execute a mission. I actually believe this is good in this game. You meet more people this way. But imagine you arriving with your ship at a destination near the mission objective, and looking out the window of your ship and seeing more ships, waiting for you to perform that mission in cooperative. You can also see players coming out of FTL on their ships. This would work as a room. Random players would enter it, much like the matchmaking system currently in place.

Mission types:

Rescue: Rescue one or more hostage from an enemy ship or facility. You must prevent him from dying or the mission is lost. You may revive him as you do with any other Tenno you play with.

Sabotage: Destroy the target in an enemy facility or ship. Hacking may be used as a destruction method as well, depending on the target.

Spy: Use stealth on your way to a target. The objective is to get intel without being seen.

Exterminate: Eliminate all enemies. Pretty straightforward.

Assassinate: Fight your way to the enemy target and kill him. Bosses are usually the targets on these missions.

Capture: The objective is to capture one or more targets. Don't kill them, only stun them and use that whole disintegration device on your hand O.o

Defense: Defend one or more friendly targets and prevent them from being destroyed. Enemies come in waves. Depending on the target, some regenerate slowly, others don't.

More mission types would be great but I cant really remember any other not covered by these.

Events:

This is a great feature. It adds spontaneous missions to pop anywhere in the galaxy with special rewards or some other features. Imagine you being contacted by Lotus while you're roaming around your ship that a distress beacon has been activated some dozen parsecs away.

Mixed missions

Most missions will have you do more than one thing. For example, you go on a rescue mission, and you have 1 target to rescue. When you do, he tells you another hostage is being held on the lower deck for interrogation. You rescue him as well. He tells you he disclosed important information, and you are advised by Lotus to kill everyone on the ship and destroy any intel he was forced to spit out. When you're done you return to your ship.

What happens here is that you go on a particular mission, and you're surprised by another objective. You go prepared for one thing and another happens. And this can go on and on, as you are now left with 2 saved hostages on your ship and they might tell you something that leads to other missions or even become part of the crew, working on the foundry reducing the time it takes to create items, for example.

All this can happen like the current way missions are proceduraly generated. Entire maps are done this way.

All I proposed on missions is already there, but needs more work to add stuff.

Meta Game Content

By this I mean other stuff also related to the game, but not really what the game is about. The whole "having a ship and flying it around" feature is an example of metagame content. This only adds to the game's overall feel of immersion which draws more players to it. Having a holonet-like archive for lore stuff also proves how immersive the game is. Achievements rewarded by various factions (not races) would be great as well. You would imagine your race is not the only one who likes peace, so you're drawn to negotiate with those people. They could give you missions.

Enough with all the grinding bullS#&$ already! We want a unique story that progresses the way we want it to. You can buy weapons blueprints or the actual weapons from travelers you meet when you're heading to a certain mission objective. Rare weapon blueprints might also be for sale in the darkest corners of the galaxy, instead of just that ultimate, uber-powerful boss that takes a really long time to kill just for the sake of difficulty.

Clan related stuff should be pretty awesome too, like a clan base on an asteroid or something that you could build structures and meet up with your friends there.

As you can see, the limit is simply your imagination. If the devs tell you otherwise, its probably true because there's no way all this is a simple thing to do.

Your Ship

As a stealth class ship, you haven't got much space for luxurious rooms painted in gold with hello kitty stickers... It's a small frigate, very advanced and very old. It has 2 decks.

On the upper deck you have the Galaxy Map on the front, the Conference Room with a holographic display on the middle and the Captain's Quarters on the back, mostly with windows instead of walls so you can see space around you, especially in the galaxy map room.

On the lower deck you have the "Foundry" (or whatever you wanna call it, because I don't thing that's an apropriate name for something sci-fi-ish) where crafting is done, the Armory where you choose your warframe and weapons (if we could have displays for them would be awesome :D) and customize yourself, the Engines on the back, and some other miscellaneous stuff like a medal wall or something.

For now that's all I can think of. Please share your opinions or add more suggestions on the comments below :)

Thank you for your reading patience ^^

[codi2325]

I agree with you in nearly every respect but if the real time space travel was put in...idk. either way every developer should look at this!!!!

\m/

[[DE]Steve]

It's a great post! I won't go into too much detail because I'm afraid my responses would make promises but we're definitely on the same page!

Many of the expansions you're talking about (cinematic tutorial, a player ship, solar system scope) are in the queue. Many of them have been roughed in but weren't good enough to show yet. We're cracking whips here to expand Warframe as quickly as possible!

[NoirProxy]

I 100% agree about the payment thing. Make it so we only play for aesthetic stuff. I know I would be throwing cash around for awesome skins and such. I already feel way too hesistant to risk real, hard earned money on things like characters and such. The Warframes themselves are pretty similiar apart from the abilities that aren't used as much compared to the guns. I think I would be more confident in paying for stuff if we could try them out in a gun range kind of thing. Let us try out our potential purchases, so that we 100% know we want to buy them. Saying that though I don't really want to block blocked off by a money wall. Drop the in game mega transactions and make unique warframe skins as mentioned and maybe I will open my wallet.

[Ralmstein]

/sign

[Sealgaire]

Just want to say the list of things you're taunting us with makes me giddy, Steve. I'm glad you guys are putting so much more work into an already awesome game.

[WariousGaming]

Thorkal Your Suggestions JUST ROX and for me is the best i ever read \m/. HELL YEAH i agree with all this stuff u mentioned but there is one thing if developers will take such a hard work :) i belive that they will coz all this will make this game "BEST sci fi ever made". Anyway this game is awesome and will be greatest when all features will be implemented.

[Thorkoal]

Thanks for reading all and thanks to steve for such a fast response as well :)

IMO, Red 5 is one of the best devs, community wise. So is DE.

Just fyi, the company that made Star Conflict, a sci fi space combat game, is one of the worst companies out there. Seriously, i made a post like 5 times larger, took like 2 days to do, had information on stars and everything... They read it like 2 weeks later and commented with a "thanks for playing, but we're the devs" attitude.

So, in comparison, DE is the best sci fi MMO devs there is :) just change that Platinum crap :P

[Ralmstein]

Thanks for reading all and thanks to steve for such a fast response as well :)

IMO, Red 5 is one of the best devs, community wise. So is DE.

Just fyi, the company that made Star Conflict, a sci fi space combat game, is one of the worst companies out there. Seriously, i made a post like 5 times larger, took like 2 days to do, had information on stars and everything... They read it like 2 weeks later and commented with a "thanks for playing, but we're the devs" attitude.

So, in comparison, DE is the best sci fi MMO devs there is :) just change that Platinum crap :P

/doublesign

[Thorkoal]

/doublesign

You really like signing, dont you? ;)

[Thorkoal]

Btw, using real findings like ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2011/07/18/physicists-create-a-hole-in-time-to-hide-events/ ) in the game, in for example, stealth tecnology for the ships, would be awesome :)

[Sealgaire]

One minor thing. I actually like the fact that so far at least, the game is constrained to the solar system. I don't know why everyone thinks scifi has to include faster than light travel and galaxy spanning empires. The solar system is a HUGE place. In fantasy settings people are perfectly content with a single planet, why do scifi settings have to take place on a galactic scale to be interesting? The more planets you have, the less fleshed out each one can be.

[Zelex]

It seems youve drawn alot of influence from masseffect, also seems rather than adding alot more content your wanting the current content fleshed out and instead of menus. In games what motivates me most to play them is a sense of immersion. Fallowing this would be a big step in that direction. but When/If a story is devised i hope it be a widescale one, as in your charicter and your friends charicter arnt treated as the same charicter but as part of a larger unit. like instead of "YOUR THE EPIC HERO AND YOU MUST SAVE THIS GALAXY!!!" that most mmos and rpgs use itd be great to be "WE ARE THE TENNO WE MUST SAVE THE GALAXY' if you get what im meaning. a story with a focus on the unity of the players rather than you.

[Windbow]

I like most of the OP. You've clearly put some thought into it. A hidden/secret clan base would be really cool. I think the personal frigate thing might be... too much. From what I understand of the Tenno, they are like fairly independent, spec-ops ninjas. A single Tenno to a frigate seems a little innapropriate. A frigate, even fairly automated, requires a significant crew to man it. I'd say a frigate would be ideal for a small clan or like 2 teams of 4. Single Tennos should fly around in small stealthy single or dual man ships outfitted with a small armory to select and equip stuff, and workbench for customizing equipment. New (whole) equipment should only be available at Tenno outposts, clan hideouts etc.

I also agree much with Zelex above. "WE ARE THE TENNO WE MUST SAVE THE GALAXY".

[Thorkoal]

I agree, even though a single Tenno is awesome, only through unity can we save the galaxy.

[Celia]

I 100% agree about the payment thing. Make it so we only play for aesthetic stuff. I know I would be throwing cash around for awesome skins and such. I already feel way too hesistant to risk real, hard earned money on things like characters and such. The Warframes themselves are pretty similiar apart from the abilities that aren't used as much compared to the guns. I think I would be more confident in paying for stuff if we could try them out in a gun range kind of thing. Let us try out our potential purchases, so that we 100% know we want to buy them. Saying that though I don't really want to block blocked off by a money wall. Drop the in game mega transactions and make unique warframe skins as mentioned and maybe I will open my wallet.

100 % Agree from my side

[Thorkoal]

They will most likely do this, a lot of people are complaining including myself. If this doesn't change, I'll obviously quit :) But trusting DE, they will remove all "forced" Platinum purchases and start creating aesthetic stuff. They would succeed as this game is awesome and the graphics are beautiful. Selling stuff to improve your immersion is what every F2P game should do.

[Ralmstein]

The whole Clan Base bit, I really hope that part happens. I really hope the bases get to having the Japanese building style with futuristic look and blooming cherry blossom trees where you can train.

One can imagine :)

[jestersheepy]

Really good suggestions!

Apart from a few, like the part you mention looking out your ship and seeing other ships waiting for a mission, or even to see other ships at all.

This in my opinion would be too much development time for a very small feature.

Well. Kinda.

You could fake it by number of players in match making show up as static meshes outside the window, but you can't interact and they aren't dynamic? (Animations to bring them to life a little?).

As for platinum - If you make an awesome game that people enjoy, they are gonna stick around for the long haul, platinum needs to not get in the way of that. When 20 platinum to speed something up, 20 plat for pro, 3 plat for a revive etc, you are flooding the game with micro transactions and it doesn't look friendly.

In my opinion - Revives should be taken away completely. Pro in tech trees should be taken away too. I would even say for speeding up crafting (It's like a cheat button). A premium model or one time purchases work great for the people who just want that bit extra and to compensate for taking away possible income, prices could increase slightly across the board on the market place along with giving additional option for single time purchases.

I agree with additional character slots 2 seems fine, perhaps when more warframes are introduced increase to 3 for the use of experimentation.

But inventory slots? I don't think that should be bought.. At least not how it is now, as it stands you are killing the players who have stuck around in your game for a long enough period of time to fill the inventory, while new players aren't even effected or aware.

Could potentially have the booster models you could purchase (could call them implants for imersion sake) from the marketplace to help speed up crafting, to gain additional 'boost' from the end of missions, perhaps even allow you to equip an additional weapon on the field (Would allow you to level up low level weapons while still having your big one for the important situations) and more boosts to aid further features put into the game.

The more plat items you can put exclusively into the marketplace the better, reason being, the more you see 'Plat for this, plat to do that' while playing, the more you are put off.. They kinda are like adverts on websites.. get in the way and remind you that it is a pay to play game.

[Thorkoal]

Really good suggestions!

Apart from a few, like the part you mention looking out your ship and seeing other ships waiting for a mission, or even to see other ships at all.

This in my opinion would be too much development time for a very small feature.

Well. Kinda.

I thought about this a bit further. Perhaps, if you are the team leader, they would teleport to your ship.

[Ralmstein]

I thought about this a bit further. Perhaps, if you are the team leader, they would teleport to your ship.

A lot of these suggestions are nice man, but I'd rather it focus on more main features before release and this extra cool things you are talking about after it is first released.

Some of your main suggestions being:

Tutorial Concept

Clan Base

Mixed Mission Concept

Meta-Game Concept

I list these cause to me they are the most important to fix before release. If you do continue pushing with this idea, I suggest these to be the ones you push the devs around about first.

[Matter]

I thought about this a bit further. Perhaps, if you are the team leader, they would teleport to your ship.

That would be pretty sweet!

[Thorkoal]

That would be pretty sweet!

And not really that hard to do :D

[Thorkoal]

A lot of these suggestions are nice man, but I'd rather it focus on more main features before release and this extra cool things you are talking about after it is first released.

Some of your main suggestions being:

Tutorial Concept

Clan Base

Mixed Mission Concept

Meta-Game Concept

I list these cause to me they are the most important to fix before release. If you do continue pushing with this idea, I suggest these to be the ones you push the devs around about first.

The tutorial is already confirmed to come soon. The Mixed Mission Concept is already in place, just not as in depth as I'd like it to be.

While Clan Bases are a bit part of the meta game concept, I'd rather not underestimate the power of extra things, that sometimes are worth more than gameplay itself. Some people play RPGs just for the economy or some just for clan fights. These are all VERY important aspects of what makes a game have good popularity. Because they're simply fun.

[MegatechBody]

It's a great post! I won't go into too much detail because I'm afraid my responses would make promises but we're definitely on the same page!

Many of the expansions you're talking about (cinematic tutorial, a player ship, solar system scope) are in the queue. Many of them have been roughed in but weren't good enough to show yet. We're cracking whips here to expand Warframe as quickly as possible!

Yikes, I'd like to see more in the realm of less generic content like that and more in the stead of making Warframe similar to a co-op focused high speed third person shooter dungeon crawl with better boss fights and core game mechanics. Gimmicks and doo-dads are nice but focusing on the core gameplay is never a bad idea especially when those gimmicks take up valuable development time.

More player abilities, more (and better crafted/creatively designed) bosses/boss fights, more monsters (and monster abilities), more loot, more weapons, more mission types, more acrobatic moves (like wall jumping/running, rail grinding, ladders, etc), difficulties with scaled rewards, that kind of general picture. 4 player co-op space pirate ninja dark souls in SPAAAACE.

...or just add generic story elements and pointless fluff like player ships and things of that nature that do nothing to set your game apart from the rest and don't add anything to the actual core gameplay. You know the thing that makes a video game a video game. Sorry I don't mean to be abraisive I'm just a tad jaded after playing so many online games with an abundance of fluff and a serious lack of substance.

Edited January 9, 2013 by MegatechBody