Dark Sector Conflicts And You

[DE_Adam]

As many of you know we’ve just launched our updated Dark Sector Conflicts, which now set the stage for Tenno against Tenno directly in a bid to control Solar Rails.  While Conclave was implemented for those who wished to test their skill against one another, there’s never really been a full game mode in which players can utilize all of their abilities in a team-oriented fashion.  It’s a work in progress, but one that we really want players to enjoy as an alternative to the usual missions in Warframe.

 

That being said, preparing for this new PvP mission type is a little more complex than simply stepping and letting your penta go hog-wild on the closest Tenno.  If you’re looking to try out Dark Sectors, or have tried them but weren’t sure exactly how they worked, then this is the post for you.

 

How Dark Sector Conflicts Work

 

Dark Sector Conflicts now feature two teams going head-to-head against one another: Attackers and Defenders.  Which side of the conflict you’re on will depend on which Clan or Alliance you’ve chosen to side with for the duration of the mission, and just like before you’re free to switch between either side as you please at the Navigation menu.

 

The map is broken up into three zones based around how far the attackers have come, with each zone featuring their own objective.  Attackers will start needing to arm two control panels in order to gain access to the interior of the ship.  Once both panels have been activated the fight moves to the interior of the rail, where several power cores must be opened and destroyed in order for the attackers to progress any further.  Finally, once that objective is cleared the attackers must destroy a central core in order to complete the mission.

 

A round ends when either the attacking team destroys the central power core or when the attacking team runs out of tickets to spawn.  Tickets start with a full 20 when the game begins, and one ticket is taken away each time a player is killed.  A player that is revived from downed state does not count as killed, so teamwork in both protecting your allies being revived and preventing revivals is a necessity for those who wish to come out on top.

 

To provide some balance to those with frames that have various states of rank or Forma, all players begin the match Unranked with their equipped weapons and Warframe.  As you kill enemies your equipment will rank up, unlocking your mod cards along the way.  Because of this, the order you have mods equipped in will dramatically change the way you prepare and play for battle.  

 

Mods unlock from the top left to right, only moving on to the second row once everything from the top has been unlocked first.  For example, if you equip a Rank 5 mod followed by a Rank 6 mod both mods will be unlocked once your Warframe/Weapon reaches Rank 11.  

 

Other Tips and Tricks:

 

-Melee is incredibly deadly, and switching to your melee weapon as a primary may give you access to attack speeds or wider ranging swings that can bring down multiple opponents.

-Always be on the move.  Standing still near an objective alone is a good way to get shot by a stray Osprey or Lancer, let alone a player.

-Use teamwork.  There is a lot of temptation to charge headfirst into battle and take the fight straight to the enemy, but waiting for backup and working alongside other Tenno is what’s really going to secure victory.

-Be patient.  If you’re the attacking team keep in mind that there is no time limit on this particular game type.  Slowly making your way up to a node is better than losing multiple tickets in an attempt to rush forward.  Regrouping to stock up on energy from an energy terminal isn’t a bad idea either.

 

I normally include a reminder on any new or upcoming content that changes can and will be made to mechanics that we are looking to balance.  As we continue to monitor Dark Sector Conflicts we wanted to make it clear that any balance changes made to the PvP elements of Warframe won’t cross over into PvE mission types.

 

Thank you all for helping us refine these new Dark Sector Conflicts, we hope you enjoy testing your mettle against each other!

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

When it comes down to it the weapons with the hightest base damage will always win regardless of the progressions system. Since if you do more damage you get more kills, which unlocks mods to make your high damage weapons more powerful. At least thats how i feel when playing.

Edited July 23, 2014 by NudistBeach

[_Absolom_]

Paris Prime, Soma, Angstrum, Penta...I'm looking at you.

[Hybridon]

This is why we need to be able to change the rank on our mods without the need of duplicates on different ranks...

 

Currently if I want a rank 8 Shield mod I have to fuse a second one, as my first one is already maxed. :)

[-Himari-]

When it comes down to it the weapons with the hightest base damage will always win regardless of the progressions system. Since if you do more damage you get more kills, which unlocks mods to make your high damage weapons more powerful. At least thats how i feel when playing.

 

I feel the same way. Going with the weapons with the higher base damage does seem to give you the upper hand than going with weapons that you normally would in, say, Conclave or just basic missions.

[locojuan]

i lol so hard when ppl call soma op under this situation. do you even soma?

[TheCometCE]

going to enjoy bringing a friend and mirage with the mutalist, going to be some scary synergy there

Edited July 23, 2014 by TheCometCE

[Sardaukar66]

Question: I ran into a DE_Adam on Venus who was defending the rail. Was that you or was it a different person?

[grillv20]

Gee, sure would be nice if I could actually find a place thats actually contested when I log in. Every time I log in its either deploying or there are none actually being fought. 

[Caernarvon]

Right now the ungodly lag really hurts this game mode.

Dedicated servers when.

[DE_Adam]

Question: I ran into a DE_Adam on Venus who was defending the rail. Was that you or was it a different person?

 

DE_Adam is me in game, same as the forums!  I've been hopping on quite a few different rails, so if you see me don't hesitate to say hi!

 

...or if you're on the other team be sure to never, ever shoot and/or stab me.  I am severely allergic to all forms of ammunition. 

[StallordD]

I only wish that the trash mobs were a bit weaker AND a bit more plentiful. It's a bit tough to level up initially, and nigh impossible to catch up if another player has a 3-5 rank gain on you, ensuring defeat.

[Telapoopy]

Blade Storm and Shuriken are abilities that need some looking at in PvP. Both of these abilities don't require direct aiming, and they deal high damage. If the initial damage doesn't kill, the bleed proc will.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Telapoopy

[-Ropefish-]

DE_Adam is me in game, same as the forums!  I've been hopping on quite a few different rails, so if you see me don't hesitate to say hi!

 

...or if you're on the other team be sure to never, ever shoot and/or stab me.  I am severely allergic to all forms of ammunition. 

do you know what DE has the least amount of friends so i can give him/her some love :3

[McVolker]

This mode would actually work, and be enjoyable, if it wasn't freeform loadouts, just like it was in conclaves. We need to have a small selection of frames and weapons, each fully modded to their strengths, as the norm for these conflicts. This would allow you to very clearly build your playstyle, and allow proper balancing to be done. If a weapon was deemed to strong or too weak, the mods could be reworked. This would warrant for the removal of the ranking system, as everything would be prebuilt and allow even low level players to participate properly. Freeform loadouts lead to toxic and pointless pvp in a game like this. Please rethink this mode, DE.

[dandin3]

reduce the damage to 50% for all frame ability it's a start i think

[(PSN)KS10567]

EPIC!

[notionphil]

Enjoying Rail Conflicts immensely so far, and the mod-turn-on is a great mechanism to allow player of most experience levels to get in and mix it up - as well as giving some balance to disparate frames/weapons.

 

Really looking forward to seeing what DE does for balance towards AoE weapons and the few "default" PvP frames of Rhino, Ash etc.

 

I'd love to see something simple like the incredibly effective frames/weapons simply reducing your XP gain, so it takes you longer to level.

 

No nerfs, more choices, more balance.

[DarknightK]

There are a few problems with the method of re-acquiring your mods:

 

1) The level of your weapons/frames are not equal to the enemy's level.

Basically, we are bringing the equivalent of Rank 0 weapons against some-odd numbers of enemies who are Levels 30-40. Unless Dev puts in fodder enemies, acquiring mods is next to impossible without certain weapons (I tried this with the Soma, and I barely managed to get a single mod onto it). Something needs to be done. A suggestion would be to have each player start with one of their equipment maxed with all mods randomly. This could be their primary, Warframe, secondary, or melee (or pets, don't know if they factor into this as well).

 

2) Some frames, such as Ash, have an extremely cheap way of racking up kills.

As I was playing today, I noticed that an Ash was quickly acquiring mods by spamming bladestorm. It could be possible that he modded his setup so that Bladestorm was the first on the list (which isn't a bad tactic), but again, this horribly destroys all balance when a single warframe has the ability to potentially destroy an entire squad and a couple of other corrupted units.

 

3) We need a way to coordinate our Corrupted units

A Pseudo-companion type of command system like in Fallout New Vegas would work well here, telling your units to defend an area, push up towards the objective, or provide supporting fire against enemy Tenno units. One way this could work is that each player is allotted a small amount of units that replenish each time one goes down.

[Faulcun]

Im having a ton of trouble even getting into the missions. Sometimes i click on accept and it does nothing. Other times i click on it and it says cannot find opponents, please try again. Whats that all about?

[BrainInvader]

I picked up 2 Rage mods that dropped in a defense of a Rail, then after the match ended could not find this mod... Is looting disabled completely?

I don't have that mod yet so I was really happy to pick it up :(

[DrazeA]

Dark sectors are horrendously unblanced and favored towards the defenders. One major problem I had was I kept fighting hysteria spamming valkyrs, who liked to spawn camp. somehow they level themselves up high enough to hysteria within the first minute or less. I never seem to get my gear very high, or if I do I only unlock a very small amount of stuff.

[Cybernetix]

As we continue to monitor Dark Sector Conflicts we wanted to make it clear that any balance changes made to the PvP elements of Warframe won’t cross over into PvE mission types.

 

 And there's the silver bullet to put down PvP hate threads.

Thanks DE, looking forward to giving the new rail conflicts a go once my desktop is back up and running.

[RawGritz]

Gotta say it... I really love what you all are doing with these new Dark Sector conflicts. Melee is a lot of fun and can send those Angstrum, Penta and Soma wielders packing. 

 

Also I welcome this as a new way to think about modding weapons and frames specifically for these modes.

 

I hope to see more tile set types soon.

Edited July 23, 2014 by RawGritz

[Vandole]

It's downright terrible, here is why:

The attackers rarely provide any battlepay. The defenders on the other hand often do. So naturally people spam defender support. Now comes the fun part. If you decide to attack, you'll be matched vs 4 people in an instant while you have 3 useless specters at your side. Those are lvl 10 and the defenders are just like you lvl 1 (I think). Now if nobody joins you in let's say in a minute, the defenders will get crazy lots of experience and voila, everyone who joins now can't keep up with the lvl 10 defenders by now. Why are you alone when you attack? Because people obviously are in for the battle pay and so defenders are usually full in a few secs while attackers usually lack the needed support.

 

The SIMPLE solution: Don't start the match unless every team is full.

 

Now about the damage. Once the mods kick in the melee spin attacks usually 1 shot everyone, Frost locks people in place with snowglobe, Rhino is crazy tanky with Iron Skin and Valkyr simply invincible.

 

But snowglobe is the real killer I think. Since you have to hack objectives most of the time, spamming a snowglobe right before gives you enough time to hack and defend the panel.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Vandole