Progression 2.0, A Complete Rework Of The Presentation Of Warframe (Update 1/27)

[DrBorris]

Edit 1 (1/19): This is a very long topic, but there is no other way to build a Progression System that is worthy of the name "Warframe". Feedback is supposed to be something beyond "fix this", Feedback should be something where ideas are presented, debated, and inevitably presented to DE so that they may see what the Forums Community thinks so that they have an idea of where they can improve. Things such as this can never happen without putting a few minutes of your time into reading and commenting on others' ideas. Go on and read if you like. If you would like something in the general realms of the following, comment. Just a +1 cannot give a topic life. In order for a topic to be seen by DE it requires to live on the Forums and be given Feedback on by the rest of the Community.

 

Edit 2(1/23): Added two alternatives in the “Difficulty/Power” section. These are both much more “revolutionary” than the previous suggestions, and the viability of each is questionable. However, especially with the current events, they have much more Focus *cough* on some of the balance things floating around (like removal of serration). I repeat, these new alternatives are not necessarily the best options, they are just more options. If you are new to the post, be sure to read the previous sections under “Difficulty/Power” because the two alternative draw a lot from that original portion.

 

Edit 3(1/27): I “reworked” the entire “Difficulty versus Power” section. It contains mostly the same information, but is formatted in an easier and more logical way. I did add a new section to “Difficulty versus Power,” “Difficulty.” (Hmm, not sure why I did not address difficulty before under the section “Difficulty versus Power”)

 

Edit 4(5/25): Did not add anything, just wanted to say “IT’S ALIVE”.

 

Progression 2.0, a complete rework of the presentation and foundations of Warframe.

 

Warning: very (very) verbose, there are over cough*cough words here (I don’t want to admit the exact amount). This is because this is a very fleshed out idea. I made sure to explain everything related to progression itself, and everything here is interdependent on each other. There is no short little summary that I can write, you will have to actually read some of this to understand. Because I know many will not read all of this nor do I expect everyone to, I shall list what is needed to understand where I am going. Before you comment, please read everything not in spoilers and “Difficulty versus Power”. Those two parts are the foundation for this idea, commenting without reading them fully would mean that you have practically not read anything (because it is all interconnected). If you want to read a bit more, you can also read “Warframe Quests,” “Split Infested into two sub-factions” and “Archwing… EVERYWHERE” under “Side Notes”. These sections are all important to the grand scheme, but not necessary for understanding the basics. Or you can just read everything. Also, before you comment on something, quickly skim over the section titles to see if I already discussed that topic.

The biggest reason this is so long is because I wrote “why” I suggested certain things. I did not leave a suggestion at “X should happen,” I made sure to explain “X should happen because Y, and Y is due to…” I did this in order to let you all understand where I am coming from.

 

While I understand that this is not the “best” thing for Warframe, I will stand behind the core of this post that what is the “best” for Warframe is interlocking difficulty, power, story, and lore under the big umbrella of progression. This is just a way I see that it can play out.

 

Warframe? Progression? In the same sentence? How is it possible for there to even envision progression with it being non-existent?

 

“A complete rework of progression” is no understatement for this. It is transferring from practically no progression to a campaign mode that is more complex than, well, any game I have ever heard of.

The only progression that is somewhat existent is mods, the ranking and acquiring of mods does require time… or you can just trade for everything you need and entirely skip over the little progression there is.

 

It really hit me with the update that introduced Patient Zero what was possible with a Campaign mode. We have had all of the events in the past that add to the story, but something about how Patient Zero was really made a story made it click. The foundation is there, DE has confirmed multiple times that the old events are being made into quests. Put all of those quests in a sequence and you have a campaign mode for Warframe.

But that is not how progression in Warframe works, if you complete all of the quests and events you are nowhere near being progressed through the game.

 

And for the suggestion now. It pretty much comes down to unlocking everything except weapons over the course of the storyline (Warframes, Planets, and Bosses). Yes, Planets are unlocked in a logical way now through quests, not beating up bosses.

 

Note: Everything that you have unlocked would obviously not be re-locked. All items you own and planets you have unlocked will be grandfathered in (So those MR2s that already have Boltor Primes can keep them :( ). Taking stuff away from the player “just because” is not a good policy, so keep in mind that this system will not take anything you have away from you.

 

The basic representation is a timeline, everyone starts at Vor’s Prize and works their way through the story. This does require a reworking the quest screen to show this.

 

Now for the map. Below is a visual representation of the progression. All Current Quests, Bosses, and all but one of the past events (could not figure out where to put Artifact Defense) are in its continuum. In order to start any quest, all prior quests that it is connected to via a link must be completed. However, there are many side quests that are linked together but are not required for the main timeline.

 

Key

Blue=Quest

 

Orange=Warframe

 

Green=Planet

 

Anything listed under a quest (blue) is obtained at some point during the quest it is listed under (can be beginning, middle, or end, it depends on the quest).

 

 

Ain’t it beautiful? When I said something about the quests being represented in a timeline format on the quest screen in the Codex, this is not what I meant. This shows all of the links in the most logical way for explanation and shows what is obtained during the quests. For the most part, all existing things in Warframe are left the same. Things such as what boss gives what frame, where bosses are located, level of planets etcetera. If a change as drastic as this was made, DE would be perfectly capable of altering everything. But for the sake of explanation with familiarity, I will keep some things constant in this example.

 

Because many won’t read all of the way through, I am going to put one of the most important features here. Notice the split at the Gradivus Dilemma. At the Gradivus Dilema, the Campaign splits into faction specific timelines. As of now, the Grineer and Infested have somewhat developed stories but the Corpus have near none. And if you all did not notice, Alad V is the representation of the Infested, not the Corpus. Also, each frame has an accompanying quest and not be dependent on RNG to obtain (see “Warframe Quests”)

 

Ok, so now that you understand how the Warframe Quests work together, I shall move on to every other quest and explain their positions. As a general point, past events will not be implemented in the same way as when they were conducted. The grind will be lowered and the story told more clearly (no deciphering of the Grinner language is necessary). Rather than repetitive missions, the events turned quests will be more of a sequence of missions (like every other current quest). I did not go into much detail on many of the quests, and in none of them did I lay out the specific missions for each step. These are general explanations on the basics of how a quest would work and the reasoning behind its position.

 

Description of each Quest

This is the easiest section to skip over. Use this as a reference section to the above picture if you are wondering where I am coming from on a certain quest. Most of these descriptions are a sentence or two, but a few get into interesting points. The sections that may be worth a read (but still mostly unnecessary) will be in bold font.

 

Vor’s Prize

This is pretty obvious, you start out in Vor’s Prize where you get your Warframe, Liset, and unlock Mercury, Earth, and Venus. This quest is fine as is.

 

Currently, after you complete Vor’s Prize, you are pretty much thrown out into the wilderness, still pretty clueless. I guess that Once Awake is a step, but that is almost more confusing to go from Vor’s Prize to seeing these weird clone dudes make zombies. This is why I am putting in a Corpus and Grineer quest right after Vor’s Prize. These Quests are going to give a buffer before the crazy stuff starts happening.

 

Corpus/Grineer Introduction

These two quests are meant to show the scope of each faction and provide more of a backstory for each. During these quests you would find out the messed up interactions of the Grineer and Corpus. In addition, this should be the time where you are shown things that make you want to greatly dislike the two factions. Rather than getting directly involved with the two factions, this will revolve around gaining intelligence about them. This is a vital time for a new player, so teasing the later bosses and alluding to the future conflict of the Gradivus Dilemma would help retain the newer players. Characters like Ruk, Alad, Hek, and the corpus Board will all get their initial teasing. Maybe there could even be a teaser about how they never found Vor’s body. This is also a vital time where a new player needs to rank up their equipment and better understand the mod system. Pretty much these two quests are fluff in order to teach new players the ropes. These should actually be two of the longest quests. This should be a time where you explore new weapons and rank what you have.

 

This is also where a new player has their first opportunity of obtaining a new Warframe. Oberon no longer rides in Eximus enemies, but is obtained through the Grineer Introduction. The crafting of Oberon is not required however, his pieces are just rewarded over the course of the quest (in a similar form to Mag’s example). Oberon is a great starter frame, with him players can get a sense of what playstyle they would like to explore more as they progress.

 

After completing the Corpus Quest, the quest in order to get Rhino is made available. There is a reason Rhino is called Rhinoob. I personally am not a fan of Rhino, but giving new players a tanky option early on is good.

 

It is only after completing both the Corpus and Grineer Introduction that you can continue on to Once Awake.

 

Jackal

Here is the first Boss Quest that will be available. Due to it being accessible to new players, it should still remain simple like the Mag example.

 

But this side quest line is not done, the Howl of the Kubrow Quest is unlocked after the Jackal Quest much like how it is obtained now.

 

Howl of the Kubrow

Take this one as it is now. This is in no way necessary to continue on in your adventures, it is entirely optional as there are no quests that follow.

 

Once Awake

This little quest is great, it was a sign that DE might actually have a plan similar to this in store for quests. This is the break needed and the introduction to infested that you need before you start in attempting to obtain Archwings.

 

Also, the little teaser thing at the end is a perfect lead into the old Informant event.

 

And now that the infested are introduced, our lovely Phorid can be hunted in order to obtain Nyx.

 

Phorid

This is unlocked at this point because it is the most logical position. The Infestation has just been released back into the system, and Phorid is the mind behind the Ancient Infested Invasions (See “Split Infested into two factions”)..

Now, don’t whine about new players with Nyx. New players with Nyx is almost as bad as new players with Loki. (most people who started with Loki hated him). This is where Quests are different difficulties. There will be some scaling system for Quests, and Nyx’s quest, while it may be unlocked early, will have a higher skill requirement than when it is unlocked. Just look at Patient Zero. While many of us saw it as a breeze, imagine a new player going through it (they would/could not). This should be very clear through the Quest screen in the Codex, and if a player starts the quest they will be warned of its difficulty.

 

Informant

When I was going through the past events, this one stood out due to how perfectly it would fit here. The end of Once Awake has that disturbing part where the Twin Queens are being deceived into thinking the Tenno are even worse than we really are. Thus, it would be logical for the Twin Queens to then try to spy on us as much as possible.

 

For those who don’t know what the Informant event was, it was an event where the Twin Queens called to have little floating cameras spying on the Tenno. The objective of the event was to destroy the camera things.

 

This then leads to Banshees Quest.

 

Banshee Quest

Having the Frames be in the Tenno Lab is boring. I am pretty sure it was DE’s short term solution to get those three frames out of the terrible RNG pit they were in and they did not have any place else to go.

 

Very similar to Nyx’s Quest, Banshee’s will be considerably more difficult than its leading quest. The reason I put banshee’s here is because her abilities fit so well into the theme of the Informant Quest. She is a stealth, ranged frame. Perfect for reconnaissance. I did not make her a reward for the Informant quest due to wanting the Informant Quest to be a lower difficulty. I guess this could be changed, but I am not sure yet. I just want to make sure that Banshee’s Quest has a high skill cap because she is probably the worst (worse than Loki) frame for a new player.

 

Operation Cryotic Front

Well, we do need that vital information for Archwings, so we have to help that guy preserve those jellyfish things.

 

This will lead to the Fusion MOA event as a side quest and then the main quest line will continue with The Archwing quest.

 

For those wondering why I am designing this to get into Archwings as fast as possible, well, if you were a Tenno you would want your wings back ASAP too right? (And some more devious stuff I will discuss later)

 

Fusion MOA

The reason this is here is that it could be a good introduction to Nef Anyo. He is pushing for new MOAs to be developed with Void Technology. At this point, it is possible for s new player to be unexposed to the void. This quest will only mention what the Void is and build up mystery about it. As with the event, the main purpose is to attempt to stop the Fusion MOA development (through exterminates, destroying facilities, etcetera).

 

With the introduction of Nef, the next quest is opened for you to go on and beat him up.

 

Nef Anyo

This is just another boss quest, you are going out to acquire the blueprints for Mag and stopping Corpus development at the source. Due to Nef’s presence in later quests, he will survive the last boss fight. One of the Devstreams showed Nef with a fancy flying chair. Simply having him eject out of it at the last second and fly away seems fair. Because he left his chair behind, you still get the Mag Systems.

 

Operation Gate Crash

Now that you got the information from what’s-his-name about Archwings, you can now go and get the rest of the information on how to construct them. Being sneaky, the Grineer discovered your endeavors and want to acquire the information for themselves.

I propose a slight change to how the event worked though. The first mission has you starting on earth and discovering the Grineer portal. On that mission you sneakily go through and place a beacon inside the Derelict Ship. You then run back through the portal to earth, get in your Liset, and process what the beacon says.

A cool part of this (to encourage stealth) would be that if you were detected the Grineer would shut down the Portal. If you are on Earth’s side without placing the beacon, you fail. If you get in and out before the timer ends, you are good. If you are on the other side when it closes, you are trapped there for a 10 min (maybe more?) pseudo survival until the Liset can come get you. Or, I guess you could just be stealthy and have them never close it. This is something that I would love for DE to add to missions. Events that are based off of your actions and change how the mission works. You know that thing in the Vor’s Prize quest where you have the option of saving the colony? It would be awesome if that decision actually changed the mission rather than… well… doing nothing.

Okay, back on topic now. After you get back to the Liset the Lotus gives you the spiel on the Derelicts and then says that you can now go in through the back door (start in the derelicts, like the event), gather the Archwing info, and destroy the Grineer portal things.

 

Now that you have all of the data you need, you can finally go out and try to create your Archwings. Also unlocked would be the Lephantis quest because you discovered the Derelicts. Because Lephantis is so epic, teasing “an ancient creature of the infestation, used as a weapon for the Old War” would be a nice way to keep newbies interested.

 

Lephantis

Please read the “Split Infested into two factions” part below. This is the original infested faction.

This is currently the biggest, bad-est boss in the game, thus the quest should have some challenge. I would not make it a super hard quest (but more difficult than gate crash for sure) because Lephantis is an experience the new players should have. This would be similar-ish to the Hydroid example quest, but would need more flair for the infested.

This is a huge place where lore can be poured in also, so cross fingers for that.

 

This quest will be a requirement for the later Void quest because it would make the Void seem extra shiny if you saw it dirty first.

 

The Archwing

You finally got there, it is time for you to drink a red bull and and get on your wings. A very important part of this quest is that it is mandatory to continue progressing through the campaign. There is no way to get around obtaining Archwings.

 

In general, this quest is the same as now.

Why did I make it this way you ask? Well, I have a plan for Archwings, that is why.

Archwings are the best thing to come to Warframe since Mods 2.0. The problem is that our current Archwing mission options are quite bad. Sabotage trench run are not too terrible, but it still gets old fast. The mechanics of Archwing and contrast to space ninjaing around ships is what makes it great. Remember the Archwing Quest when you did it? I am pretty sure that most of us though “holy $#!* this is awesome” when going through it, then we started to grind for the other weapons and the luster died.

So how do we make Archwings a general pro for Warframe? Well, don’t separate Archwings and normal missions… that is how. In order to get to Saturn, Jupiter, Phobos, Sedna, Eurpoa, Neptune, Pluto, Uranus, Eris, Ceres, and the Void you must have Archwings, thus Archwing gameplay can be thrown in on any of these missions.

Let’s say that you do an exterminate on Saturn. You are OP-ing yourself through the level when you accidentally set off the alarm. Thinking nothing of It you continue on murdering the helpless Grineer when Ordis comes up and says “the Grineer have noticed fortified the outside of their ship, there is no way for me to get to you.” Thus, once you finish the mindlessly murdering the Grinner on that Galleon, you are directed to a window. The only way out is to break the window and jump out. Here begins your Archwing section, all that you have to do is get far enough away from the Galleon, this is not much Archwing but it is something to throw it in. This example could even be used on both sides of the mission, the grineer fortified the ship before you go there so you have to fight your way into the vents in at deployment and out the window to extract.

 

Read more about that in “Archwings… EVERYWHERE”

 

All quests that follow this may have Archwing components.

 

Now that you have your Archwings, you can complete the tasks necessary for you to venture beyond the inner planets in the Asteroid Belt quest.

 

Also, this seemed like a good spot to put a quest for Vauban, something about an engineer and creating Archwings just fits.

 

 

Vauban Quest

This is just a quest about getting a Warframe, now that you have your Archwings, any mission has the opportunity to have Archwing elements.

 

It would be really cool if Vauban was the original creator of the Archwings. The quest could talk about Vauban’s past and the situations that lead him to design and create the Archwings (aka, Old War)

 

Asteroid Belt Quest

This is the quest that separates the training of the Tenno and the Tenno going out and “balancing” the system. This is the quest where you outfit your Liset and Orbiter for the journey beyond the inner planets. The preceding quests revolved around you preparing for facing the enemies beyond, after this is when you move from watching to acting.

 

This quest revolves around finishing up repairs on you Liset and Orbiter (remember the Grineer messing with it?) in order that it can travel the longer journeys. Some missions about finding blueprints for parts that need repair and gathering necessary materials would start off the quest. The last part would be the actual repairing of the Liset. Unfortunately, in order to repair the Liset it must turn off its cloaking. The Corpus and Grineer are always patrolling for Tenno ships, hoping they can find one to raid. Thus, while the Liset and Orbiter are being outfitted you have to defend them against waves of Grineer and Corpus. Once this is completed, you are able to leave the range of the Inner planets and unlock Saturn and Jupiter.

 

This quest unlocks a bunch of stuff. This unlocks access to Volt’s quest… because this is where I felt like putting it.

 

Operation Oxium Espionage is also unlocked because it was the most fitting place.

 

You just finished outfitting you Liset an Orbiter for travel to the outer planets, now you get to outfit it for travel to the Void (unlocks Void Quest).

 

Most importantly the main storyline continues/begins with Sling Stone.

 

Volt Quest

There is not much reason for the positioning of this quest. Being one of the starter frames, it seemed fit that Volt would be obtainable relatively early on.

I am not exactly sure how this quest would go. In fact, I am completely clueless. I am open for suggestions on this one.

 

Operation Oxium Espionage

This is just another quest where you meddle in the affairs of the Corpus. Not much more to it than that, this is just some fluff. This would be a pretty short quest unless DE saw some vital information that could be added, or I guess they could completely re-do the concept of the event.

 

This is required to begin the Zephyr quest however (due to oxium, oxium’s discovery, and Zephyr being linked).

 

Zephyr Quest

This could be an interesting quest. Zephyr is a “new” frame, she seems to have been created during this era. Thus, her quest could shed some light on the Tenno Council. I don’t know, this is another place where I will take suggestions.

 

Void Quest

Ah, the Void. The magical place where all go to grind to their content. The Void is a very interesting place, but it has near no introduction and the only way to discover what it really is to look up stuff on the Wiki or ask around. This quest serves two purposes. It locks away the powers that lie within and provides a well needed introduction. It is not meant to curb the RNG that lies within, the only reward of this quest is access to the Void missions and the ability to craft Prime weapons and Warframes. Oh yeah, you cannot craft prime stuff until you have completed this quest (it does not make sense for a new player to trade for a golden shiny gun without knowing where it came from right?).

 

Here is how I see the Void quest going. It begins with a message from your old buddy Vor. He gives his whole spiel on how he is energy and immortal. Once you have finished watching/reading this, the Lotus says that she has no idea where that message came from, like it came out a hole in space. The Ordis tells you that he is picking up a strange signal, it is sending fancy calculations (we know how much Ordis likes math from the Limbo quest) that show a way to tear through space and time itself. The Lotus then comments on “the Void” and how the Orokin fled to it.

The following missions have you raid locations for blueprints and materials that will allow you to travel to the Void.

Once your Liset and Orbiter are outfitted, you travel to the Void. This is your first time seeing the shininess of the Void. Keep in mind that you were required to complete the Lephantis/Derelict quest before coming here, thus you have seen the dirty version, making the shiny version seem that much shinier.

As you progress the Level, you get ambushed by Corrupted Vor. Apparently, everything has been Vor setting you up. He was tricking you to come to the Void, to his turf, so that he may exact his revenge. The outcome of this encounter is similar to the first encounter you had with Vor. You shoot at him, try to take him down, but he is not being affected by your actions. Thus the Lotus tells you to run to extraction. All the way Vor would be taunting you (of course), but you make it out.

That is it. You have discovered the Void. When you gain the power to embark on T4 journeys, Vor will find you again but by then you will be able to kick his @$$.

 

This quest is required to begin the Arid Fear quest (as that quest has the Void woven tightly in).

 

This would also be the point where DE would begin a Void storyline if they would chose to do so.

 

Sling Stone

This is the true beginning of the Tenno bringing balance to the system. This is the first available quest where you meddle in the affairs of the Origin System.

I am not exactly sure how this should be played out in quest form besides retaining the infested and corrupters, but of course destroying Fomorians is a must. The actual destruction of the Fomorians should remain “on foot” rather than Archwing like the latest Fomorian event, but maybe having to infiltrate the Fomorian through Archwing rather than through the vents could be cool.

 

With the completion of Sling Stone, the main storyline continues with the Gradivus Dilemma.

 

Arid Fear was the event to follow Sling Stone, but was mostly unrelated in terms of story. Now it is a side quest that follows this.

 

This is also where you unlock Specters of Liberty, which has gone through a major overhaul.

 

Specters of Liberty

In hindsight, I am not sure that I should have helped out the Red Veil. This event that was only really there for the Rescue 2.0 will now be reworked into the Syndicate Quest. This is the point where Syndicates are unlocked and you choose who you will join.

 

The quest should just start out with the Lotus telling you about how many Tenno supporters have been captured and are being held on Sedna (Sedna is unlocked in the beginning of the quest). From there you go and rescue six people from Grineer holdings (yes, 6 in one mission (each have their syndicate secondary pre-equiped)). Each of these people represent each of the six syndicates. Once you finish the mission, each of the people say thank you, then ask if you would help them with a mission or two. These beginning missions that they offer will be syndicate specific. Red Veil would have you assassinating some leader, Cephlan Suda would have you gather information, Steel Meridian would have you reroute a ship to save a colony etcetera. You would have to do each of the Syndicates missions, and during each they syndicates will expand on their ideology and try to convince you to join them as a permanent member. Once you have completed each of the missions, you would be asked to choose what syndicate you would like to permanently join.

There you go, a nice introduction to Syndicates.

 

Because this unlocked Sedna, it also unlocks the Kela De Thaym quest.

 

Also, this seemed like a good spot to unlock the Limbo quest.

 

Kela De Thaym

Just another Boss quest, probably based more on Mag’s example because she has a permanent home on Sedna.

 

The Limbo Theorem

This is a grindy quest, but it is not that bad. As long as quests like this are few and far between in terms of repetition, Limbo’s is fine.

 

Arid Fear

This is basically just a quest to unlock Phobos.

It would retain the same story, the Lotus hears whispers that the Corpus have knowledge of a secret Grineer settlement, the Corpus holders of that information go to the Void (thus the requirement of the Void quest before starting this quest), and the Tenno have to find the specific Void locations in order to capture the Corpus peoples.

 

Because this unlocks Phobos, it also unlocks the Vor/Kril quest.

 

This also leads to the Tyl Regor Quest.

 

Vor/Kril Quest

DE might have something else planned for this boss fight. But it will probably have to wait until every other boss has gotten their remake. In a way, it makes sense for there to be a dual boss fight here, the odd part is Vor (you muat have killed him in Vor’s Prize and have seen his corrupted version in the Void by this point). I would recommend just switching Vor out for Ruk. Thus, it would be the Ruk/Kril quest.

 

Tyl Regor

This quest is a little different that the normal boss quest in that you unlock the planet the boss is on through the quest. Tyl Regor is a pretty big figure in the Grinner realm. He is also the best figure to explain what happened to the Grineer (the cloning and genetic degradation).

I would think that this quest should start off with finding information on the whereabouts of Regor in general. You just discovered the secret Grinner settlement of Phobos, so missions that take place there make sense. After a few missions, the Lotus tells you that the information points to Uranus. Thus, you do a bunch of missions there where you look for Regor and sabotage the Grineer cloning stuff. I hate to say this, but this actually makes sense to be a beacon based boss (like Hek). The Grineer would hide Regor as well as they could, he is their savior in a way. Look at the Hydroid example for the acquisition of Ash, and remember that there is limited RNG in the acquisition of beacon based frames (you get guaranteed parts per mission).

 

Gradivus Dilemma

And here is the big split. After this event the Warframe storyline splits into the Corpus/Infested Storyline and the Grineer Storyline. Fittingly, this is where you choose what faction you find more “just” in their ways. The leading quests should have given you a pretty good idea of the two factions inner workings and mentalities, thus this decision should be aligned more with what you feel is more “just” rather than rewards (something the original event was accused of). The quests leading up to this point also alluded to this coming conflict.

 

There is still a decision in the execution of this quest. Obviously however, the Grineer will win in the end. If you play for Corpus then you will be told at the end that the rest of the Tenno population did not agree with your decision and if you choose Grineer you will be told the opposite.

Rather than grinding exterminates, some mission variety would be acceptable. There could easily be every type of mission throughout this quest (spy, deception, capture, exterminate, sabotage, etcetera). Maybe during the course of the missions the faction you are supporting can try to show their side of the conflict. If you fight for Grineer they will try to make you feel bad for them, or the opposite with the Corpus.

 

Remember, Events =/= Quests. Fighting over several nodes and rewards will not be part of the Quest.

 

And now the split… The two quests that follow this focus on the leading character of each of the factions, Alad V and Ruk.

 

The Grineer Storyline continues with the “Ruk” quest.

 

The Corpus/Infested Storyline begins with the “Hunt for Alad V” quest.

 

Ruk

So the Grineer just won the Gradivus Dilemma. Ruk, the leader for the Grineer during this conflict, has gone out and started pillaging Orokin ruins. Of course, this is something that is not good. The Grineer with Orokin Technology and the might of their military could be unstoppable. Thus, this is a quest about stopping Ruk.

 

This is not much more than a normal Warframe Quest. It may have a few extra Grineer related things thrown in and maybe focus more on the Grineer than Ember’s lore throughout it, but the basics will remain similar to Mag’s example. This serves mostly as a way into the politics of the Grineer.

 

The Grineer storyline continues with the Cicero Crisis.

 

Cicero Crisis

This is the major introduction of our favorite uncle, Vay Hek. This would actually be a pretty easy Event to turn into a quest. I really despised scanning those flowers, but it is a major enough part of the event that it should transfer into the quest. Rather than repeating a bunch of exterminates, there would probably be other missions that relate to the Grineer attempting to re-conquer Earth. The Lotus would make sure to constantly remind you that you need to be hunting the flowers though.

 

The Grineer storyline continues with the prelude to the return of the Fomorians, Tethra’s Doom.

 

Tethra’s Doom

The Grineer are at it again, rather than waiting for the Fomorians to be built before we destroy them, the Lotus is having us destroy them while still in production.

 

Early on in this quest you unlock Ceres. I would say that there should only be one mission on some other planet before Ceres is unlocked. While the event revolved around just destroying the Fomorian Cores, the quest should revolve around sabotaging the entire ship building process.

That is about it.

 

As this unlocks Ceres, it also unlocks the Lech Kril quest.

 

Also, now you can hunt the prosecutors and try to find Hek.

 

And of course, the Grineer Storyline continues with Operation Eyes of Blight.

 

Lech Kril

Meh, just another boss quest. Ceres already has a beacon boss (Hek), so Kril should be pretty easy to get to. It would then be like Mag’s example.

 

Councilor Vay Hek

I already laid out exactly how this could go in the example…

 

Operation Eyes of Blight

There is something about flying into a giant Grineer ship and blowing it up that is quite fun. The problem with the event is that people still are not that accustomed to Archwing (because it is still so basic and there is no reason to do it) and are terribly outfitted for Archwing (because Archwing grind is worse that Prime grind).

 

The tricky part of this quest is differentiate it enough from Sling Stone. That is why I suggested flying into a Fomorian, then corrupting the core on-foot for Sling Stone. This quest would be flying into the Fomorian and blowing up the core through Archwing stuff. As far as the Fomorians destroying Relays… I have no idea. This quest would definitely need some work before it is quest ready.

 

And this is it for the Grineer Storyline for now. Of course more quests will be added as time continues, but this is where it ends for now.

 

Hunt for Alad V

The Gradivus Dilemma splits off directly into quests about the Leaders of each faction for the Gradivus Dilemma.

 

I love the “hint-hint” that this quest gives about Infested and Alad V. Foreshadowing aside, this quest revolves around pleasing Frohd Bek so that he may give you Alad V’s whereabouts.

This is a very lore-ridden quest. Information about the Corpus Board, Alad V, Frohd Bek, and our favorite merchant, Darvo would be spilt during this. Killing infested to please Bek is what this would revolve around, but who knows what else could be put in.

 

As this quest is all about finding Alad V, one of the Following quests will be actually getting to Alad V. And as previously discussed, the beginning of the Infested Storyline.

 

This is also where the Corpus Storyline begins.

 

Corpus Storyline

I will go into more detail on this in a following section, but over the course of this storyline you will unlock and fight the Hyena Pack, Ambulas, and the raptor and unlock Europa, Neptune, and Pluto.

 

I cannot say much about those quests because I have no idea where the Corpus Storyline will go.

 

Alad V

You got the necessary information to find Alad V I the previous Quest, now you just need to get to him. This would be a pretty short quest, very similar to Mag’s example.

 

After this is when things get tricky. Alad V really looses it in Operation Breeding Grounds/Mutalist Incursion.

 

Operation Breeding Grounds

This event and Mutalist Incursion are two peas in a pod. They both are about Alad V’s new Infested, and are so similar that they should be put together. Mutalist Incursion did not really have a story to it anyway, the story came with the quest, Patient Zero.

 

The first step would probably be a mission on Jupiter where you get very disturbing news about what Alad has been doing with Infested, then you unlock and venture to Eris to see what he is up to. This quest should mainly revolve around just interfering with Alad V’s new super Infested. Killing the Hives is a main priority, but other stuff would be needed to break that up. This is the quest where you get all of the information on what Alad has done to the Infested.

 

As this unlocks Eris, this will unlock the soon to be J3 Golem (or is it J4?) quest.

 

In addition, Mirage’s quest is all done on Eris, thus would also be unlocked at this point.

 

The Infested Storyline continues with Patient Zero.

 

In addition, after completing this quest Mutalist Invasions will be made visible.

 

J3 Golem

Uhh, J3 is not released yet, but I am so excited for destroying a giant Infested ship that I put it in anyway.

 

Carry on.

 

Hidden Messages

Not much to say here. This quest is unlocked and can remain exactly the same as it is now if DE wishes.

 

Patient Zero

This quest that inspired this behemoth of a post, Patient Zero is already a quest, the only thing I suggest is that its difficulty is greatly raised. In later sections I will talk about how the missions need to grow in difficulty as you progress.

 

After seeing the frightening things Alad is capable with the Infested now, it is a good idea to take him out.

 

Depending on how DE continues the Infested Storyline, the story may continue after this quest or after Mutalist Alad V’s quest.

 

Mutalist Alad V

This is quite a source of contention at the moment. I am not going to get into specifics beyond, base this quest off of Hydroid’s example. Oh, and please give Alad a cut-scene before you beat him up, it is a lot of hype for a really boring fight (and maybe a new boss room too maybe like the one extraction area where you see the other half of the infested ship)

 

Warframe Quests

I am just going to start this section out with two examples, a normal Warframe quest and a beacon Warframe quest.

 

Mag

You start the quest to obtain Mag after completing the Fusion Moa Quest.

(Interception) The lotus tells you that you need to do an interception (Augustus) to discover where the parts for Mag are.

(Exterminate) Her next instructions are that Mag’s helmet blueprint is being held deep within a corpus base and you need to exterminate the corpus to get to it.

(Sabotage) After that the lotus tells you that a corpus vessel is about to leave Mars with Mag’s chassis blueprint and you need to destroy its power core to prevent the ship from leaving mars.

(Defense) The next mission is to defend the chassis until reinforcements come to assist in extracting the chassis blueprint.

(Assassinate) Then Lotus tells you that Mag’s system blueprint can only be obtained by defeating Sgt. Nef Anyo (Mars’ boss).

Hydroid

You start the quest to obtain Hydroid after completing Tethra’s Doom.

(Defense) The lotus tells you that she has found an artifact that describes a lost Warframe design and that you must defend its location until reinforcements arrive to take it out.

(Rescue) A Tenno sympathizer who knows of the frames nature has been captured by Grineer, recue them.

(Keep in mind I do not know how Beacons are currently dropping, make adjustments where they seem fit)

(Random Missions) The Lotus tells you about the new fancy Councilor Vay Hek and how you need Beacons to find his location. Then she gives the spiel about the Prosecutors and how you need to kill them to get the Beacons and how they spawn on all areas of Ceres.

(Capture) Hydroid’s Helmet blueprint has been reported to be protected by some random Grineer, the Lotus tells you to capture that Grineer to get the blueprint.

(Hijack) (Because there needs to be some reason to have people use this game mode) The Lotus tells you that Hek is attempting to secretly create a Formian vessel and that you must hijack its core before it is too late.

(Deception/Spy) Hydroid’s Chassis is on a ship that is about to leave Ceres, stop the ship from doing so then steal the blueprint (A secondary objective… how fancy).

(Assassinate) Over the course of the missions, you have (hopefully) obtained enough Beacons to find Councilor Vay Hek (if not, the lotus tells you to keep hunting) and go on your way to beat Hek and get a guaranteed Systems Blueprint.

 

I listed both an example for Mag and Hydroid due to the difference in how quests for frames may work. Because obtaining Mesa is… debatable… right now, I am just listing a way to obtain Hydroid that keeps the Beacons (which is an interesting/cool concept (if only used for a few quests)) but removes a nice portion of RNG. Applying similar concepts to that of Mag and Hydroid to every other uncreated Warframe Quest would be more logical way to obtain Warframes.

 

Also, no more requiring the construction of parts to continue a quest. It is fine for a few frames, but most Boss quests must be able to be completed without constructing the frame. It is not fair to force someone to construct every Warframe.

 

Difficulty versus Power

 

There are two big points of this post. Obviously the colorful map is going to get the most attention, but I want to emphasize that this portion is necessary as simply the progression of quests does not account for progression of power. Progression is not only the learning of the story, it is also the acquisition of power and the oncome of new difficulty. Thus, progression, difficulty, and power must be all interconnected.

 

This is the real meat of Progression 2.0. In here, the power available to you and the difficulty you are faced with will be made equal. Yes, equal. It is a basic part of Progression that difficulty rises as you move farther down a certain path. This gets interesting with Warframe because the path does not end, new story will arrive, demanding higher difficulty. Thus, higher power must be granted.

 

Difficulty

Difficulty in Warframe is not so simple. The nature of Warframe (killing hordes of enemies) makes balancing the enemy’s difficulty to the power of the Tenno extremely complex.

 

As of now, only the health (including armor) and damage for the most part of enemies scales. The Eximus enemies are DE attempting to add more difficult enemies that do things other than more damage and beefier. When Eximus enemies were first released, they were sold as a proof of concept that standard spawn enemies can have special abilities and that their current form was more or less a placeholder. Well, you have had your time DE, it is time now to rework the Eximus enemies. This is going to be short winded, as this is a topic more for another post, but Eximus enemies should be better than a buffed lancer. Eximus enemies should be the mini bosses that we all want. They should have more complex AI, dynamic weapons, MUCH more movement oriented, and have “abilities” that are more than just an aura (like mines, invisibility, special weapons, and blocking capabilities for example).

 

Second, enemies should get more difficult as you Progress in more ways than just more health and damage, but every spawn should also have some other alterations. Things like faster movement, faster reload and upgraded weapons (larger clips, dynamic elements, and so on) should be base characteristics of just one spawn. However, Warframe is not about killing one enemy as one enemy is extremely easy to kill. AI 2.0 is needed. The Grineer, Corpus, and Infested need more of a hive mind. Thus, while we currently only have and “individual” AI, there also needs to be a “big” AI that organizes the individual enemies. Groups of enemies should spawn, not just single enemies in groups. The “big” AI should analyze where the Tenno are, how much the move, the room the Tenno are in, and the general weaknesses of frames. When is the last time a frontal assault of enemies took you out? (Hopefully a rare occurrence) If your experiences are the same as mine, it is the enemy that spawned behind me that killed me. The AI needs to capitalize on multiple spawn locations, maybe send in an enormous mob of enemies in the front door, then an elite squad out the side spawn area. This post is not AI feedback, so I will leave it at enemies needing to spawn in designated squads and the “big” AI needs to arrange those squads intelligently. Oh, and of course all of this stuff scales with enemy level.

 

In general, each of the solutions discussed in the following equate help power with presented difficulty. As of now, the only system in place to somewhat fill that need is Mastery rank. That is a bad system to equate to Progression. MR =/= Progression, MR = Grind. Mastery Rank is a good system for Warframe, a number that represents the amount of items “mastered” is extremely useful. In a game like Warframe, it is necessary to force players to broaden their horizons of weapons. However, nothing should be locked over MR 8 (well, some weapons may be higher as “show off” weapons, but are no more powerful than the MR 8 weapons).

 

Before you read the alternatives, you MUST read the “Base Concepts” section. Each of those parts are integral to the following alternatives. If you do not read the Base Concepts, you will most likely misinterpret the alternatives.

 

I have three alternatives to this solution, each of which solves the problem at hand, but in different ways. The first of which, “Power Creep is Good,” is the most conservative change of the bunch. For the lost part, the weapon systems in Warframe would remain the same, but power will only be given as you Progress. The second option is an interpretation of Focus. It takes some aspects from “Power Creep is Good,” but further refines it. The final alternative, “Death to Base Stats and Serration”. As the title alludes, this option pretty much destroys the entire concepts of how weapons in Warframe work.

 

Progression Locking

So, a system is needed to parallel the Power you are capable of with the Difficulty you are presented with in quests. The solutions is stupidly simple, have the amount of quests completed be equal to the power you are capable of.

 

The amount of quests completed equals you “Progression Rank” (that is what I shall call it for the rest of this topic) equals the tier of weapons you have available to you. All weapons will be associated with a new rank. This is the rank that shows their tier and the rank you must be in order to obtain said weapon. This rank should remain visible even after a weapon is purchased and possibly to members of your cell also. This number represents the weapon’s power.

 

 

 

Basically, weapons will be locked so that only weapons that will make the current quest being completed “too easy.” In Vor’s Prize, you are given the Mk-1 weapons. These weapons are perfectly suited to the task at hand. They are capable of completing the quest, but still leaves room for some difficulty. In this way, the highest level quest, Patient Zero, should be perfectly suited for the “best” weapons in the game. When you use the “best” weapons for the Patient Zero quest, it should still be difficult to complete (like the 50 min mark of a T4 survival, where skill is also becoming a factor beyond just brute force). Yes, this means Boltor Prime finally has met its match. Boltor Prime should not be available to people just starting Sling Stone, it would trivialize that quest. The power of Boltor Prime would be locked away under a Progression lock.

 

There are 48 quests in the pretty picture, so the most powerful weapon in the game would have a Progression Rank of 48.

 

Conclave 2.0

All of the “Balance” threads going around are great and all, but they all leave a pretty big hole, the value of power.

 

With the new tiers of weapons, there needs to be a new more accurate way of calculating power. Currently, the conclave system is doing that, and it is doing a terrible job at it. The problem lies in that a weapon scales up the power of its mods multiplicatively. It is kind of a backwards way of thinking about it, because normally we view mods as multiplying weapon stats, but the power of a mod is multiplied by the power of the weapon. Thus, the conclave should also.

 

In order to find the Conclave value of a weapon, you multiply additive conclave value of the mods and the adjusted weapon rank. Oh yeah, the adjusted weapon rank. Simply multiplying the mod value by the Progression rank would be a bit too steep. Thus it needs to be toned down, just dividing the Progression rank by ten, then adding one will give a nice, seemingly balanced (needs more testing), value to multiply the mod value by.

 

Now for an example. Let’s say that you have a weapon with a Progression Rank of zero and 40 (a very late game weapon (Boltor Prime for reference)). The rank zero weapon has an adjusted conclave multiplier of 1 ( 0/10+1 ) and the rank 40 weapon would have an adjusted conclave of 5 ( 40/10+1 ). You have a set of mods that you are going to equip on both the weapons with a total conclave of 200. When you place those 200 conclave points of mods on the weapon with a Progression Rank of 0, the Conclave rating of that weapon with mods would be 200 ( 1*200 ). However, when you place those 200 conclave points of mods on the rank 40 weapon, the total conclave of the weapon and equipped mods comes out to 1000 ( 5*200 ). When comparing a weapon used for Vor’s Prize and a weapon used for Patient Zero, I would think that a difference of 800 conclave would make more sense than the 50ish that it is now.

 

Yes, there are still some wacky conclave ratings for Mods (Broken Serration=Serration), but those are much simpler adjustments to make.

 

Affinity

This part may seem out of place now, but when I get into the three alternatives this part will make more sense (it still needs to be read first however).

 

Basically, you should get affinity based on both the level enemy you are facing (as it is now) and the equipment you are using to kill that enemy. Let me specify, the affinity you gain is based on what you used to kill the enemy with, not the entire Conclave of your load-out.

 

All enemies will have their own Conclave ratings, the number that best reflects the power that they hold. This may or may not be visible, but it plays a huge role in the affinity you gain from an enemy. Think of a simple S curve graph. At equilibrium (the middle of the graph), both the Tenno and the enemy have the same Conclave. If the enemies Conclave is lower than the Tenno’s, you will get less (with a diminishing effect affinity from that enemy. If the enemy’s Conclave is higher than the Tenno’s, you will get progressively more (but with diminishing returns) affinity.

 

The affinity you gain is entirely based on this and the ranking (Lancer versus Bombard) of the enemy. Thus, you get the exact same affinity from using a weapons with a Conclave if 200 against an enemy with a conclave of 200 as you do with a weapon with a Conclave of 1000 against an enemy with a Conclave of 1000. On the flip side, if you take your weapon with a Conclave of 1000 against the enemy with a Conclave of 200, you will be getting significantly less affinity. On the other hand, if you take your weapon with a Conclave of 200 and start killing enemies with a Conclave of 1000, you will be getting a nice boost to affinity.

 

What does this mean? In conjunction with Conclave 2.0, this means that you can farm Mercury with bad weapons and gain the same affinity as you do in high level missions. This makes the affinity gain dynamically scale with Progression.

 

Overclocking/Under-clocking

This is the section that differs between the alternatives. Some use this as toppings, and others use this as the whole cake.

 

One of the largest issues with the star chart is that the only place you can find difficulty if you are a veteran is the top few planets. So, wouldn’t it be nice to Under-clock your weapon so that it was on par with low level planets so that you might actually face a challenge?

 

Or on the other hand, what if you want to squeeze a bit more out of your weapon. You could overclock it to get a bit more damage out.

 

Okay, that is the concepts behind the Under/Overclocking, now for the mechanics.

 

When you Under/Overclock a weapon, its Progression Rank will shrink/grow in order to fit the new Power of the weapon. Of course, you are only able to overclock a weapon to a Progression Rank equal to yours.

 

The “feel” of a weapon would remain the same. The only stat that changes is… damage. This is truly what separates the good weapons from the bad. While DPS =/= power, increasing DPS does increase power. The fire rate, reload, innate punch through, flight time, status, crit chance, crit multiplier, spread, recoil, etcetera all define how a weapon “feels”. When Under/Overclocking a weapon, only the power of the weapon is altered, the characteristics, use, and “feel” are left the same.

 

That is it, everything else is dependent on the interpretation of the alternatives.

 

Please, before you read these sections make sure you read the previous sections under “Difficulty versus Power”.

 

Power Creep is Good

This is the simplest of the changes. All weapons will be left as is for the most part (outside of a few weapons needing buffs), but the large power gap will remain.

 

When new quests are added, previously “best” weapons will start to lose their luster. Boltor Prime will still be capable of completing the next few quests to come out, but it will start to fall off. In then would come the new “best” weapons, all with higher Progression rankings/locks that must be achieved before being able to grasp.

 

I am sure a good portion of you are already thinking about “but… what about every other weapon in the game? Are they all just going to be left in the dust?” Yes… and no… a combination of both with the beautiful example of Tiberon as the guide.

 

As of now, the majority of weapons in game are useless in levels beyond the star chart. This is sad because each of these weapons are showcasing interesting mechanics, art styles, and play styles. My proposition is for all weapons to have upgrades like Latron to Tiberon. Once you have ranked a weapon to thirty and are have fulfilled any Progression or MR requirements, you can re-craft your weapon into a version that is better than the original. The mechanics and feel of the weapons should be pretty much the same. There may be a new model, maybe only just a new skin, but the weapon is better. This would allow all players to be able to enjoy every type of weapon. It is very awkward with new weapons now because you either make them weak and easy to construct for newer players, but then shun the weapon to only low level play. Or you make a high level weapon that can be used in late game content, but is locked away from new players. Just look at Gammacor (ignoring the Synoid version), it is a really cool looking gun, the only with innate magnetic damage, but it is unfit for higher level play.

 

The new and upgraded version does not have to be identical, just with some stat boosts, it can have completely separate mechanics… all it needs to do is “feel” the same. Again, the Tiberon is a great example. When I was first leveling Tiberon, I really liked it. It was very enjoyable to rank up and I was about to potato it when I realized… it felt exactly like my Latron Prime (my most used and favorite primary). Its mechanics were vastly different (no status, crit, and is burst) but it felt extremely similar while playing. When you upgrade your gun, it may not be the same thing on the other side, just something that fits the same playstyle and feels very similar.

 

All weapons would gain a system like this to an end. Once Lanka was no longer capable of the highest level quest, Lanka 2.0 would come out. The only catch to the new and improved version is that you must have ranked the less powerful version to 30 first. You have to earn the greater power (aka, progress from bad to meh to good to “dis is da sh!t”).

 

Prime weapons should get a little different treatment. Prime weapons will remain all characteristics between “better” and “worse,” just get moar damage. This could either be done through a prime potato, a magical Orokin device that can upgrade the base stats of prime weapons (but upgrades it to a predefined point as set by DE) or a new blueprint that is just something like Soma 2.0 (that suggested name is kind of a joke) that re-crafts and upgrades the weapon.

 

This is a side suggestion, more of a quality of life thing than game changing mechanic, but when upgrading weapons, I propose that the potato stays. So when you re-craft your potatoed Latron into a Tiberon, the Tiberon keeps the potato. Forma transferring would also be nice, but not all of them. Maybe have half of the Forma you put on transfer into the “better” version.

 

As for Under-clocking and Overclocking, there will obviously be a gap time between the each versions of weapons, I would say that 10ish Progression ranks is a nice number. In that gap, the lesser weapon will start to really have trouble before you gain access to the “better” version. On the other side, when you are doing low level missions, you may want to have some difficulty, but do not want to have to change weapons and playstyle in order to do so.

 

With this plan, under-clocking would have no benefit besides decreasing the Progression Rank of the weapon to fit its set power. Overclocking on the other hand has its limits. You are limited to only be able to Overclock a weapon ten Progression Ranks higher than it is. As you increase its Progression Rank, the weapon will gain exponentially less affinity until it gains no affinity when maxed Overclocked ten ranks above normal.

 

And if you say affinity means nothing, Syndicate reputation and the eventual Focus system.

 

Focus

For those who do not know, the basic idea of Focus is putting the additional gained affinity to use.

 

So, what happens when you mash Under/Overclocking and Focus together?

 

Under-clocking remains universal, you can always decrease the Progression Rank of a weapon. However, you must “earn” overclocking. When you first get a new weapon, you are unable to Overclock it at all. However, as you gain Focus affinity, you slowly gain the right to Overclock your weapon one Progression Rank at a time. There are no downfalls to Overclocking beyond it simply increasing its Progression Rank (thus increasing Conclave and decreasing affinity gain). So… remember how Boltor Prime is unlocked at Progression Rank 42? Now let’s say that you loved your Mk-1 Braton with an abnormal passion and gained enough Focus Affinity to Overclock it all the way up to 42, making it have an equal Power to that fancy Boltor Prime. Thus, every weapon is capable of being equal. Upgrading/Re-Crafting is no more, you just slide the power of your weapon up as you gain Focus Affinity with it.

 

If you are wondering about Prime versus Vanilla, I’ll use Boltor and Boltor Prime as an example.  The two weapons do have some differences between each other besides damage (slower flight time and fire rate). So a Boltor with a Progression Rank of 42 would maybe be the more spray version. Possibly give it higher recoil, the higher flight time, but then give it some more damage to compensate. Boltor Prime would be a bit lower on the DPS, but it would be much more of a manageable weapon.

 

In comparison to “Power Creep is Good,” this would allow you to use any weapon you want all of the way through end game as long as you “earned” it. It would also remove the Re-crafting and Upgrading that may drive people crazy (but with that it may remove a sense for Progressing with weapons).

 

Death to Base Stats and Serration

And here comes the big one.

 

Basically, weapons damage will be based on two things, Progression Rank and base proportions. Pretty much, the proportions are between whatever the damage of the weapon is (like slash, puncture, impact, and the innate elementals). Then those proportions arte scaled based on… you guessed it… Progression Rank. Fire Rate, Critical chance, Critical Multiplier (maybe, this might scale), Reload, bullet speed, punch through, etcetera would NOT be effected. All of those characteristics are what give weapons their “feel”. You do not force someone to change their favorite weapons playstyle in order to make it more powerful. As that one annoying Rhino Prime/Boltor Prime player always says… “Moar Damage.” In the end, it really is the damage that separates the weapons power. Everything else is what makes the weapons unique. In your arsenal there would be a slider. That slider would go from 0 to whatever your current Progression Rank is. As you slide up, the weapon’s base damage will scale up to perfectly fit the Progression Rank it is set at. On a sense, Mk-1 Braton=Braton=Boltor Prime=Soma=Grakata… Everything is at balance because their power is defined by that slider. A Boltor Prime scaled to a Progression Rank of 20 would be equivalent to a Braton scaled to a Progression Rank of 20. With this, weapons would no longer be given out as you “earned” their power. You got whatever weapon you wanted and “earned” the ability to make it more powerful. Maybe 5% more damage per Progression Rank (48 quests means that the difference between a new player and a player who has completed every quest is +240% damage (more than serration), but the damage of weapons would be reworked entirely anyway, so that is not much of an issue.).

 

Hm, wait… So this is a stat that increases base damage. There is another thing that increases base damage, Serration (and its brothers). I did not start this off thinking about removing serration, but this change would warrant the removal of serration (Progression Rank is the new Serration). It would be like locking your rank of Serration to your Progression Rank.

 

In previous sections I wrote about locking weapons away by Progression Rank, with this weapons will be unlocked very early (most weapons by 20) because their power is not based on the weapon itself, but rather on your Progression Rank. This would allow players to be able to explore more play styles earlier on.

 

Side notes to this alternative

With this, all of the other damage mods (elementals and physical) would need a rework. The basic “do not add damage, but modify damage” is all that is needed for those. Multi shot mods would alter the “feel” of the weapon rather than make it more powerful. Between the removal of Serration (and its brothers) and very few mods being able to increase damage (but those mods also have drawbacks (minus accuracy)), moding weapons would be vastly different. If you thought Damage 1.0 to 2.0 was a big change? Ha, have fun with this.

 

For a list of Advantages: Progression Rank = Power (no ifs, ands, or buts), buying weapons will not buy power (aka, no pay 2 win), all playstyles will be always be equally viable, no more serration (and its brothers), power will scale as high as DE will make quests (power creep is perfectly controlled (all weapons creep at the same time)), you can play any planet and have an equal difficulty (scale weapons up and down based on enemy level).

 

And the disadvantages: In a sense, some progression is lost in that you do not get new weapons, DE would have a hell of a task making the proportions perfectly balanced, gaining power will take longer (is that bad?).

 

I do not know the best course for Warframe, each of the alternatives would probably be a step in the right direction, but which is the best step is beyond me. But that is what feedback is for right?

 

 

Side notes, these are all important points, just not vital to understanding, thus they can be easily skipped.

 

Split Infested into two sub-factions

I am very hesitant posting this part. I personally am fine with the changes to the infested (all of the Mutalist enemies), but I don’t think that they should be part of every infestation. As the title of this section says, I propose splitting the Infested into two sub sections. One of which would be the Ancient Infested, the originals that have survived the eons since the Old War (Including the new Boilers and Brood Mothers) the other would be all of the Mutalist infested in addition to the Ancient Infested.

 

The reason for the split is because of lore. Especially when a new player starts out, it makes no sense for there to be these Mutalist enemies. Alad V has not become infested yet. Thus, all missions leading up to a player completing “Operation Breeding Grounds” would only have the Ancient Infested.

 

In addition, it would be in the best interest of the Tenno, Corpus, and Grineer to keep the original population of the Ancient Infested (Derelicts) separate from Alad V’s new super Infested. If all Infested were capable of infesting technology… we would be screwed (maybe this is a possibility for a new event, stop the Mutalist Infested from coming in contact with the Derelicts).

 

How this split would work is kind of simple. Obviously the Infested on Eris would be the Mutalist sub-faction and the Infested in the Derelicts would be the Ancient sub-faction. But there are infestation outbreaks too. These outbreaks would be split into two types, a Mutalist Outbreak initiated by Alad V or an Ancient Outbreak that would be carried out by Phorid. These Outbreaks will ony be visible to players that have completed necessary quests, kind of like how syndicate alerts work, you can only see/do them once you have obtained a certain rank. So, any player that has completed “Once Awake” can see/participate in any Ancient Infestation Outbreak and once a player has completed “Operation Breeding Grounds” they can see/participate in the Mutalist Outbreaks.

 

I do not want to nerf the infested faction. They are finally on a more even footing with the Grineer and Corpus as far as difficulty. I do see this as a necessary change however. There is already one “Ancient” infested in the works, The Juggernaut. Rather than creating new Mutalist Infested enemies, it would make more sense for DE to expand the Ancient Infested more for the time being, at least until they are an equal faction on their own.

 

Warframe Lore

Of course a bunch of Lore will be dumped during the quests, but this is in addition to all of that and is all about the Lore.

 

In one sentence, Once you rank a Warframe up to rank 30, a mini-quest will unlock that will be all about the lore.

I cannot take credit for this idea. I saw a thread about this a while ago and feel that it would be an awesome way to make the acquisition of Lore progression based. https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/347280-prime-warframe-codex-entry-cinematic-mini-quest-idea/

 

Here is how it goes. Once you rank a frame to 30, the Lotus tells you that your frame emanated coordinates to some random deserted place of the Origin System, then asks if you would like to go to that location. You must take the corresponding frame to the mission. The location will be seemingly random, maybe an asteroid (not Grineer), planet, or maybe even a Tenno ship (Orokin Tenno Ship if a Prime Frame). Once you get to your location, you find it completely deserted. The tile set is Tenno style (like the Dojo tile set for vanilla frames or a primed dojo for the Prime frames), but is degraded (dark and dirty). After traversing for a while, you come across a big room with a glowing thing in the middle. You walk up to the glowing thing and interact with it. To quote the original post “your Tenno inserts his hand: *zzzzap* flashback like cutscene begins.” This cut-scene is pretty much a visual representation of said Warframe’s Lore. Let’s take Mag Prime for example, if you did this mission for Mag Prime, the cut-scene would be of the Lore that is currently in the Codex. It could either be done theatrically like the cut-scenes for Vor’s Prize or maybe just Dioramas like in the codex now (a series of Dioramas) where the entirety of the written codex is in subtitles and the visuals are in sync with what is being said. Only once you have completed this mission does the Lore in the Codex show up (along with a button to reshow the visual part).

 

This would make the acquisition of Lore also progression based. A new player should not be able to go to the Codex and get the entirety of Warframe’s Lore, they should have to earn it in a way, experience it as everything falls out. The three scannings of Stalker is great in my opinion. Maybe have a mini quest like what is above, unlocked after his three scans, but the glowing thing shows Stalker’s Lore. Then after seeing it, you see the Stalker walk out of the shadows in the room and… maybe fight, or maybe he goes away, like he was pleased that you now doubt yourself (look up Stalker’s Lore on the Wiki if you have not read it yet).

 

Continued Expansion

The Warframe campaign will never have an end, there is always a cliffhanger at the end of a quest and DE will always be evolving the story. Just look at Alad, most would have originally thought that following him was following a corpus storyline, they were quite wrong. On the fancy map thing, there are three obvious points for continuation. The Corpus, Grineer, and Infested timelines can keep evolving, intertwining, and splitting to make an extremely complex story that is Warframe. I have my fingers crossed for a Void storyline in addition to all of this.

 

DE does not have to add stuff to the ends either, this system actually makes it pretty simple to add new preludes and side-quests. Hopefully Warframes will not all be locked (but hopefully some) to the later parts of the campaign, thus new Warframes can be thrown in in random spots depending on how DE views their skill requirement.

 

Rewards

As for giving out the event rewards again, that is for another time/post.

 

The two points that I would like to make are for sigil/badge rewards. I think that the current badges for events should be exclusive to those who participated in the event when it first came out.

 

But, there is a badge reward for completing the quests. Much like the Stratos emblem that evolves with the more tactical alerts completed, there would be an emblem that evolved as you completed more and more of the quests. Maybe it could even be split up into subsections. There would be an overall emblem that is based off of the total quests completed, a Corpus emblem that is based on the amount of Corpus related quests, completed, then a Grineer, and Infested one (maybe void eventually?).

 

I would also propose making sigil equivalents to these new emblems. Just to maximize the swag.

 

Corpus Storyline

The Grineer and Infested get a fancy Storyline, but the Corpus Story is pretty important too. The main Corpus storyline kind of starts with the “Hunt for Alad V”. After this is where it splits into the infested and Corpus storylines. The first Corpus quest would probably have something to do with Frohd Bek because the last one was you doing favors for him, but where it continues to, who knows. I would hope that we could get some stuff related to the Corpus Board, maybe save some settlements from enslavement or something. I really do not know where to go with this though because we know next to nothing about the Corpus. But hey, that is what a storyline devoted to corpus is about right?

 

There is a teaser to another system that has been in the game for quite some time. The description of Pluto talks about the Corpus trying to repair the Outer Terminus Solar Rail. Remember the teased Sentients? Well, this is how I see them coming into Warframe.

The Corpus finish repairing the Outer Terminus Rail, the Solar Rail at the furthest point of the system, thus the Rail meant to leave the System. The Corpus send a team off to find new customers and they instead meet an old enemy, the Sentients. The Sentients never returned to the Origin System because they got beaten by the Orokin the last time and don’t want history to repeat itself. When the Corpus come in, the Sentients discover that the Orokin are no more, thus the Origin system is ripe for the taking. The Sentients then come back to the Origin System with the plan of system domination. Ta-da, Old War 2. After this was an event, it would be attached to the Corpus storyline at some point.

 

Void storyline

This is not as necessary as a quest to the main story of Warframe as the Corpus storyline, but would be a fascinating area for DE to develop. I am actually in favor of, even if this whole quest/progression monstrosity is implemented to keep (most) prime items behind the wonderful RNG wall. I am not saying that drop tables and mission rewards are good the way they are now, but the concept of raiding a Void tower in order that you might find some piece of equipment works in this case.

 

Most of the Void related stuff can easily be thrown into other quests along the Warframe storyline, but having a Storyline devoted to the current state of the Orokin Void would be fascinating. I imagine this storyline evolving from Vor’s exploits in the Void. It will of course have off shoot stuff, but Vor is a great figure to follow in terms of the Void. Maybe quests related to the aftermath of the Old War and the Tenno nature would be the best things to discuss in this, but of all topics of Warframe, the Void and Old War related stuff is the least understood by the player base, so I do not think I can really discuss anything beyond this.

 

New Events

New events with this plan would come and go just as they do now. Whenever a new major story piece is added, I am sure DE will have it be an event first and that is awesome. Events are a time when the community all gets around one goal.

 

If it is decided that no event “exclusive” weapons/mods will be given out through quests, the event should be turned into a quest ASAP. This is to make sure that the extra part of the story can be enjoyed by all.

If it is decided that event “exclusive” weapons/mods will be given out as quest rewards, there should be a 3-6 month time between when the event ends and when the quest is implemented. This is to keep those weapons special for a certain period of time. I would also recommend that it is an exact date, so DE would say that “ninety days after the event a quest will be put in with the events rewards” and keep by that for every event that follows.

 

Also, while quests later in the storyline will be much harder, events will retain their current difficulty. Everyone should be capable of playing events, it is only when the event is turned into a quest is it made more (or maybe less) difficult.

 

Event missions do not become quest missions. The only thing that stays constant between an event and its quest is the story that is told

 

Archwing… EVERYWHERE

Archwing is not in a great place at the moment. This is not really due to the mechanics itself, but more the missions (or lack thereof). Some could say that we just need to make more archwing missions, maybe make acquiring weapons less painful, or some other simple solutions. But that will solve nothing (but those are all welcome/necessary changes). One of the best parts about Warframe is how everything is one jumbled up mess (in the best way possible). In order for Archwing to survive it must become part of this mess, Archwing MUST be an integral part of Warframe in order to survive.

Those that do not like Archwing, suck it up. DE is planning on keeping Archwing, and no matter how hard you naysay, it is here to stay and will continue to grow in pertinence. Based on that poll thread “Do you like Archwing?” it seemed that an overwhelming majority do, and most of those who don’t do not like it “yet.” The following is that “yet” that we are all waiting for.

The solution is simple in concept, but more difficult in DE’s execution.

 

All missions are Archwing missions.

 

“Whoa, whoa” you may say, but this is NEEDED. Okay, ever mission may not have an Archwing component, but every one after the Asteroid Belt quest has a hefty chance to. More details you ask?

This can be explained relatively easily through examples. Basically, any mission you participate in has a chance of Archwing elements being thrown in.

• Another ship has just flown in, get to that ship and exterminate its crew also.
• 
  
• (insert enemy faction) have called in other ships to prevent your extraction (insert I’m a stealth ship line), you need to get to a less active area.
• 
  
• (insert enemy faction) know you are coming and are defending all deployment sites, you will have to find your own way in.
• 
  
• This ship is about to blow, you have to get yourself out of this one buddy.
• 
  
• The (insert enemy faction) are staging an assault (on some colony), get to that ship and destroy its core (or deception) to prevent this (maybe have multiple ships you have to jump to, like you single handedly destroy an entire fleet).
• 
  
• Sorry, this is the wrong ship, the (objective) is on the other ship, find your own way over there.
• 
  
• You know those destructible windows in the Corpus cruiser? What if you got sucked out of them if you broke them, then had to put your Archwing on and fight your way back to the ship.
• 
  
• I think you get the idea. I will add any more suggestion you guys come up with for this.
• 
  

These could either be random occurrences, or I guess DE could prescribe what happens on each node because… well… people whine. Something is needed to break up the combat of Warframe, and Archwings could be perfect.

For clarification, the majority of time spent in mission would still be on foot, but the Archwing elements will still play a vital role in the mission. Hmm, maybe there could be a scale of archwing versus on foot combat. Maybe some missions could be transferred into having more archwing, less foot. Just something to break up the star chart and make the multitude of nodes per planet more differentiated.

 

Now I know there are going to be a bunch of people that say Archwing=/=Warframe and that they do not belong together. This is a point I will greatly disagree with. Warframe is about killing stuff and being bad @$$ while doing it. The beauty of Archwing is how it contrasts the rest of the combat, yet retains many of the same characteristics of on-foot combat. There will always be naysayers that want Archwing gone, but a line must be drawn between what a portion of the community wants and what is best for the game. DE is trying to, in a sense, create the Simpsons of games. Warframe will never die, it will continue for many years and evolve as time continues. Over that time, other science fiction shooters will rise and fall and to keep Warframe from dying it needs something… different. Yes, Warframe is extremely different for man games, the Warframes themselves and hugely large selection of weapons separate Warframe from the pack, but at some point those qualities are just toppings to a third person science fiction shooter. The thing that brings people back to a game after years are playing are the mechanics, not the toppings. This is why parkour is also something that needs to be looked at. DE was working on Archwing for a year before we even knew about it. It is obviously something that is meant to stay and to be a major part of Warframe.

 

 

There is still a hole in this plan, end game. All that this does is set the stage for end game, nothing here can really fulfill what Warframe’s endgame should be. While I will say end game is an issue that requires addressing, Progression in general needs it more. Without progression, more people will stop playing before they even get to end game. If anyone has a suggestion that works with this, please says something. The most that can think of is raids that are unlocked as you progress (kind of like the side quests), but it would need some Warframe flair that I am not sure how to achieve.

 

One of the best side effects of a system like this is the time between quests. This will not be like a normal campaign mode, you cannot go from quest to quest and speed through the story. This is due to that scaling difficulty. As you go on through quests, you need to get more powerful. The things that got you through the first few quests won’t carry you that far. To compensate for the increasing difficulty, more powerful weapons are made available. In order to use those more powerful weapons, they need to be ranked up and possibly polarized. In addition, just the mods you pick up in quests will not be enough. You will need to do odd missions to gain and rank up mods.

Everything works together in a system like this. The Star Chart remains a hugely important place. Between your continuing Story you go about the system, assist in invasions, help new Tenno, balance the factions through sabotage, gather intel on growing threats, and all of that other stuff Warframe is all about. 

 

End notes…

I would bet that most of the things I just wrote are already on DE’s radar. Turning the quests into some campaign is a natural thing to do.  DE already seems to be pushing for frames to be more quest based, and Archwing is being shoved down our throats more and more every day. The main point of this post is to shove out a well-developed idea to the community so that it may comment on it. The comments will show what the community wants from progression systems, and DE could look at those to help guide them in what would be best for Warframe.

 

Obviously, there is a lot of stuff I wrote down. If you like everything I wrote… wow. There are some parts (especially the difficulty stuff) that I am sure that many may not agree with. All I ask is that you do not bash the entire post because of one portion of it. I am sure many are going to refute my “power creep is good if controlled,” which I am actually really excited to see where those discussions go, but also please look at the main ideas of this and comment on that also. Due to everything being so interconnected, do not just say “no” to an idea, give a replacement to fill the void that removing that idea left.  Also, there are many points that I left vague. If you cannot tell, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff. I could probably write a thousand words for every little detail here (but this topic is long enough). If there is something that you really want me to expand on I can either edit into here, make a new thread, or personally pm you (depending on the question).

 

I actually recommend not posting a comment right away. Just during the course of writing this I came up with conclusions only after stepping away for a while. Maybe it was just me, but the dots did not all connect right away.

 

Thank you very much for reading and smile, it is a good day.

Edited May 26, 2015 by DrBorris

[S.T.M.P.D]

Oooh, good. I never even realized there was a problem in Warframe's starchart-based progression until I read this: Now I think this could keep me in the game for hours more.

[BoneBreakerx]

only looked at the first chart but looks good...

[letir]

"Those that do not like Archwing, suck it up. DE is planning on keeping Archwing, and no matter how hard you naysay, it is here to stay and will continue to grow in pertinence. Based on that poll thread “Do you like Archwing?” it seemed that an overwhelming majority do, and most of those who don’t do not like it “yet.” The following is that “yet” that we are all waiting for."

+1

[DrBorris]

"Those that do not like Archwing, suck it up. DE is planning on keeping Archwing, and no matter how hard you naysay, it is here to stay and will continue to grow in pertinence. Based on that poll thread “Do you like Archwing?” it seemed that an overwhelming majority do, and most of those who don’t do not like it “yet.” The following is that “yet” that we are all waiting for."

+1

 

I was trying to hide that from the flamers letir... What do you think of the additions themselves? Do you think would it be enough to bring Archwing where it needs to be? 

Edited January 10, 2015 by DrBorris

[hijinks_the_turtle]

I've read through most of this and it's all very nice.  

 

I was trying to hide that from the flamers letir... What do you think of the additions themselves? Do you think would it be enough to bring Archwing where it needs to be? 

 

I like your ideas, and it flows very well to add it in there.  HOWEVER, most people's problems with Archwing is that the gameplay itself doesn't feel great.  It feels very shallow, for it to be a true space shooter,  it needs to be able to turn anyway the player wants.  What we have now is that we have a definitive 'up' and 'down'.  It's very disorienting for me (and frustrating IMO), as many space shooters don't have that since ships can fly in loops however they want.  Not to mention we can't customize the Archwing controls (far as I know).  I like the idea of Archwing, but the current gameplay is still far too shallow for me to fully enjoy.

Edited January 10, 2015 by hijinks_the_turtle

[oinkah]

Warframe has a cluttered and anachronistic lore, because all the iconic and interesting characters are predestined to die. Giving Warframe rigid lore structure would mean getting rid of them for good.

DE likes to tie events and upcoming features to known bosses (Archwings to Hek, new infested enemies to Alad), disregarding that most of them were already assassinated. This is handwaved as being in different periods of time, but still leads to paradoxes like Alad V sending his Harvester to capture a Tenno wearing a badge from Mutalist Incursions.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that because of this "everyone dies" policy, every new event would have to start from scratch.

[DrBorris]

Warframe has a cluttered and anachronistic lore, because all the iconic and interesting characters are predestined to die. Giving Warframe rigid lore structure would mean getting rid of them for good.

DE likes to tie events and upcoming features to known bosses (Archwings to Hek, new infested enemies to Alad), disregarding that most of them were already assassinated. This is handwaved as being in different periods of time, but still leads to paradoxes like Alad V sending his Harvester to capture a Tenno wearing a badge from Mutalist Incursions.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that because of this "everyone dies" policy, every new event would have to start from scratch.

 

I am not sure that i entirely agree. Hek, the latest boss to get a rework does not die. After you beat him up in his chicken suit, he flies away. Vor also survives our assassination (sort of) with his magic key, and his assassination actually adds to the story. The cheesy "we thought we killed them" would actually fit nicely into Warframe. Much like the Tenno have the revival process, I am sure that the Corpus and Grineer also have their methods of revival. What if all of that metal that we see in the Corpus' face allows them to back up their consciousness and have it re-installed in another body. That may not be exactly how it should work, but as you said, locking these interesting characters to death ruins the fun in a way. Alternatively, it would not be too hard for DE to add escapes for some of the more important bosses, or... you know... is it really that bad for them to die? Having one character replace another can be a very interesting process. The Grineer have gone from Vor to Ruk to Hek to now Regor. The Corpus... yeah, only DE knows what is going on with the Corpus. The Corpus did create the Hyena pack (I am pretty sure that was not Alad), so they do have an interest in capturing Warframes. Maybe after you learn that Alad is a crazy infested the transmission is Nef or (cant remember the other Corpus guy). This would be an enormous change to Warframe, and as you point out, interferes with many systems currently in place. Thus, a change like this warrants changes everywhere. 

 

All in all, do you really want to be locked into a timeline that does not line up? What is the point to story if the story does not even understand itself? 

 

Also... any comments on the Difficulty/Power stuff? 

[oinkah]

Also... any comments on the Difficulty/Power stuff? 

 

Alright, since no one else seems to be brave enough to read through it all.

 

1. Preventing access to further missions without owning strong enough weapon seems like a good mechanic. But my concern is, that when players reach the level of Boltor Prime and above, they will be forced to grind for them. Grind locking missions is not good, as not all players have the stomach to farm the Void for prime gear. Same story with clan tech, forcing solo players to look for clan. Strongest primary on the market is Soma and it can only carry player so far.

But I assume that this problem might be fixed with upgrading a weapon. So instead of grinding for Boltor, player could simply

recraft trusty Karak into Karak 2.0 and proceed. I assume all max level weapons will be sidegrades?

There is still a quality of life problem, as players will have to rank up / re-forma new weapons to complete each mission. Depending on how often weapon requirements will change, this can become quite tedious. But this is probably a long-term campaign, so it's not too crucial.

 

2. Does this system account for mod levels? They are a big part of the power creep. Player with Mk1 stuff, but maxed Serration will have easy time compared to the player with same equipment, but no mods. (and yes, I heard in latest devstream that Serration is not eternal, but we are theorycrafting for current system)

 

3. I'm assuming that taxi'ing players with different power levels is out of the question?

Edited January 10, 2015 by oinkah

[letir]

I was trying to hide that from the flamers letir... What do you think of the additions themselves? Do you think would it be enough to bring Archwing where it needs to be? 

I don't think so. Archwing need much more work and additions from developers to be really great. Better movements, improved enemies and combat system, more mods etc. But it's just time - Warframe has a long past too.

 

But i was thinking before about same additions. Now, then archwings have own stats, different types of gameplay can be connected in one - for the better. I can image "dynamic entry" on enemy ship in "Dead Space 2 style" - it will be very cool.

Edited January 10, 2015 by letir

[rockscl]

Defiance has long and interesting quest lines, these are fun enouhg, but most of the players quit the game once these lines are done, its a known issue, current warframe quest system has short lines, unrelated and independant of each other, wich seems a more proper system for waframe´s nature

Edited January 10, 2015 by rockscl

[geninrising]

No tl;dr if you are interested please read, I am a verbose individual and have no shame in that. Additionally I do not think that good ideas can be distilled into few words and retain their same scope of influence.
+9000 op.
On Archwing:
Thus far I have been severely upset by archwings ramshackle implementation and in it's current state of being a sort of "minigame" I disapprove of it completely. HOWEVER with your implementation put in place I feel that it would serve Warframe overall in a much better manner. In addition I feel it would provide a great segue between our on foot portions in order to break up some of the monotony we face.

Let me be utterly clear on this point, since AW implementation I have literally dreaded every single instance of thought regarding obtaining them and leveling said gear due to the fact that it was horrendously monotonous. Go here and protect 4 points till 30, grrrrr. With your idea in place it would serve to help that leveling monotony and serve the overall primary structure of ground combat. It would give us a viable REASON to need AW. As it stand now I view AW as strictly a minigame and optional like having a Kubrow.

As for every single other thing mentioned Bravo. Below I have some ideas on a few things I felt were great but may do with a bit of polish and or altering.

Ruk/Kril fight:
I think your idea of switching Vor to Ruk in this quest/battle is a fine idea and here is why. Vor is already supposed to be found in the void in an energy form, so it serves to derail established lore if he then is found on the ground at Phobos intact and in his previous form.
Additionally I feel this is a great opportunity to use the original assets for Ruk. The original form was something that was not too special that required little finesse to handle. Later they could introduce the new and improved Ruk as a solo boss battle to show how he has evolved to combat the growing menace of the Tenno and handle the escalation of the conflict with the Corpus.
Also I think this would be a good time to use a toned down version of Kril that requires much less skill to take down, that way later they can again show the evolution of Kril as well.

This would serve to simply reinforce progression amongst our enemies even as we Tenno progress. That way the overall theme of Progression is universal. As we get stronger our enemies must evolve to combat meddling influence.

Re-crafting and upgrading:
Masterful and supplements my next idea which strangely enough happens to be one on which you said you did not know how to handle.
First of all I suggest a Change in your original ideas heading on this matter and call that Evolution. Below is my idea why.

What if in order to re-craft a given weapon you needed a certain amount of kills with it to understand how you could better the weapon? That fits in line with your 30'ing it idea however what if we took it a step further and allowed players that 30 it with a certain amount of overclocking to then Permanently add that percentage overclock to the weapons baseline damage at which point we could then reliably KEEP our favorite weapons indefinitely by simply improving that favorite gun over and over again.

The reason is this. It would be exceedingly difficult to overclock your weapon and still level it as necessary to 30(given this type of overhaul I would consider revamping the affinity gains to require the weapon be used(no cheating and leveling it on your back/hip). Additionally this would provide us
the opportunity to continue on with things we truly love without the need to compromise just because a new shiny toy comes out. Also this allows us to keep a favorite from the beginning of the game all the way to end game content if we so desire and earn MR for every time we 30 and re-craft it.
This also has the benefit of making hard work REWARDING with p42w leveling all our weapons for us atm there is really no hard work associated with maximizing a weapon over and over again thus reinforcing the p42w mentality. To limit re-crafting from simply making insanely godlike weapons just place a limiter such as X amount of overclocking added produces X amount of Progression Rank. Once a weapon achieves maximum Progression Rank it cannot be overclocked and re-crafted until more content is unlocked at a later date by DEvs. This could be further influenced by how much or how little you overclocked the weapon prior to re-crafting. Sort of like manually re-tuning a weapon for maximum baseline performance and have re-crafting be a permanent finalization of all your efforts tuning said weapon to optimum ROF/Damage. I would also add overclocking features such as critical hit% and Critical damage% to allow for even more variation and freedom of refining your weapon into the killing implement of your dreams.

This also solves the dilemma that WF suffers atm regarding how MR works and people being forced to use things they do not like.

Now for how the re-Crafting ties into the Skill Rank.
We have all heard the arguments that skill is not shown to equate with MR. What if we then had Skill Rank denote how much time you have spent with weapons overclocked in order to maximize your damage output or various other statistics? Considering exactly how difficult it is to level with the weapon overclocked due to the affinity detriment caused by overclocking, it would be necessary that you garnered MASSIVE amounts of affinity in order to re-craft while using overclocking. This would be where repetitious use of a single item would garner the most benefit and be another fantastic source of PROGRESSION in keeping with the overall thematic of your proposal.

Another way we could influence your skill rank is have an additional amount added for every mission in the system (limited by the Progression rank system) that you complete with a weapon UNDERCLOCKED to the absolute lowest it can be. That would again be a good measure of mastery of your gear.

At this point I would think your Idea of Skill Rank would need separate categories for Rifle Skill, Sniper Skill(Bows, snipers), Shotgun Skill, Launcher Skill, and also a corresponding Secondary tiered skill listing. It would then be necessary to apply a Melee skill factor based on the above model except I would have melee be universal because there is very little mechanically different from using one to another.

Then I would tack on your idea that I dubbed Evolution as a thing that individuals can do with their re-crafted gear IF and only IF they are sure they like the newer weapons skin or Mechanics more(as you stated weapons might become burst fire in some changes and we might even extend that to automatic).

Sorry for the long post but I have been thinking about this a lot and generating posts regarding various concerns for the longevity of Warframe and you gave me a vent for the creative ideas I have been harboring, rather than a complaint thread as I have decided to call all the concern posts I have seen and created myself.

 

PS. I read the whole thing and loved every minute. This transformation would make Warframe a AAA title better than almost every single game I have ever played!

 

+9000 more for helping provide some more hope for WF!

Edited January 14, 2015 by geninrising

[oinkah]

What if in order to re-craft a given weapon you needed a certain amount of kills with it to understand how you could better the weapon?

 

Don't force people to farm harder than they already have to. There is no shortage of grind in this game.

To level up their weapon people would have to go to infested mission (probably hive), stand in the corner and shoot at endless amount of infested running towards them for hours. And since infested give less XP, they would have to level up their weapon in a separate mission.

Nobody wins here. It's the same story as with daily syndicate standing: good intentions gone very bad.

[geninrising]

What I'm suggesting adds both depth and long term playability to warframe. Allowing your WORK to actually matter beyond pumping and dumping 80% of the weapons you encounter.

 

A way to actually spend time on the things you like and at the same time gain MR.

The current system forces you to spend tons of time on things you don't want to get MR and you gain no benefit from doing so other than a few measly rewards that don't appeal to players past level 10.

 

What I am suggesting also gives you the ability to make ANY weapon end game material for the length of time you play WF rather than having your favorite weapon severely outclassed every single time a new weapon it it's class comes out. My idea offers the maximum potential for build diversity in weapons. More so that virtually any other idea I have seen here in the forums. Additionally it builds upon OP's post regarding re-crafting in a way that makes sense and should be implemented given the concern that tons of people deal with constantly.

 

When the next ROFLSTOMP Rifle comes out all my hard work on Boltor Prime goes in the crapper because the new rifle outclasses it by far.

 

Additionally my idea provides a limiter that DE can tinker with in order to keep power creep for said improved weapons to stay equal with other top tier weapons in terms of totals on the various different factors(ROF, Damage, Critical %, Critical Damage).

 

Additionally we could finally see some really awesome choices in our weapons to have said weapon play how we want it to play. I for instance always wanted a good critical shotgun or a great Status Automatic Rifle. This way we could also decide what WE define as good or bad rather than getting a new weapon only to find it's stats are crap and therefore=MR fodder.

 

MR Fodder is my most hated term for the last 9 weeks as it was all I have had to deal with since I have all the gear I want already but I still want max MR(17 now, I was 11) in case of future focus involvement with the MR system.

[geninrising]

Don't force people to farm harder than they already have to. There is no shortage of grind in this game.

To level up their weapon people would have to go to infested mission (probably hive), stand in the corner and shoot at endless amount of infested running towards them for hours. And since infested give less XP, they would have to level up their weapon in a separate mission.

Nobody wins here. It's the same story as with daily syndicate standing: good intentions gone very bad.

You are also assuming that a rework in affinity would not include a boost to the overall affinity you receive from every action. What I am calling for would involve a re-work of teh affinity system. Did I not clearly state that? Pretty sure I did.

[dartcraft]

I would like to play those quests again ^^

[geninrising]

I would like to play those quests again ^^

ME too! Currently There is nothing more for me to do than grind grind grind that MR. Very boring :(

[Edgedemon]

i am gonna go ahead and say

 

absolutely no!

 

the game is too much of a them park already!

 

not to mention you moved the derelict too fast to new players, and set several things in a ridiculous order,(ember and sargas ruk near end game, really?)

Edited January 14, 2015 by Edgedemon

[oinkah]

You are also assuming that a rework in affinity would not include a boost to the overall affinity you receive from every action. What I am calling for would involve a re-work of teh affinity system. Did I not clearly state that? Pretty sure I did.

 

What I understood, is that you are trying to shift farming direction from p42w to actually using the weapon that is being leveled. That only changes the tactics of farmers, but not diminishes the grind itself. Maybe underclocking and high mastery rank will increase affinity by some crazy multiplier so it becomes less tedious, but it is still a grind. It's not rewarding, players only want results (maxed guns).

 

People use farming because repetitive game is boring. Removing p42w from the equation will not suddenly fix that repetitiveness.

[MechaKnight]

On the subject of grind, maybe the developers can slow down and be more transparent. Frequent "content" and odd changes without warning to promote a rush in player activity to meet the next surge in power creep meta. Gotta get the newest gear, gotta farm for ducats for the trader. It's nothing but a constant non-stop urgency to grind. A lot of people are just gonna throw down their pitchforks, break them in half, and move out of War-Farm.

[DrBorris]

-snip-

 

Thanks for the feedback. The thing with permanently overclocking you suggested could be a pretty cool way to "progress".It would almost make it so you level weapons in two ways. For the rank and power of the weapon, but both ranks are entirely separate (that sounded weird how I rephrased it, but whatever). And... thanks for the post, I thought this topic was dead. 

 

 

i am gonna go ahead and say

 

absolutely no!

 

the game is too much of a them park already!

 

not to mention you moved the derelict too fast to new players, and set several things in a ridiculous order,(ember and sargas ruk near end game, really?)

 

Okay, I will respect your opinion, but how is this game a them(e?) park and what about this change would make this so bad? And what is bad about a them(e?) park?

 

I actually disagree about the Derelict. I am sure that you can tell that this is a monstrous of a change, with it I would recommend reworking the Derelicts to be incorporated as separate nodes on each planet (with varying difficulty). The Derelict is not really one location, how I understand it the Derelicts are Orokin ships that have fallen out of the void and are scattered throughout the Origin System. Maybe in order to discover the derelict for each planet you have to go in through the Grineer or Corpus Portal to discover it's location (like in the quest), then from then on you can go on directly to the node whenever you wish. I'm going to stop on that topic now, I am getting long winded.

 

As for the Ember/Sargus Ruk, First, that is not really the "end game" (ignoring the fact that i specifically said that I do not have an "end game" solution in here). All of the quests up to "Sling Stone" are all pretty easy. Those are the quests that teach you the ways of the Tenno and give you time to get decent equipment. The difficulty curve only really begins at "Sling Stone," and Ruk is not long after that. If anything, Ember is the first frame that you really have to go through tough stuff in order to obtain. The game is called Warframe, acquiring each and every Warframe should not necessarily be a walk in the park (and i hope you are not talking about Ember being weak, DE wants all frames to be balanced some day). If anything, i would say that the order of available Warframes scales pretty well (except Excalibur). 

 

All in all, look deeper than face value, this is no overnight change, it really is a complete rework of how we do "Warframe."

[Bernkastal]

I like the idea of adding in plotlines, but don't remove the 'clutter'. To me, the hundreds of side plots, side stories all happen ing at the same!e timr really make the world more immersive and deep. To add a single storyline and give progression of frames downplays each in turn. That's not what warframe has felt about, at least to me. I would be terribly disappointed if they made it less... Hectic. Maybe its my ADHD talking but you know....

[geninrising]

What I understood, is that you are trying to shift farming direction from p42w to actually using the weapon that is being leveled. That only changes the tactics of farmers, but not diminishes the grind itself. Maybe underclocking and high mastery rank will increase affinity by some crazy multiplier so it becomes less tedious, but it is still a grind. It's not rewarding, players only want results (maxed guns).

 

People use farming because repetitive game is boring. Removing p42w from the equation will not suddenly fix that repetitiveness.

I see you did not even pay attention to what I posted or chose to ignore the core sentiments. What I propose would allow the player to choose what gun has maximum damage for their TASTE thus ensuring a player can denote what is end game material or not and removing the necessity of maxing every single weapon ever implemented in order to attain maximum MR. What I propose is reward driven directly by player action for PERMANENTLY scaling rewards rather than the pump and dump mentality of our current wasteful MR system.

 

Do not class this as an issue of p42w simply because I mentioned it. I simply mentioned it in conjunction to the issue itself as it relates to the change in mechanics I offered.

 

If you would like to discuss p42w please feel free to go to my thread Titled Press 4 2 Win, or my other thread regarding Concerns for Longevity of Warframe. I am always glad for more feedback on the subject and hey, you might learn a thing or two. Provided you actually READ the posts.

 

For the moment please stop attempting a de-rail of the topic. Thank you

[geninrising]

Bump for more feedback folks don't forget to +1 the op, that way hopefully we can get DE's attention.

 

What better way to handle the structuring of our adventure than to have a pre-built formula ready to go ;)

 

I would also definitely appreciate a look at my suggestions on the first page especially the weapon upgrade,re-crafting thing.

 

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about ways to extend our experience and make the normally meaningless grind better for all of us. That way we can level what we want and still increase our MR and potentially new Skill rank along with the proposed Progression Rank set up by OP.

[geninrising]

Don't force people to farm harder than they already have to. There is no shortage of grind in this game.

To level up their weapon people would have to go to infested mission (probably hive), stand in the corner and shoot at endless amount of infested running towards them for hours. And since infested give less XP, they would have to level up their weapon in a separate mission.

Nobody wins here. It's the same story as with daily syndicate standing: good intentions gone very bad.

Also as an added note, MOST of our populace hates messing with gear they don't like all for the nebulous MR.

In the future I'm sure MR is going to have some overarching reason to get it tied in with our overall power structure and what I suggest provides a means to acquire it that does not require you handle gear that you don't like.

 

Additionally p42w is currently a problem for DE and has been denounced as an exploit by DE Steve.

 

The idea I set forth will not only curb p42w, it might altogether remove it's validity as my way would provide the perfect incentive to stop.

Otherwise what I see in the future for us is a sh|tstorm of changes to the energy system which some folks like as is and others here realize that under a lot of circumstances that much energy and efficiency is nearly necessary in end game.

 

I have had many discussions on the topic of p42w and while I do know all the negatives associated with it, I also understand the fundamental necessity of our powers.  Since the game is structured around those powers currently I provide this also a means to curb our innate desire to abuse said system to a certain degree to hopefully get DE to refrain from committing another bad design choice(see implementation of power efficiency) in an effort to save tons of acclamation for all our players if we do not figure out a way to avoid restructuring the powers system.

 

So if we want to be able to evolve this game, we need to work together to create something together that the devs cannot deny the genius of and are more than willing to implement.

 

For anyone that says it cannot work Read previous posts to clarify how we would limit this using a tiered weapon system that way we can balance along the lines of each tier.

 

For anyone that says but people won't farm primes or buy Prime access, Prime variants of any weapon already come out more powerful than their normal variants and can be upgraded in the same way. Therefore a primed example will be slightly better with equal amounts of work, but not to the same extent they are now. Additionally people that buy with plat would have the ability to bypass progression or MR ranks to access weapons would be my thought to drive the economic portion. 

 

Anyway I have been thinking about this system for approximately a year and a half as a way to make the player experience more rewarding without DE having to pump out more MR fodder every week or two weeks on the money.

 

This would allow them to work more on the things we need addressed like bugs and improving Warframe's overall immersion via new systems or other lines of developement. It would also allow them to just plain spend more time making what they deliver be as polished and bug free as possible AT RELEASE.

 

 So let me summarize the benefits in case you still have no clue what I'm doing or just need a tl;dr

1. WE get to choose our favorite weapons and make them END GAME TOP TIER

2. WE get to choose what statistics we like on a weapon and buff them with some work.

3. We get to earn MR from using weapons we WANT to use.

4. We could potentially prevent a restructuring of the entire energy system.

5. We could potentially save some of our favorite frames from earth shaking nerfs(all those Xray ults(massive aoe with no LoS checks) are already under the microscope for nerfs or complete changes to no longer be the powers we like and or love.