DSMK2

A fully featured spin-off game for faction vs faction PvP/PvE? Sure I'm fine with that, a lot of content for each faction exists now too. It'll have to explore the Origin System's conflicts when the Tenno aren't involved, and would have to further characterize the bosses that lead the factions, along with the grunts that follow them. Might not even be canon! With what-if scenarios, like if Grineer attempted to invade and hold Deimos. It won't be a replacement for Warframe's PvP, but Warframe: Battlefront. Gameplay different from controlling a Warframe, equipment progression would all be side grades as they're unlocked, and unlockable classes to access different equipment trees and abilities not found in a regular grunt. The PvE gamemode in there would be vs Infested with Starship Troopers vibes, without the CC provided by Warframe abilities. I can imagine NPC Tenno coming in like a force of nature, going from a fixed point A to B, creating a kill zone for anyone in their path. Simply just making the spin-off game an arena shooter would get old fast, it's gotta go the combined-arms gameplay route; thinking Planetside 2 or Angels Fall First.

Mercy kills have been (at least for me) happening just a little more than usual, but most of the time the eligible enemy units are dead before I can get to stabbing them with the Parazon. I've even got instances where they had the mercy icon, but was locked out of the finisher as they were flailing about after getting hit by heat status, or them being ragdolled. Could we have mercy-killable enemies have a short bleed out state? I'm thinking Bursas, with Parazon kills instead of hacking. They'll be effectively dead, but still around as a battlefield resource unaffected by weapons or abilities. Possibly tie the amount that can be put into mercy state with squad size, and bleed out duration modifiers based on LoS and range.

I can imagine "structural integrity" being implemented with a system like Banshee's sonar. Crewship gets past an HP threshold, glowing weakpoints appear on specific parts of the crewship. To add to that, I'd add an additional stat: "Crew", they're crewships after all. The amount of crew still living would determine the duration of the weakspots mentioned earlier. So in addition to the "structural integrity" weakspots, you'd get smaller moving weakspots that represent the crew traveling around the ship. Shoot those to reduce the ship's recovery speed. Each spot "killed" has a chance of hitting the pilot or gunner, and will be represented under XP "Pilot/Gunner/Crew" killed All crew members killed will increase the required crewship kill count Higher level crewships have faster moving weakspots or weakspots that phase in and out around the crewship. Shoot at each spot individually or use ordinance to take out a bunch at once. Can send crewmembers(!) to an empty ship for an allied ship in the battlespace And all those appear once HP is low, representing the ships inability to protect their contents due to sustained hull/armor damage. === Yeah, I realize at this point it's a suggestion, but existing game mechanics inspire ideas :d

Grineer and Corpus crewships are functionally invincible unless you go board them and blow their reactors, or hit them with your forward artillery once their hard-counter defenses are down. If Railjack had NPC faction vs faction combat, once all the fighters on both sides are inevitably gone, they would be locked in a stalemate. Lemme go through what I've observed: Corpus Crewships: Security nodes that prevent boarding Completely invulnerable-where-its-facing drone shields Grineer Crewships Shield submodules, while one is active, the crewship is invulnerable to all attacks... That aren't attacking the submodule. Also prevent boarding like Corpus security nodes. Fighter healing bubbles? What is this technology? Both Crewships Recover from from zero to a quarter health + restore some engine capability Low level crewships can get HP reduced to 0 due to being in a Void Storm for too long, but ultimately remain "alive", with little effects to the crew. These points pain me because the means of defeating both ships are limited to deliberate player actions; they've been designed against the player, but not against other spacefaring factions. They're practically like the strangely powerful Corpus Nullifiers in being hard counters to players. Why can't we simply just reverse engineer their shielding technology? They're stupid strong compared to our own Railjack shields that are almost non-existent during combat. Screw Lavan/Vidar/Zekti/Sigma, gimme dem Corpus/Grineer brand shields! Can a Balor Fomorian even kill one? Same for Corpus crewship security nodes that prevent boarding actions, what do these do exactly? As a technology in-universe? What exactly are these healing bubbles relative to Grineer technology? Disregarding the need for skilled pilots... Doesn't this end up going against the Grineer faction's expendable clone philosophy? If we can't simply destroy the ship, why can't we shoot the ship full of holes and kill the crew? Like... Killing crew to make the ship increasingly less responsive to hull breaches. Forward artillery upgrades are meaningless because almost all crewship types can be oneshot (assuming you killed off the shields and hit the engine weakpoints). They don't function at all like OP get out of jail cards for their supposed power, charge time, and charge animation. I mean, they can even be somehow blocked by Corpus crewship shield drones. I'm assuming Crewships are like this since they're reskins. New, bigger, tougher, ship classes simply don't exist due to Railjack's small scope, along with time and resource allotment to the game-mode. Railjack in the Warframe Universe is solidly cool to me. But when I think about the crewships I'm required to kill, I think the game-mode is hampered by being designed in baby steps. The newest update seems to an attempt to solve the content island problem between Railjack and Warframe, when in actuality, Railjack needs to turn into its own continent with a kickass intercontinental tunnel connecting the two.

I honestly feel that Railjack needs to leave the stigma of being a "game mode" and more it's own game... Accessed through Warframe and augmented by a player's progression innit.

Penalty? Anyways had a think about filling the Death Well for survivability: Once Exalted Shadow can be used (Death Well is glowing) Sevagoth gains an auto block via their Shadow from where they're facing. Would help a ton for survivability while forcing the player to adjust their position relative to enemies... And would give Sevagoth's (really thick) mantle/scarf some flavor and would be a reminder of Shadow's loyalty to their master at the end of the Call of the Tempestarii quest. On the plus side, at least Reap can be recast (without any huge cast animation thankfully) while the Shadow is going around.

Had a Void Sink one shot me in Sevagoth, I don't know how to feel about that. Necramech powers/archguns do not pop them. Visually, I wish the void storm columns were at different angles, I feel like them being parallel to each other doesn't fit the chaotic nature of the void. Being at different angles would make them interesting to fly through. Note, one of them interacting with the crewship in the hangar despite LOS.

Hm, Sevagoth is really squishy against Veil Proxima Grineer. Anyways, abilities: Death Well - Reliance on killing enemies affected by Reap/Sow to fill it means 1vs1 fights might deny Sevagoth of their Exalted Shadow - Probably needs passive chance of minor gain on enemy kills in range (kill a lot more to fill, independent of energy) - Potentially affect Sevagoth's survivability based on Death Well's fullness? ========= Reap/Sow + Reap following reticle on aim is neat! + Very, very responsive abilities! + Reap/Sow combo for explosion is fun at lower levels - However, this combo doesn't feel like it does much on higher level enemies + Sow synergizes well with Gloom for healing - Though at higher levels, enemies will deal more damage than Sow's per tick damage. At that point, unless the player retreats, they're gonna get shredded quickly. - At higher levels they only exist to mark enemies for filling the Death Well Gloom + Interesting survival mechanic (it's neat!). But at higher levels, it relies on weapon ability to consistently deal damage - "... siphoning their lifeforce for the Death Well" doesn't appear to be working. If it did, it would alleviate the first point I made of the Death Well - For higher level content, the high drain + small maximum range forces builds to lean on efficiency, range, and duration just so that Sevagoth can poke their head out for a bit. Exalted Shadow + The fact that you can recast it at any point while the Death Well is full makes this ability quietly tactical! Kinda like Operators actually. + Second warframe you can mod is neat - Low energy pool relative to ability costs (I blame Death's Harvest) - Unsure of how the Death Well drains relative to this ability ========= Death's Harvest - Duration is really short, barely knew what it did initially - Costs a lot of energy for the duration of the debuff. ========= EDIT: Design-wise Sevagoth is in a good spot. Scaling with content-wise, their abilities fall short.

Yep, the single-part-bounty trigger circles that pop up in the map... Then getting guilt tripped when you don't do them, while you're fishing :d I want something where there's a point of interest with elements that you can interact with, contextualized based on the area in the map.

I like the Corpus Railjack side objectives, quick, simple, straight forward, has effects for the map once they're done, and has rewards. When they aren't required for the main objective, they fit the "so you want to do this?", in that if you want to complete them, Cy will walk you through them, otherwise you can completely ignore it. I want this in open world maps during free roam, for example: "Want to use this drill to mine this rich ore vein?", when you happen upon one, you start the drill and a short timed defense mission starts.

I've been starting to visualize Warframe as it's own game storefront (since I don't think DE has outputted anything new). The outright oddity of the Planes of Duviri teaser has been strengthening that thought. DE has the potential to spin off a team, since they did try with The Amazing Eternals, though that fizzled out early on, so eh. --- But yeah, related to the topic's title: Railjack being its own game, space battles in the Warframe Universe, rather than a game mode, might make the implementation of the core idea better and more fleshed out. I don't think a minimum-viable-product for game modes work anymore, when the rest of Warframe is so complete.

Angels Fall First was pretty much what I expected out of Railjack, funnily enough. Cept with the power fantasy that Warframe brings. Though I'd kill for a Grineer vs Corpus Battlefront game, since both factions have so many unit types now that it's a shame that we don't see them duke it out. --- I'm pretty receptive to additions to the Warframe Universe, since I'm a fan. As for the OP... Railjack appeals to me because it's my favorite Warframe piloting a powerful space gunship, and I've invested time into making it as such. I await the day when my Railjack allows me to fight against an enemy fleet, with a game loop split between boarding actions and ship to ship combat (let us blow up crewships with our regular guns please, leave forward artillery for the real capital ships). Necramechs are cool because they're powerful, but clumsy, stompy war machines; specially with the well done sound effects and animations. They're powerful, but less flexible, both in gameplay and story. IMO they "fit" in with fighting larger enemies i.e. Thumpers, Profit Taker, but of course it can be cooler when a Warframe does it.