[Warframe Story Pack Feedback Thread!]

As long as the option of pay-to-skip doesn't impact possible lore-rich quests in the future (that is to say, as long as the financial incentive of making bland quests to drive up pay-to-skip quests sales doesn't overtake the incentive to make good quests) then there shouldn't be an issue; it would just be another way to play the game.

The concerning part is that the pay-to-skip is paid in the first place. If it was meant to attract new players, then being offered more microtransactions could make them even more likely to turn away, because players coming to warframe have probably already seen many examples of pay-to-win games that they can easily immediately classify this game as, regardless if that's true or false. It's the first impression that matters, and seeing a banner to skip the quests for $$$ is probably going to be just another turn-off for them.

Let's suppose another method: making Duviri Paradox the springboard into the game in its current state by allowing access to the game in the state after the new war with the drifter (and without the operator) and a notification stating that you can go backwards in time through the transference room. Basic quests leading up to the new war can be strung together on a timeline with entry points at Vor's Prize and the New War to give some direction of what the main story is (which is somewhat lacking early on anyway). This would allow full access to new content, but whether they can do it with that gear is questionable.

That's the real issue with paying to skip quests. The real grind was always setting up to do most quests these days, and paying to skip that is already available. Although a solid catch-up mechanic would clearly be very good for new players, I'm uncertain that this would do what's intended. Instead, maybe just adding better early-game credit/endo farms and changing the drop rate + upgrade costs of essential mods would be a better approach for getting new players up to speed. If the main storyline can be more easily seen in a timeline instead of in the format shown in the codex, that would also be a great addition.

[Favourite quotes?]

"The opposite of a small truth is a lie. The opposite of a great truth is another great truth."

- Cephalon Cy

[why not create Kuva sculptures?]

Could just have a kuva container or kuva silo instead. Could just play it off lore-wise like: "yeah, the queens put the kuva they siphon here and you're robbing them blind". I'd be fine with that.

[Zephyr Tornadoes damage distribution/multiplication not working for some weapons]

Paris prime (built with 199.2% crit) only delivered yellow crits if I shot the tornado that enemies are trapped in, but does properly orange crit on enemies if it directly hits them. The yellow crit in tornado is multiplied by 2x properly in this case though. I tested this many times with varying groups of enemies stuck in the tornado to try to eliminate the possibility of a streak of bad luck, but after shooting at tornadoes for a good 15 minutes, I can conclusively say this thing is busted.

Grenade launchers and rocket launchers do not seem to hit the enemy twice anymore if both the tornado and the enemy are within blast radius. In this case, the damage is not multiplied by 2x. I'm not sure if this was a rebalance or a bug, but there was no mention of it anywhere, so I'll assume it's a bug. (Also there's the fact that Zephyr's already underpowered, and nerfing her is nonsensical in the extreme.)

[Lost Mastery on a Weapon]

Same issue here as well

[A new Arbitration Mode]

Looking at the release of information that DE has given about how they plan to change arbitrations they're just doing the same thing that they've done before: inflating numbers until players can't handle it and calling that difficulty.

Here's the issue with this type of gameplay: it's not at all dependent on skill, and completely dependent on raw build stats and warframe picks. That means that they don't actually make it any harder for players, it just constricts the roster more and more until only a few meta equipment combos actually work. Let's be honest, at level 9999, you can just run around while invisible with a covert lethality dagger and just finisher people with a fatal teleport Ash, but is that difficult, and more importantly, is that fun? Is it going to be fun to play a game where everything is too tanky or powerful to kill normally, so there's no weapon or frame difference, and you just have 4 invisible players go around and stab people with the same dagger with the same mod?

This is going to be late-stage Warframe. The idea of customization is going to be lost to meta build after meta build because enemy stats get too high to kill in this chase for the elusive entertaining endgame.

(And no, just nerfing player numbers isn't going to work either because that's just working in conjunction with the idea of "enemy number big, player number small, game hard" which doesn't work if enemies are just going to be inflated nuke-tossing ICBM-sponges.)

Let's go back to Arbitrations, and see what could make it more fun than a one-life version of already existing gamemodes using already existing enemies that (are going to be) pumped up to 11.

1) The mission type should give some emphasis to kill-rate, but it should not give a mandated minimum kill-rate to pass like ESO and survival missions do. Maybe rewards could be given by completing bounty rewards given during the mission by an NPC from the Arbiters of Hexis for taking out a certain amount of challenging enemies, or defeating a powerful boss. If the challenge is supposed to be given with a "gift of mortality" by the Arbiters of Hexis (which isn't elaborated at all by the way) then the main focus should be to survive.

1. Throw out the life-support / ESO efficiency mandated kill rates.
2. No raw scaling, a larger variety of enemies can be tossed at players over time though, and boss units can appear eventually.
3. One life, maybe with a resurrection mechanic similar to what DE is working on.
   • Discourages death, but not to the point where someone just leaves and causes a host migration.
4. Bounty rewards could include ayatan sculptures, huge amounts of endo, hundreds of thousands of credits, tens of thousands of kuva, current arbitration rewards, and rarely, items that have yet to be re-released: (Primed Chamber).
5. Limited time: 60 minutes. Arbitrations cycle between settings and possible enemy types, but cannot be re-entered until the 60 minutes have passed.
   • Not endless. There's no point in scaling anyway, it just becomes increasingly tedious/annoying instead of increasingly difficult.
   • Can be extracted from at any time, however.

2) Everyone has their favorite warframes that they have the most fun with. Some players may have those that align with the meta while others reluctantly play whatever the meta enforces. So, to increase the amount of fun players have with a mission overall, it needs to include the maximum amount of warframes that are a viable pick that can contribute in a meaningful way. This means that the way the mission is built needs to either:

1. Utilize a unique and entertaining mechanic all warframes have. (Warframe's movement mechanics like bullet-jumping, aim-gliding, and dodge-rolling.)
   • In this case, players need maximum control for maximum fun, no more knockdown/stagger spam unless it can reasonably be dodged.
   • Enemy attacks should hurt a lot, but be readable and dodgeable.
2. Be made in such a way that all warframes can be creatively used to contribute MEANINGFULLY to the mission's goal. (crowd control, damage, increased mobility, and tanking need to have equal impact.)
   • Damage abilities should normally have FULL EFFECT, but enemies actively try and move out of line-of-sight and move to a certain location where they can apply some sort of medicine to become immune to damage from the same ability source for a very long period of time), which is when...
   • ...CC abilities come into play. CC should be weakened against major threats, but not become entirely worthless. (for example: a stun/stasis ability instead does an 80% slow.) The CC would stop enemies from reacting in time, which makes them the dumb vegetables they used to be, and making them easy pickings for damage warframes. Traps could be set in areas where enemies should get their medicine, so that enemies can get caught in an endless Vauban bounce-loop / singularity or get teleported by a Nova wormhole into a Mesa eager to tear a new one into the foe's behind.
   • Mobility warframes used by a good player should be able to catch up to enemies and chase them down, which rewards mastery over movement systems by letting players get kills without much dependence on CC and applying too much pressure on enemies for them to get where they need to make themselves ability damage-immune. They can also turn in bounties to the aforementioned Arbiter NPC for a new bounty faster than normal frames because they can traverse the map faster.
   • Tank warframes should be what tanks are in other popular multiplayer games: big, beefy units that attract attention and serve as defenders of other warframes. Threat can be based on health, shields, and armor values, which are unmodified by buffs. Threat should also change based on a couple ability uses. For example: A rhino roar should make a Rhino more noticeable to enemies.

3) Enemies should be challenging and rewarding, not just mindless punching bags that get incrementally higher stats until they become extremely annoying. Killing mindless punching bags that drop nothing just make the player feel bored and unsatisfied because they haven't overcome anything of substance.

1.  Enemies need a new way of fighting. No more running up to random Tenno just to get slaughtered. They should be reasonably hard to kill not because of stats, but because of their fighting mechanics. They should generally try to avoid getting too close to players and try to avoid staying in line-of-sight. If the Tenno are supposed to be feared warriors, then enemies should fear getting close to us.
   • Enemies could drop out of the rafters and briefly poke out their heads from behind cover to take potshots at people.
   • Enemies could jump around / teleport around after a brief delay
   • Enemy survivability stats could go up to around the level 100-120 heavy gunner zone, but no more than that unless it's a boss unit.
2. If an enemy gets high-impact attacks that can lead to stunlocks and major damage or major displacement, there needs to be a sign that it's happening AND a way to avoid it.
   • Enemies could glow (at a reasonable level of bloom pls) before attacking.
   • Enemies could have a distinguishable wind-up of their weapon or go in a certain pose (although maybe in a more subtle manner than a JoJo) before attacking.
   • Enemies should have different, distinguishable designs that let the player know what they're facing
   • Players should be able to jump/roll out of the way
   • Enemies should not swarm. Swarming is what they've all done up to this point, and it turns mechanic-based gameplay into a mess no matter how well-designed the individual enemies are. Spawn rates should be much lower if these enemies were to be the focus in Arbitrations.
   • Bosses should be big and noticeable.
3. Enemies should explode into a giant supernova of loot when defeated to make players feel rewarded. Confetti and fireworks not necessary, only the bloom of the resources and items dropped.

The current direction that we seem to be heading in in terms of endgame content appears to be a dead-end. Players are frustrated at getting their favorite weapons/warframes nerfed or having their favorite warframes locked out because they need to adhere to a forming meta around dealing with bullet-sponge bosses. (Eidolons, anyone?) Devs are probably frustrated that the content they worked so long on is being dismissed as some filler-content by the players.

Maybe we can find a more fun alternative that makes both sides happy.

[Which frames need better passives?]

On 2019-04-09 at 5:57 PM, Datam4ss said:

Zephyr. This passive is so bad it is a nightmare modifier.

I actually like Zephyr's passive, it helps with my mobility (especially vertical mobility), and adds to her theme as a birdframe where being airborne is more her element. On the other hand though, I get that it's tough to control for players who haven't really played Zephyr, and makes for a pretty terrible first impression for a warframe everyone seems to regard as a "bad frame". How about, instead of it just being on all the time, you can just hold CTRL to deactivate the passive and drop like a rock? It'll help set up another bullet jump quickly and help get down faster into crouch mode if you want to be stealthy for some reason.

[Zaphyr Deluxe Skin - Is it dead?]

Zephyr in general doesn't get much support at all because not many players like that kind of playstyle anyway. The meta these days is ez nuke and map-clear (Equinox, Saryn, Mesa), hypertanks (Inaros), massive damage (Rhino, Chroma), defense (Limbo), or all of the above (Gara). You see one of those at least once in every public match because they're easy to play and easy to do well with by just taking a random build off of [insert content creator here] and pressing a couple ability hotkeys. Zephyr relies heavily on weapon usage (which requires a bit more effort with aiming, melee combos, and getting good builds on other weapons), so only a very small portion of players actually play with her. If nobody really plays with her, then is the effort really worth it when DE can just milk the meta frames for more profit?

So, in short: Yes, it probably still exists, but it's probably at minimal priority because not many people really care.

[Occasionally, swapping between archgun and normal weapons blocks weapon swapping for the rest of the match.]

Used the archgun and unequipped it, only to find that I couldn't use any of the other weapons I had. Tried jumping out of bounds and operator mode and all kinds of other ways to get the bug to fix itself but none of them worked. Ended up extracting early because it was impossible to deal damage.

[We need to talk, DE.]

Ad hominems aside, can we all just agree that maybe Zephyr should have a bit more control over tailwind than right now? Even something like a restricted turning-arc where she banks to one side while turning would be pretty awesome to see, and it'll feel more fun to control than the straight-line tailwind we have right now.

[Hold-Attack combos are now unreliable as of the 1st phase melee rework.]

I use Sword and Shield weapons a lot nowadays, and found that one of the stance combos, the Dark Light combo of Final Harbinger, does not seem to trigger reliably. Whenever I hold E, (how I used to reliably initiate the combo before the update), the combo does not initiate with the shield throw. Instead, it does a quick sword swing and does not execute the rest of the combo if I follow the rest of the steps.

Some suggestions I've gotten were to try initiating those combos directly from gun-mode or adding in an extra melee swing to the beginning of the combo, but it seems entirely random whether it activates or not. Most of the time, it doesn't.

[What about a lance as a new melee weapon?]

I think DE should go make some more of the weapon types we already have that are being neglected before trying to make another entire set. We have only 2 different types of non-warframe dependant claws, venka and ripkas, and new regular swords haven't come out since the PoE release. Gunblades haven't seen any growth since endo became a thing.  Meanwhile, there are dozens of types of dual swords and many polearm/staff like weapons.

It wouldn't be the best idea to make a brand new weapon type if it's just going to be (basically) abandoned eventually. Maybe this should wait until after melee 3.0 comes out so that it can be balanced correctly around the new mechanics to make sure that lance weapons stay in good demand after they are (possibly) created.

[Did someone log into my account?]

8 hours ago, RandomAsianDay said:

I payed for prime access through steam, and I bought some bundles. I never got a refund and I have never received over 100 platinum from anybody. I payed platinum for bundles and I traded for some prime sets using platinum. Then a week or so later, my computer malfunctioned and I haven't tried played warframe until 3 days ago. How is my account able to get negative plat? I contacted support and I haven't received an answer. Was my account being used by someone while I was away?

If you were in a clan or if you have friends that are usually online, you might be able to ask them through forums or some other form of communication to check when you were last online in the clan roster or friends roster. If it doesn't line up exactly with when you were last online, then it's likely that you were hacked. If not, then something else probably went wrong.

[Gantulyst still randomly teleports.]

During the first couple synovias, the Gantulyst seems to randomly teleport to different locations, even though we had charged lures next to him at all times. This happened twice in a row followed by another occurrence after the synovia broke. There seems to be no specific triggers, it just happens.

This bug made our group waste >10 minutes looking for where the gantulyst went and taking its shields all the way down to 0 again.

10 minutes out of a 50 minute night is a LONG time. Another look needs to be taken at the bugs surrounding the Eidolon hunts, as they are especially frustrating to see in what is considered to be endgame content.

[Onslaught Conduit Portal does not spawn after someone disconnects and returns]

There have been a few times where the onslaught portal just never spawns even after the timer hits 00:00 and the message pops up that the conduit portal will materialize soon. In every instance of this happening, someone disconnects in the middle of a round, (or possibly crashes while trying to load into the next round), and returns in the middle of the next round.