BDrumev

Let us hope it is properly fleshed out when it releases. I would hate to see the mode launch and it only lets us play random Frames and Weapons from the entire pool in game vs level 300 enemies with netracell scaling. THAT would be a disaster.

The premise. Hello fellow Tenno. I come to you today with my personal take on a comprehensive Archwing (AW) rework. It is in dire need of a meaningful tune up, and if done right can enable some realy good synergies and play-styles we have never truly had access to in game. And if done right, you can even make use of Modular Archwing to really take it to the next level! HOWEVER we do need to analyze it's current state and what makes it feel bad in this meta. Let me preface this by saying this comes from a place of love to the game and a desire to see it grow and improve! The Issues. Let's look at the major pain points: 1. It feels detached from our Warframe. When we activate AW, we get our HP and Shield replaced. However our regeneration effects carry over, making it feel like some reluctant compromise to make it playable. This feels bad because it invalidates our underlying Warframe build and ignores how we mod, with of course the exception being sprint speed and parkour velocity! Which feels baffling. If someone woud think they can just pop in a Pain Threshhold mod to help the staggers, well too bad. AW has none of the mods we have for our warframes to help mitigate how it handles, which brings me neatly to my next point... 2. Flying in it is clunky and designed for a meta long past. We like going fast. A LOT of tenno like setting our Sprint to a toggle and going fast all the time. With the introduction of the newest Intrinsics for Railjack, Archwing can go pretty fast. In an open room scenario with nothing blocking your flight path that is good, untill you play the actual AW levels, where you have to contend with narrow corridors and tight spaces, sending you reeling from the slightest touch. Which is inevitable, because the rooms are claustrophobic and tiny! And some of those missions you need to play a lot for things like Archgun Leveling and farming Cryptographic ALU. The staggers don't remove our control over wasd movement, however being sent reeling feels annoying and wants us to go slow. Except we are incentivized and pushed towards moving at Star Wars Episode 1 Racer speeds, without this being a race track! And even in the open worlds you can feel how frustrating it is to be reeling all the time after taking a sharp turn in to a building. And that's not all - since all AWs can blink, there is another useless animation left over - whenever we blink and keep rolling per se the AW does a faux forward roll that LITERALLY does nothing other than lock us in an animation! That costs us valuable milliseconds to perform actual dodges and locks us out of firing. It is even not modifiable in the distance covered by movement speed and parkour augmentation like Parkour Velocity and Amalgam Barrel Diffusion's effect, which also feels bad. 3. Abilities on all but the Amesha and the invisibility + vacuum on Itzal do next to nothing. When we only have 2 Archwings with any sort of relevance at high level, one of which has an Invincibility loop, you know we have a problem. Amesha is the only AW that acknowledges it is annoying to get staggered all the time and gives us charges of Stagger Immunity effectively. And the rest of the time it is just slow. Itzal on the other hand has an Invisibility, which might as well not be there in Railjack and the Open Worlds, as enemies aim-bot us in to oblivion and 2-shot us. People use it as a glorified Vacuum in Eidolon hunts, and rarely there comes a mad lad who knows that Jet Stream and Sprint Speed carries over to AW and makes you go as fast as a Railjack. While Speed IS a weapon, it is SO niche, most Tenno don't even know! And all damage abilities literally tickle anything over level 40, which is sad to even think about. 4. Projectiles ignore Rocket Science Missiles move at their own speeds at all times. I could be flying at Mach1 and the shots I put out do NOT take that in to account and do their own thing. Which leads to novel, but Immersion-breaking moments where I can outrace my own projectiles and they don't reach their target in time. Sorry, but the game Freelancer in 1999 had this figured out. How cool would it be, if we could boost our projectiles by aggressively blinking forward!?! This is not an AW exclusive problem mind you. The Changes. I would like to propose several important, yet relatively easy changes to Archwing to help it keep in line with how we play nowadays and what the meta asks of advanced players. These changes will pave the way for deeper AW integration and open up new ways of playing with it in existing content, building on what we have access to. That being said, I will not go over exact numerical changes for things like AW mods and AW base stats, because I feel like that is subject to play-testing. The assumption is, that if the following were to be accepted, a re-balancing of stats will be required. Major changes I propose are: 1. Full Warframe Integration The first change I propose is to have the AW stats add in to the equipped Warframe stats. No longer shal we just switch to the stats of the AW equipped. Energy cap will be increased but we will get no free energy by equipping, making it so that our energy economy still matters. Current energy, health, shield and armor values will get added to whatever it is we are doing. Of course Warframe passives will carry over. Also any and all active Warframe abilities have to also carry over, keeping any active drain on. I will elaborate more on why in my 3rd suggested change. The point is higher Immersion and actual integration between AW and Warframe in a more meaningful way. 2. Full Stagger Immunity It might seem self-explanatory, but it needs to be said again - getting unconditionally staggered and animation locked mid-air while we can still move is jarring, immersion-breaking and overall bad. If we are to fully tap in to AW's potential, it needs to provide a certain baseline of functionality to make it feel like it empowers us, as opposed to a tacked on jetpack. 3. Toggling it on in Open World Maps / Landing in Archwing and Railjack The next big stage of fixing the flow of AW is how it is toggled on and off, and in my opinion it needs to be expanded on. In Open Worlds, AW should be toggled on and off only by using the launcher. And by that I mean toggling the AW being equipped! Another significant change I propose is to remove the ability to launch it mid-air, and make us equip it much like the Archguns - on the ground. This will help Immersion and make getting downed mid-air more impactful, as opposed to the current trend of people just aim-gliding and reactivating AW with nearly no repercussion to not dodging. While in AW mode, bullet-jumping should be the mechanic to launch us in to Flight mode from Ground mode. In Ground mode, with AW equipped, we will have access to our Warframe abilities, and in Flight mode we will switch to the AW ability set, providing better interplay between forms. In AW and Railjack missions we will of course still start in Flight mode and because our perspective is locked, being near level surfaces will allow us to land via bullet-jumping, giving us access to our Warframe abilities! 4. Parkour Integration while in Archwing. Part of fixing the Bumper-Carts nature of AW is already in the game per se. Adding a Wall-Sprint when we make contact with Walls at a certain angle will turn making contact with surfaces in to an intuitive action that we are already used to from the game. Same with grabbing on to ledges. This way part of the fluidity of the game's outstanding base movement system will carry over. A point of consideration is adding a directional bullet-jump while wall-sprinting / -latching, to help us feel being propelled by the AW. 5. Re-balancing of Abilities to better reflect having the Warframe in the equation et al. Now that Warframe and AW are brought closer together, the stats and abilities will need to be re-balanced to account for us also having Warframes equipped, and everything they bring with them. For example, an Inaros with an Arcane Grace with an Amesha. But the point is to enable mixing and matching in meaningful ways and enabling and augmenting the strategies we already employ. Some AWs should be geared towards making us fast, while the damage output of abilities and their interaction with, say, Coating Abilities like Venom Dose need to be looked at. 6. Remove redundant forward roll animation and add movement speed scaling to other roll animations Keeping movement tight and in line with how Warframes move is a priority. Hence all the fat needs to be trimmed to keep action fast and responsive. Payoffs for modding for Sprint Speed on both Warframe and AW need to be present to make it feel truly meaningful, for Speed is a Weapon. 7. Projectiles now take in to account Rocket Science and Open World anti-AW missiles are faster. This point is possibly the most important one, as in Railjack and AW missions, the newly aquired speed will make this point all the more important - if slow missiles were a problem before, now it will become impossible to not see. And in open worlds, enemy missiles should get a small speed buff, but also made easier to see / track. Those missiles should also be dodge-able within a certain range, disabling their targeting, also removing the frustrating "Incoming Projectile" notification that currently keeps showing up even if we cross half the map. I hereby submit this think piece for peer review. DE, you have my express permission and blessing to use any and all of these ideas and feedback in any way you see fit, I trust in Rebecca and Pablo's leadership! Greetings from the Origin System, yours truly, an LR4 guy. P.S.: "Always Sprint" menu toggle option when?

2 Solutions. 1) Make a widget that shows us weather we are in the light or shadows and make the ability snapshot light state on cast 2) Make a Chroma style switchable toggle. Enough over-complications, enough half measures. Keep it simple!