That "Umbra System" Steve mentioned... What is it?

[KelsierSurvivor]

Before Umbra was released, Steve said that he was gonna have Umbras be different from Primes so they wouldn't be considered a copyright to Chinaframe or whatever. So, there was a lot of speculation on what this system would be, but now I'm curious... What is it exactly? There's alot of Umbra stuff that came with The Sacrifice, so I'd like to figure out what exactly this system is.

Steve said the Umbras would have their own special means of acquirement, and I'm willing to bet that this is through quests/mini-quests like what we have promised for Revenant. Mini-quests to get Umbras would be cool imo. DE doesn't need to take a year just to introduce another Umbra frame. Maybe just have another "Hunt down Umbra" mission sequence and get the backstory of each one, see what they had to go through. I'd like them all to get a backstory, give us all a reason to love them. Anyways, that's my guess as to what the new acquirement system is.

The "Umbra System" was said to be a gameplay thing though... I have 3 contenders for this; 

Umbral Mods

Sentience without Transference

An ability that erases Sentient immunities.

These all make sense. If each Umbra comes with a few Umbral mods, that would be amazing, but probably pretty broken if they ALL make the other mods in the set stronger. That would be op. If an Umbra frame is able to get more Umbral polarities in the future... well, as soon as 3 Umbra frames are in the game, assuming they all come with three Umbral Mods, well... talk about an Umbral build... literally every slot would be filled. 

Sentience without Transference sounds plausible as well since I expect that each Umbra is going to have this. It would make sense for that to be their special gameplay mechanic since that's more of actual gameplay than mods are.

An ability that erases Sentient immunities sounds like it's a decent idea too. Excalibur Umbra really had no relation to the Sentients in his lore, so why he has an ability that erases Sentient immunities, I don't know. But it would be SO COOL if every Umbra had an ability that did this, and they ALL have their own voice that they battlecry with when they cast it. Excal has his, so it would be ABSOLUTELY AMAZING if the other Umbras have one too. PLEASE DE! It would be cool if they have their own, not just one that's a carbon copy of Excal Umbra's.

 

So what do you guys think this "Umbra System" is?

[Ogarra_Remaellus]

What I'm hoping for is the ability to harvest Helminth soldiers from Tau, and turn them into Umbra frames, maybe even with a zaw like ability give it different powers.

[Nitro747]

He was just overhyping something that within the current game is kinda boring and lame tbh. The only thing that an "Umbra Warframe" does for all that gameplay is concerned is behaving like a specter would when you go into operator mode and thats it. And even so its better to just use a normal Warframe because they become imune to AI damage while Umbra will get hurt and use energy as he fights. Umbral and Sacrificial mods seems to be just some bandaid fix to give it a bit more of personality and make it distinct from other warframes.

That's it, the only "special" thing Umbra has is a useless gimmick, nothing else.

If he used blind howl imediately after we went into operator mode or if the Specter AI had at least 4 working brain cells it would be cool... sort of. It's not like using Operator mode in a mission for any extended period of time would justify that. That would require a more fluid Operator fighting mechanic other than the static combat and parkour the operators have and a non-dumb AI for Umbra.

Edited August 21, 2018 by Nitro747

[YukimaruLegends]

13 minutes ago, KelsierSurvivor said:

 

An ability that erases Sentient immunities sounds like it's a decent idea too. Excalibur Umbra really had no relation to the Sentients in his lore, so why he has an ability that erases Sentient immunities,

Well he is a warframe, and their design was to take down sentients and Umbra was likely better designed for it but with the downside of being completely unstable and hard to control. Other than that I still strongly believe the Original 8(Including Excalibur) should only be the ones to get Umbral variants

Edited August 21, 2018 by YukimaruLegends

[DreisterDino]

vor 5 Minuten schrieb Nitro747:

He was just overhyping something that within the current game is kinda boring and lame tbh.

This, sadly...

 

I watched a dev-interview with rebecca and steve some time ago before umbra release where they have been talking about ayatan sculptures:

Steve: "The Ayatans might be something like a polaroid of the orokin era. They might contain some memory of an individual that lived in that time"

Rebecca: "You are spoiling the sacrifice as we speak!"

Steve: "So the market for ayatans might be more interesting in the future"

 

This sounded like they would get a real meaning besides collecting and giving them to Maro for Endo. I was thinking about what they would add to make ayatans more interesting and what new ways of using ayatans they would introduce. And what did we get?

5 Primed Mods that needs tons of Endo, so ayatans are exactly what they have been before, only that everybody now needs a crazy amount of endo at the same time.

No real lore, no new gameplay mechanics, nothing interesting at all that would give ayatans a real meaning.

 

So yes, just overhyping.

[-Krism-]

20 minutes ago, Ogarra_Remaellus said:

What I'm hoping for is the ability to harvest Helminth soldiers from Tau

Who said there were any?

[Ogarra_Remaellus]

2 minutes ago, Xenox_Ilz-ot said:

Who said there were any?

Ballas talked about the Helminth soldiers during The Sacrifice.

[(PSN)abbacephas]

30 minutes ago, KelsierSurvivor said:

So what do you guys think this "Umbra System" is?

A myth.

[-Krism-]

Just now, Ogarra_Remaellus said:

Ballas talked about the Helminth soldiers during The Sacrifice.

So what? That doesn't that the Sentients took any infected soldiers with them on Tau

[(PSN)xtharbadx]

Umbra sort of looks like not only a different frame class ( regular/prime/umbra ) but also possibly a entirely different focus school.

Considering that the current polarities on frames and weapons have the names of the schools, a Umbra focus school would make some sense and give vets more to work on ( focus farming a entirely new branch ).

I'm curious to see how DE will expand on the Umbra idea, lots of space here for creativity.

[KelsierSurvivor]

1 minute ago, (PS4)xtharbadx said:

Umbra sort of looks like not only a different frame class ( regular/prime/umbra ) but also possibly a entirely different focus school.

Considering that the current polarities on frames and weapons have the names of the schools, a Umbra focus school would make some sense and give vets more to work on ( focus farming a entirely new branch ).

I'm curious to see how DE will expand on the Umbra idea, lots of space here for creativity.

Honestly hadn't even considered that... That's an interesting idea.

[OniDax]

55 minutes ago, Ogarra_Remaellus said:

What I'm hoping for is the ability to harvest Helminth soldiers from Tau, and turn them into Umbra frames, maybe even with a zaw like ability give it different powers.

Helminth soldiers? Um, what? Are you talking about those biodrones that Ballas talked about in Sacrifice? Those predated the Warframes. He's not still making them, and I doubt the Sentients will use things like that.

Edited August 21, 2018 by A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n

[SenorClipClop]

1 hour ago, KelsierSurvivor said:

Steve said the Umbras would have their own special means of acquirement, and I'm willing to bet that this is through quests/mini-quests like what we have promised for Revenant. Mini-quests to get Umbras would be cool imo. DE doesn't need to take a year just to introduce another Umbra frame. Maybe just have another "Hunt down Umbra" mission sequence and get the backstory of each one, see what they had to go through. I'd like them all to get a backstory, give us all a reason to love them. Anyways, that's my guess as to what the new acquirement system is.

The "Umbra System" was said to be a gameplay thing though...

Keep in mind that due to several different factors, the introduction of Umbra to the game was rewritten several times over the course of a couple years before finally becoming available. Any plans that the devs may have had in the past could be exactly the same or completely different from what they teased and suggested long ago. All we can really go on are the patterns of the game currently (usually Warframes are released with quests, etc.) and any information the devs decide to share with us.

[Nitro747]

33 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

Keep in mind that due to several different factors, the introduction of Umbra to the game was rewritten several times over the course of a couple years before finally becoming available. Any plans that the devs may have had in the past could be exactly the same or completely different from what they teased and suggested long ago. All we can really go on are the patterns of the game currently (usually Warframes are released with quests, etc.) and any information the devs decide to share with us.

This is not about what he said years ago but what he said right before the release of The Sacrifice. It was literally the last devstream before Tennocon and he was literally "hinting" (cough, hyping) what was about to happen. Turns out it was just pretty lame tbh

[Edelsid]

I hope to god that this system is about evolving our existing frames into umbra and not acquiring a completely new frame that will further clutter my arsenal or make me abandon previous version completely. It can go like that:

• You build/farm for some extremely rare item/resource that allows the transformation. Maybe it's that special transference bolt that Excal Umbra has? 
• The process takes place in the Helminth's room (because Helminth needs to something, right?). Warframe is in the infested chair, Operator uses the small bed in the back of the room. Helminth/Ordis/whatever establishes the link between the two and the awakening begins.
• Awakening is essentially a series of tests that check how well do you wield this particular frame and use it's abilities. Only the players that took time to learn their frame, to "bond" with it in a sense can complete them. While you play through these tests you unlock supressed memories of your frame (maybe in the form of voicelines? It's way easier to record voicelines than to make a quest for each umbra frame) and ease your frame's pain as you essentially are reliving those memories together.
• You wake up, your frame is now an Umbra, polarities and sentient passive included.

That way it can still be your good old Saryn/Mesa/Nova/Oberon/whoever your favorite is, but evolved and not replaced by another copy with slightly different looks and a scarf. 

[SenorClipClop]

4 minutes ago, Nitro747 said:

This is not about what he said years ago but what he said right before the release of The Sacrifice. It was literally the last devstream before Tennocon and he was literally "hinting" (cough, hyping) what was about to happen. Turns out it was just pretty lame tbh

Oh, okay. I recall sometime back in the winter of last year when the devs were saying something similar, but it's good we have more recent and concrete hints about the future of Umbra. We still don't have much to go on though, so the acquisition of new Umbral frames could be as simple as cutscene heavy quests (less interested) or new game modes/challenges to acquire Umbral frames beyond the first (more interested).

To me, the most predictable way of doing this would be that DE starts releasing Tau system content in 2019. Excal Umbra is our ticket in, and then somehow through yet-unknown gameplay we track down the stuff to create other Umbra frames, be it hunting down Ballas, recovering data from Sentients, etc.