The state of Archwing, and how to make the most of it

[Teridax68]

So Archwing is still a thing, and it still has its many problems. After several attempts to integrate and update the mode, these problems still haven't disappeared, largely because these updates didn't really succeed in bringing meaningful improvements. Personally, though, I felt they went about kind of the wrong way, namely because they all tried to develop on AW's existing mechanics. Here I think are the main problems that currently exist with Archwing:

• Archwing is an island within Warframe, rather than an addition to its gameplay: This I think is the biggest issue. While things have improved with Plains of Eidolon (and, to a much lesser extent, Sharkwing, though we'll get to that), Archwing mostly remains in this isolated space where, whenever the player plays Archwing, they're almost playing an entirely different game. Their frame and weapons are both abandoned in exchange for AW-specific content, which tries to create new gameplay that isn't different enough to warrant this separation, but also not similar enough to mesh well with Warframe proper. Most players love Warframe's core gameplay, and like the idea of being able to fly with Archwing, but dislike how separate the two are.
• Archwing is doomed to small content and poor balance: Let's face it, Archwing isn't a popular mode, and it never will be. Few to no players actively seek out AW missions, and so there's little reason to make more content that will only see play in them. Additionally, because very few players are willing to dedicate the time and effort to max out their archwings, balancing will always be sketchy, because unless the player is using an overpowered archwing like Itzal or Amesha, they're likely to not have a good time with higher-level Archwing missions. This is also one of the reasons why Sorties don't feature dedicated AW content.
• Archwing demands more attention than anyone wants out of it: At the end of the day, Archwing is interesting because of just one thing: it lets players fly. This is the one reason why Archwing was ever appealing, not because of its unique kits or customization. The fact that it asks players to focus on a specific subset of missions in order to find Archwing-exclusive mods has ended up working against the mode, as it demands a certain amount of dedication without really offering the same amount of fun and progression afforded by normal missions.
• Archwing content is clunky and works against its gameplay fantasy: While the Grineer asteroid AW missions are mostly fine, the Corpus Ship tileset is notoriously painful to traverse, because its largely claustrophobic architecture with sharp, angular turns and large amounts of intrusive geometry does not at all accommodate the freedom of movement and speed Archwing is meant to provide. Sharkwing is also terrible for this same reason: underwater sections in the Grineer Sealab tileset are mostly tunnels with confusing signposting, progression-stopping geysers, and incredibly slow overall movement speed. Even on the Plains of Eidolon, the fun of playing Archwing is often hampered by tons of dedicated anti-air weaponry that bring the player down way too fast. Archwing is meant to let the player fly and enjoy near-total freedom of movement, but in practice it often feels more like the player is being forced to drive a bumper car made of glass down an uneven hallway.

So, how do we go about fixing this? There are a ton of different ways Archwing could get changed, as shown by DE's own iterations, but here I think are the broad lines any AW rework should try to take:

• Archwing should be an extension of Warframe's core gameplay, rather than its own dedicated mode: As mentioned above, Archwing is more of a means to an end (i.e. letting the player fly and giving them more freedom of movement), rather than an end in itself. As with spoiler mode, it would likely function better as an extra tool for the player, with particular use in specific situations, rather than its own, entirely separate line of content.
• There should be no such thing as Archwing-specific content or balance: As with the above, dedicating any sort of content exclusively to Archwing is doomed to be inefficient, because it will not have a chance of getting used as often as, say, regular warframes or weapons. AW should exist, but if possible it should exist in such a way that it should not need too much attention given to it on order to work.
• Any content that enables Archwing should also not hinder its freedom of movement: This I feel should be a given, even if we're very, very far from this current situation now. Archwing exists to give the player even more freedom and speed in particular situations, and so those situations should cater to this, rather than work against it. This does not mean the player should be unchallenged while in Archwing, but rather that the challenge should not come at a cost to AW's fluidity and agency.

And with that in mind, here are the changes I propose (explanations are in spoilers, and I recommend reading them if the points come across as strange):

1. Turn Archwing weapons into normal weapons, turn Archwing kits into new warframes.

Spoiler

This I think is something that could be done even without changing Archwing itself at all. Many players like the aesthetic and gameplay of AW weapons and kits, and would like to have that as content in Warframe outside of the mode. Some adjustments would need to be made, namely to abilities currently designed just to stop homing missiles (they could perhaps just block normal gunfire or provide some other form of damage mitigation), and perhaps also to the size and ammo count of weapons, but the result would be a whole bunch of new content for Warframe with comparatively less effort than an equivalent amount of totally new frames and weapons.

2. Remove Archwing-exclusive kits, health, energy and weapons, make them provide a blanket range boost to the player's equipped warframe, weapons and vacuum instead, as well as a standard change to the player's speed and movement, and turn current archwings into different skins.

Spoiler

This I think would be the natural follow-up to suggestion 1. After integrating Archwing-exclusive gameplay to regular Warframe, rendering AW a simple addition to the player's toolset, rather than a whole separate mode by itself, would integrate Warframe's whole gameplay into the mode, and solve much of its issues relating to progression, customization, and so on. Additionally, it could significantly expand on the mode's gameplay, allowing a whole new variety of playstyles, while providing just enough changes to make everything feel the same while flying. As with point 1, this could help out Archwing significantly even without implementing the suggestions below.

3. Speed up movement in Sharkwing to match standard Archwing speeds.

Spoiler

Nothing too complicated here. Sharkwing's too slow, speeding it up would make it feel a lot better. Nuff said.

4. Remove dedicated anti-Archwing weaponry, only have the player drop out of Archwing if they take fatal damage, and have the player auto-equip Archwing if they land in water or hold the jump button after double-jumping, without any charge cost. Remove the mag proc on water in PoE.

Spoiler

DE announced Archwing would no longer require charges to use with Fortuna, so that's a step forward, but there's still a lot more that could be done to improve the state of Archwing in the Plains of Eidolon. Making it usable near-instantly without having to fiddle through an overinflated gear wheel would make it a lot easier and more fluid to use, and removing all of the different things that shoot the player too quickly out of the sky would lessen the feeling of flying around on a jet made out of wet paper. Because the water applying mag procs currently only exists to discourage players from falling in, in addition to its hard fall (DE didn't implement swimming), removing all of that in favor of just auto-entering Archwing would make water a more interesting and less hostile component to the Plains. Coupled with suggestions 1 and 2, this should make entering and exiting Archwing a seamless experience in PoE, and ideally also Fortuna and any other open world in the future.

5. Cut down on Archwing-exclusive missions, and focus instead on integrating Archwing into normal missions, with appropriate reworks to Archwing spaces to make them open and unobstructive (especially Sharkwing).

Spoiler

This would be, by far, the biggest and costliest change to implement, imo, so I'm not holding my breath. However, this could also be implemented in stages: simply removing Corpus Archwing missions from the Star Chart wouldn't be particularly costly, for example, even if it would be removing content in the short term. As mentioned above, Grineer asteroid Archwing missions are largely fine, but could also be the perfect opportunity to integrate them into the main Corpus Asteroid tileset, allowing the player to travel from base to base, and maybe do some stuff along the way. Similarly, this should be the intent of further expansions to Archwing, with lots of potential in doing the same for Corpus ships, Grineer galleons, and so on. Sharkwing I think would only get to be truly fixed with a rework to the Uranus tileset, which I think needs to eventually happen anyway. Blending Archwing and normal traversal, even in outer space, is a direction DE is already taking with their newer content, namely Railjack, so I feel this would also be aligned with DE's goals.

TL;DR: Archwing isn't in a good spot because it's treated as a separate game mode, rather than integrated with the rest of Warframe. Making it an expansion to Warframe's core gameplay, by eliminating the separation and simply having it around as one more tool the player can situationally use, along with implementing changes to Archwing spaces, would address this problem, and allow AW to be fun without detracting from the rest of the game. Additionally, this could also allow a lot more content to be added to the game without having to think up entirely new gameplay concepts.

If you've read all of this post thus far, congratulations, and thank you for your time! Here's a little pre-emptive FAQ I recommend reading before you post, as it should likely answer some core questions and points I feel I'll be seeing:

Spoiler

• But I like Archwing! I don't want to lose my favorite archwing/weapon: You wouldn't. The proposal here is to add Archwing's gameplay to the main game, namely its weapons and kits, so if for example you really liked playing the Elytron with with the Fluctus and Kaszas, you'd still be able to do so with the equivalent Elytron-frame, plus the Fluctus and Kaszas, and play pretty much in the exact same manner. Not only that, but you'd also be able to play that loadout in any mission, as well as play your regular frames in any Archwing content, so you'd have strictly more options and gameplay all around.
• Implementing this will take lots of time and effort. Why bother?: So to start, yes and no, not all of the above proposals are all that resource-intensive. Some stuff is likely to take a lot more time, e.g. reworking Sharkwing tiles, whereas stuff like boosting the speed of Sharkwing wouldn't take much work. At the end of the day, though, for sure this would collectively take some work, but imo it would still be worth it, because it would significantly improve an aspect of the game that's been struggling for a long time, and which DE has clearly shown an interest in fixing. Moreover, some parts of this work could actually be a pretty economical way of adding lots more new content, namely by adding Archwing weapons and kits into regular Warframe (you'd almost immediately get 4/5 new frames and 17 new weapons).
• Warframes and weapons aren't made for Archwing. How would this work?: As with the above, I feel this isn't as unworkable as it may sound. Because warframes themselves are already built around 3D traversal, with increasingly more frames being made able to use their abilities in the air, most abilities would likely only just need boosts to their range to work while in constant flight. In some particular cases where abilities are centered on the ground, e.g. Hydroid's 3 and 4, Oberon's 2, and so on, it might help to simply make them more general, radial abilities for those specific situations (Hydroid could still turn into a puddle in mid-air, Tentacle Swarm could be made to spawn at Hydroid or an enemy's location, Hallowed Ground could just throw out a carpet of radioactive flora no matter where, etc.). In the absolute worst case, it wouldn't be the end of the world if certain abilities were completely unusable in Archwing, as even the frames most affected by this would still have stuff to do. As for pets like Venari... why not give them jetpacks?
• DE will never implement this: Are you Digital Extremes? If not, then what makes you so sure? Why pretend to speak on their behalf?

And that should just about wrap it up for my piece. What do you think? What are your opinions on Archwing, and what would you like to see out of it, if anything?

Edited September 18, 2018 by Teridax68

[(PSN)OriginalEquinox]

I hated archwing from the moment I tried it. The corpus tilesets are a claustrophobic nightmare to navigate, the only AW boss battle is beyond tedious unless you have OP gear, mods are hard to get unless you farm aw missions over and over and hope a random enemy will drop them. The ability to seamlessly switch between AW and frame in PoE made me enjoy it for a bit but that faded as well because everyone and their cat has anti air equipment and it isn't uncommon to get shot down by some random grineer with godlike aim either, it's a nice concept that was executed poorly. 

You made some good points and suggestions on how to improve it but I can't wrap my head around the whole 'turn archwings into warframes' part, if you could elaborate on that a bit more I'd appreciate it.

Another thing they could do to make players like me hate aw missions a little less is to stop them from blocking access to regular missions, there are about 5 nodes I can't complete or farm because I haven't completed the aw missions before them, just push aw missions to the end of the planet and everything else towards the centre so players who don't want to, can just avoid aw missions instead of being forced to complete them or be locked out of content.

[Leqesai]

Simple solution to make archwing more interesting is 

 

Let us use our arching loadout in the plains and on fortuna! Seriously it doesn't make sense why we can't use our arching loadout in the plains when we can in submersible levels... 

 

At least then we would have an interesting way to get archwing xp instead of the crummy archwing missions

[Teridax68]

8 hours ago, (PS4)Equinox21697 said:

You made some good points and suggestions on how to improve it but I can't wrap my head around the whole 'turn archwings into warframes' part, if you could elaborate on that a bit more I'd appreciate it.

Thank you for your feedback! Regarding this specific part, the idea is to create four new warframes (technically five, with Odonata Prime), and give to each of them the kit of a current archwing, with appropriate tweaks as needed. Here's a full list of examples (numbers are placeholder, and the frame names should probably be different):

For reference, effects highlighted in red are affected by Power Strength, effects highlighted in blue are affected by Power Efficiency, effects highlighted in green are affected by Power Duration, and effects highlighted in orange are affected by Power Range.

1 - Odonata:

Spoiler

• Stats:
  • 100 base health (300 at rank 30). On Prime: 125 base health (375 at rank 30).
  • 100 base shields (300 at rank 30). On Prime: 125 base shields (375 at rank 30).
  • 100 base armor.
  • 100 base energy (150 at rank 30).
  • 1.0 sprint speed. On Prime: 1.05 sprint speed.
  • Innate Madurai (V) and Vazarin (D) polarity, with a Naramon (dash) aura polarity. On Prime: gains an additional Naramon (dash) polarity.
• Passive - Fly on the Wall: Odonata's ability and weapon damage is increased by 10% while she is wall latching.
• 1 - Energy Shell: Odonata creates a frontal shield that absorbs enemy fire and lasts for 10 / 14 / 18 / 22 seconds. Friendly attacks through the shield deal 50% bonus Heat damage and gain 100% increased critical damage. Costs 25 Energy.
  • Augment - Energy Field: Allies within 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 meters of Odonata's Energy Shell also receive an Energy Shell for its remaining duration.
• 2 - Disarray: Odonata releases 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 flares that remain in a static 7 / 8 / 9 / 10-meter radius area for 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 seconds. Enemy attacks that pass through the field consume a flare, deal 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 Blast damage to the attacker and knock them down. Enemies inside the field also consume a flare every 0.2 seconds to produce the same effect. Costs 50 Energy.
• 3 - Seeking Fire: Odonata launches 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 missiles in quick succession in the target direction that each seek out enemies within 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 meters of them, exploding on impact to deal 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 Blast damage to all enemies within 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 meters. Costs 75 Energy.
• 4 - Repel: Odonata launches a repelling wave that rapidly travels outwards up to 12 / 14 / 16 / 20 meters, carrying all enemies out in its path and ragdolling them. Repelled enemies take 250 / 500 / 750 / 1000 Impact damage upon hitting something while being carried, dealing the same damage to enemies and objects they hit as well. Costs 100 Energy.

2 - Elytron:

Spoiler

• Stats:
  • 150 base health (450 at rank 30).
  • 150 base shields (450 at rank 30).
  • 150 base armor.
  • 125 base energy (188 at rank 30).
  • 0.9 sprint speed.
  • Two innate Madurai (V) polarities, with a Naramon (dash) aura polarity.
• Passive - Blastoff: The Blast damage and radius created by Elytron's bullet jumps is increased by 200%.
• 1 - Bloomer: Elytron fires a projectile which either homes in on the target unit or goes forth in a straight line, sticking to the first thing it hits. Reactivating the ability detonates the projectile, dealing 200 / 300 / 400 / 500 Blast damage to all enemies within 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 meters. Costs 25 Energy.
• 2 - Vent: For the next 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 seconds, Elytron leaves behind a trail of exhaust which lasts for 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 seconds, obscuring enemy vision, stopping enemy projectiles, and constantly staggering enemies caught inside. Costs 50 Energy.
  • Augment - Afterburner: Dealing damage to Vent's exhaust trail ignites it for 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 seconds, causing it to deal 200 / 300 / 400 / 500 Heat damage per second to all enemies who come in contact with it.
• 3 - Thumper: Elytron fires a beacon in the target direction, which sticks to the first thing it hits. Reactivating the ability unleashes a constant bombardment in the area within 14 / 16 / 18 / 20 meters of the beacon for the next 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 seconds, creating 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3 explosions per second that each deal 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 Blast damage in a 4 / 6 / 8 / 10-meter radius. Costs 75 Energy.
• 4 - Warhead: Elytron fires a slow-moving projectile, which he can guide using the cursor. Upon impact, the projectile deals 625 / 750 / 875 / 1000 Blast damage to all enemies within 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 meters, and throws the surviving enemies outwards, ragdolling them. Costs 100 Energy.

3 - Itzal:

Spoiler

• Stats:
  • 100 base health (300 at rank 30).
  • 100 base shields (300 at rank 30).
  • 50 base armor.
  • 150 base energy (225 at rank 30).
  • 1.2 sprint speed.
  • Innate Madurai (V) and Vazarin (D) polarity, with a Naramon (dash) aura polarity.
• Passive - Perch: Aim gliding as Itzal suspends him in the air completely, instead of slowing his movement.
• 1 - Blink: Itzal instantly teleports 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 meters, blinding all enemies within 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 meters on arrival for 3.5 / 4 / 4.5 / 5 seconds. Costs 25 Energy.
• 2 - Penumbra: Itzal generates a cloaking field, granting him and all allies within 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 meters of him invisibility while they remain stationary. If Itzal or an ally moves, they become visible, but immediately return to invisibility upon stopping. Costs 15 Energy on cast and 5 Energy per second thereafter.
• 3 - Cosmic Crush: Itzal pulls all enemies and pickups within 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 meters towards him, dealing 375 / 500 / 625 / 750 Blast damage to them on impact. Costs 75 Energy.
  • Augment - Cold Snap: Affected enemies receive a Cold status effect for 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 seconds, with enemies pulled within a 2 / 3 / 4 / 5-meter radius being frozen outright for the duration.
• 4 - Fighter Escort: Itzal summons 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 drones that follow him, including through Blink, for the next 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 seconds. Each of these drones has a beam attack that deals 150 / 200 / 250 / 300 Electricity damage per second to a target within 8 meters. These drones can also intercept enemy shots, and upon destruction explode to deal 500 / 750 / 1000 / 1250 Blast damage to all enemies within 8 meters. Costs 100 Energy.

4 - Amesha:

Spoiler

• Stats:
  • 100 base health (300 at rank 30).
  • 100 base shields (300 at rank 30).
  • 200 base armor.
  • 150 base energy (225 at rank 30).
  • 1.1 sprint speed.
  • Innate Madurai (V) and Vazarin (D) polarity, with a Naramon (dash) aura polarity.
• Passive - Succor: When Amesha collides with an ally using a parkour maneuver, she and her ally are healed for 50 health.
• 1 - Watchful Swarm: Amesha summons a swarm of protective drones around the target ally or herself, which block the next 6 / 9 / 12 / 15 instances of damage before dissipating. Costs 25 Energy.
• 2 - Benevolent Decoy: Amesha drops an energy field at her current location which remains in place for 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 seconds, negating all enemy fire in a 4 / 6 / 8 / 10-meter radius, and healing all allies within for 120 / 130 / 140 / 150% of the negated damage. Costs 50 Energy.
• 3 - Warding Grace: Amesha renders herself and all allies within 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 meters immune to status effects, while slowing the movement and attack speed of enemies in the radius by 10 / 15 / 20 / 25%. Costs 25 Energy on cast and 10 Energy per second thereafter.
• 4 - Vengeful Rush: For the next 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 seconds, Amesha creates a 8 / 12 / 16 / 20-meter wide field around her that increases her total Power Strength, Power Range, and Power Duration by 10% (multiplies bonuses from mods as well), as well as that of all allies within. For the duration, 100% of all damage taken by Amesha or negated by her is converted to Energy, and given to herself and all allies within the field. Costs 100 Energy.

The idea here being to translate archwing kits to warframes as literally as possible, with some alterations made either to make abilities work outside of Archwing (e.g. Disarray, Core Vent), or to avoid excessive similarity with existing abilities (e.g. Repel and Mass Disarm). Would that make more sense?

Edited September 18, 2018 by Teridax68

[MysticDragonMage]

i think the best solution to archwing is to present itself differently. thus, i believe that an archwing syndicate would be perfect.

to elaborate, archwing content is presented a little awkwardly. here are a few good points

playing archwing does not give you archwing content and the only thing it gives that you may use outside of the mode is resources; resources that you can get more of through original gameplay. thus, there are only two reasons to play archwing and invest in its content; you either like space battles, or you want the mastery. in the case of only playing for mastery rewards, there is no reason to continue playing after mastering each weapon and archwing.

syndicates offer arch-weapon parts but not the entire set, which forces players to betray syndicates which can be a grind and not really worth it considering archwing is unpopular as it is.

archwings themselves take days of dojo research and foundry building. so much resources are required to make one archwing; and again, as unpopular as archwing is, a limited number of clan members are willing to help contribute.

an archwing syndicate will solve all of these issues if it adds the following:

• archwing syndicate alerts
• offerings such as relic packs, resources, and air support placements.
• some of the arch-weapon parts moved to its offerings and the rest as rewards for completing missions.
• most of the archwing parts and their blueprints. keep some in the dojo.

and with all of these included, i believe the conclusion will be:

• more players play archwing for archwing content
• players have a sense of progression through the syndicates reputation system (much like all other syndicates)
• players continue playing archwing content for the extra rewards offered by the syndicate, even if they are not a fan of space battles.
• more archwing mission difficulty variety with archwing mission alerts that reward reputation.

i dont think improved gameplay, more archwings, more arch-weapons, more missions, or blending archwing with the original game would solve its issues. DE created sharkwing, Cetus mounts, and archwing tie-ins with quests to blend archwing with the game, but they cant include all archwing content because that would risk unbalance. they responded with requests before concerning improved movement, and we got the movement we have now. they gave us more archwings and more arch-weapons many times, but because the mode was already unpopular, they felt that there was no point in creating more. they've given us more missions like rush and pursuit, but because these mission do not give us unique or more rewards than the original game, they did not bother to make more.

here is a general discussion i made earlier if you wish to read more about this subject.

Edited September 18, 2018 by MysticDragonMage

[Teridax68]

9 hours ago, MysticDragonMage said:

i think the best solution to archwing is to present itself differently. thus, i believe that an archwing syndicate would be perfect.

to elaborate, archwing content is presented a little awkwardly. here are a few good points

playing archwing does not give you archwing content and the only thing it gives that you may use outside of the mode is resources; resources that you can get more of through original gameplay. thus, there are only two reasons to play archwing and invest in its content; you either like space battles, or you want the mastery. in the case of only playing for mastery rewards, there is no reason to continue playing after mastering each weapon and archwing.

syndicates offer arch-weapon parts but not the entire set, which forces players to betray syndicates which can be a grind and not really worth it considering archwing is unpopular as it is.

This is fairly different from what I'm suggesting, particularly since I'm proposing to remove Archwing-specific progression altogether, but nonetheless, I like the idea of an Archwing syndicate that would offer smooth progression under the current system. AW progression is uneven, and having it copy the model of the rest of Warframe, with its random reward drop tables, hasn't really worked out well. Having a dedicated, reliable progression system that would let the player access anything they needed for Archwing without too much hassle would be a step forward, even if I'd still personally want to make all Archwing-exclusive content a part of the main game.

[(XBOX)EPOSSTYLE]

@OP your hired, report to DE before Fortuna releases? Tell Steve I said, it's ok to go ahead and do that!

[DarkwarriorJ]

Rather than distinct choppy locations where Archwing automatically triggers, I'd prefer if in the archwing integrated missions we can manually toggle archwing ourselves, anywhere. Let the madmen who would use archeing inside a cramped ship do so; let the madmen who prefer to trudge underwater do so. 

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

Archwings are fun... Weapons too... Need better and higher level missions.

Also, Elytron Prime plz.

[(PSN)mahoshonenfox]

I wish we could use Arching Launchers in any mission. The additional 4 abilities they have combined with your warframe's kit can be awesome sometimes. I only realized this in the plains during Plague Star when fighting the Hemocyte.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Yeah... there's two huge 'But's staring in the face of this.

The first is simple, and not as important, but it's still relevant: There are more players that don't like Archwing, not because of the way it's integrated, but because of the difference in controls and the difference from regular gameplay entirely. They don't like flying instead of sprinting/parkouring and so on. They don't even like Zephyr's passive for much of the same reasons. It messes with what they want out of the game.

Quite apart from the limitations of the mode, they just don't like the Archwing.

The second is this:

Warframe has to be able to be played as just Warframes. The Archwing is only a mandatory Quest and function because DE included it as part of later Quests. When it was introduced it was specifically designed to be an island in the game, not actually integrated, but the community demanded after it was introduced that it should be.

What this means is that to do what you're asking (and some of which, like making the different Archwings into Warframes does actually sound a little ridiculous in the first place, mostly because they not only don't really work as Warframes, but also because it would remove variety as a function of your Archwing experience and reduce the entire thing to just skins...) entails the most ridiculous levels of work to achieve.

Not only would the entire base engine of the game have to be recoded to allow for this, but every single tile-set in the game completely scrapped and redone for this new balance of gameplay. After that, enemy AI would have to be re-worked and, yes, there would actually have to be specific units with specific Anti-Archwing weapons designed because there currently aren't any enemies, besides the Hellion Grineer, that have a function that keeps them more than 10 feet in the air for more than a few seconds. You would have to import all the archwing-based enemies into the main game as well as balancing their damage and vulnerabilities to all of the Warframe abilities instead of just the few Archwing ones.

The result would be a completely different game. From the ground up.

There's also one, rather significant, detail that you need to consider:

Second to last sentence.

They're already working on Railjack and Archwing. Their way. And almost nothing you've said here will feature in, because DE just... has their own plans, they don't want to integrate Archwing into every single game mode, they want it to be a mode that happens when you go into space that's big enough for it to happen. The main game is tile-set based, and will be balanced both in terms of us vs the enemies, and in terms of the maps we work with.

One thing you've said that I agree with completely, though? Speed up Sharkwing. It's terrible at the speed we go there.

[Teridax68]

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

Warframe has to be able to be played as just Warframes. The Archwing is only a mandatory Quest and function because DE included it as part of later Quests. When it was introduced it was specifically designed to be an island in the game, not actually integrated, but the community demanded after it was introduced that it should be.

This is an even more extreme viewpoint from what I'm suggesting, and to some extent I can see the value in it. With what I'm proposing, Archwing would/should never be the only thing the player gets to do in a mission, and perhaps in missions where it does exist, there should exist an alternate route to traverse Archwing space without having to use the feature, e.g. by creating a portal or using a boarding pod to travel through space. With that said, I don't think it would be the end of the world if there were mandatory Archwing sections, because at the end of the day, while Archwing missions themselves are unpopular, AW as a mode of traversal is itself disliked by far fewer people, as evidenced by PoE, and Warframe can't just section off all of its different content purely for the sake of a minority of people who dislike one part of the game. I dislike mission types such as Interception and Defection, for example, but I'm not asking for them to be taken out of the Sortie mission pool.

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

What this means is that to do what you're asking (and some of which, like making the different Archwings into Warframes does actually sound a little ridiculous in the first place, mostly because they not only don't really work as Warframes, but also because it would remove variety as a function of your Archwing experience and reduce the entire thing to just skins...) entails the most ridiculous levels of work to achieve.

I suggest you read my post again, as well as the reply I made a little lower, because I'm not sure this response understands what I'm proposing. For starters, I suggested complete, translated kits from archwing to warframe that have no reason not to work in general situations, so while the notion sounds ridiculous to you, it's not absurd. Second, there wouldn't be any loss in variety, because ultimately you'd still be able to access archwing kits if you so choose, by picking the relevant arch-frame. Moreover, because you'd be able to use a much greater variety of kits in Archwing mode itself, i.e. several dozen rather than just 4 (and that includes the original 4 to boot), you would have more variety to play in Archwing, not less. This was one of the points I made in the FAQ at the bottom of the OP (the very first, in fact).

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

Not only would the entire base engine of the game have to be recoded to allow for this, but every single tile-set in the game completely scrapped and redone for this new balance of gameplay. After that, enemy AI would have to be re-worked and, yes, there would actually have to be specific units with specific Anti-Archwing weapons designed because there currently aren't any enemies, besides the Hellion Grineer, that have a function that keeps them more than 10 feet in the air for more than a few seconds. You would have to import all the archwing-based enemies into the main game as well as balancing their damage and vulnerabilities to all of the Warframe abilities instead of just the few Archwing ones.

This is actually answered pretty neatly in the second point I made in that little FAQ in the OP. To start, I'm not quite sure where you're pulling notion that "the entire base engine of the game would have to be recoded" for this to work, because we already have several mission types and tilesets where the player can switch from their archwing to their warframe and back. Second, enemies have guns, and as long as enemies have guns, they will always have at least the possibility of shooting the player while they're in Archwing mode, as is the case already in PoE even without anti-air weaponry. I don't quite understand why there would be a need to import AW-specific enemies to main missions or the like, and even if that were the case, there are already plenty of cases of AW enemies in main missions, notably in the Kuva Fortress and PoE. 

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

They're already working on Railjack and Archwing. Their way. And almost nothing you've said here will feature in, because DE just... has their own plans, they don't want to integrate Archwing into every single game mode, they want it to be a mode that happens when you go into space that's big enough for it to happen. The main game is tile-set based, and will be balanced both in terms of us vs the enemies, and in terms of the maps we work with.

And, in almost full sequence, this is already answered in the fourth point in the FAQ. To start, nothing in the post you linked suggests that DE has different plans from what I'm suggesting, only that they're planning to work on Archwing in the future, something I brought up as well (and, on top of that, their future work includes blending AW and normal warframe gameplay, as shown in Railjack). Second, even if they had, that would still not prevent the above criticism from being valid, and the above suggestions from being at least worth consideration. You're not really pointing to DE doing any thing specific that goes against what I'm proposing here, you're just using DE as a front to try to give authority to your own opinions on Archwing.

[Birdframe_Prime]

[sigh] Look, I was there. I was there for every single conversation the devs had when discussing the implementation and limitations of Archwing in the game. I know this, not because I'm using them as a front, but because they told us all at the time how they did it and why certain things happened.

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

I'm not quite sure where you're pulling notion that "the entire base engine of the game would have to be recoded" for this to work, because we already have several mission types and tilesets where the player can switch from their archwing to their warframe and back.

First of all, even in those missions, Archwing is still transitioning to a different physics mode, a separate engine running parallel, we know this because DE told us that it's how they've made it work.

It's why Vacuum doesn't work, why Sentinels and pets can't follow you, and why you only get specific Archwing abilities. It's because you're leaving regular game mode, and all its animations, physics and player tracking functions, and inserting yourself into the game space in Archwing mode instead.

The reason, as explained by DE, for all of this is that they made Archwing as an independent engine, running alongside the game, not integrated. And every single problem we get with it is down to that.

Sharkwing, you have to dive into the water which is a transition window, Plains, you have to use a module which transitions you, Kuva Fortress, you have to pass through a gate transition, Razorwing, you have to trigger off a transformation ability. Every single time you're leaving the main game mode and using the other.

DE didn't program the base game engine with Archwing capabilities. In order to do what you're saying they would have to literally recode the entirety of the base engine. They didn't do that in order to introduce Archwing in the first place, because, as they said, it would have introduced a million more bugs than it did the other way. They kept it as an isolated mode because it meant they could specifically check and balance, bug-check and create content exclusively for it, rather than creating entirely new bugs, exploits and problems throughout the base engine.

The statement isn't an opinion, it's DE's literal answer as to why Archwing isn't better integrated already.

I'm even calling it now; when you go on a Railjack mission, you will still have to use a transition gate to exit the ship, and enter the new ship. You will not be able to fly into the enemy ships docking bay, you will always transition back to regular Warframe mode.

If they had programmed it into the base engine from the start, done it the hard way, then Titania would never have any problems with her pets or sentinels, there would be no need for her to have Ability Weapons, she'd be able to use her own, Sharkwing wouldn't have had weeks of trouble with us shrinking in size permanently through a mission, or players being stuck in Sharkwing mode while not in the water, we would have actual smooth transitions between water and air, not needing to go through the 'gating' of those exit and entry points, Plains Archwing would not have had the ridiculous anti-air defenses nor would we have had to have charges in the first place the way we do now...

None of these issues would have been present, but they are because Archwing is not an integrated system. It's a separate one you transition to by means of specific triggers.

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

Second, enemies have guns, and as long as enemies have guns, they will always have at least the possibility of shooting the player while they're in Archwing mode, as is the case already in PoE even without anti-air weaponry. I don't quite understand why there would be a need to import AW-specific enemies to main missions or the like, and even if that were the case, there are already plenty of cases of AW enemies in main missions, notably in the Kuva Fortress and PoE.

Second, as I mentioned, the rest of the game itself, everything outside of the Plains, is not built for Archwing.

The Plains has specific settings, it's a completely custom-made-to-allow-vehicles open world area. You are not having to load in tiles, you're not having to transition through tiny doorways, or deal with areas of the map that are low enough a warframe can hit their head with a simple jump or double-jump, you're not having to deal with the obstacles and interactive items that are present throughout those missions either.

Think a little more about Archwing mode, why do you think it has its own custom melee animations? Why do you think that a Titania can't press a button or revive a team member? It's because the base game engine is designed to have the player attached to the navigation mesh for those actions. They need that reference point that Archwing mode (because of the completely different nailed-on engine) doesn't have. It's not because of Titania's size that she can't pick up a datamass in Razorwing, we've all seen that the scale of an enemy or item is variable if you've ever done a stealth finisher on a Bombard, or seen your Kubrow suddenly triple in size to take down an enemy; it's because she's in a different physics engine, the regular game can't 'see' her.

You would, in point of fact, have to re-design every single tile-set in the game, (Earth, Mars, Corpus Ship, Grineer Ship, Derelict Ship, Infested Corpus, Sea Lab, Ice Planet, Corpus Base, Grineer Asteroid, Void, Cloud City, Moon and so on) to account for the fact that Warframes can suddenly fly.

Even the enemies, when I said that. You say 'as long as the enemies have guns', well what do you know? There's dozens of melee type enemies, and an entire faction that only has projectiles if you're within their range, but out of reach. The Corpus have Ospreys, ones that stay within 10 feet of the ground unless they're evading for a second or two, and all of them barring the Oxium, Scrapper and Attack variants apply their effects to the ground only. The Grineer have one single unit outside of the Plains that has a jet pack; the Hellion variants.

And ask yourself honestly, if you're on the plains and using Archwing, exactly how often do you get shot by enemies with regular guns? Not by the anti-air, not by the Dargyns or Bolkors, just by the regular grineer? It's because regular weapons fire is designed to become incredibly in-accurate after 30-50m for regular balance. The Snipers are more effective at range, true, but there's only one of those to every dozen or twenty other units. Add to that the Corpus weapons that have projectile travel time means that even a Frost, if he keeps the right distance, can run around a stationary unit fast enough that they miss nearly every shot.

You would need Flying enemies to combat Flying Tenno. It's genuinely that simple.

So my point was that the quickest way to do that would be to bring in the flying enemies we already have; from the Archwing modes.

And again, they're part of a separate mode currently, you'd need to put them into the main game engine in order for them to function as enemies that are connected to the main engine's spawn rates, detection of the player and so on.

Again...

I'm not trying to be meaninglessly argumentative here.

You've put in a lot of effort into how you think Archwing can be fixed. And if the game were different, I would be all for some of the suggestions.

The massive problem staring you in the face, though, is that you don't seem to understand how DE created and then implemented Archwing into the game we have now. The two modes are so disconnected in how they function.

I can see what you want to do.

But I have also seen every single step of what DE have done, what issues they've had, what they've told us they've done to fix it, everything. And given that...

I just don't think it's ever possible without major overhauls of how the game, the missions, the enemies, the enemy AI, every map, and on top of all that, the balance of the Warframes themselves where you have access to all of these extra things that are independent of your base builds.

Do you see where I'm coming from?

Edited September 19, 2018 by Thaylien

[Teridax68]

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

Sharkwing, you have to dive into the water which is a transition window, Plains, you have to use a module which transitions you, Kuva Fortress, you have to pass through a gate transition, Razorwing, you have to trigger off a transformation ability. Every single time you're leaving the main game mode and using the other.

Sure, but what I am suggesting does not hinge on changing this. For sure, it would be better if DE did indeed recode Archwing, or in the worst case rebuild it from scratch, so that they didn't have to mush two engines together each time, but even with what I'm proposing, there would be no need to eliminate these transition windows. You'd still transition from warframe to archwing through whichever means you'd be using, as with Sharkwing, as with PoE, as with Titania. Again, what you are framing as impossible already exists, and the large overhauls you are discussing are on a scale DE has performed many times before for multiple parts of their tech.

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Second, as I mentioned, the rest of the game itself, everything outside of the Plains, is not built for Archwing.

I am not asking for literally every part of the game to be Archwing compatible. I don't think the player especially needs to go into Archwing mode when going through the inside of a Corpus ship, or Grineer galleon, which is why I never suggested anything of the sort. What I did propose, however, is for the integration of certain AW sections in eventual tileset reworks (and we're getting tileset reworks). Again, this is not some complete offshoot from that DE is proposing, this is a suggestion in line with the stuff DE is making, notably Railjack, and even the Corpus Gas City tileset update we're getting. 

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I just don't think it's ever possible without major overhauls of how the game, the missions, the enemies, the enemy AI, every map, and on top of all that, the balance of the Warframes themselves where you have access to all of these extra things that are independent of your base builds.

Again, please refer to point two of the FAQ. I'm not pretending that updating Archwing would be easy or simple, nor am I being ignorant of the tremendous technical problems surrounding the mode (it is, in fact, why I'm proposing these changes as well). I am simply pointing out that DE does and will perform significant updates to Archwing, and that going into more elaborate detail on AW's tech does not change this. Moreover, even if this sort of fearmongering were held as a valid reason to not attempt any changes to Archwing's own systems, ever, that still would not go many against the suggestions I'm proposing, namely suggestions 1, 3 and 4.

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Do you see where I'm coming from?

I do, I just think it's the same kind of trite argument we've seen so many times before to silence valid discussion, an argument that has been proven wrong time and time again by DE themselves: so you think those GPU particles are too costly to keep in the game? Well think again, because DE somehow found a way to reintegrate them, better than before, and make them use less processing power. You think DE can't afford to spend time balancing weapons? Well here's multiple updates that deliver balance changes to dozens of them, to the game's significant benefit. Warframe's whole development history is chock-full of feats DE accomplished that players previously thought impossible (and sometimes still consider impossible after the fact), or thought were simply beyond the developers' ability or affordability. Many updates to gameplay, storytelling, tech, and lore were all massive undertakings, but often well worth it. At every single point in the game, in fact even before the game was even developed, there have been naysayers claiming that, because something took effort, or was risky, it couldn't be done. But it does get done, and the large effort DE has put into Archwing in the past, that they'll also put in the future, shows that they are willing to do a lot of work to improve that part of the game, including if it means re-coding an entire engine (as happened with 6DoF).

This isn't me trying to be rude or dismissive, because your feelings are ultimately always valid, but at the end of the day, you are not Digital Extremes, and even if you were, that would still not preclude the possibility of content updates happening down the line that would break expectations, as we've seen time and time again. You are definitely allowed to voice concern at the technical requirements of the changes I'm proposing (and I'm with you there, some of the stuff I'm proposing would indeed be very costly), or any other sort of concern, but that does not legitimize you trying to speak on DE's behalf, particularly when the DE sources you've linked do not actually support your point. I'm not personally saying I get to speak on DE's behalf either, nor am I saying that everything I'm proposing is something DE wants to do, or that your criticism is invalid. Rather, I'm giving feedback, as one is wont to do on the feedback forums, and whoever sees this feedback can choose for themselves whether or not they want to do something about it. Whether or not these changes are what DE wants to do is up for DE to decide, not us, so if you dislike these changes, let's talk about that, instead of trying to figure out whether or not a development studio neither of us is a part of will implement these ideas.

Edited September 19, 2018 by Teridax68

[Birdframe_Prime]

31 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

so you think those GPU particles are too costly to keep in the game? Well think again, because DE somehow found a way to reintegrate them, better than before, and make them use less processing power.

GPU particles were redone as GPU particles because they previously ran on Direct X, which stopped supporting them. They only changed them at all because they were forced to by the tech no longer supporting them. There was no cost factor involved.

32 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

You think DE can't afford to spend time balancing weapons? Well here's multiple updates that deliver balance changes to dozens of them, to the game's significant benefit.

And look what happened after; we had literally six months of no other content because they spent the cycle they could have had for creating updates and other content on rebalancing weapons instead, and then got caught up in the prep for Tennocon and the larger content the release every year.

... I'm seeing your point, just bad examples there ^^

I'm not saying this in any way to silence your argument, but I am saying that there's major obstacles in the way of your goals, if you're not trying to be rude or dismissive about that, then maybe try not to use words like 'trite' or that I'm just a naysayer.

What I've seen of DE in all of these years is amazing, yes, they put in some incredible efforts.

But they never go backwards. Everything is built on everything else they've already done. I have never once seen DE introduce a system and not build on it, adapt it, change it, after a certain amount of time. But I have also never seen them completely remove something that works in the way they originally intended it.

They removed the Dark Sector Conflicts because the system was basically being run by a few of the top clans and nobody was using it the way it was supposed to be used, they removed the Trials because they weren't being run except by a tiny portion of the userbase and even then it wasn't functioning properly, with dedicated people needed to fix them after every major update...

So yeah, I expect them to update Archwing. I expect them to put in effort and improve it. They've said they're updating it for Railjack too.

But to flip your point; you aren't DE, and your suggestions, no matter how logical they may seem to you, aren't what they intend for their game either.

[Teridax68]

54 minutes ago, Thaylien said:

GPU particles were redone as GPU particles because they previously ran on Direct X, which stopped supporting them. They only changed them at all because they were forced to by the tech no longer supporting them. There was no cost factor involved.

DE directly mentioned that they made their GPU particles significantly more processor-friendly, allowing them to run on less advanced machines. Whether they were forced to do so is irrelevant: they did the work, and they could have just as well decided not to reinclude GPU particles once DirectX stopped supporting them. This is the sort of argumentation that isn't even relevant to the point being made.

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And look what happened after; we had literally six months of no other content because they spent the cycle they could have had for creating updates and other content on rebalancing weapons instead, and then got caught up in the prep for Tennocon and the larger content the release every year.

And? Did the game die? Did the game worsen? Sure, we had to wait, but literally any sort of work has to involve waiting, and Warframe significantly benefited from those updates nonetheless. Just because you personally do not enjoy the thought of waiting on content you want for content that is being updated (which is nonetheless valid for you to feel) does not mean that wait is inherently bad for everyone.

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I'm not saying this in any way to silence your argument, but I am saying that there's major obstacles in the way of your goals, if you're not trying to be rude or dismissive about that, then maybe try not to use words like 'trite' or that I'm just a naysayer.

Okay, but as mentioned several times before, including in the very original post of this thread, I am fully aware there are significant technical and implementational hurdles here. I am agreeing with you on that point, and from the very beginning here I stated very clearly that several of my proposals would be difficult or time-consuming to enact. What I consider trite and naysaying is the logical leap that gets made from there to either suggest, or claim outright, that DE would never consider changes of the sort. Saying "this is a difficult task" is entirely different from "this can never be done": I am perfectly okay with the former, and if DE never implements reworks to Archwing on the scale I'm suggesting due to the difficulties involved, I'd fully understand. What I don't consider useful to discussion is the latter, because neither you nor I know what goes on inside the minds of DE's developers, nor can we predict the future. Expressing disagreement, or pointing out flaws, difficulties, and so on is conducive to discussion; categorically denying the mere validity of a suggestion, without any room for reconsideration, silences it. As we speak, our particular exchange has derailed completely from the topic of Archwing, or any of the suggestions I've made, to the topic of whether or not you can personally say if DE will implement any sort of player suggestion.

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But they never go backwards. Everything is built on everything else they've already done. I have never once seen DE introduce a system and not build on it, adapt it, change it, after a certain amount of time. But I have also never seen them completely remove something that works in the way they originally intended it.

This is false. Specters of the Rail changed a whole lot of existing things, removed a bunch of nodes, and did away completely with Star Chart 2.0 to replace it with a model closer to the original. Parkour 2.0 completely abandoned the Stamina mechanic, and Melee 3.0 is going to get rid of a whole bunch of stances to replace them with new ones, among many other things. Void Keys are gone, replaced with relics, Fusion Cores are replaced with Endo, Trials have been taken out completely, the list goes on. You yourself listed examples of major batches of content that got removed, which makes your claim here all the more strange. For sure, DE is generally reluctant to rework stuff, or remove stuff that doesn't work, but to say that they haven't done so at all is utterly untrue.

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But to flip your point; you aren't DE, and your suggestions, no matter how logical they may seem to you, aren't what they intend for their game either.

But you're not flipping the point here, you're still trying to speak on DE's behalf: you do not get to substitute DE's intentions for your own, and if you want to talk about DE's intent, then please refer directly to DE's intent. If DE specifically said something that could go directly against what I'm suggesting, by all means link to it and we can decide, but as it stands you are still claiming that DE's intent goes specifically against mine without any supporting evidence. Again, I have never claimed to speak on DE's behalf, nor do I claim to know DE's intent. The farthest I've gone is to say that DE's upcoming changes suggest a willingness to change Archwing in some form. I do not think mine are the only valid suggestions to change Archwing, as shown above where I praised another user's suggestion to add an Archwing syndicate (which goes directly against the changes I'm proposing), and so I am making these suggestions with the express awareness that I am but one out of many players with wildly different opinions, and that while I can provide some sort of argumentation to support my suggestions, my suggestions are not objectively good, only subjectively good to me and others who like these ideas.

Ultimately, though, this point is also a red herring, because the validity of these suggestions does not hinge on DE's intent: whether or not DE intends to take Archwing in any direction resembling what I'm suggesting, my criticisms and suggestions regarding Archwing still stand, and can be agreed or disagreed upon based on each individual's opinion and reasoning. This is also why I'm asking for your opinion, not what you think DE's opinion is. If you have opinions on my suggestions (and you clearly do), or just your own ideas on how Archwing should be handled, please express them, but as it stands your posts have been largely off-topic in how they revolve around DE's alleged intent regarding Archwing, rather than the actual meat of the thread here, which is Archwing, its problems, and what can be done to help it.

Edited September 19, 2018 by Teridax68