Tile Chunks: The road to sensible ships and stations

[Xarteros]

A path to Realistic Rooms, Less-Linear Levels, Sneakier Stealth, Bloodier Battles, Exciting Escapes and Awesome Archwing

Foreword:
I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but if you don't like the idea; try and suggest your own additions/suggestions that you think would make the existing system more fun. Even if you like the current system, think of a way you'd like to improve it!

What: Make modular 'chunks' of tiles. Tiles of any particular chunk need to line up neatly, fit a similar purpose, and have new connection points added for air ducts/tubes.

Instead of making missions generate a string of random tiles with very little control, missions are now generated as thematic 'chunks' that connect together and form a basic layout. Different mission types gain different layouts of chunks, to suit the area of the ship/station that the Tenno are operating in.

How: To start with, to minimize the initial work DE would need to put in, existing tiles need to arranged into rough sizes. Chunks would be diverse, and randomly generated in their own sense, so multiple different chunks could contain the same tile, or different variations of that tile, but two of the same type of chunk could still have different arrangements of specific tiles. This idea would ideally be implemented slowly, beginning with one tile type as a prototype (much like the first planet-based stations were added) and branching out to other tile types if successful.

To further minimize work requirements, DE could make a dojo-style level generator for players to create and submit new tile/chunk concepts for plat, or other in-game rewards. This would allow them to rapidly skim over content, assess areas that need attention, and implement them much faster.

 

Breakdown:

• Start with big, thematic tiles like cargo rooms, engine rooms etc. Make these tiles central to the chunk. In terms of tile repetition, these tiles would be the most likely to repeat (A large corpus cargo bay with rails for the containers would be more fitting to be adjacent to a duplicate tile, with the rails lining up).
• Make side-rooms and corridors continue the theme of the main chunk. Large barracks on a Grineer galleon would be more likely to be adjacent to their crew quarters and armories.
• Add more connection points for air vents/tunnels/tubes between tiles, giving players a way of circumventing certain areas and sneaking around. Opens the door for more Spy Mission-style security systems in more difficult levels. The connection points wouldn't need to line up perfectly with every other room, since the ducts themselves could generate to connect them at different angles.
• Allow corridors and tiles to connect through multiple ways. This prevents the confusing, twisting side paths that lead players astray from the mission, and allows multiple paths for players to travel. Sneak down side paths, or run and gun through big rooms.
• Have the chunks lead thematically toward the end goal. A spy mission might start in cargo chunks, lead through engineering chunks, into barracks chunks and then into the security chunks. Not all missions would have to have the same chunks; for instance cargo chunks might not be as likely to see in an assassinate mission, or engineering chunks might not be as likely to spawn in spy missions.
• Have variants of the chunks, that affect the tiles within. Chunks considered on the edge/side of a ship have windows on the outer tiles. Tiles closer to the middle might only have windows in the ceiling, or have no windows at all (simply a variant of the normal tile, but with solid wall instead of glass). Other variants might include localized damage (coolant leaks, reactor venting) that doesn't affect the entire tile, or even massive damage, leaving a damaged area that leads out to space (archwing zone that players can fly through to other connecting airlocks). You could even splice in a touch of immersion, having engineering rooms with reactors that have already been sabotaged, with massive damage in that chunk.

Why (with suggestions for the future):

• Opens up opportunities for smarter AI. Enemies could mobilize battle-groups more sensibly in certain tiles, making navigation an important choice for players. Want to run headlong through a Corpus Proxy manufacturing plant? Expect a large contingent of Corpus robots waiting for you.
• Allows more pathing for players to choose their own playstyle. Sneaky snipers could crawl through ducts, kick-in-the-door players could bash through the main rooms etc. DE could even implement barriers that only certain frames/weapons could get through, shaking up the system a little bit, but creating interesting alternate paths for players (Frozen doors that need AoE fire abilities/weapons to melt, blast doors that need explosives or concussive abilities to breach, electrified water on the floors that could be frozen over etc)
• Adds more character to each of the factions, and makes them feel more realistic (reflected by the ship layouts, chunk layouts, and the frequency of certain chunk types)
• Gives a clear-cut way for DE to better implement Archwing as a hybrid option during normal missions, but without actually forcing players to use it
• Gives DE a way to make alerts more interesting: as alerts could be altered variants of the standard ships (Grineer galleon with more cargo than usual, Corpus cruiser almost entirely devoted to proxy manufacturing and troop transport)
• Gives a way for players to be more involved in the development of the game, which could bring all sorts of new ideas, themes and inspirations to the table
• Makes the game feel less generic. Less senseless room-after-room butchering, more structured battles and enemy tactics (but still a healthy amount of butchering)
• Creates a way to make the game less spawn-dependent. You want more spawns? Hang around a more densely populated area. Want to sneak more, away from the dense battalions that clog the hallways? Take side-routes and air vents.
• Gives the player more immersion, the feeling that you're actually exploring a ship, or station. No more senseless linear pathways going off in every direction!
• Opens up ways for players to affect a mission from a different tile or chunk, since they're attached more logically and cleanly. Hack a terminal to raise a major alarm, and lure the bulk of enemy forces into a trap. Shut down power in an Engineering chunk to reduce the security in a Spy vault. Open up airlocks that lead to a damaged area to vent the air from another chunk, and weaken the troops within. Damage an outside area in Archwing to disable internal defenses and scanners.

I'm throwing this idea out here because I know a lot of friends who don't play due to the random/repetitiveness of the tile system, and I've seen a lot of forum posts about players unhappy with the haphazard, senseless design of the 'ships' we're meant to be raiding or sabotaging. I also think it would be a good way for DE to avoid their much-hated branding of hack-n-slash, since there would be new ways to deal with enemies, new situations for players to adapt to, and new ways to make the enemy AI work.
 

[Teridax68]

This looks more like a rework to the design methodology behind tilesets, rather than a rework to tilesets themselves, but it's also one I'd be in favor of, provided it continued to enable diversity. One of the issues I take with tilesets as they currently exist is that there's often very little rhyme or reason to them: tilesets like the Corpus Ice Planet or the (spoiler alert) Kuva Fortress I think are mostly fine in this respect, because one's an icy wasteland filled with bits of wreckage, and the other's an impenetrable asteroid fortress where every tile fits no matter the configuration, but other tilesets, especially Corpus Ships and Grineer Galleons, suffer from totally random layouts. This isn't to say that we shouldn't have randomly generated tilesets, since the randomness is essential in making each mission distinct, but I do agree that there's more that could be done to make these places feel like people actually do things inside, and like there's at least some logic to the layout. Incidentally, I feel the tilesets that could benefit the most from this are among the oldest in the game, and so in the greatest need of a rework anyway, so this could be a guiding principle.

Some more thoughts on this:

• I very much like the idea of connecting rooms better, and making tilesets more like a web, rather than a tree. Currently, there's only one path from spawn to extraction, and while there are some side rooms, tiles only connect in such a way that the path they form is linear. This I think harms the diversity of levels overall, which is why I think the map generation algorithm could use an upgrade, with appropriate adjustments to tiles, so that they can interconnect a lot better and form multiple alternative paths, as can be done already with Dojos.
• I also agree very much to adding more connection points for stealth routes, and simply more progression routes in general. A major problem with several of Warframe's tilesets is that they simply do not accommodate parkour or stealth, despite movement being one of the game's greatest assets. If there is only one way to go from one endpoint of a tile to the other, then that tile has failed to uphold the game's standards of traversal. In most cases, this could be solved just by adding more verticality, e.g. by raising the ceiling, but it'd still be good to have extra options by going through vents, and not just within the same tile.
• We need more flavor rooms, and that's something a chunk system could accommodate. All too often, places feel mostly like a series of corridors and wide rooms, rather than a place where people eat, drink, sleep and work. The Kuva Fortress I think does a great job of solving this, by adding side rooms with sleeping bunks, turret posts on the outer edges, PSA screens, consoles in rooms with holograms showcasing the fortress, and so on, and to some extent there's a tiny bit of this in other tilesets (the Grineer asteroid tileset received a new docking bay tile, plus bunk rooms, Grineer galleons have cannons that may sometimes fire), but there's way more potential out there. Having more rooms where specific actions take place, e.g. control rooms and firing chambers near ship cannons, mess halls, labs, production lines that travel consistently from room to room, etc., would make these places make a lot more sense. It doesn't have to be Dark Souls levels of environmental storytelling (yet), but it could at least be a step towards having players enter a tileset, and have a much better understanding via the tiles and layout that this place has a purpose, and things going on other than their mission objective.
• I also completely agree that there could be plenty more opportunities for interaction with the environment, which a chunk system could also accommodate. If nothing else, being ordered to sabotage a specific part of a ship, rather than the entire ship itself, could make ships much more interesting entities in their own right, rather than a bunch of rooms with an occasional reactor.
• I feel any tileset rework from now on should be much more forward-thinking, in that it should have open worlds in mind and the possibility to integrate better. Perhaps I'm dreaming a bit too big, but one of the things I'd love to do is to just explore freely across the whole Origin System, maybe even beyond, board a Corpus or Grineer ship, or drop down to a base on a planet, and seamlessly enter the tileset in that manner, with no loading screen in-between. DE seems to be promising a version of this with Railjack, which could eventually allow us to use that to enter missions, and I think it'd be immensely satisfying for players to be able to see something interesting in the distance from a tileset, and actually be able to travel from there. The updated Corpus Gas City tileset looks gorgeous, and I'd personally love to be able to jump from one of the promontories, enter Archwing, fly through the stormy gas clouds, and reach one of the giant floating harvesters in the background, continuing from there. This could only work if these structures had some sort of coherent architecture, and not rooms that go in front of what's meant to be the very outer edge of a ship or base, and so structuring these tiles into chunks could help significantly.

TL;DR: I think what the OP proposes is a brilliant idea, as I think the next big step for tilesets is going to be to turn them into more interconnected locations that make more internal sense, and the idea of structuring tilesets into interconnected chunks, while still preserving or enhancing their potential for variation, could be perfect for this. I'd like every mission I enter to tell a better story about the place, obviously through the mission and factions, but also through the layout and contents of the map I'm in. Much farther along, and more into fantasy territory, I'd like these individual dungeons and Warframe's growing open world to integrate seamlessly together into a truly massively multiplayer experience, so that ships and bases would be actual entities in the world with real purpose and impact, rather than disconnected, isolated levels where players complete some inconsequential objective for a reward.

Edited October 1, 2018 by Teridax68

[Xarteros]

5 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

-snip-

Being able to visit distant background objects/stations/ships would certainly be awesome, but my fear is that it would make the game too open. I feel like if there was some measure of limitation, it could definitely have potential. Perhaps if you're completing a mission in archwing, you have the option of boarding a galleon to complete a second mission for a much higher secondary reward. Or maybe, the ship/station is accessible from planetside missions. Either way, could have potential, but making the game 'open universe' might just mean that players lose their sense of direction and don't really have an idea what they should do with their time.

It'd definitely work better with a chunk system though, I like the idea of special 'rare' chunks that only spawn on those little side adventures. Imagine completing your mission, seeing a Corpus cruiser nearby & boarding it. You find out that it has a chunk just overflowing with resource crates, lockers and credit caches (with a massive security contingent too), so Lotus gives you an Exterminate mission with a side objective of recovering those valuables.

[Teridax68]

2 hours ago, Xarteros said:

Being able to visit distant background objects/stations/ships would certainly be awesome, but my fear is that it would make the game too open. I feel like if there was some measure of limitation, it could definitely have potential. Perhaps if you're completing a mission in archwing, you have the option of boarding a galleon to complete a second mission for a much higher secondary reward. Or maybe, the ship/station is accessible from planetside missions. Either way, could have potential, but making the game 'open universe' might just mean that players lose their sense of direction and don't really have an idea what they should do with their time.

This is a valid concern. What one would definitely not want out of an open world is for the player to feel aimless in it. Personally, though, I think the game already has the foundations to avoid this: the Tenno exist to uphold balance, and on top of that much of what we do now is basically mercenary work (we do missions without knowing of the agenda they play into, in exchange for rewards). If such an open world were filled with different factions vying for power, and constantly on the verge of disrupting the balance, it would create an endless opportunity space for players to intervene, and sometimes even go against their philosophy if there's the promise of an enticing reward behind it. Long before it spiralled into shame and died, Firefall was a game that had this brilliant model for an open world, where there were plenty of different forces at work that could claim territory and encroach upon the center base if left unchecked, threatening to end the world as we know it. If we could have this with the Grineer, Corpus, Infestation, and all of the other factions and syndicates fighting each other, and several of them threatening to dominate the entire Origin System and destroy the Tenno, there would always be a reason to participate, even (and maybe even especially) for players who have found every item there is to earn.

2 hours ago, Xarteros said:

It'd definitely work better with a chunk system though, I like the idea of special 'rare' chunks that only spawn on those little side adventures. Imagine completing your mission, seeing a Corpus cruiser nearby & boarding it. You find out that it has a chunk just overflowing with resource crates, lockers and credit caches (with a massive security contingent too), so Lotus gives you an Exterminate mission with a side objective of recovering those valuables.

Indeed, and I think part of the future of Warframe is going to be integrating multiple missions into the same maps. There is not that much reason to make alerts separate from the main mission on the node, for example, and it would add a lot of diversity if alerts instead unlocked bonus objectives to complete alongside that node's main mission. The same could be applied for Sortie, Nightmare, perhaps even Kuva, syndicate and relic missions, given some adjustments, so that instead of separate instancing each time, each part of the world could evolve over time with different goings-on, bonus objectives, and perhaps side chunks to tilesets with special environmental modifiers of their own.

[GrayArchon]

I like this idea. It'd be a lot of work, but they're in the process of redesigning the Corpus Gas City tileset, and they've indicated that they're going to rework all the Corpus tilesets to bring them in line with the new materials technology they have now and the design philosophy for Fortuna and Railjack. So it could be worked in there, although it sounds like a big effort.

8 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I very much like the idea of connecting rooms better, and making tilesets more like a web, rather than a tree. Currently, there's only one path from spawn to extraction, and while there are some side rooms, tiles only connect in such a way that the path they form is linear. This I think harms the diversity of levels overall, which is why I think the map generation algorithm could use an upgrade, with appropriate adjustments to tiles, so that they can interconnect a lot better and form multiple alternative paths, as can be done already with Dojos.

I think the way they have it set up now doesn't really accommodate this. I'm not a programmer, but if you sift through the metadata in the EE.log, you'll find that a string is generated for each mission you run that lays out the tiles for the mission and how they connect in a linear fashion. And, as someone who made a circle in my dojo out of corridor connectors, the game really doesn't like to acknowledge multiple routes. You can see on the minimap that the game kind of doesn't register those tiles as connected until you cross the threshold and "prove it" to the game engine. Of course, we're talking about changing the way things work, so I guess these points don't really apply.

[Teridax68]

6 minutes ago, GrayArchon said:

I think the way they have it set up now doesn't really accommodate this. I'm not a programmer, but if you sift through the metadata in the EE.log, you'll find that a string is generated for each mission you run that lays out the tiles for the mission and how they connect in a linear fashion. And, as someone who made a circle in my dojo out of corridor connectors, the game really doesn't like to acknowledge multiple routes. You can see on the minimap that the game kind of doesn't register those tiles as connected until you cross the threshold and "prove it" to the game engine. Of course, we're talking about changing the way things work, so I guess these points don't really apply.

And that's exactly what needs to change. If the game could already enable nonlinear levels, it would likely have done so already. The fact that it's possible, though difficult, is what I think is why it could be worth pushing that tech a little further, and applying an updated version to newer tilesets to make them accommodate this. It would be unlikely to work on older tilesets without some bigger readjustments, because I very much doubt that tiles are designed along consistent dimensions or connect with each other in more than just one way.

[peterc3]

22 hours ago, Xarteros said:

I know a lot of friends who don't play due to the random/repetitiveness of the tile system

You still have randomized maps and tiles that would repeat. DE clearly isn't geared to pump out new tiles and haven't made tiles that have the kind of variability that you suggest.

How does your suggestion address this situation you mention?

22 hours ago, Xarteros said:

DE could even implement barriers that only certain frames/weapons could get through

For the low, low cost of 20p you can get a rainbow key that lets you pass these doors for 24h. You speak of choice but include this suggestion from countless other F2P games. This is anti-choice.

22 hours ago, Xarteros said:

To further minimize work requirements, DE could make a dojo-style level generator for players to create and submit new tile/chunk concepts for plat, or other in-game rewards. This would allow them to rapidly skim over content, assess areas that need attention, and implement them much faster.

Players cannot be trusted, there would still be work that had to be done by DE. This improves nothing for DE but adds more work.

22 hours ago, Xarteros said:

Makes the game feel less generic. Less senseless room-after-room butchering, more structured battles and enemy tactics (but still a healthy amount of butchering)

I highly doubt anyone playing the game regularly is here for structured battles and the work to add any kind of real AI would be wasted as they would be dead before anything actually triggers.

[Xarteros]

1 hour ago, peterc3 said:

1) You still have randomized maps and tiles that would repeat. DE clearly isn't geared to pump out new tiles and haven't made tiles that have the kind of variability that you suggest.

How does your suggestion address this situation you mention?

2) For the low, low cost of 20p you can get a rainbow key that lets you pass these doors for 24h. You speak of choice but include this suggestion from countless other F2P games. This is anti-choice.

3) Players cannot be trusted, there would still be work that had to be done by DE. This improves nothing for DE but adds more work.

4) I highly doubt anyone playing the game regularly is here for structured battles and the work to add any kind of real AI would be wasted as they would be dead before anything actually triggers.

I'll try and address your concerns mate. Sorry if I sound hostile, I'm not trying to shoot your concerns down, I'm just trying to show you why the idea works

1) Yes, you'd still have randomised maps, and yes, you'd still see tiles that repeat. This change would allow them to at least be less immediately repetitious, with less randomness and the existing complete lack of purpose. If you're going through an engineering chunk, you'll see more tiles with engineering stuff, but at least you'll feel like you're actually somewhere, instead of in a magical loop of senseless, chaotic linear chains of purposelessness.

2) I'm not talking about barriers that you pay to take down, that's just immensely stupid. I wouldn't support that in any game. Think of it like this: there are two platforms separated by a large chasm; too far to jump. Valkyr, can ripline across, Zephyr could glide across, Nova could make a wormhole etc. It's a type of barrier that not everyone can cross, forcing the player to find an alternate route if they don't have the means. As I said in one of my several examples, there could be a blast door that can only be opened by explosive weapons, like Ogris or Penta, or concussive/explosive abilities, perhaps Rhino Stomp and Atlas Landslide. Because the current maps are entirely linear, the suggestion of adding more barriers is bad unless you have ways around it, such as the side-pathing and air vent access of the Chunk system. Nowhere did I insinuate that you would pay plat for them, and I would absolutely hate that sort of system.

3) DE trust players for Tennogen content, where DE does very little other than tweaks and polishes on the otherwise well-made player content. All they need to do is give players the tools to make levels (basically the same tools as Dojo decorating would be pretty good), have players review each other's work, vote up the best content to bring it to DE's attention, and then DE can approve/deny/polish it. Hell, all it might take is a few messages back to the creator telling them the things that need to change, and maybe even denied work can be fixed up for gameplay. With the massive size of the player base, and the number of people who love making Tennogen stuff (or even just fanatical dojo decorators), it would really not take much effort from DE at all, and they could just roll with the structure for their future work.

4) Sorry if my use of the term "structured battles" was misleading. I don't mean long-arching plans and excessive forethought, I mean walking into a room and having to quickly assess the situation, and adjust your approach. The thing that makes the game so easy is that enemies are just constantly dribbled to you in manageable numbers. If you were to walk into a massive room (too big for total ability cover) with dozens of Grineer Ramparts all blazing in unison, snipers on the far wall hammering away at you, and platoons all shielded by Arctic & Guardian Eximus units, you wouldn't just merrily skip and dance about, you'd probably die. Some warframes would be equipped well enough to survive long enough to deal with that, but not everyone can be expected to be in such a situation. The purpose of the idea of 'structured battles' is to make situations that are actually challenging, that make a player pause before they hurtle right in, and to create ramifications for people blundering about without paying attention. Perhaps you need to take out a few snipers from the door, then climb something with a good amount of cover and lay down some powers from there.

As for how hard the AI would be to make, it doubt it would be that hard. We're used to enemies just blindly bumbling about as they casually watch their fellow troops explode into chunks of gore. In a barracks chunk, or a security chunk, for instance, perhaps the enemies all know what direction you will be coming from (since they DO have sensors after all), so they take cover on the correct side of objects, shelter near Arctic/Guardian eximus units, mount gun placements etc. DE already have AI for Grineer standing in battle formations (used decoratively on Kuva Fortress) if you catch them by surprise, so they even have idle animations in-place for when they don't know about the approaching Tenno. Any step would be an improvement, and I think DE certainly have the resources to make it happen

[peterc3]

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

1) Yes, you'd still have randomised maps, and yes, you'd still see tiles that repeat. This change would allow them to at least be less immediately repetitious, with less randomness and the existing complete lack of purpose. If you're going through an engineering chunk, you'll see more tiles with engineering stuff, but at least you'll feel like you're actually somewhere, instead of in a magical loop of senseless, chaotic linear chains of purposelessness.

This extends the time people would be wowed. It doesn't ultimately solve the issue. Your friends would still have an issue here.

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

2) I'm not talking about barriers that you pay to take down, that's just immensely stupid.

This system does exist in lots of other F2P games, though. It's a system to push the feeling that you need to have one of everything, that you need to spend more to have one of anything to take out any door. In some games it's a literal paywall. The entire thing about Warframe is that you can pick whatever frame and whatever weapons and still play the game, certain frames and weapons excel at certain things. This suggestion feels very adversarial with regards to the players and their arsenal, and not in a good way.

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

3) DE trust players for Tennogen content, where DE does very little other than tweaks and polishes on the otherwise well-made player content.

If this were completely true, the pipeline from creators to in-game would be much shorter/faster. It still requires work from DE. It isn't hands-off. Popular votes don't make a good game.

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

If you were to walk into a massive room (too big for total ability cover) with dozens of Grineer Ramparts all blazing in unison, snipers on the far wall hammering away at you, and platoons all shielded by Arctic & Guardian Eximus units, you wouldn't just merrily skip and dance about, you'd probably die.

This destroys the power fantasy. There is not a build for any frame that could walk into that. Players think they want this, but any attempt by DE to do anything to limit the use of power in certain situations is met with... passionate... players who want to do nothing but waltz into a room and vaporize enemies. They want challenge without actually being challenged. This is a problem that cannot be addressed solely with a new map builder and some new tiles.

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

As for how hard the AI would be to make, it doubt it would be that hard.

Enemy AI would not be hard. My point was that any work on adaptive enemy strategies, effective battle formations, communication between them beyond the telepathy that exists now, anything that makes them smarter is pointless. It's work that would not be active long enough for any player to notice it. Either the players get around it with invisibility or they steamroll everything in their path. That there were novel formations to try and stop them would go totally unnoticed.

[Teridax68]

7 hours ago, peterc3 said:

This extends the time people would be wowed. It doesn't ultimately solve the issue. Your friends would still have an issue here.

Considering how much mileage we're still getting out of the current tilesets, what the OP's proposing could add a significant amount of additional entertainment that could last a lot longer. I also do think part of the issue would be solved, because part of the problem the OP mentioned is that their friends interpret the maps they go to as a series of unrelated rooms strung together, which is the case in practice: because there's no real logic to the arrangement of these tiles, no real variation to their traversal, and no real story told by the level they're going through, they note the repetition with every tile much more strongly. If these tilesets were updated to generate a much stronger sense of place, so that the same tile could have a different meaning in context, there would be significantly more variation from the same number of tiles, and even repeated tiles would make more sense. The updated Corpus Gas City tileset seems to be doing a bit of this with its massive gas tubes going from room to room, creating the impression that the place isn't just a random assortment of rooms, but an actual facility being used to harvest, process and store gas.

7 hours ago, peterc3 said:

This system does exist in lots of other F2P games, though. It's a system to push the feeling that you need to have one of everything, that you need to spend more to have one of anything to take out any door. In some games it's a literal paywall. The entire thing about Warframe is that you can pick whatever frame and whatever weapons and still play the game, certain frames and weapons excel at certain things. This suggestion feels very adversarial with regards to the players and their arsenal, and not in a good way.

The interpretation I got from the OP was less about paywalling content, and more about integrating more organic input opportunities to the environment which different frames and weapons could pick up on. As they mentioned, covering certain routes in meltable ice, freezable fire or water, and so on (and you can develop on this further, for example with micro-vents that only tiny creatures would be able to enter) wouldn't paywall content, it would simply provide even more alternate routes that certain loadouts could opportunistically exploit, in an environment that should already be providing a path to progression, plus some alternate routes. We already have this, by the way, with magnetic clouds being popped by electric damage, and that's hardly considered a paywall, so I think attributing that to what's basically just a request for more environmental interactions I feel comes across as a tad hyperbolic.

7 hours ago, peterc3 said:

This destroys the power fantasy. There is not a build for any frame that could walk into that. Players think they want this, but any attempt by DE to do anything to limit the use of power in certain situations is met with... passionate... players who want to do nothing but waltz into a room and vaporize enemies. They want challenge without actually being challenged. This is a problem that cannot be addressed solely with a new map builder and some new tiles.

I agree, enemy balancing is at the core of this, but I do think the environment plays a part in this, because it's the choice space where players receive options on where to move, and how to exploit the layout to do their thing. A room with multiple vertical levels, side paths, stealth routes, pieces of cover, and so on is going to offer many more choices than a linear, low-ceilinged corridor, and in an environment where simply walking through, facetanking everything and mowing down enemies effortlessly is no longer an option, that difference would become all the more valuable. Ultimately, it's not a problem with exclusively one or the other: a game in which enemies are legitimate threats to the player, but with levels that offer little real choice in how to approach combat, is a game that would still be fairly linear, and where combat in most cases would have less depth. As you mentioned, a game that offers lots of choice via its level design, but that gives no real reason for the player to make these choices as opposed to just barrelling down the main path, is also a game that would be that much shallower than it deserves to be. Right now, we're in a situation where enemies are pushovers, and most tilesets are also pretty linear, yet combat still often feels fun there, so one can only imagine how updates to enemy balancing and tileset design could elevate that gameplay.

7 hours ago, peterc3 said:

Enemy AI would not be hard. My point was that any work on adaptive enemy strategies, effective battle formations, communication between them beyond the telepathy that exists now, anything that makes them smarter is pointless. It's work that would not be active long enough for any player to notice it. Either the players get around it with invisibility or they steamroll everything in their path. That there were novel formations to try and stop them would go totally unnoticed.

As with the above, I don't think this is an either-or problem. For sure, so long as enemies die near-instantly, they can't really be given the opportunity to feel smart, and so AI work would be wasted on them, but in a game environment where enemies aren't made of paper, they could benefit significantly from a richer AI that would make them come across as smarter, and push the player to adapt, rather than just auto-murder everything in sight. Having squads establish strategies on the fly via commands that the player could then memorize and understand (e.g. a Grineer squad mobilizing to take cover, flank the player, or simply rush them) would itself contribute to an in-game world that'd feel more alive.

[Xarteros]

7 hours ago, peterc3 said:

1) This extends the time people would be wowed. It doesn't ultimately solve the issue. Your friends would still have an issue here.

2) This system does exist in lots of other F2P games, though. It's a system to push the feeling that you need to have one of everything, that you need to spend more to have one of anything to take out any door. In some games it's a literal paywall. The entire thing about Warframe is that you can pick whatever frame and whatever weapons and still play the game, certain frames and weapons excel at certain things. This suggestion feels very adversarial with regards to the players and their arsenal, and not in a good way.

3) If this were completely true, the pipeline from creators to in-game would be much shorter/faster. It still requires work from DE. It isn't hands-off. Popular votes don't make a good game.

4) This destroys the power fantasy. There is not a build for any frame that could walk into that. Players think they want this, but any attempt by DE to do anything to limit the use of power in certain situations is met with... passionate... players who want to do nothing but waltz into a room and vaporize enemies. They want challenge without actually being challenged. This is a problem that cannot be addressed solely with a new map builder and some new tiles.

5) Enemy AI would not be hard. My point was that any work on adaptive enemy strategies, effective battle formations, communication between them beyond the telepathy that exists now, anything that makes them smarter is pointless. It's work that would not be active long enough for any player to notice it. Either the players get around it with invisibility or they steamroll everything in their path. That there were novel formations to try and stop them would go totally unnoticed.

1) Well, as far as I see it the main problems are thus:

• Maps are too linear, making it boring and leaving no real options for alternate play
• Maps are haphazard and overly random, making every tile uninteresting and often immersion-breaking
• Tiles serve no individual role beyond specific, mission-based tiles (reactor tile, assassination arena tile etc) giving players no innate sense of progress or direction

I feel like the idea of themed chunks suits these problems quite well. Firstly, spreading maps out allows heaps of people to try different methods of playing. Having bigger mainline rooms with higher enemy volume means players who just love butchering have an easier route to butcher through. Players who prefer sneaking and stealthing can take airducts, side corridors etc. Appealing to a wider audience means more players; more money, and I know plenty of players who don't touch Waframe any more because there's very little else in the game besides hack-n-slash.

Secondly, making maps have a bit more sense to them makes all the tiles more immersive and aesthetically pleasing. Having windows that all actually face outward, rather than loops of corridors that somehow all have inward facing windows that can somehow not see each other, just makes the whole system feel more thought-out, and less in-your-face violation of logical geometry. Grouping the tiles into common themes helps maintain a sense of interest. Now, sure, not everyone is going to consciously admire the 'vibe' of a map, but it's pretty clear from each release of a new tileset that a LOT of players really do like exploring and consider the 'vibe' of the map to be important. Walking through a cargo chunk, leading into a security chunk, you'll be able to notice the changes to tiles and their distribution. You'll be able to look around and get an idea for where you are on the ship, not just some arbitrary room attached to an arbitrary corridor in an arbitrary labyrinth of arbitrary purpose. It'll add a lot more depth to the worlds that DE spend so much time making, and that's going to make the game better overall.

Thirdly, I don't know about you but I play with a close group of friends, using a chat program like Discord to communicate. I can't even begin to count the number of times we've tried to tell a squad mate where we found the void vault, or where we found an ayatan sculpture, because how do you give directions in a game like warframe? Being able to direct each other through the different chunks would make that so much easier. Being able to feel like you're passing through different sections of an actual alien ship or station would definitely refine the player's sense of direction as well as progress.

2) I think you've got a bit of a different interpretation of what I mean. I don't want any player to REQUIRE certain warframes or weapons to progress through these 'barriers'. Like my example of having a chasm that is too far to jump, some warframes can bypass certain obstacles, while others need to find a way around. We already have that system, and I'm just looking to spread it out a bit further. It's not even a mandatory part of my idea in any sense, it just becomes much more of an option when you take away the linearity from the level design. Doors you can breach with explosives or shockwave powers can by bypassed by finding a vent access, or going through a side corridor. Electrified water that you could freeze to make safe could just be ignored by wall-running, or leaping across raised objects from the floor. If they were to be included, I'd want them to not only be avoidable, but broadly-inclusive of weapons and powers. You don't need Ember to melt a frozen door, you could use anyone with a fire AoE ability (Chroma modded for fire, Nezha using the Firewalk/Teleport combo, or any warframe with the Firewalker mod), or any AoE weapon modded for fire. But still, if you don't have it, you can just go around it, just like any obstacle.

3) I know what you mean about the pipeline of Tennogen, and I admit I am probably being a bit hopeful in the regard of quick content. Part of the time it takes, however, is the time spent letting players vote up content, which you see a lot in the Design Council forum. DE posts the idea they want us to come up with (like a new augment for a warframe) and they rake through all the good ones, but the Steam Workshop allows a lot more people to actually vote on items and bring popular ones to the front. I agree with you completely, however, that popularity doesn't mean everything. That horrible anime pigtail skin made it in for Octavia, because it was popular to the general public (and for some reason, DE). Still, peer-reviewed content would cut down the time it takes DE to assess their submissions before considering them for further polish.

I also really want to stress that as I said in the OP, this idea should be introduced as a single tileset to start with. Much like the first unveiling of the Earth Ocean tileset, it was a bit of a test by DE to try out different styles and see how they go. They could introduce it as a new tactical alert/event, that the Corpus are developing a new type of cruiser, and make that cruiser be built by tile chunks as a test. Over time, as DE do, they could rework all the previous existing tilesets to incorporate the new changes as much as possible, and that would just replace the normal rework efforts they put in.

4) I might have overdescribed a bit here with the room full of enemies. I know I've been in situations where I've blundered into a big open room with ramparts suddenly blaring away at me, to find out I've got no nearby cover to retreat to. I occasionally die, and it would actually be a good experience (to learn from a mistake) if it wasn't such a few-and-far-between situation. I'm not saying the entire game should be built around unfairly stacked situations, but I feel that one of the biggest problems in the game is the ever-flowing dribble of insufficient troops, and it would be really refreshing to see a full contingent or battle-group that's actually prepared for a battle. You still need to be able to deal with the threat, but it should be a matter of making a player think twice before entering a massive, fortified room full of enemies. The game gets really tiring when the enemies never show any sign of growth, preparedness or even just simple awareness. Having alarms triggered should make you concerned about the awareness of your enemies, rather than just being some passing thought that you only think of because you don't want them to lock the doors on you.

I want to keep the feeling of power fantasy, since we're meant to be awesome cyborg warrior ninjas, but as with any great fantasy; you need to feel a sense of fear for your life to make it any fun. The best struggles tend to come from your close-calls, narrow victories, or even your defeats. I don't want the game to just be harder, I want it to be more reasonably challenging, so that you feel the ramifications of your actions a bit.

5) I do get where you're coming from, since enemies are pretty easy to crush before you notice their behaviour. I think it's a bit dissatisfying though, since you never feel any sort of repercussions for triggering alarms or alerting enemies. I just think that the enemies should by now be more used to the notion of being under attack, and they should have a few plans in place by now. It can boil down to things as simple as enemies standing by on Ramparts when alarms are raised, instead of waiting to actually see the Tenno. It might mean that if they spot you coming out of stealth, and live to raise the alarms, they start spawning more stealth-detecting units (like Hyekka masters, or the Scramba units that can break stealth) to hunt you down, or guard vital areas. It might just be nice to see a small squad of troops guarding a door to an area they know you will need to get through. Small things can make big effects, and they can be noticeable before they get butchered.

Anyway, I'm not here to do battle with your opinion, I'm just trying to make sure my ideas are understood and considered. If you still don't like them, what about them would you change? What would you do differently, or how would you suggest making the tiles more fun to explore and more sensible for players to navigate?

[peterc3]

6 hours ago, Xarteros said:

Anyway, I'm not here to do battle with your opinion, I'm just trying to make sure my ideas are understood and considered.

I'm not trying to battle, either. I'm just wanting to see the full extent of the ideas and wonder if they fit within Warframe.

6 hours ago, Xarteros said:

If you still don't like them, what about them would you change?

As it is, the map builder cannot do loops. I don't imagine the tiles are all that ready to be used in that manner as well. The key is to iterate and evolve, not base something on a totally new thing.

Players will not like feeling that they have been cut off from the most efficient route from start to finish. One of the issues that can't be fixed in-game so much as worked around.

I would more like to see "interesting" branches. Take some of the Void map designs and tone them down. Have less locked doors, maybe more interesting unlocking mechanisms, like the large Grineer 3 level tile where you find a power cell lying around and bring it over to a slot on a different level from the door it unlocks. This is where you could have the environmental systems ice a door or create a situation where weapons or frames can counter them. Provide a better illusion but don't entirely change how maps need to be generated.

Tiles are already able to be traversed differently, there is no need to increase the disparity between a given node run by a Loki or Ivara and every other frame. No amount of enemies will make those two have an issue, but will severely impact squishy frames without invisibility.

[Xarteros]

1 hour ago, peterc3 said:

I'm not trying to battle, either. I'm just wanting to see the full extent of the ideas and wonder if they fit within Warframe.

As it is, the map builder cannot do loops. I don't imagine the tiles are all that ready to be used in that manner as well. The key is to iterate and evolve, not base something on a totally new thing.

Players will not like feeling that they have been cut off from the most efficient route from start to finish. One of the issues that can't be fixed in-game so much as worked around.

I would more like to see "interesting" branches. Take some of the Void map designs and tone them down. Have less locked doors, maybe more interesting unlocking mechanisms, like the large Grineer 3 level tile where you find a power cell lying around and bring it over to a slot on a different level from the door it unlocks. This is where you could have the environmental systems ice a door or create a situation where weapons or frames can counter them. Provide a better illusion but don't entirely change how maps need to be generated.

Tiles are already able to be traversed differently, there is no need to increase the disparity between a given node run by a Loki or Ivara and every other frame. No amount of enemies will make those two have an issue, but will severely impact squishy frames without invisibility.

Well, the reason I thought it best to start small, with one new tileset, would be so that DE have the opportunity to make sure they can have loops in the tiles. I don't really want to suggest a complete revamp, which is why I'd want them to start slow, integrate as much pre-existing content as they can, and work from there. That said, DE have completely re-started features in the past, because they realised that the system that was in place had no real future and couldn't keep up with the rest of the game.

On the matter of players feeling 'cut off' from efficient pathing, I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. Overall, I think that chunks would create a much better sense of direction and progress. I feel like having a clearer idea of pathing would make it possible for a player to navigate mostly on their own, rather than being entirely map-dependent. As long as you know what direction you need to head in, you could just follow the flow of tiles from chunk to chunk until you get to your goal. Remember that chunks would bring a sort of logical layout to them, so important rooms would tend to be in the middle of a chunk (like reactor cores, vaults etc) with a few potential exceptions (the bridge might be on the end edge of the last chunk, for instance). 

Better branches would be a great start. Even if DE just worked on making more logical layouts of the current tiles, I feel like it would be an improvement. It'd be nice to be able to identify a side-path due to the structure of its rooms, or variations in the tile that make it more apparent to its purpose.

On the last note, I think invisibility has become a bit too much like cruise-control for victory. I mean, I'm not pretending that I don't take advantage of it, but there's nowhere near enough countering on the enemy's side. I'm going to stick by my earlier suggestion though, and say that de-cloaking near an enemy who survives to raise an alarm should generate more enemies that can break your stealth. If you want to roll with invisibility, you should have to at least use it carefully and make sure the enemy doesn't learn your tactic. It'd be a good place to start tweaking enemy AI in general; making them spawn units that are deemed 'appropriate' to combat the abilities they see you using (if you use a lot of CC, they send in units resistant to CC, like Bursas, or if you use a lot of projectile shields like Volt or Frost, they send in more Flameblades to teleport through your defenses).

That said, the only reason I really mentioned AI at all in this post is that it'll be easier to add new features to the AI if the maps have more open pathing and defined roles for the tiles and chunks. Much the same as the idea of alternate barriers, it's just an extra little side note that becomes easier to implement with the chunk system

[Teridax68]

I'd like to add to the above that I find the concept of a "most efficient" route from start to finish to be questionable. There's no real player demand for this now, because missions are linear, so the most efficient route is essentially the only route that does not involve backtracking from a branch. What players do want is a waypoint indicator that actually works, something that could already be improved now. Having multiple possible paths may complicate things, but then again, if we have devices capable of doing this in real life, it should be possible in in-game levels that follow a much more stringent set of layout rules.

I also feel the suggestion here isn't simply a matter of just dropping what we have now and revamping the game overnight, which obviously isn't going to realistically happen, but rather one of setting standards for future overhauls, which are bound to happen anyway. Sooner or later, many of the tilesets we have now, especially older ones like the Corpus Ship, Grineer Sealab, Corpus Ice Planet, and so on, will be reworked, just like the Corpus Gas City (which I personally felt was already one of the better-designed tilesets), and when that happens, it will help to set clear standards for how the new tiles should be designed and organized. For example, along with the concept of chunks, if the space occupied by each tile was a perfect cube, or several of those cubes stuck together, with defined points of connection or dead ends on every face, connecting these tiles would be a matter of snapping them together, and connecting those points when useful, regardless of linearity. We already have this to some extent with Dojo crafting, and this sort of format would make chunks, and tilesets as a whole, much easier to assemble as well. To an even more extreme degree, if we get developments upon Simaris's Sanctuary, having this unified format across all tiles would allow tiles and chunks from completely different tilesets to be mushed together and still work.

As for invisibility, I agree that it's frequently an abusive mechanic in its current form, and should absolutely not be the benchmark for stealth gameplay. Stealth should be something everyone can engage in, regardless of whether or not they can go invisible, and it should be about exploiting the environment and enemies' blind spots to navigate undetected. As such, levels should always be constructed in such a way that there are multiple paths towards a destination, including stealthier paths, even if it's just side routes baked inside tiles in the current tilesets. Additionally, and this is likely a subject for another conversation, I think invisibility needs to be put under much heavier restrictions, with the general idea being that one should not be able to fight or do parkour, and be invisible at the same time, because that's when interaction with the enemy is lost.

[Xarteros]

5 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

-snip-

I feel that navigation would work best if markers were solely on doors. It's really annoying when a marker shows itself off in one direction while you're aimgliding down somewhere, and as soon as you land it updates and moves in a different direction. If they were on doors, it'd be a simpler matter of learning to navigate the tile (without being lead in conflicting directions by a shifting marker) and finding the right door.

As an extra step, which would be more useful with multiple paths, they could have semi-transparent coloured lines overlaying the correct path (green for exit, yellow for objective, red for target) towards the goal. With a chunk system, this could work a lot like google maps, updating paths based on where you are presently headed, and maybe even graying out secondary paths that still connect, but will take longer (as long as it doesn't mark down every possible path)

And you're correct: the notion isn't to overhaul all the existing content right away. I feel that the best idea is to introduce it as a new tile (a new alternate Corpus ship, for example) with an event/tactical alert to help ease players into it. Once there's a bit of interest, DE can use feedback from the event to determine all the areas of concern, ways to refine the system etc. Once they have the system in place, it'd be a simple matter of spending their rework efforts on making reworked chunk tiles instead of revamping old tiles.

To the note of the tiles, I think you're on the right path. The Dojo architect still isn't perfect, but we need a sort of 'grid' size to rooms. A small room might be 2X2, a corridor might be 2X8, or one of the really big rooms might be 24X32 or something. If it's made with a uniform series of grid units, it'll be a lot easier for DE to work out where air vents can spawn, how to connect the rooms, and to work out algorithms that populate the chunks with randomly distributed tiles. I feel that this would be the best approach in the long run. I like the idea of properly mix/matching tiles within a chunk, or just different chunks, in Sanctuary Onslaught. It'd be a really different experience for sure.

As to invisibility, I think that trying to remove the kill potential whilst invisible is just going to kick up too much of a stink. Instead, I'd rather have the player be forced to take a bit more care, and to have repercussions if they don't. Having enemies witness an ally get invisibly butchered shouldn't just make them 'alert', it should make them set off alarms right away. Not just boring old "more enemies are on their way" or "doors are locked" alarms, but alarms that bring in specialty units. No sign of a Tenno, but plenty of dead bodies? Bring out the nullifiers, scrambas, and hyekka masters (and add more, like an infested enemy that sniffs out invisible Tenno with spores or something). Right now, Invisibility is more of a cruise control than Valkyr in Hysteria, and sadly Invisibility requires a lot less effort to build.

I think that chunks would also present a good opportunity to revisit the alert status of enemies, and the state of alarms. I'd love to be able to draw all the attention to one chunk, whilst my allies sneak off through the other chunks to complete the mission with minimal resistance (much like what our Survival mission is, but within the same squad).

One of the biggest issues with invisibility within the player community however, is the rewards. DE need to make it possible to farm focus reliably through non-stealth means. As it stands, it's far too much of a grind, and it's so convenient to just hammer it out with 15-30 minutes of stealth farming. DE need to boost focus for players escorting low MR players, or institute a proper soft-focus cap, and give better rewards for playing diverse missions (and likewise diminishing rewards for farming the same missions).

Ivara's ability to bypass barriers also stands out as a major issue to the cruise-control culture of invisibility. I feel like there needs to be an additional element added to spy vaults (even just at later level vaults) that forces Ivara to actually try (like nullifying barriers, or rotating invisibility scanners or something)

Anyway, somewhat off-topic, but still good to discuss.

[Teridax68]

33 minutes ago, Xarteros said:

I feel that navigation would work best if markers were solely on doors. It's really annoying when a marker shows itself off in one direction while you're aimgliding down somewhere, and as soon as you land it updates and moves in a different direction. If they were on doors, it'd be a simpler matter of learning to navigate the tile (without being lead in conflicting directions by a shifting marker) and finding the right door.

This is a solution I very much agree with. Right now, aside from the pathing algorithm only updating when the player is touching the floor (which doesn't work in a game with an easily accessible parkour system), it seems to try to update at certain checkpoints within a tile, which in turn causes it to get confused when players move in a certain way through the tile. Having the pathing system mark doors, rather than these checkpoints, could not only simplify the system, but make it far more consistent.

33 minutes ago, Xarteros said:

As an extra step, which would be more useful with multiple paths, they could have semi-transparent coloured lines overlaying the correct path (green for exit, yellow for objective, red for target) towards the goal. With a chunk system, this could work a lot like google maps, updating paths based on where you are presently headed, and maybe even graying out secondary paths that still connect, but will take longer (as long as it doesn't mark down every possible path)

This too could work, though personally I'd like to avoid having too many graphics insert themselves throughout the map. Perhaps this could work on the minimap, but if there suddenly was a semi-transparent line connecting my character at all times to different bits of the map, I'd at least want the option to turn that off.

33 minutes ago, Xarteros said:

To the note of the tiles, I think you're on the right path. The Dojo architect still isn't perfect, but we need a sort of 'grid' size to rooms. A small room might be 2X2, a corridor might be 2X8, or one of the really big rooms might be 24X32 or something. If it's made with a uniform series of grid units, it'll be a lot easier for DE to work out where air vents can spawn, how to connect the rooms, and to work out algorithms that populate the chunks with randomly distributed tiles. I feel that this would be the best approach in the long run.

This is pretty much the idea, yes. I think it'd be useful to just take the smallest possible tile, and take its smallest dimension as the base unit of tile measurement: from then on, every tile within this system should a) have dimensions that are an integer multiple of this unit (no tiles whose length is 2.72 times that of another), b) be able to fit inside a perfect cube with those dimensions, or multiple cubes attached together (any round, triangular, cylindrical or squiggly tiles should just be adjusted to fit in this manner, even if their shape in the player's view remains the same), and c) have a standard for where to place connection points for every 1x1 square on the outside of that tile, as well as which things that square can connect to. With this, tiles could have as much internal variation as they'd like, but would always be able to be snapped together, including if they're from different tilesets that all follow this standard.

33 minutes ago, Xarteros said:

As to invisibility, I think that trying to remove the kill potential whilst invisible is just going to kick up too much of a stink.

I think being able to attack from invisibility is fine, I just don't think that the player should remain invisible after that. Sneaking up to an enemy while invisible and assassinating them I think is cool gameplay; mowing down enemies with a continuously invisible, silenced Loki who gets to deal stealth damage each time in my opinion isn't.

33 minutes ago, Xarteros said:

I think that chunks would also present a good opportunity to revisit the alert status of enemies, and the state of alarms. I'd love to be able to draw all the attention to one chunk, whilst my allies sneak off through the other chunks to complete the mission with minimal resistance (much like what our Survival mission is, but within the same squad).

I agree with this. In general, I think security systems and alerts in missions could do with a bit of development: on one hand, I feel alerts should be a more permanent thing, rather than something a player can very quickly negate, but on top of that, I agree that alerts should have enemies mobilize and try to hunt down players in specific portions of the map, allowing the player to also concentrate enemies around a particular location and leave them behind if they move elsewhere undetected.

33 minutes ago, Xarteros said:

Ivara's ability to bypass barriers also stands out as a major issue to the cruise-control culture of invisibility. I feel like there needs to be an additional element added to spy vaults (even just at later level vaults) that forces Ivara to actually try (like nullifying barriers, or rotating invisibility scanners or something)

I think Ivara being allowed to bypass barriers was a mistake, and should be removed from the augment. Stealthily crouch-walking through a map to avoid detection I think is fine, being able to ignore the near-totality of challenges in a mission, in this case a spy vault, isn't.

[Xarteros]

12 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

1) This too could work, though personally I'd like to avoid having too many graphics insert themselves throughout the map. Perhaps this could work on the minimap, but if there suddenly was a semi-transparent line connecting my character at all times to different bits of the map, I'd at least want the option to turn that off.

2) This is pretty much the idea, yes. I think it'd be useful to just take the smallest possible tile, and take its smallest dimension as the base unit of tile measurement: from then on, every tile within this system should a) have dimensions that are an integer multiple of this unit (no tiles whose length is 2.72 times that of another), b) be able to fit inside a perfect cube with those dimensions, or multiple cubes attached together (any round, triangular, cylindrical or squiggly tiles should just be adjusted to fit in this manner, even if their shape in the player's view remains the same), and c) have a standard for where to place connection points for every 1x1 square on the outside of that tile, as well as which things that square can connect to. With this, tiles could have as much internal variation as they'd like, but would always be able to be snapped together, including if they're from different tilesets that all follow this standard.

3) I think being able to attack from invisibility is fine, I just don't think that the player should remain invisible after that. Sneaking up to an enemy while invisible and assassinating them I think is cool gameplay; mowing down enemies with a continuously invisible, silenced Loki who gets to deal stealth damage each time in my opinion isn't.

4) I agree with this. In general, I think security systems and alerts in missions could do with a bit of development: on one hand, I feel alerts should be a more permanent thing, rather than something a player can very quickly negate, but on top of that, I agree that alerts should have enemies mobilize and try to hunt down players in specific portions of the map, allowing the player to also concentrate enemies around a particular location and leave them behind if they move elsewhere undetected.

5) I think Ivara being allowed to bypass barriers was a mistake, and should be removed from the augment. Stealthily crouch-walking through a map to avoid detection I think is fine, being able to ignore the near-totality of challenges in a mission, in this case a spy vault, isn't.

1) I wouldn't want there to be an in-game line to follow or anything, since that'd just get super confusing with all the effects that are typically going on onscreen, not to mention the constant parkour. I was thinking minimap (or overlay map) only, and only showing from the door onward, so there's nothing in your room to confuse you or obscure your objectives/markers

2) Definitely would need to be whole integer units to work properly, otherwise DE would just be making even more work for themselves. DE would just need to make sure there are appropriate model variants to suit the tiles. Once the air vent pathways are generated, for instance, potential connection nodes that aren't connected in that instance of the tile should have a cover or panel generate over the vent node. If it's not connected to the vent, it'd be nice to not always just appear as a closed vent hatch, but maybe an electronics access panel, or even just a continuation of blank wall. I feel it'd help keep the immersion a bit so that you don't feel like there are just way too many human-sized air vents lying about.

3) I feel like Ash is a good example with this, since his invisibility is very short, yet comes with a dual purpose. Thematically, it suits better, since he's concealed within a cloud of smoke, and I don't mind him getting a few short kills off from his invisibility. Loki, Octavia and Ivara just make the whole system a joke, however. Loki's super sprinting silent stealth just takes the sneaky vibe away from invisibility, Octavia just feels completely unnecessary with 'dancing invisibility' whilst toting around a dubstep cannon, and Ivara just has no reason to have to be cautious about anything other than nullifiers/energy leeches. I don't really know how to make invisibility more fair & fun, but that's a topic for a whole forum post of its own.

4) Alerts should definitely be more of a permanent thing. I feel like each fully-explored planet should generate at least one alert at a time, much like Nightmare missions, but with different modifiers and their own type of rewards. I think that it'd be really cool to keep certain chunks as alert-only, or very rare to see outside of an alert (such as a VIP transport chunk, full of personal security and possibly with a mini-assassination target to kill for special loot). That way, alerts would feel less like insultingly boring copy/paste missions with the rare sight of a worthwhile reward.

5) I agree that Ivara's augment is just horrible, but I still think players would complain until DE reinstated it. Perhaps it could get nerfed, to the degree that each barrier passed costs a small amount of flat energy (10-20?) and increases her energy drain over time (forcing players to leave Prowl to reset the cost). It wouldn't really erase the problem, but at least it would force players to be more mindful, more careful, and hopefully a bit less lazy.