[Raids/trails rework concept] Law of Retribution v2

[Muminidas]

Hello fellow Tenno!

I have been bored recently and started playing some other online multiplayer games that I haven't played since ages. During one of my sessions I got a sudden revelation of Raids rework concept or more like an idea of sorts. Behold the imagination of my Warframe-addicted boss battles-loving MMO-sick player brain!

[LAW OF RETRIBUTION CONCEPT]

Games that inspired me were Skyforge and MU Legend. In both of these games Raids work pretty differently. Skyforge requires from players to learn raid mechanics: how to pass certain objectives, kill minibosses, survive till final boss, do it fast enough not to lose interest and finally, mechanics of the big baddy.
MU Legends puts pressure mostly on clearing stages/rooms with certain enemies that have differend debuffs or modifiers attached to them. 

In my head the idea of pretty decent rework was born but I wanted to add a twist. Twist that would give us, Warframe players something unreachable, a feature that would make it almost unclearable unless we used all our knowledge of Warframes, mechanics of the general game and cooperation.


Law of Retribution was the first Trail that was introduced to Warframe, it took place on different planets and tilesets requiring us to compleate objectives and cooperate. We could join as 8 player squads. I wanted to keep the fundamentals, 8 player raid, cooperation is a must, multiple objectives that allow us to proceed further.

1st change

The first change that the old raid would benefit from imo is to introduce it just like the Sorties system we have now. You have to complete missions one after another before you reach final one, it allows players to take a break if needed, change loadouts, Warframes that are best suited for the job and help us to reduce the clear time or maybe to leave our squad coz of reasons.

Each stage (out of all 3) from the former Raid would work like a distinctive, singular mission that would take place in specific tileset. Loading screens wouldn't happen unless we ourselves decide so, but to proceed to the final stage you would have to clear the previous ones. However, all of the would be connected, lore wise and objective wise. Our final goal would be prevention of the Balor Fomorian and revenge on Councilor Vay Hek for destruction of our Relays. The Trail would need lore synopsis and bit of a story about how in the past Vay Hek deployed Balor Fomorians to destroy our oases and main bases of operation.
I imagine an UI or cutscene that reminds us how it was or a NPC that tells us about these events (in Skyforge after events there are NPC that tell us about them as if they were past events, even if we, players didn't participate in them). From this screen we can search for the random party for example or invite ppl and start the Raid.



[Law of Retribution - stage 1]

The first stage would be the same as in the old Raid. However, I'd personally expand it.
Our main objective would be to find Vay Hek's officer who leads Grineer forces on Earth to destroy the forest with toxin and fire. We would have to prevent that and find him in order to retrieve location codes for the facility that produces Fomorians. In the old raid we had to take the bombs or sth like that and drop it near the toxin generators. This would be the beginning. Then we would have to stop Grineer napalm cannon (like a BIG cannon) that is located in the same tileset but requires us to destroy toxin generators first. The cannon would have diffrent layers of armor that would defend it. As a team we would have to spread and cooperate to destroy 3 different energy supplying machines, to down the shields, the armor and finally to stop the cannon. After that we could destroy the cannon, just like during Assault gamemode on Kuva Fortress.

Final part of the 1st stage would be boss fight, our officer/commander with location codes would fight in pretty big Thumper archetype vehicle, little bigger than our current Thumpers however he would have more attacks both fire and toxin bases, artillery drones and constant flow of Grineer enemies to help him. Instead of 4 weak spots he would have 6 of them and quite decent amount of HP. Destruction of all weak spots would down his shields and make the Thumper prone to attacks.

To boost up the difficulty that we players want from endgame content enemies would start with lvl 80 (along with boss fight). His attacks would be hard to predict but possible to learn and to avoid, attacks would deal large amount of dmg, beide that other objectives would require our cooperation as a squad with door panels to stand on in different places like in old raid.

The rewards for the 1st stage would be large chunk of different resources, some rare mods, 100k credits (or more?) maybe some cosmetics specific to stage 1, endo, Ayatans, Forma.

[Law of Retribution - stage 2]

Stage 2 would take place on Ceres. One of the objectives would be the old symbols&the big door puzzle from old raid. Then we would have to destroy the manufacturing line, to do that we can modify the Hijack part of this stage from old raid. First we would have to finish mobile defense like objective with datamass tablets, this would require for our team to spread to 3 different rooms, thanks to that we would allow the computer in the main control room conected with previous 3 smaller ones to turn from red to green and to hack it. The hacked computer would recode the line and the Fomorian reactor. Now we would have to escort it like during the old raid. However at the end our ship wouldnt take it. There would be just an opening where the hacked reactor would went, the main manufacturing line inside the facility on Ceres. Get me? We would blow the facility, but before that we would have to extract from the facility and SURPIRSE. On our way back the boss of this stage - Jackal/Razorback archetype boss but remodeled with some Grineer parts, more chunky, bulkier. Before we could down his legs we would have to destroy armor that protects each leg. As for the attacks I don't have any proposition but I guess some Radiation based attacks like instant death laser and lot of NAPALM granades would make it a challenge. He would require LARGE amounts of armor and HP. Bullet sponge but tricky one and deadly.

Enemies would spawn at lvl 100. Random Radiation procs during this stage to make it more difficult. + our cooperation.
Rewards for this stage same as for stage 1.

 

[Law of Retribution - stage 3]

Final boss stage. The boss being Vay Hek with his upgraded Terra Acrid Frame and with some new deadly attacks (I leave this field open to more open minds: attacks could be anything that hits hard or puts deadly DoT on us so we would be forced to use our parkour 100% to avoid it, or to use tank/defense Warframes. Additionally, the surprise, Balor Fomorian shooting from time to time from the orbit. However, the range would be substantial for the final fight arena so we would be forced to take cover on the map edges. To make Vay Heks invincible Frame vulnerable we would have to use fire vents and bomb carriers, like in the old version of it. After that Vay Hek would enter rage mode and increase the frequency of his attacks. To make his main mody vulnerable we would have to destroy several parts of this upgraded Hek FRAME.

For this I imagine totall model rework for his battle suit and attacks. Multiple layers of armor that would fall off, leaving only the flying body of Vay Hek in the end and a cutscene as he crawls away from victorious Tenno squad ... wait wait but what about Balor Fomorian, well cutscene would show that that Vay Hek flees and leaves the scanner device that allowed him to pin point the exact location of artillery strike from Fomorian(or orbital laser). Fomorian is idle, before we extract we find orbital cannon on Mars (similliar to the one on Kuva Fortress) and with just simple X press we dmg it and get it down, seeing in the skybox as it falls somewhere on Mars. With epic fireworks.

Before the final fight we would have to reach Vay Hek ofc, but I imagine that making even more difficult puzzles for players would be exhausting so sipmle 800 meters distance would be pretty decent, with dozens of Nox enemies, Eximuses, maybe new enemy types, orbit laser strikes would make reaching Vay Hek harder. Imagine enemy type with Sargas Ruk armor and spewing napalm and fire, with alot of dmg reduction but weak spots that would make killing him super easy as a reward for good aiming. Maybe some Kuva guardians and Ghouls to spice things up. Who knows?

Enemies lvl 120+ same with Hek. Dmg would be huge. Enemy HP pools also, not mentioning final boss. The reward? Something worth all this trouble. Not only a cosmetic reward. New endgame Arcanes for sure. Focus rewards but not Eidolon shards, sth that gives us large amounts of focus. Umbral Forma? Legendary cores? Large amounts of credits (300k +?) and resources (imagine Exploiter orb style). New weapon parts. New mods with endgame values. Maybe Rivens and Riven transmuters. Catalysts and Orokin reactors?

...but this still would be easy right? Dunno. For some players maybe, but if I were the game devs I would boost enemy hp and dmg so much that it would require to use different Frames, cooperat and learn boss attack patterns and mechanics (like in Skyforge). The reward would be earnable once per week.



Damn! That's alot of text. Did you like it? Pls, comment and post your thoughts on this, this concept is just a quick and rough idea what would make up for a true endgame in Warframe in my opinion. Maybe who knows? Players wouldn't be able to finish this. Maybe they would try for days, maybe even weeks. However, these would make all this trouble of min maxing worthwhile in Warframe.