A different take on Operator gameplay

[Steel_Rook]

Disclaimer: This is going to be a pretty long and intricate post. I'll structure it as best I can, but there's no real tl;dr I can offer. I feel a lot of ground needs to be covered here, so keep that in mind going in. Also note that I'm not going to be discussing Operator balance, Focus Schools or anything of the sort. Base mechanics and interactions only.

 

The problem:

I've long felt that while Operators are a neat idea from a narrative and game design perspective, their current implementation feels very... "Bolted onto the side of the game." There are relatively few things Operators can do that at least a few Warframes can't, there's very little interaction between Operator and Warframe and a wide number of potentially really cool mechanics remain unexplored. At the same time, the actual Operator gameplay is predominantly dull and static, with only limited bursts of actual excitement. I feel that quite a bit of gameplay can be improved or indeed created with fairly minor, system-level changes. Let's jump straight into some suggestions:

 

Transference:

Alter the way Transference operates for both Warframe and Operator. Allow players to optionally leave their operator in the field, teleport their Warframe away, swap places and swap control. This is a bit complex, so let's introduce a few terms. Your "active character" can refer to either your Warframe or your Operator - whichever one you're actively controlling. The "inactive character" (the other one) can be either "stowed" off-map like your Operator is while you control your Warframe, or "left" in place and invulnerable like your Warframe is while you control your Operator. My proposal, then is that the player be allowed to either stow or leave their inactive character regardless of which character we're talking about. Here's how this would work:

• When PRESSING the Transference key, the active character is stowed and the inactive character is teleported in at the exact same location. Warframe disappears, Operator appears in its place. Operator disappears, Warframe appears in its place. This allows the player to swap characters in place without having to consider the one they aren't controlling.
• When HOLDING the Transference key, the active character is left in place, while the inactive character is teleported in nearby - slightly ahead. Warframe goes Invulnerable, Operator appears next to it. Operator goes invulnerable, Warframe appears next to it. This allows the player to leave the other character standing where they are, which I'll address later.
• When aiming vaguely at the inactive character and HOLDING the Transference key, the active character is left in place while control shifts to the inactive character at the location where they stood. No teleportation is involved. This allows the player assume control of their other character without repositioning anything.

With the above mechanics in place, several new gameplay opportunities open up.

• Mixing Warframe and Operator mobility. Our Warframes can climb, cling, glide and jump, our Operators can Dash. By stowing their Warframe during Transference, a player is able to jump high into the air, swap to their Operator, perform multiple Void Dashes, then swap back to their Warframe and proceed to Aim Glide the rest of the way - just for example. There's no danger of the player's Warframe falling into a bottomless pit and being teleported while controlling the Operator, as the Warframe is stowed off-map until recalled or the Operator dies.
• Mixing Warframe and Operator combat capability. While this implementation does little to enhance Operator combat, not having to leave one's Warframe behind exposed to potential damage, status effects and Sentinel death at the very least doesn't hurt. The player can still choose to leave a Warframe behind, but isn't forced to, thus removing both a consideration and a frankly pretty silly visual.
• Being in two places at once. By leaving an inactive character somewhere on the map and moving away from it, players gain the ability to switch between two locations nearly instantaneously. This allows a single player to hold down two floor tiles at once, activate two consoles in rapid succession, cover substantial distance in a blink, exist on both sides of a locked door and more. What this means is that fairly complex (and OPTIONAL) new puzzles could be devised which rely on having multiple people without making them uncompletable for a single player.

I personally feel that the tap/hold/aim-and-hold controls are simple enough to use. The majority of situations when players swap to their Operators right now don't really benefit from leaving a Warframe behind, so binding the "switch in place" option to a simple press would retain legacy functionality for the most part. It's also a fast and responsive control input for use during intense parkour or pitched combat. The option to leave your other character behind is a bit more fiddly with the button-holding requirement, but is also predominantly useful for either puzzle-solving or more complex, less frequent positioning tricks, which I feel justifies the increased complexity.

While puzzles which require multiple people don't exist yet (aside from the Cooperation Drift), allowing the player to be in two places at once allows for this to be developed and retro-fitted into the existing game. Such puzzles should naturally always be optional and only ever offer bonus loot or trinkets, but there's precedent for that already. The Jupiter Remastered tileset already contains doors locked by a speed-running puzzle, and feature a secondary door only accessible to those who possess an Operator Amp. In other words, optional loot gated behind fiddly puzzles and story-locked abilities are already in the game. This would allow those to have more variety and more creative mechanics.

While the ability to be in two places at once is powerful and allows a player to shift around the battlefield, it's self-balancing. When used together, Warframe and Operator can combine their abilities to gain greater mobility and combat prowess. Thus, when separated, each is limited to just its own ability sets. Splitting the player's presence also splits their power.

And finally: When left, a character would be entirely invulnerable, with a graphic depicting this. A left Warframe would crouch down to the ground and be covered by a "dome shield" invulnerable to enemy fire. Pets, if present, would either transfer over to the Operator or themselves be sealed within their own Dome Shield. This option would be available when setting up a pet, possibly on their Attack precept. A left Operator would go into Void Mode and stay there for an unlimited amount of time before called back. Alternately - as I've seen complaints about our Operators seeming too indestructible - a small Void Rift might be placed at the Operator's last location, similar to the time portals in Lua Spy Vaults. Practically, however, there would be no difference, as the Void Rift would serve as an anchor for the Operator, who'd reappear there when control is switched back to it.

Essentailly, by being able to swap around freely and leave the other character behind on demand, Operator and Warframe are allowed to play together and give each other a boost in real time. In terms of mobility, combat and puzzle-solving, having two characters with their distinct skillset now matters.

 

Operator Mobility:

For the new version of Transference to work properly, Operators need to have easier and less restricted (but not unlimited) access to their own mobility. It might be nice if they were a bit more mobile, or at least a bit less lumbering while we're at it. To address this, I have the following few proposals:

• Uncouple Void Dash from Void Mode entirely. Allow an Operator to perform a Void Dash in the direction they're facing by simply tapping the Roll (or Sprint/Roll) key. Pressing Jump while in Void Mode would no longer Void Dash, but would instead simply jump. This should allow the Operator to more easily move through 3D space while still being able to navigate small ledges while invisible. Crucially, a one-button activation would help substantially with the new Transference, as a player can switch to their Operator, perform 1-3 one-button dashes, then swap back to their Warframe without having to bother with Void Mode.
• Uncouple Void Dash from Operator Energy entirely. Instead, give the Operator a pool of 4 Void Dashes, which recharges at a rate of 1 Void Dash per 1.5s. Each enemy hit by Void Dash will reduce the current dash recharge by 0.6 seconds. This is equivalent to the current Void Dash mechanics with 100 Operator Energy, full energy regen over 6 seconds and a Void Dash recovering 10 energy per enemy hit. This allows Operators to use their mobility without draining their own survivability, which should make for more dynamic gameplay.
• Uncouple Void Blast from Operator Energy entirely. Place that on a cooldown timer, instead. The reasoning is the same - leaving Operator Energy as a separate resource used for Void Mode so that combat, mobility and defence don't all draw on the same meter.
• Remove the movement speed penalty from Void Mode. Replace it with a movement speed and jump height boost, instead. Slowing players down in Void Mode makes the already pretty slow operators even more so. It leads to a lumbering, crouch-walking style of gameplay in practice, which is at odds with Warframe's otherwise rapid pace and reliance on mobility.

The above changes constitute not insignificant buffs to Operators, this is true. However, I feel they also constitute a general improvement of their pacing. My goal with this whole line of conversation is to better-integrate Operators with Warframes in most activities, thus keeping Operators at least reasonably mobile and less dependent on a bottleneck energy pool would go a long way towards helping with that. It would also help to simplify controls quite a bit. Ideally, I want players to feel as comfortable jumping into their Operator to do a few Void Dashes or throw out a few Void Blasts before going back to their Warframe, as they do whipping out their melee weapons to slice up an enemy getting too close for comfort. The less clunky and limited alternate option is, the more natural it feels to swap to it every so often.

 

Carry-on items:

First, a definition: I'm going to use the term "carry-on item" to refer to any items which can be carried on your Warframe's or Operator's left hand, blocking access to Primary weapons. This includes but is not limited to the Datamass, Excavator Power Cells, Void Keys, Disruption coloured keys, etc.

Right now, it's possible to sort-of cheese the game's item-carrying mechanic by grabbing one carry-on item with your Warframe, swapping to your Operator and carrying another that way. However, switching back to your Warframe causes the Operator to drop their load. My proposal, then is to allow the currently active character to retain possession to any carry-on items they held when stowed, then return with them in-hand when called back into the fight again. Additionally, allow the currently active character to pick up two carry-on items by being able to pick up a second one while already carrying one. The second carry-on item would go into their other (right) hand, and block access to all weapons. Hitting the weapon swap key would drop the carry-on item last picked up (the one in the right hand) and equip a secondary weapon, whereupon game mechanics work as normal.

Obviously, a question comes to mind - what's the point? No game mode in Warframe calls for carrying multiple carry-on items, with the possible exception of Excavation and even then not so much. Well, I would personally propose adding more items to carry and more reason to carry them. This could be done in two ways, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One would be to add a new game mode, a "heist" of sorts. The mission objective is to raid an enemy supply stockpile and make off with as much in the way of supplies as possible before players are overwhelmed by enemies. "Supplies" would take the form of large carryable items needing to be secured in a specific spot on the map, and there would be a lot of them. As this is getting a bit off-topic, I'd like to move on to an alternate and potentially lower-footprint suggestion. Optional loot could be a good way to give Warframe's item-carrying system a bit more presence. Valuable items potentially worth Credits, Supplies or some other meaningful reward might be found throughout the map, on enemies, in lockers or just lying about. Only if players take them along when extracting would these items count.

The broader point here, however, is the ability to use the Operator as ostensibly a second set of hands. Rather like the Transference suggestion, sometimes the mere fact of having another physical person there is as valuable as all the Void demons and teleportation. While there isn't much call for a mechanic which didn't exist when the bulk of the game's modes were created, HAVING that mechanic available means that new modes and alterations to old modes could be created. And if all that ends up happening is I grab the Datamass with my Operator, teleport away and not have to worry about which weapon I use... Well, even that's still A use for my Operator.

 

Emergency intervention:

During the War Within quest, the player Operator is able to step in personally in order to save their Warframe, which has otherwise been disabled and taken over by the Queens. This is an ability I've always wanted to have in normal gameplay. Implementing it without making it so abusable as to make it impossible to die, however, isn't simple. Here's my proposal:

When a Warframe is defeated (lying on the floor, able to use on their secondary), the player has the option of activating Emergency Transference. That is to say, the player can still call in their Operator in an attempt to revive their Warframe, but under severely limited conditions. Unlike regular Transference, the Warframe is not protected with a dome shield, nor are any active pets. Because of the emergency nature of the teleportation, the Operator is itself inflected by Transference Static, which in their case manifests as the inability to use Void Mode at all. The Operator can then attempt a manula revive of their own Warframe at 150% base revive duration.

If the Operator dies, they fade away as normal and their Warframe "dies," requiring the use of one of the 4 mission revivies. If the Operator succeeds, the Warframe is revived while suffering from maximum Transference Static (the classic kind). In both cases, Transference cannot be attempted again for 60 seconds after the Warframe becomes operational again, and Emergency Trasnference cannot be attempted again for another 5 minutes.

I realise that this is probably the least compelling suggestion of the lot, simply because most veterans who might have Operators combat-capable enough to pull this off will likely not be dying enough times to merit self-revives, and because this is most relevant when playing solo. I admit that there isn't a terrible lot of gameplay enabled by this kind of interaction. Some Warframes already have a pre-death state similar to this, such as Inaros sealing himself in a healing sarcophagus. My goal here, above everything else, is just to add a slight bit of thematic interaction between Operator and Warframe, and stay true to the spirit of the game as it's been told to me in the narrative. After all, giving players a brief window of opportunity to jump in and save their own Warframe just "fits."

But I understand if this is not seen as entirely too imporant.

 

Conclusions:

I realise that the proposals I'm making here are neither simple nor small, and some have the potential to alter the game in a big way. I also know that most or all of them probably won't happen. However, this has been going through my head for months now, and putting it down "on paper" will hopefully help put my thoughts in order. I feel Operators and Warframes can and should work together more closely, sharing co-op mechanics and enabling players to do things they otherwise couldn't with control of just a single character.

Thank you for your time.

 

Credits:

Because I don't want to pretend this is all my idea, credit has to go to Teridax68 and DiabolusUrsus, both of whom have been patient enough to kick ideas around with me in a number of other threads. I've resisted citing other games so far, but credit also goes to a number of titles I've pilfered ideas from. Payday 2's bag-moving mechanic and Vermintide 2's Tome/Grimoire mechanic were my basis for wanting extra carry-on loot. The Titanfall series and its dynamics are responsible for making me want a way to "eject" my operator and salvage the situation on foot. And, of course, there are the oldies of Portal 2, Darksiders 2 and even The Lost Vikings constantly reminding me what can be done if only the player were in multiple places at once. I figure it's simpler to lay that all out at the end, rather than have you guys suspect.

Edited June 5, 2019 by Steel_Rook

[Darth_Predator]

3 часа назад, Steel_Rook сказал:

Emergency intervention:

I see a bit of problem with this one. As you mentioned, the operator need to be combat capable enough. For example, when I die (apart from just not paying attention at all) it means one of 2 things:

• I was one-shot by something.
• I was shot at by a very large amount of people.

I doubt the enemy will just ignore the operator while doing emergency revive, so I'm sure he/she will be dead just as fast as a warframe without void mode.

If I'm to trust calculations from wiki and do Enduring tides (Vazarin) + 1 Magus Vigor + 1 Magus Husk + Basilisk Scales (Unairu), then I should get about 2625 ehp.

My warframe on the other hand... I usually run Nekros with 740 hp and lets assume I have full stacked health conversion giving me a total of 1415 armor. So it results in ~4230 ehp + 450 shields. On top of that I modded adaptation in, however more resistance it will provide. That's a pretty large amount of damage the operator will have to deal with, more than his/her ehp.

I'm pretty sure that whatever the situation I managed to die at will be no less dangerous for the operator with no access to void mode. Like reviving right of the bat is a no go, trying to kill whatever downed a warframe... I'm not big into min-maxing amps so I can't really tell if there is one capable of effectively killing people pumping out that amount of damage. I can outmaneuver single enemy, even multiple within a reasonable number, but if there are too many of them and my amp is not able to scratch them... tough luck, especially if bleedout doesn't stop while you are in operator form. I could just use revive without bothering to do anything else.

All and all operator is too squishy. Increased mobility could help a lot, basically everything else you proposed could help a lot (I love Vermintide's tomes mechanics too), but for me operators need larger kit to be useful.

 

So let me drop another suggestion.

For example lore kinda suggests (correct me if I'm wrong here) that every tenno was given a warframe based on whatever crazy void magic they happened to possess. Or better say warframes are supposed to channel and amp the abilities of respective tenno using them, they don't have those powers by themselves. Thus warframe abilities suggest that operator has those to begin with. Like this kid just burned the hell out of rescue team (e.g. Ember Prime codex entry) = ember/nezha and probably giving him/her a hydroid is useless. Mechanically we can change warframes freely, cause limiting a player to the single power set would be stupid. Especially as new frames are added constantly.

So what if an operator could use his/her void powers outside of a warframe? Like they channel those powers trough warframes anyways, why couldn't they space magic the living crap out of enemies on their own? Not the exact same powers as warframes, but thematically similar to whatever warframe is used at the moment, and more chaotic in nature cause can't control well enough yet. Like mag user could release some sort of aura that could occasionally yank weapons out of enemies' hands and also gains built in vacuum, cause he turns in a living magnet. Ember people can continue to throw fireballs around cause fun and maybe cause random enemies to burst in flames via discounted world on fire. Loki with some sort of concealment or hard-to-detect-me aura. Just imagine the possibilities!

Those will obviously use operator energy. So void mode will not be its only purpose. And maybe add some interactions with focus trees. Like having this tree active will alter an ability in a minor way. Like zenurik "world on fire" will give a chance for energy orb on kill (or restore energy to warframe) while vazarin will cause mini healing wave for like 3-5 on tick or 20 when killed. So maybe most people will have a reason to switch out of zenurik from time to time.

This would be cool imo. Difficult and time consuming to implement. And probably never happening as well.

Edited June 6, 2019 by Darth_Predator

[Birdframe_Prime]

11 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I've long felt that while Operators are a neat idea from a narrative and game design perspective, their current implementation feels very... "Bolted onto the side of the game." There are relatively few things Operators can do that at least a few Warframes can't, there's very little interaction between Operator and Warframe and a wide number of potentially really cool mechanics remain unexplored.

Short answer:

They are bolted onto the game, they aren't supposed to be able to do things better than the Warframes, and mechanics remain unexplored because the story is still progressing and mechanics have not had time to be explored.

A few specifics though:

12 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Allow players to optionally leave their operator in the field, teleport their Warframe away, swap places and swap control.

This shows a basic misunderstanding of what Transference is and does.

You can't leave the Operator, the Operator is you, that's your character at all times. If the Warframe is moving, it's because your Operator is assuming manual control over it using their Transference link to directly control its actions.

The only exception to this is Excalibur Umbra, who has a degree of sentience and is specifically allowed to move around without the Operator, but in order for the player to move Umbra themselves the Operator must take control of the Warframe.

Meanwhile this:

12 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Operators need to have easier and less restricted (but not unlimited) access to their own mobility. It might be nice if they were a bit more mobile, or at least a bit less lumbering while we're at it.

This is because they are children. With the bodies of children that have been in Cryo for thousands of years. The reason they don't have mobility is because that's specifically what their control of the Warframes is for.

Operators are frail, they are weak, they are lumbering. It's only when they are literally in control of a body that is inhumanly strong that they are able to perform these other movements.

A child of twelve to thirteen may be able to climb and lift their own weight well enough to perform complex acrobatics if they are hyper-fit and do that regularly. From young competitors training for the olympics, without sprung flooring or outside mechanics like spring boards, achieving jumps of higher than their own body height is unusual, and not a single one of them could be expected to run straight up a fifteen foot wall. Ours? Our player characters are not hyper-fit. By any stretch of the imagination. The only two super-human feats I can point to on their part is the sprinting without tiring function, and the jump that does, in fact, take them the height of their own body (although that's more of a specific for gameplay, not to do with them actually being strong enough for that).

Outside of that, you can already do many of the things you've specified, such as using the Warframe to leap, then popping out to Void Dash using the Operator, then recall your Warframe in order to Aim Glide.

On the topic of their Abilities, stick that under the same category as 'have not had time to explore'. We were given Amps to separate our Void Beam from our base energy pool and there is nothing to say that an update like The Planes of Duviri won't give us a form of Amp that works for our other abilities too.

And as a final note:

12 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

During the War Within quest, the player Operator is able to step in personally in order to save their Warframe, which has otherwise been disabled and taken over by the Queens.

Again, this shows a bit of a misunderstanding in what Transference is and does.

During all of our gameplay, the Operator uses Transference to take control of the Warframe, before The War Within this was exclusively done from the Somatic Link in The Reservoir and the Orbiter.

In The War Within, the Queens do not take over the Warframe, they discard it, let it fall into the water at the foot of their 'throne' and ignore it. The specific reason is they don't care about the frame, it's disabled because the Operator is not controlling it anymore, they want the Operator.

The Operator uses their own innate Transference that the Quest returns to them in order to find and take control of the Warframe. Them appearing in person is just using the frame as a beacon in order to transport themselves to the battlefield.

I can see there being a reason for it to be possible to allow an Operator to transfer over and attempt to manually recover their Frame if it weren't for one specific thing: The reclaiming of the Warframe in the Quest uses the self-revive sounds and animation. As in, the frame needed to be revived using a manual revive (death and hit the Revive option).

For the most part the way this is explained by others is that the damage to a Warframe severe enough to put it in the knocked-down state damages it enough that the Operator cannot use it as a transport beacon, they have limited control enough to shuffle or shoot a secondary, but that's it.

The other reason is that it's specifically a gameplay mechanic. Take lethal damage, you die. In a Squad or when you have a Sentinel with Sacrifice, you can be revived, but without those external points of help you die. Even with those you can still die. And you must use a manual revive.

Having a way to bypass that system, even at risk like that, gives us even more leeway to ignore consequences rather than actually have there be real consequences for our failure to play the game well.

All in all...

I respect the ideas. I just believe them to be coming from a mis-informed position and hoping to achieve something that either doesn't makes sense in the way that the game has created and maintained these ideas at base, or some of them are things that you could get by simply waiting for future updates that expand on the system.

[Steel_Rook]

13 hours ago, Darth_Predator said:

I see a bit of problem with this one. As you mentioned, the operator need to be combat capable enough. For example, when I die (apart from just not paying attention at all) it means one of 2 things:

• I was one-shot by something.
• I was shot at by a very large amount of people.

I doubt the enemy will just ignore the operator while doing emergency revive, so I'm sure he/she will be dead just as fast as a warframe without void mode.

Yeah, that's what I'm concerned about, myself. If you let Operators use Voide Mode, then there's literally no danger involved in reviving your own Warframe. A player would never die and use up a limited revive. Take away Void Mode temporarily, however, and your Operator is typically too weak to handle whatever ended up killing your Warframe. We could talk combat balance here and why Operators are balanced the way they are, but that'd open a can of worms and is off-topic anyway. Like I said, that last one was predominantly wishful thinking and done more for concept than for practicality. If we can come up with a decent way of implementing it then I'd love to have that, but it's the one I'm most willing to drop.

 

13 hours ago, Darth_Predator said:

For example lore kinda suggests (correct me if I'm wrong here) that every tenno was given a warframe based on whatever crazy void magic they happened to possess. Or better say warframes are supposed to channel and amp the abilities of respective tenno using them, they don't have those powers by themselves. Thus warframe abilities suggest that operator has those to begin with. Like this kid just burned the hell out of rescue team (e.g. Ember Prime codex entry) = ember/nezha and probably giving him/her a hydroid is useless. Mechanically we can change warframes freely, cause limiting a player to the single power set would be stupid. Especially as new frames are added constantly.

I don't believe that's the case narratively. Warframes appear to have their own innate abilities that they can use on their own Operators predominantly control them, rather than empower them. There's the completely independent Exaclibur Umbra from The Sacrifice, the completely independent rampaging Rhino Prime from his Codex Description, Titania who was being controlled by a regular person and the general nature of Warframe creation.

Lore aside, though, I'm personally not a fan of mixing abilities between Warframes and Operators. I feel they benefit from having distinct strengths and weaknesses, such that there's a reason to swap back-and-forth between them. If we are to use Operators as a "last resort" revival option, I'd rather rely on their own abilities, rather than their Warframe's. It avoids the Health/Shield/Armour Link issue with pets, where the only way to have a tanky pet is to have a tanky Warframe, which rather defeats the purpose.

Perhaps we can let Operators still use their Void Mode, but diminished? It wouldn't make them invisible or invulnerable, but would instead provide some level of damage absorption or mitigation, instead? Again, this goes into Operator balance, but I really do feel that Void Mode is a massive binary crutch which ends up limiting what Operators are allowed to do. Turtling in Void Mode is just too powerful.

 

3 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

You can't leave the Operator, the Operator is you, that's your character at all times. If the Warframe is moving, it's because your Operator is assuming manual control over it using their Transference link to directly control its actions. 

I see no reason why my Operator couldn't control my Warframe from the field. From how I understand it, the chair is only needed for Transcendence, and becomes unnecessary for Transference. Operators in general have been shown to be vastly more powerful than their Warframes, but to also lack proper control of their Void power. Thus, a lot of tech exists not to boost their strength, but rather to limit it. When fully unleased, Operators can do some pretty outlandish things, as we saw Rell do in the Chains of Harrow. My interpretation, then, would be that my Operator remains in the battlefield and simply controls my Warframe from closer range.

And as I said - if the concept of leaving your Operator turtling in Void Mode while controlling your Warframe seems out of line, there's also the option of leaving behind a Void Rift that the Operator can return to via Transferrence, as opposed to appearing next to your Warframe. Lore issues can always be addressed either with new storylines or with a more nuanced interpretation of what is currently very loosely-defined lore. Worst-case scenario, the visuals and themes behind the abilities I've presented can be altered to get around lore limitations. My goal here is functionality, rather than storytelling.

 

4 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Outside of that, you can already do many of the things you've specified, such as using the Warframe to leap, then popping out to Void Dash using the Operator, then recall your Warframe in order to Aim Glide.

Attempting this over bottomless pits doesn't work, however. Because your Warframe is left behind while you transfer to your Operator, it'll typically fall out of bounds and teleport, pulling you out of the jump. Stowing your Warframe for the duration avoids this problem entirely, and has the benefit of looking less silly since you don't shed a static Warframe every time you use Transference. We already know Operators can teleport their Warframes around given how they're recalled when Transference is cancalled manually.

Additionally, the situations where one might want to leave their Warframe standing around are fairly rare outside the Excalibur Umbra. There's very little benefit to your Warframe idling in the field while you use your Operator, over it warping away back to your ship for the duration. Being able to stow it helps in most situations, from jumps to not getting your Sentinel killed to not getting your Warframe damaged in case you left a toggle running (have had that happen to my Nekros). Plus, I find it just "neat" to be able to keep everything contained unless I specifically want to split my characters.

And that still doesn't allow for multi-person puzzle-solving, which can only be achieved by leaving both Warframe and Operator in the field at the same time and swapping control of each. I'm aware that the game doesn't have those and a lot of people might not even want them, but I still feel that optional puzzles of significant complexity are a positive thing.

 

4 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I respect the ideas. I just believe them to be coming from a mis-informed position and hoping to achieve something that either doesn't makes sense in the way that the game has created and maintained these ideas at base, or some of them are things that you could get by simply waiting for future updates that expand on the system.

As I don't want to address lore, I've tried to avoid commenting on it where I can avoid it. I find Warframe's story and fictional mechanics to be explained so loosely and so poorly that a lot of players are operating on fan theories and assertions rather than explicitly-written lore. Last time I tried to discuss that, we got into a metaphorical fistfight over whether all Warframes are inherently capable of independent action of the Umbra is somehow unique, as well as whether the Warframes were created before or after the Tenno's abilities were fully understood. I'm of the opinion that the Tenno are capable of quite a bit more than you give them credit for, but I'd REALLY rather not have that discussion here. It would consume the entire thread. Where real lore issues pop up, ability presentation can be altered to fit lore. My goal here is added functionality in the hopes of making Operators feel less superfluous in gameplay.

And yes, of course - I am waiting for future updates. All of my proposals are aimed at informing the direction of said future updates... Well, ideally, if anyone with authority would actually read them, which I highly doubt. In practice, I consider them a game design mental exercise, where systems are proposed and issues which crop up with them addressed in a theoretical gameplay environment. Maybe DE intend for some of these things, maybe they don't. I personally foresee a major redesign of Operators come The New War simply because that seems like it'll involve them pretty heavily and a lot of their current systems (both gameplay and progression) feel like placeholders. Those redesigns will likely not fit my changes, but eh - might as well discuss them and get them off my mind 🙂

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I see no reason why my Operator couldn't control my Warframe from the field.

I think you're missing the point; when you're controlling the Warframe you are the Warframe, you are... how should I put this... possessing it like a ghost. Feeling some of what it feels (there's a literal Operator voice line that says 'Augh, the Transference makes this hurt!') and moving it instead of it being sentient.

There is no point where you could put your Operator elsewhere and then run around as the Warframe because the Operator is, in all sense but the most extreme, inside the Warframe. And there is absolutely no chance that the Operator could be put into some invulnerable state (the way a Warframe can be) because that's the exact reason that Operators use Transference in the first place; so they don't get killed while their consciousness is away controlling the Warframe. It's why they have an Orbiter with a Void Cloak, it's why they were in the Reservoir before that. It's because, unlike the Warframes, the Operator is a child. They're vulnerable.

[Darth_Predator]

3 часа назад, Steel_Rook сказал:

I don't believe that's the case narratively. Warframes appear to have their own innate abilities that they can use on their own Operators predominantly control them, rather than empower them. There's the completely independent Exaclibur Umbra from The Sacrifice, the completely independent rampaging Rhino Prime from his Codex Description, Titania who was being controlled by a regular person and the general nature of Warframe creation.

After refreshing on the lore, I have to say you are correct. I still think giving operators more stuff will make them better. Cause they are still crazy void wizards and can summon some eldritch stuff from the other dimension. So limiting that to beam, cloak, blink and whatever blast is seems underwhelming. Operators should have something to show in combat. So casting stuff should at least improve something.

[Steel_Rook]

3 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

There is no point where you could put your Operator elsewhere and then run around as the Warframe because the Operator is, in all sense but the most extreme, inside the Warframe. And there is absolutely no chance that the Operator could be put into some invulnerable state (the way a Warframe can be) because that's the exact reason that Operators use Transference in the first place; so they don't get killed while their consciousness is away controlling the Warframe. It's why they have an Orbiter with a Void Cloak, it's why they were in the Reservoir before that. It's because, unlike the Warframes, the Operator is a child. They're vulnerable.

Again - I don't agree with that interpretation of the lore. From everything I've seen, our Operators are substantially more powerful and capable than you give them credit for, and have been since the Zariman incident. There's a reason the Orokin were afraid of them nearly to the level of their fear of the Sentients, and to an extent I've not seen them show for anything else. We've also seen numerous scenes of Warframes moving while the Operator is still in the field besides the Excalibur Umbra. The Second Dream shows a Warframe carrying an Operator who is able to simultaneously control it an use void abilities. Then there's the famous scene of the Warframe acting to save the Operator from the Stalker, producing the Broken War.

I don't want to turn the discussion to lore, however. As I've said a number of times, the mechanic I'm proposing can still work without the Operator being physically in the field while controlling a Warframe. Instead, a Void Rift can be left that the Operator can return to when using Transference, instead of appearing next to their Warframe. My goal is to allow players to in some way use Operators in order to be in two places at once for the purpose of solving puzzles and more creative use of combat positioning. A lore explanation can always be backfilled if necessary (even if I don't feel like it is) based on how the mechanic ends up playing out.

Besides, the Lore can always change, as it has with The Second Dream, The War Within, Chains of Harrow and The Sacrifice. I have every reason to believe that it's going to change again with the New War. Just like there were plenty of lore explanations for why we couldn't use Archguns on the ground until we just could. For this reason and others, I don't want to discuss lore here any more.

 

2 hours ago, Darth_Predator said:

After refreshing on the lore, I have to say you are correct. I still think giving operators more stuff will make them better. Cause they are still crazy void wizards and can summon some eldritch stuff from the other dimension. So limiting that to beam, cloak, blink and whatever blast is seems underwhelming. Operators should have something to show in combat. So casting stuff should at least improve something.

While I agree, that falls more into Operator balance. I've long felt that Operators really need to have a set of their own abilities, unique to each school and meaningful for more than just number-crunching. The schools even kind of already do that, with Unairu generating Wisps and stipping armour, etc. It's just those abilities tend to get attached to the three Operator actions of Void Beam, Void Blast and Void Mode. To be perfectly honest, I wish Void Mode itself were an ability restricted to just one of the Focus Schools, with the others not having infinite turtling and easy stealth because it really is a millstone around the neck of Operator combat. It's out-of-scope of this discussion, though, simply because it's a MASSIVE subject all its own.

That said - what abilities would you envision being useful in an "emergency rescue" situation like I described before? Void Mode would make it trivial so it needs to either be blocked, modified or suppressed somehow, but what else could Operators gain which would make sense for a mechanic like that? Because it really is a binary state currently. Either you have Void Mode so you can revive in complete safety, or you don't in which case you can't revive without dying anyway.

[Darth_Predator]

1 час назад, Steel_Rook сказал:

what abilities would you envision being useful in an "emergency rescue" situation like I described before?

Lets see what I can bring without thinking too deeply. Not all of those should be available at the same time, each point is a possibility. Several ones can be combined if necessary. 

• Operator appearance could cause some sort of CC. He basically teleports via the void (void dash-like) so at least something similar to a radial  knockback in a moderate range, maybe about 10m. Would help with crowds a little bit, dropping them on the ground. Still presents some danger via enemies outside knockback radius and as other powers should probably be negated by nulls + not working on bosses + knocked enemies will not be on the ground forever.
• Some sort of void shield, working like quick thinking but without stumbling. More "experienced" operators (e.g. zenurik energy pool passive) will have more chances to survive.
• Creating a void distortion around the operator. Think about something like Nyx's passive, roll's efects or even baruuk's elude toned down. Aeldari holo-fields if bringing examples from other universes is valid. Basically enemies will have a chance to miss the operator or only do partial glancing damage cause they can't see him well enough.
• Stop bleedout timer on a warframe for a period or prolong it. This will give some time to try and deal with the surrounded enemies before attempting res.

None really provides anything in terms of applying any measure of skill to the matter apart from the last one, but I can't think about anything not too over-complicated. The third one can be applied to operators in general to give them a bit of surviveability outside of void mode so you can't be deleted the moment leaving cloak. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

13 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

As I've said a number of times, the mechanic I'm proposing can still work without the Operator being physically in the field while controlling a Warframe.

Without getting into the Lore, then, these mechanics still don't need to exist. And that's because the Operators are still a purposely unfinished system by DE.

We are getting more updates, more releases, and until those happen, there could be very good reason why they don't.

Pushing buttons to solve puzzles is not a big enough part of this game to warrant the change, and may even be a reason that DE don't do this (because they don't want players solving these puzzles without the right amount of players).

The movement options you mention are already possible, even when your frame drops off the map it doesn't actively hinder you. 

And the Operators themselves can have powerful Void abilities and still have weak physical bodies because they're children. As powerful as you interpret them to be with Void energy, it still doesn't mean that they can do any form of parkour. It took a quest for them to even be able to walk around the Orbiter without needing the Warframe to carry them.

I don't underestimate their Void power, I fairly rate their physical power. And I wasn't against giving them more mobility or separating off their Dash from their energy pool in the same way that their Beam was. I instead pointed out the wait-and-see philosophy because DE may be doing it their way, not your way.

Beyond all this discussion about the actual merits of your system, I think you're missing two rather salient points about Operators:

1. DE have actively stated that they are not supposed to be equal to, or replace, or even really compete with Warframes in terms of their abilities. Only indirect functions, such as the Arcanes, are supposed to allow them similar levels of power. Warframes are the super-powered super-soldiers, Operators are literally just that; operators. You wouldn't expect a jockey to be as mobile and fast as a horse, but you wouldn't expect a horse to be able to count on its fingers. They do two completely separate things, and that's exactly the way that DE want them to be.

2. Half the community wants to put the kid back in the chair and lock the door, never having to deal with them again because they signed up to play as Warframes.

 

[Steel_Rook]

33 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Without getting into the Lore, then, these mechanics still don't need to exist. And that's because the Operators are still a purposely unfinished system by DE. We are getting more updates, more releases, and until those happen, there could be very good reason why they don't.

That line of thinking fundamentally undermines the very concept of a suggestion. I have no means of predicting what DE may or may not be planning to do with Operators that they haven't communicated outside the studio, but this shouldn't prevent me from proposing my own designs. Maybe they have something else planned, maybe they have nothing planned, or maybe their plans are still in flux and player suggestions could either influence or at least inspire future development. Offering suggestions for future content is a legitimate use for a "Feedback" forum."

 

35 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

And the Operators themselves can have powerful Void abilities and still have weak physical bodies because they're children. As powerful as you interpret them to be with Void energy, it still doesn't mean that they can do any form of parkour. It took a quest for them to even be able to walk around the Orbiter without needing the Warframe to carry them.

Their physical fitness is irrelevant, because next to nothing Operators do actually relies on it. All of their mobility, defensive and offensive abilities rely on Void energy in some fashion. Void Dash is already a Void ability and Void Mode itself already offers enhanced physical ability by negating fall damage. It stands to reason that it could offer further physical enhancement and improve running speed. Again - not for lore reasons, but simply to prevent Operators from being so teeth-grindingly slow to use and so limited to a single resource bar.

 

38 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

DE have actively stated that they are not supposed to be equal to, or replace, or even really compete with Warframes in terms of their abilities. Only indirect functions, such as the Arcanes, are supposed to allow them similar levels of power.

I'm not asking for Operators to be more powerful, but rather to better integrate into gameplay the same Archwings and atmospheric Archguns do. The concept of Operators is a major part of the game's lore, thus I'd like to have a reason to use them beyond mild and very situational convenience, because the novelty of them wears out very quickly. Yes, I'm aware that some people dislike Operators, but for every feature in the game there will be people who dislike it. Yes, I'm aware that environmental puzzles are not a major focus of Warframe, but that didn't stop DE from putting them into the Jupiter tileset. And in all of this, we've managed to go three posts back-and-forth not really touching pretty much any of the suggestions and instead discussing whether I'm allowed to even make this suggestion in the first place.

[Steel_Rook]

11 hours ago, Darth_Predator said:

Operator appearance could cause some sort of CC. He basically teleports via the void (void dash-like) so at least something similar to a radial  knockback in a moderate range, maybe about 10m. Would help with crowds a little bit, dropping them on the ground. Still presents some danger via enemies outside knockback radius and as other powers should probably be negated by nulls + not working on bosses + knocked enemies will not be on the ground forever.

Some sort of void shield, working like quick thinking but without stumbling. More "experienced" operators (e.g. zenurik energy pool passive) will have more chances to survive.

You know... That's actually not a bad idea. The Archgun Launcher already does this, and it's reasonably effective. A smart player would then be able to crawl backwards into some sense of cover, call in their Operator to knock everyone down, then attempt a revive before they get back up. Add in a temporary shield to absorb some extra damage and you have a pretty good system. Of course, this still wouldn't work if you happen to die in the open, but this isn't intended to be a fool-proof system 🙂 There's still enough there for it to work on at least some level, though. I like it!

 

11 hours ago, Darth_Predator said:

Stop bleedout timer on a warframe for a period or prolong it. This will give some time to try and deal with the surrounded enemies before attempting res.

This is something I thought about, myself. Rather than revive your own Warframe, you could jump into your Operator and extend the bleedout timer, potentially allowing team-mates to save you, as well as offering some amount of fire support for them while they do that. It doesn't quite help a solo player, though I don't know how much of a consideration that might be for DE.

---

Something else I've been thinking about. I know people will hate me for saying it, but I feel revival should suppress Operator Void Mode the same way firing your Amp or performing a Void Blast does. As I said, Void Mode is a balance nightmare which makes a lot of situations binary, so suppressing it in high-intensity situations allows for some more flexibility in design. Suppress Void Mode, but give Operators an inherent Sanctuary effect, and you might have a more balanced Operator revival mechanic. Do that, and we don't have to suppress Operator Void Mode in its entirety during Emergency Transference.

[Birdframe_Prime]

36 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

That line of thinking fundamentally undermines the very concept of a suggestion. I have no means of predicting what DE may or may not be planning to do with Operators that they haven't communicated outside the studio, but this shouldn't prevent me from proposing my own designs.

No, it means that you should not ignore what is already there in favour of a completely new thing that may be unsuitable or incompatible with future updates. And that you should expect people to be extremely doubtful when you start stating that your new idea is the way forward with content we have, especially when it's in a completely different direction from the way the content has been going thus far.

For example, it's all very well to propose a new ability for a Warframe, because we know what abilities are in the game and how to compare and contrast functions and abilities from that.

In the same way, we know that the Operators so far have been specifically billed by DE, backed up by their own statements, as not something that should ever replace Warframes in their capacity, that the roles are clearly defined and that the gameplay should feel different.

In light of that, it's why the past requests for speed increases to the Operators have not been carried out, it's why they still take fall damage when no Warframe does (in fact, there's even an Arcane you can choose to prevent it situationally).

So, while you believe that the slowness and the clunkiness is in some way an oversight by DE, a problem, and needs to be fixed, I would say it's entirely intentional and that our Operators are likely going to stay slow and clunky outside of their actual Abilities that already grant them some of the greatest innate mobility this game has.