A thought on operator alignment and warframes. Spoiler i guess...

[(PSN)Black-Cat-Jinx]

There are three alignments, light, dark, and balanced. Some warframes very clearly have a heavily dark alignment, Nekros for example. Others have a very light alignment, say Trinity, and then you have frames like wisp that are more a "balance" alignment. Most warframes can be largely put somewhere along these three alignments. So i was thinking it might be interesting if the allignment of your operator, as depicted by your choices in game, creates bonuses or debuffs depending on if you are using an aligned frame, an unaligned frame, or an opposed alignment frame. More power, range, speed, maybe default energy restore, something like that depending on what frame..

Just thought I'd see if anyone found the idea interesting of matching or opposing alignments and alignments affecting gameplay. 

[Klokwerkaos]

it was rightly established by devs that op alignment is for rp purposes only and will not have direct in game consequence.

what you're proposing is that identity should have a bearing on your gameplay, and that is a great way to screw over game balance and establish new metas, not to mention you can't easily change your alignment, and additionally, warframes are tools.  tools are not inherently aligned.  it's all in how you use the tool.

big fat giant no and infinite downvote on this.

[Burritochu]

I'm not sure this would be a good idea. Linking frames to a moral alignment would just restrict the gameplay. What if you needed that dark aligned Nekros to farm some resource but you're a light aligned Operator? You'd have to:

Option 1: Play with a frame you can't use to its fullest potential.

Option 2: Play some other frame you might not enjoy

Option 3: Go w/o a farming frame

It would also potentially make these moral choices pointless. Assuming neutral = no buffs/no debuffs, then why choose any thing else? Going one way or the other would limit your choice in frames.

Edited August 26, 2019 by Burritochu

[Urlan]

14 minutes ago, Klokwerkaos said:

it was rightly established by devs that op alignment is for rp purposes only and will not have direct in game consequence.

what you're proposing is that identity should have a bearing on your gameplay, and that is a great way to screw over game balance and establish new metas, not to mention you can't easily change your alignment, and additionally, warframes are tools.  tools are not inherently aligned.  it's all in how you use the tool.

big fat giant no and infinite downvote on this.

Mind providing a source on that? DE Steve had originally said the Karma meter would mean something mechanically eventually; could have changed and I could have missed it, mind pointing towards the particular twitter or devstream for that?

[Klokwerkaos]

i don't recall what dev stream it was, the one i saw specifically was steve saying it should not have a mechanical bearing on the game, but a role play one.

[Phatose]

I'd rather they not do anything with alignment until they somehow make it far more clear what exactly these alignments actually mean.    As it stands now, Sun/Neutral/Moon is pretty much Blue and Orange morality.  Putting gameplay consequences on choices you get one shot at, were made with little context and no expectation of game implications would be a terrible idea.   Doing so when it's not even remotely clear whether any action would be sun, moon, or neutral?  That would just be insulting.

[sinnae]

Those alignments are just for flavor, I think. I'm not sure there is room in this game's framework for an alignment or morality system that has a real impact. Sounds like both a balancing and narrative nightmare. Maybe for Warframe 2...

[(PSN)Black-Cat-Jinx]

Just to clarify for what ever it's worth. I'm not talking about something that's going to vastly change the viability of a frame. Most primed frames in this game are a difference of cosmetic more than actual in game experience, an extra splash of armor or energy... Was just thinking on something that would make it's presence known. 

At the very least I wouldn't mind an ephemera that reflects your alignment in some way.

Anyway i can see that people are upset over the idea so fair enough I have my answer. 

[Klokwerkaos]

alignment based ephemera would be fine, i suppose, since it's cosmetic only, still would be annoying to not be able to switch easily if you want a different cosmetic

 

[Atsia]

I mean, frames don't have alignments, and even then, it's not a simple as "Light" and "Dark". From all the options so far, "light" means more so being Wrathful, while "dark" is staying your hand.

[(XBOX)GodMasterTP]

The Sun and Moon thing doesn't represent Light vs Dark at all. Sometimes the Sun option is very f¥#&$* up, straight up murder or something, and sometimes the Moon option is kinda...good. 

So yeah, i don't even get what the hell they mean in the first place, but they are definitely NOT moral alignments. I've played enough RPG to recognize a moral alignment system.

[Teridax68]

As others mentioned, I think there are two main problems with the suggestion:

• Tying moral alignments in with gameplay tends to be detrimental to both. Games like Infamous, Mass Effect or KotOR are all clear-cut examples of games where the player often ends up playing a pure goody-two-shoes or a cartoonishly evil jerk, as opposed to any more morally complex character on offer, because they just want to access those good/evil gameplay bonuses and dialog options, which themselves tend to have gameplay benefits such as more rewards or easier missions.
• Warframe's moral alignment system is not nearly consistent enough to even truly say that the player character has any sort of morality: in The War Within, the Sun/Moon dichotomy really does fit along the more classic lines of good vs. evil, where the Sun options are more holier-than-thou and the Moon options are more vindictive, but then that completely flips with The Sacrifice, where the Sun ends up being all about passion and violence, and the Moon becomes the calmer, more emo option.

More broadly, I'm not sure how much can be done on top of the morality system right now, as the one thing it needs, if it is to still exist, is to be fleshed out significantly more, and retroactively made more consistent. Currently, the Sun/Moon RP system is half-baked and arguably far too underdeveloped to have anything done with it at all. Time will tell how it will evolve when we get to further cinematic quests, but in the meantime I wouldn't want to build anything dependent on it, much less give it an impact on gameplay.