Initial thoughts on The Old Blood

[ScarecroM]

I can't keep my thoughts short, but I will spoiler them, and keep this in bullet form. Each bullet will be 1-2 paragraphs.
Overall, I have VERY mixed feelings on this update. Keep in mind these are initial thoughts. But I do have some immediate strong opinions.
I will talk specifically about the things I have the strongest feelings about.

-Kuva Liches

Spoiler

I like the idea of having a nemesis that is an equal match for your warframe. What I don't like is how they steal resources, mods (including rivens) blueprints, prime parts, etc. I don't think item confiscation as a game mechanic belongs in a video game that is filled to the brim with grinding and RNG. See, when I play Warframe, I set out to do specific things I want to do. whether it be void fissures, invasions, whatever. If I don't want to do kuva lich missions, that means I DON'T WANT TO DO KUVA LICH MISSIONS. For example, Let's say I want to do the sortie for the day. the final mission is on the planet my kuva lich is occupying. I have 2 options. Either I clear the territory (which can take upwards of a hour depending on what mission types I have to do.) or I can do the sortie and potentially have my sortie reward stolen. Which in order to obtain it I would have to do the kuva lich missions anyways. That riven or whatever may not be gone forever... But that's not the point. That was the reward for the sortie. Not the reward for the sortie, and 4 extra days of grinding requiem relics, and requiem murmurs, just.. unrelated patches of content. This mechanic makes the Kuva Lich system extremely intrusive, and more-or-less forces you to participate in it in a needlessly aggressive way.
I highly suggest limiting the stolen items to just resources, and credits, or at the very least, omitting specialized missions such as alerts, sorties, and quests from the kuva lich system. Beyond that, an alternative way that does not require days of grinding to obtain stolen items would be fantastic.

-Melee Stances

Spoiler

I absolutely LOVE the changes made to how stances work. The fundamentals of each stance being the same is a very good step for melee. I don't have much more to say about this, but I cannot put into words how good using any melee weapon feels now. It's so liberating that I'm using a stance because I prefer it, and not because it's the ONLY stance of its weapon type that doesn't vault me off a cliff every other time I press E However bullet dance in particular feels rather awkward to use compared to before.This is the one exception I found so far.

-Melee Mechanics

Spoiler

On the flip side, I'm very skeptical on the reworked melee mechanics. It hasn't affected gameplay for me in a significant way so far, but I have noticed the significantly smaller damage numbers. I'm getting red crits far less frequently. clearly blood rush is not nearly as effective as it used to be, or at the very least, the way the combo counter works now is far more confusing than it used to be. I've seen plenty of people who actively go out of their way to fight enemies of absurd scaling absolutely hating these changes. I can empathize with them, because I know how it feels to have something you worked hard to accomplish ripped out from under you like a rug. no amount of forma or legendary cores can replace what is now gone for them. This makes me wonder if these changes were too hastily implemented. Maybe they should have been put on hold until enemy scaling was reworked, or until that new rage mechanic was added. One thing I can say for sure though is I preferred the simplicity of the damage multiplier. You hit more, you do more damage. And the way blood rush amplified it was just really fun. Currently, I'm having trouble figuring out how to most effectively use heavy attacks. most of the time I don't use them at all, because they are just too slow and awkward, or they just don't deal as much damage as they feel they should.

At the end of the day It's not all bad (in my opinion), but clearly with the amount of outcry, no matter how rude the feedback might be, something went wrong. These are just my thoughts, but I've seen a lot of similar complaints to my own. Who knows though. maybe some people like having their mod that they spent weeks grinding for stolen.... for some reason. Either way, in short. don't fix what isn't broken also stealing is bad. 

Everything else I haven't tried yet, or I'm overwhelmingly neutral on.