Empyrean: The journey so far.

[[DE]Rebecca]

Empyrean: The Journey so far.
 

6 Days ago on PC, Empyrean launched! We have done 5 Hotfixes with more to come before we rest up over the Holidays. Did the update release exactly as we had hoped? Not exactly - we’ve got bugs to fix and things to balance! We want to go over where we are and coming changes. We’re breaking this down into sections for you to read - it’s a long one:

The Co-op
The Railjack & The Intrinsics
The Resources
The Loot & RNG
The Beyond
Conclusion

The Co-op
 

The phrase ‘We All Lift Together’ has never been more true with Railjack! The moment to moment contributions you make all matter, and greater coordination efforts lead to success. We’ve heard the stories and seen sessions of our own where people frantically are asking “Does anyone see the incoming Ram Sled?” “Going out to take the Crewship!” “We need more Revolite and Munitions!” “Going out to collect some resources - we’re low on Pustrels” and so on. Before missions even start, we see people discussing what Intrinsics skills are currently your best to help the team, what the Host Railjack is equipped with in terms of firepower, and what Payload preparations have been made.

A key part of all co-op sessions has been the better you know Warframe, the more likely (and faster) you’ll succeed. Your existing mastery of Parkour, Weapons, and more are needed, while everyone is learning how to master the new tools within Railjack. In fact - your Mastery is so evident you are progressing through the nodes faster than we expected, but that’s alright and well earned! The power of co-operation and top-tier performance.

Despite some matchmaking issues the first day, we’re seeing extremely high success rates on Public Matchmaking missions. While Earth is where people are learning the ropes, Free Flight is providing a stress-free way to practice. We’re seeing just under 2,000,000 successful missions so far, and counting! For those that don’t succeed, we are running continued diagnostics for outright failure vs. bugs, which we are fixing daily. We will continue deploying Hotfixes as frequently as we can, with a minor break for the Holidays (while our heroes in Support remain around!). 

The Railjack & The Intrinsics

The Railjack is the biggest item in-game for a Tenno to customize and Upgrade. We were careful to make all Personal progress independent of a Railjack with Intrisics, but also ensured Railjack customization was a desirable series of goals for players.

This is the foundation for us to build upon. In regular Warframe missions: you don’t always have clear roles, can mostly brute-force your way through a mission with enough fire power. On your Railjack, having clear roles is a surefire way to a successful mission. Unlike in regular missions, your loadout sometimes limits your ability to flex roles -- so long as you’ve mastered the basics, and have a few points invested in each Intrinsic tree, swapping between roles to fit your crew’s needs is very freeing.

Intrinsics are one of the first XP based progression systems we’ve released without a Daily Cap. This decision was based on feedback from our past releases, but we want to ensure our players know to strike a healthy balance when playing. Let’s take a look at the latest graph at how your Intrinsic choices have mapped out so far:


This graph shows how many Tenno fit into a certain Intrinsic Rank per Category. Each Bar corresponds to a rank indicated on the right hand side, but each column is in order!
Within 6 days, we’re seeing people progress as expected throughout the ranks. We want Rank 10 to be a very long term goal (the most long term goal within the entire Empyrean update), with a focus on specialization the deeper in you get. Does anything surprise you about this breakdown visualization? Curious about your thoughts!


The Resources

The Empyrean Update is almost like a reset - everyone starts from the same point with a few exceptions. This means every resource cost is a best estimate. Expect to see positive changes in specific drop rates (Titanium) as well as a general increase in uncommon and common resource appearances throughout crates in your missions. Smash and grab all the things. 

You should also expect to see the ability to halt Repairs you’ve started - this means if you’ve made progress toward one Component or Armament and you come across a better one, you can simply move those Resources over. Many players have found themselves in that exact scenario: They start contributing to one piece of Wreckage, only to find a better piece in another mission. If they don’t finish their first Repair, they lose the resources and at best get 50% back with scrapping. This change will allow you to better distribute your Resources across un-Repaired Wreckage with no losses.

The scariest thing about balancing resources overall is the inevitable place we all end up with our stockpiles. Balancing resource goals for players that aren’t too punishing requires a careful touch, especially for a system where all players start from nothing. Community feedback and stats are two invaluable tools that will allow us to tune this balance.

Resources are a particularly hot topic because of how they play into the Loot, which is the next section.

The Loot & RNG

Firstly - true Loot sharing is enroute, just being tested. Hopefully we can Hotfix this soon. This means the Pickups on Points of Interest (ex: on a Shipkiller you’ve been tasked to destroy) will be shared with the Railjack Crew. This behaviour is crucial for the co-op experience and is in progress.

The Loot in Railjack is structured specifically to have a ‘Harder Content, Better Rewards’ approach. On paper, this all checks out the further you go into the Proxima regions (MK III only in the Veil, etc). People can and do want to get better equipment for their Railjacks. But with this update comes one familiar face: Resources & RNG. 

We took a tried and true model: use resources to build your gear. We added randomness to the Components and Armaments received as Wreckage in-mission that was not properly communicated, which the in-game tools are now showing before you invest (i.e your Armaments now show the Random Stat on the screen before you Repair). There is a constant struggle between making sure players feel like there is always a worthwhile reward to seek out, versus the ‘done and moved on’ mentality. This is why we did not include any Mastery to these Components / Armaments, and instead put Mastery on the reliable progression of Intrinsics. Players who want to participate in the replay for different stats can - but it is in no way mandatory for any progress.
 

Missions themselves provide end of missions rewards, which people have reliably requested changes to (from removing botched Credit bundles and soon Cryotic). We will be making further changes to these beyond the Relics we added yesterday. 

There’s two main areas of RNG high on people’s Radars: Avionics and Wreckage. This is not exhaustive, just the most discussed.

Avionics had their drop rates increased yesterday from 10% to 15%, and we are still reviewing the impact of this change.

The Wreckage found in Railjack missions are meant to create ships that feel distinctly your own, and to give you goals in-mission towards finding ways to improve your ship even more. The implementation of the Wreckage system has some kinks, and some bugs that we have worked to fix, that is causing understandable frustration. It’s on us as developers to tweak this system so that Tenno don’t feel forced to wait until they get MK3 wreckage before they invest resources -- this problem is linked inherently to the Loot and Resources sections above, but also requires more QOL changes on our end (like being able to cancel incomplete repairs).

There’s a third bonus area concerning a certain anomaly, but after today’s Hotfix you’ll see the factor at play is not exactly RNG. You’ll know exactly when and where a certain anomaly is present soon.

The Beyond

Some of you may have already seen hints as to what is coming for your Railjack Crew, and we have gone on the record during Devstreams and TennoCons about our plans. We are aiming to expand this new, aggressively ambitious era of Warframe to include new mission types, new enemies, and new rewards, all while tying it into the overarching plot of Warframe’s narrative. 

We are excited to share that experience with you and are more grateful than words can convey for your patience on this journey. 

Conclusion

We don’t want “challenging” to be synonymous with “punishing” -- that’s not our motivation or end goal with Empyrean. Just as keeping your Railjack afloat is a collaborative effort and experience, our hotfixing and further considerations of the gamemode are treated in the same vein between us as a community. 

[V45H]

WE ALL LIFT TOGETHER
on a side note i really love rail jack so far and really appreciate the hard work you guys are doing and happy holidays to the whole studio

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

My biggest kudos to the team. Despite some hiccups every now and then I must say I'm very proud of what this game has achieved over the years, and still promises to achieve. Truly a wonderful experience.

[-AncientWarrior-]

Excellent post Reb, ty ... But could you put in there about allowing us to put the Omni in any gear wheel slot please.. its a bigger pain than most things atm.

[Pandabarrel]

This update seriously needed more time in the oven.

[Aceofgods]

 

8 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Curious about your thoughts!

As a player with 8/8/8/9 I am surprised to see I'm in top 1% 😮

 

Are you aware that there is bug where enemies in Railjack (Cutters, Crewships, Outriders) are dropping ground loot like ammo boxes and energy orbs instead of Railjack loot like Pustrels and Avionics? This problem affects every enemy in the mission until players extract to Orbiter and start from there rather than host's dojo.

[Ardhanarishvara]

Cool.

[PerishedFraud]

I don't think that most of our players really enjoy the RNG in Railjack parts.

Unique ships be damned, rivens already ruined many people's days, liches doubled down on it, and now this huge new update comes with its own unwanted randomness.

The fact that you can't buy the parts has me even more confused. If the RNG isn't there for financial reasons...why is it there? 

I can easily say that far more people are annoyed by it than empowered in any way. The opinions I've seen so far were either neutral or negative. I've seen zero people two people say something nice about it.

An important bit in regards to progression: There needs to be an end goal. The problem with Rivens and Liches was that the player couldn't influence the stats or the amount of elements on weapons. "Keep trying" isn't good motivation. It'll tire out players more than it'll make them want to play more. RNG is fine but there needs to be a way to progress or infleunce it somehow. Even if it's by 1% at a time. The railjack parts display this same problem and have total RNG with no player interaction.

TLDR just give us part fusion

Edit: Thanks DE.

[Limbo_Darkness]

Battle Avionics need huge buffs to drop rates soon. Farming for several days for 6 hours per day isn't acceptable just for one ability mod.

[Kylo.]

9 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We want Rank 10 to be a very long term goal

Has anyone reached that yet?
I'm guessing no seeing as that would cost 1023 points.

[SneakyErvin]

One question. Is there any possibility that we will get the enemy scaling from Empyrean implemented in the rest of the game? The ground mobs in Empyrean just feel much better balanced. Durable and dealing acceptable damage without having to be in the levels well above 100. They feel like they are far higher in levels than their level indicates, but their damage isnt over the top 1HK bullet hell.

 

[[DE]Rebecca]

3 minutes ago, -AncientWarrior- said:

Excellent post Reb, ty ... But could you put in there about allowing us to put the Omni in any gear wheel slot please.. its a bigger pain than most things atm.

Yes, we will work on this! 

[[DE]Rebecca]

1 minute ago, Kylo. said:

Has anyone reached that yet?
I'm guessing no seeing as that would cost 1023 points.

Yes, one person for sure has! 

[Shiva]

Aight.

[-KenSasaki90-]

And we have still 1 Problem with the mode, doors. Aslong the host have the *control* over doors to open we will get more Problems. Not all players have a good pc and internet and can host this. If someone host railjack with a bad pc, we have MASSIVE Problems with doors. This must be changed in ALL Modes. Everyone should open doors on there own not from the host request. Dont know how to write this cleary i hope you understand this.

[EchoesOfRain]

Regarding this "bonus area", are drops working properly? Not only are the "bonus parts" not dropping, I cant get anything but ammo and orbs to drop

[SHADOW.XIII]

I hope for better Avionics screen,

 

current one is clunky, provides little information, can't swap them around, difficult to figure out which one's better and by how much, especially if you want to compare one installed vs multiple uninstalled ones

please, make it better

 

[SneakyErvin]

2 minutes ago, PerishedFraud said:

I don't think anyone really enjoys the RNG in Railjack parts.

I actually enjoy it immensly. It has been one of the main things missing in WF imo. And they've done it pretty well aside from some specific materials being extremely slow to gather and very high in demand for wreckage repairs. I'm talking about titanium here if no one got that. 😛 

[[DE]Rebecca]

1 minute ago, EchoesOfRain said:

Regarding this "bonus area", are drops working properly? Not only are the "bonus parts" not dropping, I cant get anything but ammo and orbs to drop

The Ammo / Orb Drop is a bug, fixed soon. 

[Andvarja]

Thanks for the post, the stats are fun to see.

Would be nice to see tightening of the RNG ranges on some of this gear.  35-100 avionics cap and 20-100 flux cap is an utterly ridiculous range for a single tier of the same item from the same house (Vidar Mk3).  And the Zetki Mk1 is just not right, with such low value, supposedly justified by Flux Capacity...which it can't have at Mk1.


Also, I like the cryotic 😞

[EchoesOfRain]

1 minute ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

The Ammo / Orb Drop is a bug, fixed soon. 

All I needed to hear, thanks a ton Reb 🙂

[PlayerOO1]

25 minutes ago, PerishedFraud said:

I don't think anyone really enjoys the RNG in Railjack parts.

Unique ships be damned, rivens already ruined many people's days, liches doubled down on it, and now this huge new update comes with its own unwanted randomness.

The fact that you can't buy the parts has me even more confused. If the RNG isn't there for financial reasons...why is it there? 

I can easily say that far more people are annoyed by it than empowered in any way.

TLDR just give us part fusion

RNG is how most games do endgame. THe gigantic issue with warframe for a long time was that vets with stockpiles of resources just went "I FINISHED ALL THE CONTENT IN A WEEK DE WHY THE CONTENT DROUGHT REEEE" and somehow expected both beloved cinematic quests and addons like second dream along with the oldy monthly weapon updates and operations (the weapons btw are now all considered the same boring trash so that tells you how good those were)

RNG works as an endgame, it just needs proper balancing. No one complains about RNG in WoW or D2 or any of those games people say do have an endgame

What i wont defend in the slightest is the balancing, QoL or bugginess of this update tho

[xZephyrosx]

The drop change for a Reactor etc etc at the end of mission is a big joke. The drop table is cluttered with relics now and i never see a MK3 Reactor except from the zekti one drop .. Did almost 40 Railjacks missions. I understand the stats are RNG, but that doesn't mean that we should never get a drop ... 

 

Veil/Ruse War Field (Skirmish)
400 Dirac	Uncommon (20.00%)
1000 Dirac	Uncommon (10.00%)
3X Riven Sliver	Rare (5.00%)
Forma Blueprint	Rare (2.50%)
Lavan Engines Mk Iii	Rare (2.00%)
Lavan Reactor Mk Iii	Rare (2.00%)
Lavan Shield Array Mk Iii	Rare (2.00%)
Vidar Engines Mk Iii	Rare (2.00%)
Vidar Reactor Mk Iii	Rare (2.00%)
Vidar Shield Array Mk Iii	Rare (2.00%)
Neo T2 Relic	Rare (7.22%)
Neo A3 Relic	Rare (7.22%)
Neo Z5 Relic	Rare (7.22%)
Neo M2 Relic	Rare (7.22%)
Neo I1 Relic	Rare (7.22%)
Neo R3 Relic	Rare (7.22%)
Neo G2 Relic	Rare (7.21%)

Let us at least drop something worth using ... 

[NightmareT12]

First of all thanks for adressing this Rebb. I'm happy to see Loot sharing is worked on (can't wrap my head around how you guys thought it was good to not do this from the start). I'm trying to keep an eye on the RNG layers though, and I think a few items, weapons and systems have too much of a RNG component to feel good at all. I get there's little content now and you guys need a way to keep people playing, but egh.

There's potential in this whole system, but I can already see this taking a looooooong time to properly adequate 😛

Anyways, I'll have a better understanding as soon as I build my own ship (in 12h x 6 parts kek).

[GrowthProfitGrofit]

Will there be any refunds for people who used Rush Repair Drones on weapons prior to the RNG being added? I've got a support ticket open for this but a) it's more about the principle of the thing than anything else b) I really think this should be a global refund, adding RNG to something after you've already invested in it is really not cool at all.