Empyrean: The journey so far.

[nalsur10]

15 minutes ago, Gabbynaru said:

It really doesn't sound like you guys want to lower the repair costs of the wreckage, which is terrible considering those wreckage are also having RNG stats thrown on them, so, I really hope you reconsider and soon. I love Railjack, but this realization that my grind is in vain and that I'll never be able to make and repair any wreckage cause an even better one might be just around the corner makes me just stop playing, as it doesn't feel like it's worth it or like my time is being respected. It's nice that you feel like increasing the drops, but, unless those numbers are increased tenfold (at least), it won't make any difference, the grind will still be too much and will still push people away from engaging with the system. I like the RNG stats, but, come on, it's either that or ridiculous crafting requirements. Having both is just bad game design.

The repair costs are indeed rather expensive for some components. Not sure if I can really see much value in some of them since they are randomly generated and the "margin" of improvement may not justify the amount I am spending to improve a specific component of the ship. They at least are bringing the ability to transfer resources to a new repair for the time being, to ensure you get the most out of newer parts if you happen to come across them in a newer mission. 

[yarl5000]

1 minute ago, Eldirian said:

Pls no RNG stats.

Got to agree here.  Let us pump resources in to improve them if need be.  We will end up with a surplus of resources given even time unless you keep giving us new things to build, and even then our ability to build up resources will outstrip your dev time, so give us a way to improve weapons with the resources. It won't stop us just slow us down some. 

[Hurify]

What about end of mission screen showing you that you got 20 intrinsics and when you actually go to spend them you see its actually 10?

[Thundervision]

I honestly don't get people complaining about the random parts' stats. Rivens this, Liches that. Well, I don't even think of buying anything of that, because I don't need it. It doesn't dictate me how I should play the game. I get my rivens and liches on my own or from my friends. I play the game the way I want and it doesn't come to getting the so-called "godlike" rolls or BOTB rivens and Kuva weapons.

The only reason I can come up with is that people can't have the best possible ship outfitting right here, right now. It's a good long-term thing if you think about it, because once you outfit your ship with Mk. III modules you may eventually find a better module and upgrade your ship again. This is much better than following the continuing weapons powercreep increasement in the regular gameplay. Otherwise, people will find the reason to complain about the lack of the new powercreep modules (IV / V / VI / VII etc.) in the future updates once they get tired of using the same Mk.III modules.

 

42 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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).

Rather than just drop the 100% of the same resources into a better module all over again,  why not just make it act as an upgrade? 🤔 I.e. additional resources you need to reach that extra juicy %s on a new module.

Say, some "Cobra Mk.I" turret costs:

• 100 Carbides
• 100 Titan
• 100 Pustrels

And then you get a trophy "Cobra Mk.I" turret, but with better stats, +35% RoF. Now you're given two choices:

1. Instead of the same 100 / 100 / 100 resources to repair it, just "salvage" the same turret you already have to use its components to repair the trophy one + contributing extra resources:

   • 35 Carbides
   • 35 Titan
   • 35 Pustrels
2. If you don't want to lose your turret, you're free to go with the current route (though the requirements do need a look at). We'll be researching MK. IIIs by the time I get enough Titan and Pustrels/Diods to repair at least one trophy module.

 

Alternatively, it's probably not OK to promote or mention other games, but take a look at Elite: Dangerous Engineers system:

https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Engineers

Maybe it will give you some hints to improve the RNGness.

In short, this is basically the same modules's stats RNG, but you need specific NPCs to make upgrades. So, say, the wreckages could still drop better modules blueprints, but to repair those or improve the ones you currently have  you would need to find an NPC who can repair it. Heck, perhaps it could tie Syndicates, Plains of Eidolon, Orb Vallis and Relays with the Railjack mode. It's actually kinda sad that Syndicates or PoE/OV don't have anything Railjack related. Gib Syndicate skins 😄

 

 

As for the loot and Vacuum in space (I've seen some talks on the internet).

Put these lil' boys to some use in the Railjack:

Let them act as an ability in the «Command» intrinsic using which will launch them off the ship to collect dropped resources with a chance of finding some extra ones. This feature doesn't remove «collect the loot» activities from the players. How it works:

• Ability use:
  • Reach Rank X of the Command intrinsic to unlock this ability;
  • When in the Railjack, open the Tactical/Command menu and select «Dispatch the extractor drones»;
  • Drones are launched to start gathering dropped loot for X-duration.
  • If their time expires or, for example, they get damaged enough to be recalled by Cy, they return to the ship to dump collected resources and receive maintenance.
  • This is when their Cooldown kicks in, so if some additional loot was generated during or after their recall, the player is free to disembark to collect it on their own or wait until the drones repair is over to send those instead.

As for the «but which drone will be sent?» questions... Well, I think the most safest route is to go with the way Warframe buffs work: the most powerful buff overrides the weakest one. In our case, if someone on the ship has Prime Extractors in their possession, those will replace the regular ones. This also reduces the possibility of the «farming» meta ships and stuff.

 

As for the Extractors and their effects:

Titan Extractor: just collects available resources for X-duration.

Titan Extractor Prime: just collects available resources for doubled Titan's duration.

Distilling Extractor: collects available resources as well as has a chance of finding Uncommon and Rare resources for X-duration.

Distilling Extractor Prime: collects available resources as well as has an increased chance of finding Uncommon and Rare resources for X-duration.

[vFlitz]

The different manufacturer strengths and weaknesses aren't balanced well enough to be sidegrades/preference, which (other than resources, especially Titanium) is the main limiting factor in Railjack progression, imo.

You always want a Vidar Reactor because Avionics capacity is essential while Flux energy can be crafted, or you can increase its cap via an Avionic if you really want to.

You always want Vidar Engines because base is speed is always useful, as boost is a multiplier, while a bigger boost is only useful when boosting.

Shields, I'm not sure. Haven't done enough with them/seen them to have enough of an impact on anything to have an opinion.

To make matters worse, Zekti parts are extremely common, while Vidar and Lavan weapons only rarely drop from crewships, and Vidar and Lavan Railjack parts are awarded from mission completion at really poor rates.

 

Also, a lot of new loot that isn't tied specifically to Railjack has ended up in rare containers. Those are far too rare, and knowing that you have to look in every nook and cranny on the off chance that one spawns, only to get nothing for it 99% of the time isn't a fun experience.

[nalsur10]

18 minutes ago, SSI_Seraph said:

Honestly reactors should not be RNG. Capacity is not a secondary stat, it dictates everything.

I agree, if a reactor has variance, it seems inconsistent as it is treated similar to a warframe's mod capacity. That has been flat for as long as I've been playing the game and our only option for a Warframe is lowering costs it through the use of forma. With rail jack we must go out and hope for the chance of an improved reactor with higher capacity.

[aligatorno]

37 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

sent 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. 

So basically, screw all the solo players or those who don't want to play space simulators, right? From what we've seen so far, I guess the same group of people are out of luck for the next 2-3 years content wise as you force brute this thing in our faces. 

[Jedib1]

Will there be a riven-capacity like mechanic to prevent autoscrapping in mission? Getting a lot of wreckages means some will just end up deleted

[OutOfOrder404]

Is the next hotfix gonna adress the fighters in the veil healing even after crewships + healing bubbles have been destroyed? All that does right now is making it more tedious than fun and is way too common. If crewships themselves would cause the healing and it actually stops when they die it'd be a good challenge imo.

Oh and if you turn a crewship friendly it still heals the enemies, taking away from potential depth / strategies involving that.

[KrazyKubrowLady]

@[DE]Rebecca

I love railjack! 

The only issue i'm having is the occasional bug where someone exits the RJ and doesnt have an archwing and is really tiny running around with normal weapons. This happens with my boyfriend every time he tries to exit the railjack. 

 

He does have archwing unlocked and has verified/optimized his game. we're not too sure what's causing it ;_;

[yarl5000]

8 minutes ago, nalsur10 said:

I agree, if a reactor has variance, it seems inconsistent as it is treated similar to a warframe's mod capacity. That has been flat for as long as I've been playing the game and our only option for a Warframe is lowering costs it through the use of forma. With rail jack we must go out and hope for the chance of an improved reactor with higher capacity.

Next patch:

Introducing railjack potato.  Can increase capacity of your vessel to hold avionics (note applied per reactor so if you upgrade reactors in the future it is gone)

[Voltage]

Will Intrinsics and their Mastery be weighted differently? Currently 90% of Mastery is from 50% of the grind, and the last 10% is ... well ... the other 50% of the grind. The structure for cost is fine (doubling each rank), but the journey to rank 10 should award you more Mastery as you go.

Thank you for this post.

[Aldain]

Pour one out for Switch players (like me), like I expected won't be until 2020.

The fact that the announcement says "Early 2020" isn't instilling confidence either, since they can't even say "January"

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah...

[Thundervision]

14 minutes ago, aligatorno said:

So basically, screw all the solo players or those who don't want to play space simulators, right? From what we've seen so far, I guess the same group of people are out of luck for the next 2-3 years content wise as you force brute this thing in our faces. 

As far as I know, Warframe was and is still being considered primarily as a COOP game. There are concessions for Solo players, but the game certainly doesn't revolve around Solo players. It never was. And even then the devs acknowledge the existence of them and try to make the entry barrier for new activities and content as low as possible without dumbing down things for a 4-players experience for the sake of comfy Solo experience. Hell, the whole Alliance system was specifically made to support Solo and small Clans.

But if you insist on DE throwing the Solo players under the bus:

Quote

A fifth, Command, will come when we introduce the ability to manage an NPC crew. These NPCs would be composed of Syndicates and Liches, which will be helpful for Solo players. Don’t worry, we will add a system that allows you to respec your intrinsics in the future so don’t hold off on investing your points if you’re waiting for the 5th Intrinsic.

 

[Plaiddragon]

I personally really like the cryotic drop. currently I only have 4500 cryotic stockpiled (most of which is from railjack) while for instance I have over a million ferrite stockpiled, so cryotic is a really good railjack drop for me while ferrite (along with the other base resources) is useless.  

[aligatorno]

1 minute ago, Thundervision said:

As far as I know, Warframe was and still being considered primarily as a COOP game. There are concessions for Solo players,  but the game certainly doesn't revolve around Solo players. It never was. And even then the devs acknowledge the existence of Solo players and  try to make the entry barrier as low as possible without dumbing down things for a 4-players experience for the sake of comfy Solo experience.

But if you insist on DE throwing the Solo players under the bus:

 

Except that for 7 years this game has been fully solo-able with the exception of Raids. For 7 years there were no restrictions and barriers and all quests were Solo intended. Now they add story content behind a game mode that requires a considerable amount of resources and time invested in from scratch. I know about the Commander intrinsic, but as we don't have any ETA besides 2020 I don't take into account knowing them and their release practices.

[An8rchy]

57 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We don’t want “challenging” to be synonymous with “punishing”

Then why are wreackages so expensive to repair ? That isn't challenging, thats punishing and annoying.
The 2% drop chance for a good reactor is also at play here, It's beyond annoying, it's too low of a % for something that is so important for a railjack. (and even a good Avionic based reactor, we can't even fit all the good mods)

[Weremouse]

10 minutes ago, Thundervision said:

*snip*

I had a similar idea to the "extractors on railjack" one mentioned.

Instead of deploying extractors and cleaning though, what about something like, you clear a mission on a node, someone in the squad drops an extractor, and then an hour or two later you can go to navigation to collect a reasonable array of resources from the node?

I also agree with the idea to tie this or similar ability to intrinsics, but I'm thinking more like you unlock it after putting a point in every category. That way people aren't speccing into a single category only for the sake of loot.

Although, another consideration for this might be when the looting is taking place.  I'm thinking mainly of the after battle cleanup, but the other idea could be very useful before or during battle.

Eh, my two creds.

[Rogunz]

If you really want harder content to have better rewards then the best version of every avionic should be available in the void and the best versions of core mods should be pretty common drops.

You shouldn't have to spend your time farming earth missions for nothing but an ultra rare drop if you want your Railjack to have HP. Hyperstrike has the same problem, you are forced to farm high level Saturn missions for an ultra rare drop if you want to get the basic damage mod. The more common versions are supposed to drop from earth which would still force you to farm content for no rewards but levels don't go high enough for Elite Kosma units to consistently spawn.

 

The rarity of good versions of avionics means that Dirac has absolutely no use once you have upgraded your grid. Let us use it to upgrade wreckage to their max stats so we can actually safely invest in things without wasting massive amounts of crafting materials every time we want to replace it.

 

The drop rates for the 3 houses should also be equal instead of having 95% of drops be Zatki. Everything being Zatki means that you are getting the strongest versions of most gear as common drops with the huge exception of reactors. A reactor with high avionics capacity is necessary for upgrading your Railjack, Zatki ones are just flat out garbage since flux energy capacity means nothing if you can't slot in avionics to use it.The huge variance on the random stats mean that even when you get extremely lucky and get the 2% drop for a Vidar reactor it can still be completely worthless if it rolled badly.

 

Vacuums haven't been mentioned at all in your post but their basically non-existant size makes most of the other problems much worse. The distances in Railjack are huge and the long death animations and explosions flinging loot away at high speeds mean that you have to prioritize picking up loot over everything else and spend a ton of time searching for it.

 

[Chebinger]

What are the odds / timeline of us being able to retrofit other factions weapons onto our Railjack?

[FoxyKabam]

57 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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.

using your archwing and dumping the space bus behind some space garbage. The power of co-operation and top-tier performance.

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We took a tried and true model: use resources to build your gear. We added randomness to the Components and Armaments received

don't forget the added randomness of components being usable after the randomness of them dropping at all. I do like how we get parts strictly worse, in every sense, than the standard dojo ones, not even side grades, worse.

55 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

The Wreckage found in Railjack missions are meant to create ships that feel distinctly your own

"to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment"

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We don’t want “challenging” to be synonymous with “punishing”

fooled me.

[(PSN)DeZaruu]

Maybe someone can answer this - I'm on PS4 and getting the update today, I know the loot sharing is still being tested, but...

Say some RJ tech drops, can someone take over my RJ position and then have me loot when they are done? 

I realise it'll obviously be time consuming, I just want to make sure I understand what to do to get the loot till the loot share is avaiable

[wtrmlnjuc]

No offense DE, but the launch state of Empyrean is exactly why Warframe should have a public test build for major releases, especially for something as important and as big as Railjack & its associated systems. It's very fun and there's a lot of potential, won't deny that.

[MasterControl]

A bit of a nitpick - I think the forward artillery shouldn't REQUIRE ammo, rather an extremely long cooldown. You can't make mission objectives with its use in mind (like blasting the capital ship with it ala Tennocon) if you don't have consistent access to ammo for it! It stifles the role of the darn thing. I wouldn't mind if you could use resources to skip the cooldown for repeated use, though!

[Zavenosk]

I would recommend looking at archweapons that are used less in Railjack archwing portions. The fast enemies and lack of hitscan is brutal on some weapons in particular, such as Velocitus and Fluctus.

Keep up the good work!