Empyrean: The journey so far.

[operative-verona]

WE ALL LIFT TOGETHER

[Thundervision]

1 hour ago, PlayerOO1 said:

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"

Can confirm. I'm a vet with a helluva ton of resources. And I keep getting more than I can spend. Although I'm not that kind of a player, this is still the reason why I've stopped farming new resources in advance or speedrun through content. I don't want to burn out and wait months until something can hook me back. This is why I'm yet to rank up the last K-Drive, get Wukong and Ninkondi Prime, entire Atlas and Ivara Prime accesses along with the liches (so far I only have 2 Kuva weapons out of 5-7 liches). So even if there's something wrong with the Railjack, like economy. I can still say "OK, it needs some time to polish it. Ah well, at least I can do other stuff in the meantime".

 

4 minutes ago, aligatorno said:

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.

Bruh, you and me both have been playing the game since the '13 year. It didn't even have much content to begin with and it was punishing as hell: no Forma, no scalling Health or Shields, or mods that increase your survivablity by a lot or even make you practically immortal. Heck, in order to obtain Nyx, I had to farm Trinity in order to progress through Eris and unlock Phorid alone, because everybody were playing Xini so there literally were no random groups. Not the 7 years, but the first years clearly weren't built with Solo experience in mind, like you've just said it yourself, it was simply Solo-able.

 

2 minutes ago, aligatorno said:

- 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.

- Now they add story content behind a game mode that requires a considerable amount of resources and time invested in from scratch.

Well, that depends. Counter point regarding both moments, assuming you mean construction cost:

Solo players can use that time to work towards the Railjack content by progressing through the current/early content while also stockpiling resources for its restoration.

6 million Crs isn't an issue. There's plenty of people doing the Index or Profit-Taker that can happily carry you through.

Cubic Diodes may be an issue given how bad the Europa's geometry and spawn are.

I spent roughly 2.5 hours in total mining Copernics and Pustrels (~1hr for each). Besides, half of that list consists of a bloat-tier kind of resources: Salvage, Ampules, Samples, Rubedo, Control Modules, Morphics, Spores, Annoy Plates. If a Solo or new player is struggling with it, then they obviously have other things to worry about for now. There's such thing as progression. Not every single thing is inteded to be served on a silver plate. Even the panic over 15 Argon Crystals was heavily exaggerated. Just do the Stribog node, check the rooms, lockers and caches. Got 15 in two evenings with a total time of 2 hours or less spent. No booster, either. The only hard resources to come by are the "Rare" ones such as Neurodes, OCells and Sensors since they are being used in almost everything in good amount. All it takes is some dedication and time, assuming you can afford building the ship and not getting broke in doing so in the first place. I'd say it's pretty doable to make it withing two weeks period (assuming you're not a R0 player).

Besides, by the time you get the ship and DE fix and implement other remaining features, Solo players can experience the mode in a good, not messy way. So far I had HUD getting completely disappeared, getting host migrations with non-existent ship interior or bugging out when I have to abort the mission losing all the progress. Hell, I've even managed to die during "return to the Dry Dock" sequence. All I'm doing is flying on the ship of a friend of mine while gathering own resources for own ship.

Also, sorry if I sound like some jerk or smart-ass. I don't. At least I don't want to sound that way.

[Vexicaria]

I think the biggest sticking point for me rn is mk1 (and likely mk2 also) wreckage costs way too much to repair. It'd be nice if your first pickups were super cheap, give you that early power boost from default.

You should be able to afford at least -one- part by the end of earth, if not more. As it stands, you will definitely not have the common resources for it. It makes progression feel.. broken.

[More-L]

DE you need to understand something, weapons are not meant to be "personal" based on their base stats that are completely random. In what game ever does a random bonus on a weapon make it feel 'personal'? A weapon is designed to be used to kill, all ideas of "personal" are thrown out the door as soon at you realize that, even people who mod their items unconventionally do it with the purpose of killing things (and occasionally as a meme) but they can freely tweak and adjust their build with the vast variety of mods available for all the weapons they own.

Personal stuff in warframe comes from choice and what areas you give power which includes cosmetic things. Colour schemes, sigils, animations, ephemera, mods, loadout etc. You want to make the weapons "personal"? Remove the rng and instead give us some kind of "proficiency" bonus or upgrade to that weapon, invest more resources in to it and make it better in different areas, heck even letting us "fuse" an actual weapon might be a good idea if it is balanced around weapon type instead of anything else. Fuse a pistol, you get better fire-rate, fuse a sniper better crit stats, fuse a launcher you get explosive rounds, fuse an infested weapon you get bonus Chem damage, fuse a Corpus you get ionic. Those are just throwaway ideas but surely you see the point. Obviously cap it to only one bonus at a time but that would actually make them personal because the player decides what they get. 

You like a specific weapon type but it is actually really bad in (current) late game railjack? Strap your kavat to it and boom, now it is dead good job you psychopath.

[Valkyr-Umbra]

2 hours 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. The opinions I've seen so far were either neutral or negative. I've seen zero people say something nice about it.

TLDR just give us part fusion

Please listen to this post, it clearly illustrates community sentiment. Rivens have too much RNG, and liches/Railjack equipment are more of the same, actually the RNG is worse, since there is a much larger degree of variance. I'm very worried about this direction, and the response from DE Rebecca strikes me as tone-deaf, "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." Some RNG with regards to min-maxing is acceptable. Having a roll on a piece of railjack equipment with 1/3 the stats of another piece is not. This isn't fun, it just adds more grind, and incentives the spending of plat (on the new rush drones) for minor upgrades. 

[Kwikwilyaqa]

1 hour ago, PlayerOO1 said:

(...)
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
(...)

RNG is not the endgame or what make WoW or D2 endgame content "engaging".

The first was heavily scrutinized when introducing RNG into the loot - one of the major complains of the playerbase (that want the old loot back) - and the second is a gamble fiesta to get anything in the game because armor and weapons have 1200 or more variations with less than 5 being optimal.

Endgame in both are based in Raids (MP experience) with several levels of difficult (WoW) and modifiers (D2), what makes the content replayable. The challenge is what make both engaging, not the randomized loot that only add a gambling layer to the whole experience.

[Awazx]

Il y a 2 heures, [DE]Rebecca a dit :

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.

I cannot feel my ship as "distinct and personal" when it is built based on an RNG that, by definition, I have not chosen.

If you really wanted me to feel my ship as something built and customized by myself, you would have given me a linear progress tree on which to make custom construction decisions, and not all this hell of RNG + RNG.

[Smilomaniac]

Railjack feels like more feature creep that adds little to the cohesive experience of the game.

It's fun for what it is, but despite all the effort and ambition you put into this, none of it feels like it will stay with us for very long - The gamemode feeds into itself and acts as an artificial barrier for the rest of the story and content.
I've gotten the loot I think is fine and I have no reason to keep playing Railjack apart from farming the "secret" components that seem to have a ludicrously low drop chance.

I'm not going to spend 30 minutes per mission to hope for a 2% chance at a component that has a 1% chance of actually being good.

I have no need for random stat guns that each cost more than all the resources I've gathered up to this point.
Why would I spend entire missions looking for a few % improvements on the guns, when all the mark III guns are fine without them?

Shooting down 90 fighters and 6 crewships per mission is an RSI inducing nightmare.
Dog fighting is fun, but getting swarmed for the whole duration without anything you can do,but engage or run away isn't meaningful gameplay, it feels like filler.

Numbers seem to be exaggerated. Why are these veil grineer tankier than tier 5 kuva lich thralls?

The best way to deal with the content isn't to be smart about fighting or kitting out damage types; It's to grind a first area avionic to tank up your ship.
The best way to upgrade your ship isn't to grind the resources, it's to farm rifts and sell prime parts or just pay to win/skip in order to better deal with the drawn out veil missions.

Where is the longevity? Where's the variety? Where's the opportunity to improve our gameplay in choosing the gear we think is fun or most effective?
You seem to have overestimated the customization design of the avionics and components. We're not making varied builds with strengths and weaknesses, the choices are all obvious as to what is good.

I'm not angry or even disappointed, I'm genuinly sorry that you spent years on making something so subpar and released it in such a sorry state that a few days of cursory testing would've immediately revealed all of the by far worst bugs and issues.
You haven't even fixed the massively frustrating healing bubble ability that only hosts can see and deal with.

This is genuinly bad content and I don't understand how this can go beyond being a cinematic and overdesigned mini game. I hope you stop resting on your laurels and rediscover your ambition one day.

[THE_ZEEK]

Thanks for the archwing Dogfighter  update.. forget the railjack.. its stats are horrendous and its ability to tank or deal damage, defend itself or maneuver properly is literally worse than my orbiter.. My repair cost when playing solo are limited, and should not be set to a maximum usage per mission, nor should it use the resources that you have to use to build/ repair modules to upgrade your railjack with. I have no intention of flying that P.O.S.

Dropping the one resource [dirac] from the loottables and drops in space is a total joke.. going from 800-1000 dirac to only 100 per mission, basically making it harder for a solo player to get the ship upgraded or build new modules for the ship. please make the vacuum on the archwing set to either automatic collect all; resources after mission or an auto vacuum up to 30k distance for anything that has been destroyed..

I usually play for like 5-8 minutes to kill the cruisers and fighters .. followed by 30 minutes, trying to find resources in the mission map. not really PLAYING a game there..

i don't play well with others and really don't wanna deal with randoms in game, please could you have a look at options for people like me, that just wanna play and have fun, without having to rely on others.

 

Thanks.

Z

[Gabriel_Urs]

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

The scariest thing about balancing resources overall is the inevitable place we all end up with our stockpiles.

Yeah about that... where's the idea of applying temporary buffs to components of your railjack for a boost in their performance a certain number of times? Via obligation of farming A TON more copernics and carbides I'm also collecting quite a lot of cubic diodes so either these things are gonna find a use somewhere or there'll be quite the considerable imbalance compared to the other forge resources.

2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

true Loot sharing is enroute

This is a big plus, since when I heard you're losing a lot of resources staying on the wheel I really just felt discouraged to stay still in the railjack, the main feature of the update, just so I could spare myself the troubles of playing that one more hour of missions to get the required amount of carbide for a single weapon. I'd actually like to also see affinity being shared with no cap on distance for enemy kills since that's another contributing factor to be playing like a loner in a 4-team, hoarding all the points from base objectives before anyone else could snatch 'em.

2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

This is why we did not include any Mastery to these Components / Armaments, ...

I do appreciate that, but it's been too often that I joined in a pub lobby with peeps and their railjack with MK0 weapons while in the Veil or late Saturn just playing the thing as if it was an archwning mission. Not only people who want to actually use the railjack become then bored to death, often the host possessing this garbage thing won't even say a thing and just abort mission because you moved it 1m away from its "hiding spot", so in the end you get to spin the Wheel of Fortune on what the host does to you: if you're lucky you'll get back in the mission with all other members (guns still peashooters though), worst case scenario you'll get an infinite loading screen or a crash.

To encourage proper equipment being brought to a certain level mission I'd actually like to see a restriction of "have at least one MKI component installed to join Saturn", it would actually be a great QoL to encourage ship usage as at least one of its fittings are on par with the level

2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

There’s a third bonus area concerning a certain anomaly,

Yeah, about that anomaly: Just last apparition I had some... clueless... pub just hit navigation en route for the damn dry dock AS I WAS STILL EXPLORING THE

AND DIDN'T HIT THE

, SO ME AND ANOTHER GUY COULDN'T GET

BECAUSE OF THEM! It would be oh so much appreciated if you made the individual quitting mission more clear and updated the reward screen for these people leaving with "abandon mission" as this should ultimately reduce the number of horrible situations like this.

 

Got some more pet peeves but don't want this thread to archive before I manage to write them down.

[Zilotz]

3 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

The phrase ‘We All Lift Together’ has never been more true with Railjack!

I would say for now it more like "We all bug together!".

I know DE is working hard to fix numerous bugs introduced in Railjack .... just it's crazy amount of bugs including crashes (I sent over 5 crashes already but did not take time to save numbers as i wanted to rejoin team as fast as possible).

I know update was rushed to fit in 2019(as there are bugs that could be found easily during internal testing phase).

What I lost during Railjack missions so far(from introducing Railjack):

1)Archwing

2)Primary weapon

3)Arch-weapon

4)Melee

5)Ability

6)Railjack ship itself

7)Secondary gun

8)Mission(i mean not like failing a mission but getting teleported to a blackbox outside of map).

9)My kitten(that got to dead state while not even being spawned).

10)Whole HUD

11)Enemy base

12)Gear wheel

Also I'm tired to look like Priapius with my arch gun showing from my crotch all the time. xD

[ThrynValravn]

Been enjoying it immensely with our group but man....there's some common issues my group have discussed running through both Railjack and ongoing game design recently.

Top of the list? Starting to put way too much dependence on stacked RNG systems, weapons, stats and components, without any options to compensate/grind out the RNG.

1. Rivens can be frustrating or fun, but ultimately? Ignorable if needed, and at the time first of the system in Warframe.

2. Lich weapons? Not only random which one your lich gets, but random element damage boost % too.  Sure, Valence Transfer is nice.......if you get the same weapon type with a higher % you can fold them together but still double stacking RNG.
Why not allow fusing multiples of the same weapon or maybe feeding raw Kuva to the Lich weapons for "Lich exp" to slowly increasing the elemental % rates as a side option?

3. Railjack:

a) Ship parts/weapons: Combining multiple manufacturers specialising in different styles of play AND with random stat ranges you can't improve? It seriously has put a dampener on wanting to "make it my own", as unless I get lucky, it'll rapidly hit a point when it feels it isn't worth my time.

Random to start with, with different manufacturers, that we could then pump resources into to raise the bonus thresholds so even if RNG is bad we can slowly up the bonuses to the cap for that company and tier? I'd be okay with that - it'd keep the "ooh shiny" it seems you're going for but it'd also be potential medium to long term drains on the new resources (decreasing ability to stockpile), and allow players to feel like they're getting somewhere just by playing the mode.

So far only one of our group has been actively gearing out his ship. Mine (and most our squad) is still all basic components - due to both high resource costs and random stats, rest of us don't see the point til we hit at least basic mk3 parts.

4. Archwings in Railjack:
how to put it.....they're squishy as a vet with most the mods now. Nevermind newer players without.

The surprise changes from hitscan to projectile travel time for various weapons have not been enjoyable for me with an ongoing (hopefully short term!) injured hand, nor for one of our self admitted "less skilled" players for whom hitscan weapons were a massive draw for them playing Warframe at all. Some of us are quite happy doing lesser damage for guaranteed hits vs higher damage at a risk of missing.

Seems esp odd given the Railjack has a mix of projectile and hitscan weapons available to unlock?

TL:DR:
Looking forward to where it goes, as it's been great fun and what i've wanted in a game for some time.
But If DE must go forward with RNG on weapons and parts, please give us a way to upgrade parts to counter balance/work around the worst of those systems.

[Strut_Tower]

Please don't remove Cryotic from the mission rewards. It was really nice to see another way to get it without doing excavation missions over and over again.

[ThrynValravn]

2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

 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..... *snip* ....Curious about your thoughts!

 

Forgot to mention this in previous reply:

I suspect unfortunately the Tactical level 4 spike is the reason several of my squad have it - getting stuck in places due to bugs and otherwise having to abandon mission due to /unstuck not helping.

[Bladereap3r]

🤷‍♂️

[Crevab]

2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We don’t want “challenging” to be synonymous with “punishing” -- that’s not our motivation or end goal with Empyrean. 

You know what isn't challenging but is punishing, boss?

Having to get within spitting distance to collect the loot and resources we need to grow!

At the very least the current values need to be doubled. Again. Also the loot needs a speed increase, my Archwing can grow a trail of Loot that won't catch up until I stop

[Azamagon]

2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

snip

Liking the general message here, coolio.

Except one critical thing which wasn't spoken about:

Picking up loot.

All the loot-pickups are the tiniest little shiny dots (which can easily be mistaken for background lights, or vice versa). As a Pilot, I try my best to chase after every single enemy we kill (so we kill, fly after the ship with its lengthy-death-animation-before-loot-spawns-and-is-then-yeeted-a-random-distance-from-its-death-location... then fight the next), and I still miss a LOT of loot. It stings moreso after someone destroys a Crewship by destroying it from the inside, then not picking up the loot with their AW. (Which quite often happens some distance away from where you are positioned with the Railjack, often amidst a heated battle).

Basicly, the whole looting process is rather annoying to deal with.

Any improvements planned on that end?

[Jolyne_]

I just wanna say I'm loving the update, even with the huge amount of bugs and crashes I'm still having lots of fun and I'm really excited to see where you are going to take this new system in the following months. I hope you guys a DE enjoy your well deserved break come Christmas next week and continue to make this amazing game even more amazing come next year!

[GruntBlender]

2 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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.

Why are whole guns thrown away when they're replaced? Would it be feasible to have them be modded instead, like warframe weapons are (albeit in a more limited way)? The RNG on components andarmaments, going back to the liches and their guns, doesn't do what it's supposed to. Instead of it adding personality to your guns and ship it promotes component disposability. People love their warframes and guns, they're customized to where they feel good for the particular player. The railjack components are just thrown away. Ability to upgrade them instead of replacing them would go a long way towards making them feel distinctly our own. Having the stuff needed for higher tier armament and component upgrades drop from higher level areas would take care of the harder enemier = better rewards thing just as well. This would also take care of the complaints about rare rewards being worse versions of what we already have. Even rivens are better in this sense since their stats are based around a set disposition.

[CorerMaximus]

Disappointed in the most to see no discussion around kuva liches, and the sentiment that RNG on ship parts are here to stay. I've been a huge proponent for Warframe at my University, social circles, and even at work- I'm known as that guy who is crazy about the game. 

Ever since empyrean released, I've had coworkers and friends approach me, asking, "Hey, how's the new Warframe update?", and my response since the past 2 weeks or so has been, I don't know, I've been on break BECAUSE of the new systems being added in. 

[Kinzuko]

I have never been matched with people who intend to win or work as a team outside of pre-made teams. There is always the one guy who has to refine all our materials as soon as we get them, the host whose railjack has not been upgraded, and the crew who think its an archwing mission. Also why does investing in piloting feel like a waste at higher levels? i have 3 in piloting and it doesn't feel any different from when i had 2. meanwhile i feel like upgrading gunnery, engineering, and tactical is far more rewarding (especially gunnery and tactical) because they give you access to more tangible abilities outside of stat bonuses. 

[Rukako122]

So is there gonna be a ''connect the whole game'' part someday ? or is it not in your plans anymore ?

[Klokwerkaos]

I see the trouble and reasonable complaints with the rng, but I am not against it.

Let me help here though OP.

If you want players to have longevity in the content, they need to have a farmable, tradeable loot resource for plat.

I have heard that pablo said avionics would be tradeable not so long from now... that's a step in the right direction, but it isn't exactly longevity driving.  see with warframe mods they have such a wide array and their relevancy changes all the time... with avionics... you can just very quickly get all of them, and if tradeable, the battle avionics as well, and then walk away and be done with it.

the rarity of them as 15% X .1 or .05 for the rare mods people will want to buy is too much to ask people to farm for plat realistically to get them to come back over and over to play the content.

Look to add something special similar to the orokin derelicts vaults.  those are just enough hassle where most nobody wants to do them, but easy enough that anyone can do, and there is some rng there, but you always get "something" as opposed to farming for hours and potentially having nothing, as I did when farming zetki bulkhead non stop for 2 days.  the former is perfect for the long term economy because those mods are niche and not mandatory, but can really help a wide variety of builds, and the latter is just frustrating and sucky.

put something in with "some" plat value, that is annoying to farm, with some rng, but not ridiculous rng, and has some kind of reward guaranteed if you take the time to complete the content.  that would make this a farmable mission and stimulate the economy.  I'm telling you that even with the recent drop boost of 15% for mods, that's not going to cover how rare the rare ones are.  put in a new item of sorts that you get here and add in a random drop chance cosmetic of some kind that has a ludicrously low drop chance.

do that with pretty much the game mode, minus bug fixes, will be in pretty good shape for the future, pending more content.

really want to see some sort of endless mode too.

[lexandritte]

Instant repair drones for 50p combining with 10-hour resource grind for resources for one piece of wreckage, combined with randomized loot meaning you can always find a slightly better wreckage is pure evil. 

 

You made a multi step slot machine.

 

Don't do that. 

[lexandritte]

13 minutes ago, Kinzuko said:

I have never been matched with people who intend to win or work as a team outside of pre-made teams. There is always the one guy who has to refine all our materials as soon as we get them, the host whose railjack has not been upgraded, and the crew who think its an archwing mission. Also why does investing in piloting feel like a waste at higher levels? i have 3 in piloting and it doesn't feel any different from when i had 2. meanwhile i feel like upgrading gunnery, engineering, and tactical is far more rewarding (especially gunnery and tactical) because they give you access to more tangible abilities outside of stat bonuses. 

Piloting 5 actually does make you able to fly around much faster than regular boost. Same speed as fighters. I'm on piloting all the time, rank 5 felt how RailJack actually should move around all the time, and not the asthmatic space whale you start with.