Empyrean: The journey so far.

[IamLoco]

There shouldn´t be any relics in the drop tables of the Railjack mission rewards. If we intend to farm relics, we have around 232 different places to go.

Why are relics included? They have zero to do with Railjack in general and there are so many things people are looking for.

You might want to think about replacing them with uncommon and rare Avionics and resource bundles.

[(PSN)de_sch0sch]

Thanks for sharing your plans and thoughts, @[DE]Rebecca !

I'm really curious about how you guys will make RJ fit with the rest of the game. Right now RJ and the liches seem isolated from the base game content. I just hope you find a way to tie these closer together while appreciating the time people spent with the base content. All major updates I've experienced have been lacking "economical" integration. People who played the game before PoE or, like me, enjoy the quick mission stlye gameplay. Gameplay that usually rewards you with recources that are completely useless, thus feel worthless, as soon as you step out of the base game content.

[Orfeusz]

@[DE]Rebecca I have a one, big concern related to Avionics, specifically - the Battle Avionics. The problem here is "drop rate / drop chance", I suppose that the Battle Avionics are rare drops. Nevertheless, I have played a lot of different Railjack missions since launch of Railjack, and yet... I didn't get even a single one. Perhaps ability to trade Avionics is gonna help me, but still,  I would like to have at least a chance to get one Battle Avionic just by playing missions. Maybe they're too rare after all ? 

Also, there are "some" problems with Intristic system, I've seen many posts from different players about getting different amounts of Intristic Points depending on played role (Pilot, Gunnery etc.) - in short "inequality in progress" ? 

Lastly, getting Intristic Points is no fun, I understand that Rank 10 in Intristics should be a serious goal and it should take us months to get to such point, however months of playing 1 hour per day and NOT months of playing 24/24 hours every day with no break for sleep, work or food whatsoever (it feels like that right now). A small tweak to the rate of getting these points could help, maybe it should be affected by Affinity Booster too ?

[chaotea]

12 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Firstly - true Loot sharing is enroute

What about loot sharing in non-railjack missions?

[Zeustal]

The potential in Railjack is obvious however I am frustrated by how grindy it is, I've played warframe for six years and yet I can barely damage enemies in the saturn proxima.

This is not fun, I just want to get to the story content.

[Chroia]

So.

1) Considering how Archwing missions handle, I was strongly skeptical of Railjack.
Well done. I'm genuinely enjoying it - if you discount the bugs and the ludicrous oneshots on any AW that isn't Amesha.

2) Steve loves saying that players' problem with some items, such as the Sibear or the Hema or the Knux, is - and I quote: "Sticker shock".
Can't speak for anyone else, this has never been an issue to me. Not that I thought that the requirements weren't absolutely preposterous ^{p.s. Still inviting players to clan for a Hema BP}, just that it had never made me write something off entirely.

Fast-forward to Railjack and gear repairs.
Played some RJ, got a gear drop. Figured out it's unusable until repaired.
Saw the repair bill.

I'm about halfway through the Veil (having not rushed to Intrinsic 7, like a fool), sitting at 5/1/4/7. How much RJ game-time is that? And I've finally got enough mats to repair one mk. 2 piece of gear.

Which I'm not gonna do, because I'm already: A) Quite capable of clearing Veil missions, especially not-solo, and B) Getting Mk. 3 gear now with which it has resource req overlap.
Not to mention C) RNG. Repairs are a huge investment, and 50% rebate is nowhere near enough to convince me that "temporary" gear is worth the investment.

3) 

12 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

The Co-op

Not at all been my experience, and I've been pugging 95% of the time.
As long as people have an idea of what's needed, we tend to pull through with little-to-no conversation needed (nor typing allowed. Hands tend to be full). Again, that's bugs aside.

4)

12 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

The Railjack & The Intrinsics

... We were careful to make all Personal progress independent of a Railjack with Intrisics,
Which I heartily approve of.
but also ensured Railjack customization was a desirable series of goals for players.
While I like the idea, the drops are too new for this to come into actual expression.
Further, when it does, I see this causing issues in pugs - A player customizes their RJ to their playstyle. But they won't necessarily be the one piloting it.[

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.
And this is entirely due to how Warframe handles combat. Stats > Skill (leading to stat inflation across the board), no shooting from cover, hitscan projectiles, scaling direct-to-health damage leading to faster-than-human-reaction-time TTKs, the grenades, overall simplistic, inflexible AI (It's generally either lemming bum-rush or 'hunker down, shoot when the throttle lets you, die or dehydration several days later. Also: enemies shoot regardless of LoS, enemies agroing a target on spawn then not reprioritizing even though that targets 7 tiles away and I'm running down the hall behind them shooting them in the back, immediate universal Player location, etc.)
On your Railjack, having clear roles is a surefire way to a successful mission.
Certainly makes a drastic difference, yes.
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.
Yup. But we'll get to that when we get to the graph.

Intrinsics are one of the first XP based progression systems we’ve released without a Daily Cap.
And there was much rejoicing.

* Engineering is opaque (behind the scene, numbers go up. Woo). Impactful, certainly (though every single crafting unlock besides repair presupposes someone with sufficient Intrinsic to employ them), but doesn't actually change your experience.
* Piloting I expect has a huge impact on a player who pilots. Given that only 1 in a squad can do that, whereas everyone can do the other 3? The distribution is entirely unsurprising to me.
* Gunnery 1 is basically mandatory if you're using anything besides Apoc/Cryo Apoc. Also, I was very surprised it didn't affect Archguns.
Gunnery 2 is pretty much needed if you intend to be a turret-gunner.
Gunnery 4 is delightful :3
* Tactical 4 is a game-changer. Thus far, however, the rest of the tree except the capstone seems ignorable.

Responses inline in green, obviously.
 

12 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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,

You can't create unlimited (if rate-limited) resources from the air and expect not to have inflation.
Increasing a craft's cost doesn't change that, it just puts off how soon you can 'done and moved on' it, while (potentially unbalancing your economy and) causing sticker shock.

If I had to, I'd suggest a known, mitigate-able upkeep cost (like pet stims), tied to login, not just the passage of time (unlike pets), and make it automated (again, unlike pets).
Or a 'weapon maintenance' every # missions with cost based on the gear used, possibly moldulated by its use-frequency-within-Xtimeframe rather than daily.

 

12 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

The Loot & RNG
Firstly - true Loot sharing is enroute, just being tested

Firstly - Awesome.

Secondly - UNIVERSAL VACUUM. At least in RJ.
250m on the Railjack is A) from a central point, and subsequently B) nowhere near enough to clean up your immediate vicinity, and you've got a narrower cone of sight as well as less maneuverability than an AW to boot.
Even solo I hop out of RJ if I want to loot an area.

12 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We added randomness to the Components and Armaments received as Wreckage in-mission that was not properly communicated,

This is really, really not the issue.
Do what you want, as usual. Just be advised: One of the reasons I dropped MMOs and picked up Warframe, and then stuck with it, was that Gear A is Gear A.
How Rivens were implemented still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Fortunately, I'm not interested in any of the Kuva weapons, so I'm not actually angry about them, just concerned.

And now we have RNG gear (combined with massive craft repair costs)? I'll be sticking with Clantech, thankyouverymuch.
Which also means I'm sitting on my resources, thus accelerating how fast I build up a new stockpile.

I'm not going to say that you going further down this will unconditionally put me off Warframe - that will depend on how minmaxed your need your RNG gear to be to access the content going forward.

12 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

This is why we did not include any Mastery to these Components / Armaments, and instead put Mastery on the reliable progression of Intrinsics.

tbh, my only problem with MR for the RJ gear is the current, gargantuan crafting cost.

12 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Tenno don’t feel forced to wait until they get MK3 wreckage before they invest resources

Meh, when we get to that point, I'll let you know.
Like I said, under the current paradigm, I'm sticking with clantech, maybe except a Reactor. We'll see how the Mk.3 clantach's statted when my clan gets there in a week or so.

 

12 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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

Well, I mean, imagine if you crafted a new Warframe and had to farm your ability cards.

'cuz that's what this is.

 

12 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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. 

Given my 180 on Empyrean between announcement and experience, I'm actually rather optimistic about this now.
Just... ^{the bugs... they're drowning me.}

Looking forward to the next Devstream.

[pascaLLL_]

Will there be the Railjack is not host-based? Im under impression from previous previews that someone in squad can summon his/hers. 

[Kierran]

RNG stats on drops, plus massive resource cost to complete, plus time to wait is way too overkill and we can all agree on this. Throughout time there has been (and still is) multiple looter shooters who deliver on RNG weapon systems in multiple ways. And all those games have shown, flat out stats as RNG is always a bad idea, could've been better with random perks on guns to make the system more interesting than exhausting.

[(NSW)Bunny]

13 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

The Loot in Railjack is structured specifically to have a ‘Harder Content, Better Rewards’ approach.

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.

 

The 2k cred rewards making it all the way to release scream otherwise.

I'd rather get done with the system quicker, (not that it's exactly super easy regardless of the RNG stats) than feel complete futility as all my hard work promises nothing. I'm not sure why you ever imagined RNG stats, with zero promise of progress was in any way a better alternative. It's completely awful and easily ruins any and all hype I ever had for the system. How do you look at all of Warframe and imagine this was remotely good? If this transparent filler was more present throughout the game I would've never picked it up in the first place.

[KesslerCOIL]

Maybe I missed something, but I dont see anything about reducing repair costs. Currently the costs are stupid high and practically force players to spend money, making the repair item practically p2w.

[trndr]

14 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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!

Nope, need rank 4 tactician due to bugs. 

Piloting seems like it doesn't give anything so people abandon it at 3.

Resource grind is a grind so getting 25% extra from engineering is a priority. 

Gunner cos guns kill. 

Was it a surprise to anyone at DE that switching from outside to inside and inside to outside would bug so bad teleporting back to ship was the only way to fix it? 

Was it a surprise when you nerfed AW guns it would be a priority to un neft them?

[CFandCo]

Glad to hear that scrapping wreckage that we already invested in and no longer want is being looked at.

[ValinorAtani]

vor 15 Stunden schrieb [DE]Rebecca:

Empyrean: The Journey so far.

I will write it a little bit harsher probably but its not intended. So it’s just a business decision I writing down here.

RNG:

And again you don’t understand whats so desirable about Borderlands, Diablo, PoE etc. and why they are triggering the right spots in our Brain. Loot is raining and can be used right of the shelf without any further additional grind or RNG system which prevents us from using it.

With the already existing loot system in Warframe (Find a BP, grind resources, build it, wait for it to be finished) you will kill your game with additional RNG Stats because it doesn’t feel rewarding if I find something slightly better and can’t build it because of some special missing resources. It is just demotivating. Depressing.

That’s especially the reason I didn’t created any Liches (0 Liches Club). There is no goal in a long distance to achieve.

Nothing. Just a Reskin and lousy Stats. No Fun for the sake of Fun playing it.

Regarding RJ:

No Solo-Mode -> No time and money invest from my side (funny thing is I like Spacesims but nevermind you decided something else)

And for the love of gods don’t lock new story quests behind this such stupidly bugged implemented game mode just to get a announcement on the TGA. RESPECT OUR TIME INVESTMENT FOR ONCE. Gosh Dammit.

LET US UPGRADE THE GEAR. Cap it at 10% max that you have space for new or further additions.

If this will be the future with RNG on RNG and RNG Layers in Warframe I’m out and I’m going elsewhere with my money.

Please note I killed already my WOW-Sub after 10 ½ years 5 month into the Expansion Legion because of it. It isn’t rewarding to get a item your looking and grinding for and then it isn’t the Stat you wanted, has no socket, not titan forged etc.

Do you know how I reacted on Discord if some BIS Gear for my class dropped after we killed the boss? Cool, exactly what I need to get better. Oh it has no socket or wasnt Titanforged. I’m sticking to the old Gearslot till I get a better shot one RNG.

[Necuno]

17 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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!). 

My experience with "The Co-op" has been two people staying in the Railjack to make sure our paper tiger doesn't melt and maybe shooting a few fighters down, one dude highjacking a Crewship so we actually have a decent ship that is not made of wet tissue, while the last guy just jumps into the other crewships and blows them up, because god knows trying to destroy them from the outside is completely useless.

Also, since things are so hectic, no one really reads chat and you guys MUST know that no one is using a mic for this game (myself included), so there is really no coordination, because someone who clearly does not play the game decided that we shouldn't be able to mark targets, unless THAT is also locked behind Intrinsics, which, once again, good job locking basic functionality behind a mastery wall. I'd rather have intrinsics cost 500 times as much to unlock but actually be restricted to actually interesting abilities, not essential stuff like boosting.

[SneakyErvin]

13 hours ago, Telogor said:

Are you joking?  Have you not been oneshot during any of the dozen or more level transitions you have to go through in a single Railjack mission?  Have you never been oneshot in the time it takes for an ability tank or damage frame to cast the ability that will let you survive?  Level scaling is as awful as ever in Railjack, and it's even worse because the enemy ships do so much damage even at level 30-40.

Nope, never been one shot by them, not even in the highest possible levels of the mode. Neither when playing a shield or armor based frame. Not even the HGs+turret drone combo stresses your HP to unnatural levels. The ships are a completely different story, but they are instead well balanced towards the RJ. Archwings need some buffs to be able to handle it better without having to rely on abilities 24/7.

The only few times I've died on foot in RJ has been when I've been sloppy i.e ignoring too many mobs and starting a hack or not clearing a crewship and hijacking it. Outside of that it has been very possible to manage survival.

13 hours ago, Mephane said:

You mean these bullet sponges that pretend to be one level but can take the beating of something twice their level? Oh yeah, I love dumping almost an entire magazine of Opticor Vandal into a single enemy Saturn Proxima, can't wait for the bullet sponges in Veil...

I dont sense the bullet spongeyness, they are more durable than mobs of that level in other content, but they feel far more balanced. And you must be doing something wrong with your Opticor Vandal if you need that many shots to kill them. I tend to 1HK or 2HK them with my Daikyu or take them down in a few shots with my Kuva Quartakk. That is if I dont just go full on melee.

[Vasala]

I don't mind the relics being in there but since the missions are longer than normal missions it would be nice if we got more than one and for them to come radiant. It would also be nice to see the other 2 house wreckage more frequently. I am in the position now of having a lot of Dirac and being unable to use it to upgrade Avionics due to no way to get more capacity since I need to get a non Zetki Reactor to get more Avionic capacity. It would also be nice to be able to use Dirac to apply a railjack "house forma" to get more space in a different way.

[Emperrier]

I like the stat rolls on the wreckage. Before I realized it was a thing on weapons, I thought weapon wreckage was a whammy. Now I'm actually excited for them.

Though, yeah I get the concern for stockpiling but Mk1/2 should not be that expensive. Mk3 being expensive is fine but it's like, am I ever going to go out on a limb to try a build other than the one I figured would be best? Extremely unlikely until 6 months from now when I *have* a stockpile... anyway... And at that point it would feel S#&$ty to find something I liked more.

[ToaSirian]

19 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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.

Then dont depend the new gameplay loop on 100% new rescources.... Just put in some new, but use mostly the old ones weve been sitting on for years. That is the only way to make stockpiles go away! New rescourses, a reset, every time IS way too copious.

[Mephane]

3 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

I dont sense the bullet spongeyness, they are more durable than mobs of that level in other content, but they feel far more balanced. And you must be doing something wrong with your Opticor Vandal if you need that many shots to kill them. I tend to 1HK or 2HK them with my Daikyu or take them down in a few shots with my Kuva Quartakk. That is if I dont just go full on melee.

This here is it:

[SneakyErvin]

2 hours ago, Mephane said:

This here is it:

You'd probably want some hunter munitions in there to work with the higher HP pool. Without it the Opticor Vandal is pretty weak versus tougher mobs. I think the popular build for it is still gas+hunter munitions for as many procs as possible through gas procs, the innate magnetic bonus proc and the regular shot/multishots.

[Emperrier]

13 hours ago, IamLoco said:

There shouldn´t be any relics in the drop tables of the Railjack mission rewards. If we intend to farm relics, we have around 232 different places to go.

Why are relics included? They have zero to do with Railjack in general and there are so many things people are looking for.

You might want to think about replacing them with uncommon and rare Avionics and resource bundles.

They were credit bundles before and I like the one stop shopping. You might not care for relics but leave well enough alone imo

[Amoral_Support]

Love Railjack so far! I hope yall spend some time building onto it and integrating it with existing missions :).

I really want to love Archwing combat in Empyrean but im finding it very hard to hit anything fast moving. It would be great to have more mods for utility for Archguns. Things like flight speed or that create more chances to hit fast moving targets for example. Also would really love some survivability added to Archwings as the meta is just going to skew to Amesha rather than be open and diverse. 

[IamLoco]

1 hour ago, Emperrier said:

They were credit bundles before and I like the one stop shopping. You might not care for relics but leave well enough alone imo

Well replacing a bad reward with another bad one doesn´t make much sense.

2500 credits as a reward is of course a joke. But getting another Lith, Meso, Neo...relic that you already have 125032 times won´t make you happy either.

It should be a REWARD, not a "meh, really" placeholder.

[Steeldragonz]

hmm as a 8/7/7/7, those graphs start to now make more sense of the style/gameplay style of people im running into in missions.

 

Given that to avoid most of the bugs/glitches [which hotfix hopefully fixed] there was a fixed order to kill things in, otherwise crewships/fighters might stop spawning 

Crewships > fighters > derelict if one spawned > objective.

anyway, the level of intrinsics, or at least the unclear rate at which they are gained is my biggest annoyance. Sometimes i will kill tons of things with the ship and get 0-1IN, and then other times 10IN. While i understand Rank 10 is long term, its understanding the road to it that needs to be clear. is it going to be 50/100/250/10000? runs in veil proxima? 

[ArkThanatos]

ok so something i think that would be good to see in this would be a better vacuum. make it a avionic if you must but a Vacuum that spans a much larger area, because following reasons.
1. killed fighters fly off after death for a good distance and then jettison loot into the black. i have chanced a gold drop for 500Ms because of this Under boost with improved speed mods an such. would have kept going as well had i not caught it. 
2. its annoying playing solo and having to faceplant every loot drop the game has to offer, yeah the vacuums better than it was at launch, but its still entirely Crap. on a frame we have what.. 11-13m range. and the rail jack has like 50m... by contrast the one frames have is far stronger if you look at size to vacuum ratios. 
3. ships already do not fly at indicated engine speeds. 300 base engine speed is a bullS#&$ lie, even under boost you can NOT achieve this. set a static marker and fly towards it, i promise you you are not doing 300m a second... more like 75, a second.  Fix the god damn ENGINES DE!!! if you are going to say a gun does 300dmg an it punches out only 75, you are Lying to us and\or done a S#&$ implementation and it needs to be fixed... The engine is no difference. you tell me its 300m a second but it maxes out 75\120(under boost) you are bullS#&$ting me and being sloppy... fix this S#&$!
4. looting after the mission is slow as hell. unless you are in archwing. but my issue with this is RAILJACK not ARCHWING. archwings shouldn't be the solution to all the issues that is currently in railjack. 


another not
now im not sure but i could be wrong here... the stuff in the forge. when you refine it is do you always get double OR is that actually my booster at work. 
so here is the thing, IF this is the booster doubling resources then I have a problem with this setup,

if the booster is infact doubling resources, then when you forge things it in affect costs you 2x more to build something than someone without a booster, because when you refine you get 2x mats and someone would just withdraw the stated mats. 
say you have 200\200 of both mats here
when you craft it costs . 5pustrels and 5 coperonics to craft X. then refine 
no booster guy gets 195 of both. 
booster refines and gets 390. 
effectively costing 2x more to craft in mission. 
If i am correct. then this is one hell of a botched design. needs to be fixed. might not sound like much, but if you are running a booster. an you craft 12 omnigels in 1 mission. its costing 2x the mats that you should get at the end of a mission, but instead its just a tax at this point. going to the ether gods or something... probably paying RNGesus's student loan off. or paying for scott morrisons jet refurbish job. 

so in summery. add A massive vacuum to the ships or make a avionic for it.
fix the engines to work as stated on stats!. they are 1/4-1/3 the speed indicated. 
fix forge taxation on boosters. 


also why in the ever living hell is the Ferrox altfire still healing ancients! and just being the most broken weapon in the game atm, an i mean broken broken... like Australians Prime Minister level of broken..... not catchmmon prenerf broken.