Devstream: 136 Overview

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

6 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

This is true, but in this case of Railjack being the best update in 2019 that you refer to, it's typically the opposite.

People tend to be much more vocal and critical when they are unhappy/disappointed. I would expect to see them wanting to express that disappointment where they can, including the forums and the survey. 

You don't typically see "vocal loud minorities" praising how happy they are. It's usually the opposite.

In this situation it would be the exception and not the rule.  Even if we ignore that I still refer you to a part of my original statement.  In which I stated a large majority of players are not aware or had forgotten what Railjack was sold to us as.  And that the biggest portion of gaming communities is usually the most complacent.  So even if the average player is aware of some of Railjacks issues they likely don't fully grasp the extent/impact of them.

[Vit0Corleone]

2 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

In this situation it would be the exception and not the rule.  Even if we ignore that I still refer you to a part of my original statement.  In which I stated a large majority of players are not aware or had forgotten what Railjack was sold to us as.  And that the biggest portion of gaming communities is usually the most complacent.  So even if the average player is aware of some of Railjacks issues they likely don't fully grasp the extent/impact of them.

We can also make the argument that people are aware that DE told us that they would release Railjack in phases, and that this second one "take flight" was meant to introduce us to Railjack mechanics and the rest of the content will follow later, and therefore what we got in terms of content is reasonable.

We can also argue that the people that identified Railjack as the worst upgrade did so because of how buggy it was released, and not so much due to what is missing or not.

Who knows what's on peoples minds, we can only speculate.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

15 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

We can also make the argument that people are aware that DE told us that they would release Railjack in phases, and that this second one "take flight" was meant to introduce us to Railjack mechanics and the rest of the content will follow later, and therefore what we got in terms of content is reasonable.

We can also argue that the people that identified Railjack as the worst upgrade did so because of how buggy it was released, and not so much due to what is missing or not.

Who knows what's on peoples minds, we can only speculate.

The phase argument doesn't cover everything that's not here.  There were fundemental changes that won't be coming in future updates.

[Vit0Corleone]

1 minute ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

The phase argument doesn't cover everything that's not here.  There were fundemental changes that won't be coming in future updates.

Like what?

The only fundamental thing I can think of that is for sure not coming is the FTL alike system for managing avionics, which they decided to drop and told us about it on Devstreams way before Empyrean was released.

( IMHO it was a good decision to ditch that idea, because it would have slowed down quite a bit the pace of the missions )

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

3 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

Like what?

The only fundamental thing I can think of that is for sure not coming is the FTL alike system for managing avionics, which they decided to drop and told us about it on Devstreams way before Empyrean was released.

( IMHO it was a good decision to ditch that idea, because it would have slowed down quite a bit the pace of the missions )

Aside from that energy system we also don't have the ability to upgrade our weaponry with resources that was shown.  Even if the energy system was a bit of a far fetched idea to make work i'd still have rathered we got something that didn't basically Mirror upgrading a frame.  It doesn't make the ship feel unique and seperate from the base experience.

[Vit0Corleone]

5 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

we also don't have the ability to upgrade our weaponry with resources that was shown

I think you are mixing two different things here. First they mentioned that our weaponry would be "technologically upgraded" if I remember correctly. This is basically what we got with MK1-3. That's what it means being technologically upgraded.

Unless you mean the temporary buff that you could add to a a weapon for a certain period by dropping resources into it? If so, not only I wouldn't personally categorize this as fundamental, but I'm also glad it's gone. So many people complaining about the grind, imagine having to use those same resources each time you go on a mission ..

9 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

It doesn't make the ship feel unique and seperate from the base experience.

I have no idea what you mean with this.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

2 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

I think you are mixing two different things here. First they mentioned that our weaponry would be "technologically upgraded" if I remember correctly. This is basically what we got with MK1-3. That's what it means being technologically upgraded.

Technologically upgraded was never elaborated on iirc.  But my take away was that we would have a linear upgrading path.  instead of the random RNG on top of RNG that we currently have.

2 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

Unless you mean the temporary buff that you could add to a a weapon for a certain period by dropping resources into it? If so, not only I wouldn't personally categorize this as fundamental, but I'm also glad it's gone. So many people complaining about the grind, imagine having to use those same resources each time you go on a mission ..

It was to be multiple buffs for your ship in general that would be temp boosts.  I consider it along with the rest of the things changed as fundamental.  As they change the entire experience we were going to have versus what we got.  That's basically irrelevant on your grind comment as they were to be resources we have stockpiles of.  And said resources are easily gotten from basically anywhere doing basically anything.  The point was that it was actually something that respected someone's time investment into the game.  Instead of forcing everyone to go regrind a "new" resource.  If you were against the grind then I don't see how you can be satisfied with the current grind for resources in railjack.

2 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

I have no idea what you mean with this.

What I mean is the Empyrean vision they showed us seemed so alien compared to standard Warframe.  What we currently have and will eventually get seems like standard WF with a slight twist.  It's like i'm piloting a big warframe as a warframe doing a big version of exterminate.  Not the space opera that they originally showed.

[Vit0Corleone]

1 minute ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

That's basically irrelevant on your grind comment as they were to be resources we have stockpiles of

Actually, what they showed on the demo was using Titanium to buff the weapons, which is the same resource everyone complaints about grinding.

5 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

What I mean is the Empyrean vision they showed us seemed so alien compared to standard Warframe.  What we currently have and will eventually get seems like standard WF with a slight twist.  It's like i'm piloting a big warframe as a warframe doing a big version of exterminate.  Not the space opera that they originally showed.

I agree, but your argument was "There were fundamental changes that won't be coming in future update".

What I'm saying is that DE informed us in advance that we wouldn't get everything in one massive update, but rather they would be dropping content in waves. We had known that for quite awhile, and as such I can't be disappointed about not getting everything when we already knew we wouldn't. I never expected "take flight" to be more than just a way for them to introduce us to Railjack missions, mechanics, operations and progression. That is what we got, and more.

I fully expect to get much more in the coming future. Capital ships corpus battles ( which they hinted at on this devstream, and I assume you mean by "space opera" ), better connection to the warframe universe ( which they also mentioned ), etc. and in general more variety in mission types.

I for one will wait and see if and when we get all that, before passing judgement.

The only thing I'm a bit skeptical about, is squad link. I do hope they make it happen, but I have low expectations.

 

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

4 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

Actually, what they showed on the demo was using Titanium to buff the weapons, which is the same resource everyone complaints about grinding.

Correct.  But they also said surplus resources.  One could imply that we'd be able to use our current resources based on said comment.

4 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

I agree, but your argument was "There were fundamental changes that won't be coming in future update".

Yes and there are aspects that I mentioned weren't coming.  And your argument has been against the items themselves rather than my original point.  Which again is that it's massively different compared to what we were shown before.

4 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

What I'm saying is that DE informed us in advance that we wouldn't get everything in one massive update, but rather they would be dropping content in waves. We had known that for quite awhile, and as such I can't be disappointed about not getting everything when we already knew we wouldn't. I never expected "take flight" to be more than just a way for them to introduce us to Railjack missions, mechanics, operations and progression. That is what we got, and more.

Yes and Things like squad link coming later are covered by this.  Not things that we've already gone over.  The argument being made isn't that we didn't get everything right off the bat.  it's that they changed aspects from the original inception which changes the feel of the base experience that we were going to be having.  And that statements like "this won't be another content island" ended up being actually false.

4 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

I fully expect to get much more in the coming future. Capital ships corpus battles ( which they hinted at on this devstream, and I assume you mean by "space opera" ), better connection to the warframe universe ( which they also mentioned ), etc. and in general more variety in mission types.

And I fully expect that they'll be able to smooth out THIS version of Railjack since a large majority of it's problems are numerical rather than mechanical.  And the few mechanical issues that do exist could easily be smoothed out later on as they expand the system.  But it still won't be what I and many others were originally sold on.  And the only reason this stings (speaking from my perspective alone,) is that this is by far and away not the first time DE has essentially drastically changed an exciting idea to be either something different or a watered down experience.

4 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

I for one will wait and see if and when we get all that, before passing judgement.

And that's perfectly fine.  I don't hold anything against people who enjoy this version of empyrean.  Nor do I demand DE give us back the version they originally showed.  I can pass judgment based on this alone.  I don't need to really argue about any other aspect of railjack as many other more prominent voices (such as Brozime) have already laid out the current and fixable issues with what we do have.

4 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

The only thing I'm a bit skeptical about, is squad link. I do hope they make it happen, but I have low expectations.

 

As far as squad link goes I don't think it will be real time.  We will likely have an if/then situation.  People can do specific ground work to "que" up the objective being completed.  Then our mission checks to see if that's been completed or not at whatever point DE wants.  and then it plays out a scripted event based on what the check finds.  I highly doubt our railjack will ever actually be able to go on planets like they advertised.  And even if they manage to link both star charts together I don't see them actually having things exist in the same space at the same time (i.e that abandoned orbital station in the teaser.)

 

We could keep debating this.  But I really have no desire to.  As I didn't really come here to defend my perspective.  My goal with my original posting was to simply point out a few things.  Not to discredit railjack in it's entirety (as there are redeemable aspects to it unlike liches.)  Nor was it to bash or dismiss people who genuinely like current railjack.

[Volinus7]

4 hours ago, Loza03 said:

For one, you're not supposed to cherry-pick whatsoever. You take the data you've got, regardless of any issues you may think are in there, and you analyse it. Any prevention of joke answers or other demand characteristics takes place before analysis when you're writing the questionnaire and considering what sample of the population you'll be advertising it to.

For another, despite the memes, some do say so legitimately. Empyrean is a strange beast right now - much of it is good, and much of it is bad and/or unfinished. Selecting it as both reflects that.

DE's survey for Empyrean should be simple like "good/bad" or "like/dislike" not putting it against choices of different weight and relatability, it wasn't even a priority question. 

[darkbrick]

token system to get kuva weapon that we wanted.. nice..

[(XBOX)Vladolak]

That ivara skin seems nice.....but im still waiting for the Kuvael Huntress skin :) That one is in game (xbox) just not in store yet.

[PsiWarp]

The new Tech frame is interesting. I wonder if her name is going change or not.

Odalisk

Odalisque

Odalysk

Also wondering if her Temporal Anchor ability will activate on lethal damage, resetting her back to the saved state.

She does seem more like a female Vauban with more assault than fortification.

[(XBOX)Erudite Prime]

Just now, PsiWarp said:

The new Tech frame is interesting. I wonder if her name is going change or not.

Odalisk

Odalisque

Odalysk

Well, we have Rhino, not "Rhyno." We have Ash, not "Ashe." Then again, we have Saryn and Valkyr.

[BornWithTeeth]

8 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Meh.  Community flipped their collective cheeks when DE basically remade Ember.  Perhaps they decided to make an all new frame this time around instead of doing that again but to Vauban.

The Ember rework is awesome. Not perfect, I could think of a few tweaks, but a massive improvement.

[PsiWarp]

8 minutes ago, (XB1)Erudite Prime said:

Well, we have Rhino, not "Rhyno." We have Ash, not "Ashe." Then again, we have Saryn and Valkyr.

Sarin, Valkyr-ie. Odalisk's name seems placeholder for the concept art. Is she a slave to warfare? Or a concubine to the Orokin's court... 

[Fl_3]

I think the best term I can use to describe how I felt after watching the Dev stream is:

"Moderately Satisfied"

I'm glad that Kuva Liches are getting a make over, although the single thing that seems to bother most people about them wasn't even touched on.

We have some interesting things to look forward to (The Infested planet really caught my attention) and it really seemed that the Dev team may finally have woken up to the fact the people might actually be saying bad things about the game because it isn't delivering what it promised no matter what they or the Templars Niveus say.

"Dawn has broken Ladies and Gentlemen, and it's new light will make this land glorious once more"

(it's a quote, but I'll be damned if I can remember who said it. . . )

[Deshiel]

Today I found out that credit booster and First Win of the Day multiplier work on the Gift of the Lotus alert

[(PSN)Silverback73]

15 hours ago, (XB1)EternalDrk Mako said:

shhhh

Mak, did they say WHAT the render tech was about?  More details?   Just curious.

[(PSN)Silverback73]

1 minute ago, Deshiel said:

Today I found out that credit booster and First Win of the Day multiplier work on the Gift of the Lotus alert

Too bad you didn’t bring Smeetas to try for the big payout lol.

[BornWithTeeth]

Time to roll through with my Big Richard Opinion on Liches:

 

Shortening and shallowing their system was a cowardly move. The Lich system as originally conceived was that each individual Lich was a long gameplay loop, with the Lich themselves slowly getting more powerful, leeching abilities from the Warframes you fight them with, and that a Lich could take weeks to defeat. The devs caved on that one in large part because they figured there’d be a backlash from players over such a long term opponent, i.e. such a long time between each drop of the all important LOOTS. This was a mistake, because it instead rendered each Lich into a short, mindless grind, longer than a Sortie but less interesting, with seemingly no room for more developed mechanics.

DE, folks, please. You do not merely have a mechanic for implementing a time-gated, longer term mini-campaign with multiple different rewards at different stages. You have two such mechanics already built into the game: Syndicates, Nightwave. If Kuva Liches had been launched in such a way that each Lich was basically a Syndicate unto themselves, and you work your way up the ranks by killing lieutenants, disrupting Lich operations, etc, gaining multiple rewards by breaching multiple levels of the Lich’s organisation, it would have been better. Much better. 
 

Instead, each Lich might as well be a lootbox where you find out what it contains when you unlock it, but actually opening it takes two and a half hours of grinding thralls.

[(PSN)Silverback73]

2 minutes ago, BornWithTeeth said:

Time to roll through with my Big Richard Opinion on Liches:

 

Shortening and shallowing their system was a cowardly move. The Lich system as originally conceived was that each individual Lich was a long gameplay loop, with the Lich themselves slowly getting more powerful, leeching abilities from the Warframes you fight them with, and that a Lich could take weeks to defeat. The devs caved on that one in large part because they figured there’d be a backlash from players over such a long term opponent, i.e. such a long time between each drop of the all important LOOTS. This was a mistake, because it instead rendered each Lich into a short, mindless grind, longer than a Sortie but less interesting, with seemingly no room for more developed mechanics.

DE, folks, please. You do not merely have a mechanic for implementing a time-gated, longer term mini-campaign with multiple different rewards at different stages. You have two such mechanics already built into the game: Syndicates, Nightwave. If Kuva Liches had been launched in such a way that each Lich was basically a Syndicate unto themselves, and you work your way up the ranks by killing lieutenants, disrupting Lich operations, etc, gaining multiple rewards by breaching multiple levels of the Lich’s organisation, it would have been better. Much better. 
 

Instead, each Lich might as well be a lootbox where you find out what it contains when you unlock it, but actually opening it takes two and a half hours of grinding thralls.

I agree, here.  I literally thought Liches were something that you could perma-kill at some point, but you could choose to keep fighting...each time it becoming more powerful but with the increased risk it brought the chance at unique rewards and changed looks as it fought you to denote history.

Liches should have 10 or 20 or even 30 ranks...

At any point you should be able to kill it for an immediate reward (the gun/Ephemera/converted minion), but a % chance and “rewards at x level” really need to be a thing.

Heck, Liches could even be a Companion.

[BornWithTeeth]

A thing which is both good and bad, I guess: Warframe functions like a big buffet with loads and loads of different tables covered in different dishes. Some dishes are bigger, some are smaller and more niche, but fundamentally it’s a big old optional buffet. The only truly core loop of the game is the movement and combat system, powered up by the mods and weapon building/upgrading system.

- Sorties: optional

- Eidolon hunts: optional

- Nightwave: optional

- Railjack: optional (for now)

- Kuva floods: optional

- Sanctuary onslaught: optional

- Syndicates: optional

- Kuva Liches: optional

- Operators: mandatory due to questline but....

- Focus: optional

 

Warframe is made entirely of shallow optional gameplay loops attached to the core game, and deep down, that’s what the community wants. People complain about the game being made up of disconnected islands of content but...look chaps, to a very real extent, y’all get the game you deserve. When Liches were introduced, you know what one of the very, very first mechanical changes that DE hotfixed was? They made Liches optional. Because players whined about not wanting to do it.

 

So while I say that shortening and shallowing the Lich system was a cowardly move by DE, remember that I’m implicating two parties here: DE, for making the bad call, and the community, who won’t actually accept anything more than optional mediocrity.

If DE want to go into the game and say “Hey, there’s this cool thing and it’s gonna be a BIG DEAL from now on,” they could do that. They really could.

     If it weren’t for the vocal community who want Warframe to be good and cool and fun but also to never, ever change in any significant way.

https://m.imgur.com/PmoWInT

Edited January 18, 2020 by BornWithTeeth

[SneakyErvin]

I'm glad they realized that being bullheaded about the most wanted lich fix (RNG death) wasnt the way to go. Nice to see the fixes that are planned for liches since it seems to be pretty much what people have talked about from the beginning.

My only question is why didnt they just agree to do these changes when people started asking for them? It cant really have been because it would take time to implement, because if it was that they could have just said so and that it was coming when ready. So that leaves it to pointless principles and bullheadedness because we didnt like what they presented. If that was indeed the case I'll just have to say it was childish and whoever was the bullheaded one really needs to rethink the next time those bovine horns starts to appear over some other subject/change.

Dont me grudgey and petty, be happy that the community wants the best for you and your content releases. No reason to let 2 and a half months pass before you decide to change it to what the community wants.

Edited January 18, 2020 by SneakyErvin

[Ham_Grenabe]

2 hours ago, PsiWarp said:

Sarin, Valkyr-ie. Odalisk's name seems placeholder for the concept art. Is she a slave to warfare? Or a concubine to the Orokin's court... 

Well, technically she's a servant to the concubines of the Orokin court. If she's especially beautiful and talented, she can then become a concubine.