Railjack exploration and a personal Lich

[(NSW)M1tchster]

As a video game developer myself and an avid warframe fan, this post details some of my thoughts on new systems and will be an ongoing post.

This post details concepts I believe could revitalize Warframe gameplay, bringing back old and encouraging new players, by adding a new dimension to it's already impressive new components. The idea is to add exploration and with it more depth to the game, as well as more immersion. Some of these ideas may in fact already be planned by DE and include my creative thoughts envisioned from past demos.

 

Railjack Expansion

For Railjack to have more incentive and a more "boundless space" esque feel (and with it that the immersion fans crave), it needs to have more freedom and content interpolation. To accomplish this I have a few ideas outlined;

With the current navigation system in place, players can access planets inside a single solar system via their orbiter, with the railjack being used primarily for near orbit skirmishes.

It would be more befitting that with the railjack, tenno may embark on more long-distance travel, opening up (a) nearby (Tau included?) solar system(s). This would not replace the orbiter, but be an expansion of the existing star chart, requiring the railjack to access "deep space travel"!

Ideally a free roam travel system could be implemented; there may be asynchronous chunk-based loading, allowing tenno to fly themselves to planets or abandoned ships to dock at and explore (or treasure hunt). Alternatively there could be an expansion of the existing free roam system, but with some randomized space tile type map generation. Such a system would be a lot to implement, but any degree of exploration would be nice.

 

Lich Intigration

The current lich system is a great addition, but it has a few out of place aspects; Requiem mods do not fit in, being robbed by the lich seems illogical, there is too much grind, and it lures new players into a trap (end game content should not be available so early); New players suffer from loss of resources and get stuck, unable to progress, because they spawned a lich without knowing what is happening

The initial concept, in which liches are long term and personal rivals, whom you fight in railjack, would fit better when (perhaps later on) implemented.

I believe the current lich system needs a little rework to achieve perfection.

Require railjack to unlock liches. Perhaps a quest? This would prevent new players from running into liches early on, or not understanding the system. Make lich encounters a railjack fight as originally envisioned, with the same lich acquisition systems currently in place.

Lich encounters may derail ongoing railjack missions, but could be better suited as a temporary boss node. Liches should encourage coop.

Additionally, it would make sense to retire requiem mods and murmurs (let railjack be the main grind). This would also allow decluttering of the UI, with the current lich menu access feeling out of place, and make railjack the main focal point.

Edited February 5, 2020 by (NSW)M1tchster

[Cobalt313]

Literally the entire reason the Sentients were invented in the first place was because the Orokin didn't have the tech to travel to the nearest solar system to Origin without use of a pre-established Solar Rail; the last ship they sent blind-jumping through the Void to Tau was the Zariman Ten-Zero, and we all know why they never tried that again.

Having said that I could see Tau being a future third-act endgame tileset where we would have to use our Railjacks to not only reach the system but also do manual insertion into missions without being able to rely on the Orbiter and Landing Craft.

I do kinda agree on the Lich-Railjack integration thing, though. Perhaps even also have a system where fighting in lich-controlled territory pits you against Thrall Generals more often than it would the Lich itself, and defeating these Generals would be needed to gain hints toward your Lich's location in space, if not possibly hints toward defeating them, say, free Requiem Attempt combinations denoting a single incorrect Requiem for a single slot per General slain.

[xZeromusx]

So, I thought of the Solar Rails when considering our venture into the Tau system. See, there's a bit of lore that @Cobalt313 mentioned: A Solar Rail needs to be established in order to jump to it. But, another bit of lore to remember is that the Railjacks are capable of Solar Rail like travel without the need to use a Solar Rail. So, what I think would be great, and I'll probably go and add it into my Solar Rail rework concept as well, is the use of our Railjack to establish a foothold in the Tau system. It would be a story related quest where we craft the Solar Rail from our dojo to unlock the quest. Then, the quest is essentially using the Railjack to jump to the Tau system and fight to establish a foot hold enough that we can deploy a Solar Rail and call in allied factions and create a type of open world zone. Essentially, a Solar Rail around each planet in the Origin system and then one in the Tau System where we wage Star Wars level space battle with the Grineer, Corpus, Infested, and Sentients, depending on the planet we're fighting around. The Solar Rail would essentially act as the main hub, like Cetus or Fortuna, but instead of multiple players being in a hub, it would just be a party of 4 where they coordinate and plan, with various customization options for the Solar Rail from the host's dojo a lot like the Railjack, but on a bigger scale. It wasn't until Cobalt reminded me of that little bit of lore though that the quest idea came to me, so thank you.

Edited February 5, 2020 by xZeromusx

[Cobalt313]

1 minute ago, xZeromusx said:

So, I thought of the Solar Rails when considering our venture into the Tau system. See, there's a bit of lore that @Cobalt313 mentioned: A Solar Rail needs to be established in order to jump to it. But, another bit of lore to remember is that the Railjacks are capable of Solar Rail like travel without the need to use a Solar Rail. So, what I think would be great, and I'll probably go and add it into my Solar Rail rework concept as well, is the use of our Railjack to establish a foothold in the Tau system. It would be a story related quest where we craft the Solar Rail from our dojo to unlock the quest. Then, the quest is essentially using the Railjack to jump to the Tau system and fight to establish a foot hold enough that we can deploy a Solar Rail and call in allied factions and create a type of open world zone. Essentially, a Solar Rail around each planet in the Origin system and then one in the Tau System where we wage Star Wars level space battle with the Grineer, Corpus, Infested, and Sentients, depending on the planet we're fighting around. It wasn't until Cobalt reminded me of that little bit of lore though that the quest idea came to me, so thank you.

I was under the impression that the name "Railjack" implied they *did* use the Solar Rails to an extent, they just had the ability to enter and leave them without using a Junction like commercial craft had to.

[xZeromusx]

9 minutes ago, Cobalt313 said:

I was under the impression that the name "Railjack" implied they *did* use the Solar Rails to an extent, they just had the ability to enter and leave them without using a Junction like commercial craft had to.

If I'm not mistaken, and this is just what the wiki says mind you, the name for the Railjacks was chosen because they don't need the Solar Rails.

Edited February 5, 2020 by xZeromusx

[(NSW)M1tchster]

13 hours ago, Cobalt313 said:

Literally the entire reason the Sentients were invented in the first place was because the Orokin didn't have the tech to travel to the nearest solar system to Origin without use of a pre-established Solar Rail; the last ship they sent blind-jumping through the Void to Tau was the Zariman Ten-Zero, and we all know why they never tried that again.

Having said that I could see Tau being a future third-act endgame tileset where we would have to use our Railjacks to not only reach the system but also do manual insertion into missions without being able to rely on the Orbiter and Landing Craft.

I do kinda agree on the Lich-Railjack integration thing, though. Perhaps even also have a system where fighting in lich-controlled territory pits you against Thrall Generals more often than it would the Lich itself, and defeating these Generals would be needed to gain hints toward your Lich's location in space, if not possibly hints toward defeating them, say, free Requiem Attempt combinations denoting a single incorrect Requiem for a single slot per General slain.

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your insight into the lore and thoughts. I really need too brush up more on the lore it seems. That said, I do think this aspect of the lore may best be expanded upon, or perhaps a void wormhole around this can be found.

While it is true the Ten-Zero was a failure in the orokin's eyes, it did make the tenno who they are now. The tenno are stronger and more capable of making that jump than anyone ever before (even without the orokin).

The idea of an expanded star chart (of any size) would be an interesting possibility and more incentive to use railjack. I hope your thoughts on tau are true because that would be great way to use railjack.

Edited February 5, 2020 by (NSW)M1tchster

[(NSW)M1tchster]

11 hours ago, xZeromusx said:

So, I thought of the Solar Rails when considering our venture into the Tau system. See, there's a bit of lore that @Cobalt313 mentioned: A Solar Rail needs to be established in order to jump to it. But, another bit of lore to remember is that the Railjacks are capable of Solar Rail like travel without the need to use a Solar Rail. So, what I think would be great, and I'll probably go and add it into my Solar Rail rework concept as well, is the use of our Railjack to establish a foothold in the Tau system. It would be a story related quest where we craft the Solar Rail from our dojo to unlock the quest. Then, the quest is essentially using the Railjack to jump to the Tau system and fight to establish a foot hold enough that we can deploy a Solar Rail and call in allied factions and create a type of open world zone. Essentially, a Solar Rail around each planet in the Origin system and then one in the Tau System where we wage Star Wars level space battle with the Grineer, Corpus, Infested, and Sentients, depending on the planet we're fighting around. The Solar Rail would essentially act as the main hub, like Cetus or Fortuna, but instead of multiple players being in a hub, it would just be a party of 4 where they coordinate and plan, with various customization options for the Solar Rail from the host's dojo a lot like the Railjack, but on a bigger scale. It wasn't until Cobalt reminded me of that little bit of lore though that the quest idea came to me, so thank you.

Interesting points and thoughts. I appreciate your input. If the lore by itself permits such travel, that would be nice... if not, I hope it gets a few more "entries", or perhaps the tenno will make a discovery (like a wormhole). More quests would definitely be a good thing, and constant new content is a key part of what makes warframe what it is. You should make some more detailed posts with your ideas, DE does always take user ideas and input into account.

Edited February 5, 2020 by (NSW)M1tchster

[(NSW)M1tchster]

I created a thread about a few Railjack and Lich rework suggestions and would like to hear user thoughts and ideas. With our input we can help DE with new ideas for expanding and perfecting these new features. Please share your thoughts and read the post if you can.

 

[Miser_able]

You ought to remove the "megathread" and "PSA" tags. Not only are those for admin use only, but this is neither a megathread nor a PSA. 

[(NSW)M1tchster]

Whoops. I didn't realize there were even admin only tags. I guess I should have researched that. I kinda added all the tags hoping to increase exposure. That was dumb.