How to Make Railjack/Archwings Better - Think Mass Effect

[IgnisDraconis4316]

@[DE]Rebecca @[DE]Megan @[DE]Steve @[DE]Pablo @[DE]ScottP this is probably the wrong Scott lol

I hope DE sees this as I believe it would be really good for Railjack and Archwing as a whole. If this is already in the works then YIPPY!

I was watching @Brozime and talking to his community on Youtube when the idea hit me. What if you made space combat Railjack more like Mass Effect?

Hear me out. In Mass Effect you have 3 types of ships. Fighter Interceptors, Frigate class, Dreadnought class. The Reapers have this same methodology. Reapers have Oculus ships which engage fighter interceptors. They excel in fighter to fighter combat. They can engage frigate class ships but they do minor damage to them. Destroyer Class Reapers are Frigates that do considerable damage to other frigates, minimal damage to fighter interceptors, and can do damage to dreadnoughts but it is not ideal. Sovereign Class Reaper Dreadnoughts do next to nothing to fighters as they are too fast and small, do devastating damage to frigates, and are somewhat matched by other dreadnoughts. Why do we not do the same for Railjack/Archwing? 

Archwings would be fantastic as fighter interceptors. They are already maneuverable and fast and can board crewships to take them out. Make them on par or on equal standing with fighters in railjack. Archwings would make it fun to help thin the swarm and provide cover for the much bigger Frigate class Railjack. Archwings would be the IDEAL way to deal with fighters. The railjack can mop up the fighters still but would be of more use against Crewships as they both would be considered Frigate class ships. Against crewships the archwing would be much harder to hit and can infiltrate as they do now. At the same time you could introduce Dreadnought class ships such as the Capital Ships that you showed at Tennocon or a HUNHOW class Sentient. 

Say this. Archwings are effective against Fighters and each can do 100% of their damage to each other. They are meant to combat each other and it would allow players a reason to use their archwings while still making them and Railjack more relevant. Crewships and Railjacks would do 100% of their damage to each other. Add the Railjack BFG to make it somewhat easier. However the Railjack does 50% damage to fighters and the Crewships do 50% damage to archwings. Fighters are faster and smaller and while they can only do 50% against their Frigates they can still board or provide a constant nuisance. This makes Railjack more relevant. Then you could have Capital Ships/Dreadnoughts that can do 25% damage to archwings, and 150% damage to frigates..... if they can land the shots. The numbers can be changed. Now you have a boss fight that requires you to use the Railjack and BFG to whittle down its defenses while gunners & archwing commandos face off against the fighters and infiltrate, sabotage, and cripple the dreadnought in an epic boss battle. You could make the Railjack slower as a frigate not able to outpace fighters but able to keep up with them while archwings are like little stinging flies that swarm you.

You have already taken steps toward this. And maybe this is already the end goal. If you're able to pull this off it would keep Railjack and Archwing relevant without you having to make a choice of Railjack or Archwing. Instead you make decisions based on the needs at hand. Only have a few fighters attacking you? Use railjack and the gunners. You getting swarmed by 50 fighters all at once? One pilots and attacks with Railjack while one keeps it repaired. The other 2 engage the fighters down to a manageable amount. Got a Capital ship issue. Hammer it with the BFG, have archwings intercept fighters, and once they are done head them in to wreck the inside of the ships. Now I do agree that boost can be used to make the Railjack more movement friendly but don't over do it or there will be no point in using Archwings. And don't make Archwings too clunky or they will be less effective against the fighters that they are attuned for. 

Later you could allow us to make a dreadnought but it would be more of a clan endeavor. This would make for interesting Clan vs Clan fights where you have to go in with your Railjacks and Archwing to take out the opposing clan's/Alliances dreadnought. And bam! You got space PVP for later. But this would be much later once the above is ironed out. 

I would like to hear other's feedback on this but I would also like to hear what DE has to say or maybe this is exactly the route they want to take.

Archwing = Fighters

Archwing < Crewships

Archwing > Capital Ships

 

Railjack = Crewships

Railjack < Capital Ships

Railjack > Fighters
 

[Vort_v2]

Very good suggestions!

Archwings need to be part of the gameplay and not part of the transportation routine as they are sadly now.

Lets hope (take hope with a grain of thick salt nowdays) that the archwing rework they are planning to release will address these issues of archwings getting one shotted by everything in space.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Vort_v2

[Savire510]

Hmmm, i dunno how i feel about that giant damage reduction if you try to punch up or down your class.

Im all for target prioritization

but that 50% damage reduction from Railjack to Fighters seems underwhelming. Railjack guns would shred fighters. and vice versa. A minelayer or a bomber still would deal high damage to keep player on his toes.

I think the proper way to do this is to make fighters a lesser priority for Railjack. Make fighters less tanky, increase their ammount (isnt that already happening with revised?) increase their speed, reduce their damage. Force Railjack to go after the bigger bois. For example instead of nuking fighters Railjack will go after the carrier ship that spawns them, or maybe after the crewship with highranking captain that buffs nearby fighters. Combine it with that bubble of healing from normal crewships and fighters turn from an annoyance to an active danger to Railjack.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Savire510

[taiiat]

i'm not sure having a layer of convolution of global Damage Multipliers is really necessary - a bigger Ship would naturally be harder to Kill, so it and any sort of Modules can just have big Health numbers, which smaller Ships would have a hard time breaking just due to numbers.
and when you go the inverse of big shooting at small, bigger means less agile, lower Rate of Fire, Et  Cetera - so you keep those giant Guns from completely annihilating everything outright by the Weapons having a harder time shooting at smaller Enemies.

so if a Fighter would have say, a Machine Gun that deals 10 Damage per Shot and has 1000 Health, a Frigate would have an Autocannon that deals 100 Damage per Shot and has 30,000 Health, a Cruiser would have Torpedoes that deal 5000 Damage but they're Torpedoes and has 120,000 Health.... you get the general idea, i imagine. just example numbers ofcourse.

that's the jist of what you're looking to do, isn't it?

 

 

2 hours ago, IgnisDraconis4316 said:

his is probably the wrong Scott lol

(you've always got the wrong people when you randomly Ping Employees, it's rude)

Edited April 26, 2020 by taiiat

[IgnisDraconis4316]

1 hour ago, Savire510 said:

Hmmm, i dunno how i feel about that giant damage reduction if you try to punch up or down your class.

Im all for target prioritization

but that 50% damage reduction from Railjack to Fighters seems underwhelming. Railjack guns would shred fighters. and vice versa. A minelayer or a bomber still would deal high damage to keep player on his toes.

I think the proper way to do this is to make fighters a lesser priority for Railjack. Make fighters less tanky, increase their ammount (isnt that already happening with revised?) increase their speed, reduce their damage. Force Railjack to go after the bigger bois. For example instead of nuking fighters Railjack will go after the carrier ship that spawns them, or maybe after the crewship with highranking captain that buffs nearby fighters. Combine it with that bubble of healing from normal crewships and fighters turn from an annoyance to an active danger to Railjack.

I get what your saying and I believe they are moving in that direction with the Railjack Revised. I was watching Brozime and I feel my suggestion is already what their end goal is just bad execution. The numbers I do agree. I just used them as an example. But I believe smaller craft should get a defensive boost where bigger craft do not have that. Then fighters could do like you say and like they do in ever space battle they show...... death by a thousand cuts is still death. But the challenge would be there as well. Add bosses or lich encounters on the crewships and capital ships and you got yourself a pain in the neck but useful combo. Cause remember they did show Capital ships at Tennocon so..........

 

1 hour ago, Vort_v2 said:

Very good suggestions!

Archwings need to be part of the gameplay and not part of the transportation routine as they are sadly now.

Lets hope (take hope with a grain of thick salt nowdays) that the archwing rework they are planning to release will address these issues of archwings getting one shotted by everything in space.

So far it needs some work but the partners on the test server have said it feel alot better. It could be better but it already looks to be going in the right direction 🙂

[IgnisDraconis4316]

5 minutes ago, taiiat said:

i'm not sure having a layer of convolution of global Damage Multipliers is really necessary - a bigger Ship would naturally be harder to Kill, so it and any sort of Modules can just have big Health numbers, which smaller Ships would have a hard time breaking just due to numbers.
and when you go the inverse of big shooting at small, bigger means less agile, lower Rate of Fire, Et  Cetera - so you keep those giant Guns from completely annihilating everything outright by the Weapons having a harder time shooting at smaller Enemies.

that's the jist of what you're looking to do, isn't it?

LOL exactly! But I was trying to portray it in a way that made sense and was relateable. The numbers I gave are purely hypothetical. But your right. If you gave bigger ships weak points to shoot at while also making the AI better than it would naturally get better without having to change numbers. As it stands right now they do the same thing as ground combat. Single file run at you and then swerve so they don't touch you LOL

[(PSN)Captain_Bonecold]

How about no. We don't need more added to railjacks. Railjacks and archwing make me want to puke. 

Edited April 26, 2020 by (PS4)Captain_Bonecold

[AshenHaze]

That would definitely keep things fresh and evoke some team elements.

Might need a bit more intrinsic love to help people with archwing stats. Honestly, I'd rather see intrinsics level slowly, you get a set amount, but you can equip/unequip them as needed. Sort of like having a small class system for the game mode. 

[Doc-Orange]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb (PS4)Captain_Bonecold:

How about no. We don't need more added to railjzcks. Railjacks and archwing make me want to puke. 

I love RJ even in its current state.

[Warzod]

I have been watching the footage from PTS and reading the proposed changes and I am myself greatly concerned. Railjack has the potential to be a whole new facet of Warframe. For years this game has been from a team based aspect pretty one dimensional. Every member of a squad basically tasked to do the exact same thing, damage kill kill. Any time elements of interdependence have been introduced they were very quickly shat on by portions of the player base that wanted Warframe to always be nothing more than a single player 25 cent arcade experience. Look at how CC has been handled over the years. More and more CC frames fade or get changed to be replaced with completely OP room wide super nuke frames. Warframe design has gone from finesse, calculation, and tactics to a blunt instrument. Self survivability with moar damag!!!

I see the same thing happening here. Complaints about TTK and movement. Everything needs to die in .003 seconds and I need to be able to maneuver my building sized space ship as if it was a single person key pack. We have that jet pack already, they are called archwings. Yet people are trying to turn Railjack into a multicrew archwing where once again everything is about the single player. I want to be in the pilot seat and I want to kill all the fighters with a single nuke torpedo. I want to be able to zip around like a hummingbird regardless of the fact that I am the size of a office building. Gunnery, and engineering are complete after thoughts. Anyone notice that in the PTS test footage both of these aspects were all but completely ignored? I worry very much that those who are in positions to influence DE when it comes to railjack only represent a very particular percentage of the player base. Unfortunately often those that have played the game for so long they honestly don't know anything other than killing hundreds of units instantly with completely min/max frames so any new system that does not behave that way must be broken.

Railjack could have been the slightly slower, more team based, tactical experience many of us were hoping for. But if these changes go through we are going to just be stuck with more of the same old in a different wrapper.

[DrivaMain]

On 2020-04-26 at 11:15 AM, (PS4)Captain_Bonecold said:

How about no. We don't need more added to railjacks. Railjacks and archwing make me want to puke. 

Oh you should probably consider quitting. DE will force Railjack and Archwing to everything once the grand plan of Empyrean comes to fruition.