New Jackal: style over substance as per usual

[ThemBagels]

I've recently returned from a months-long absence from Warframe, and like usual I return to find lots of new shiny stylistic changes to the game. The in-mission UI is different and more spread out, Trinity's Energy Vampire doesn't glow blue any longer, and of course the entire Corpus tileset has been updated. And while I might not like the first two changes i mentioned, the changes to the Corpus content looks great! There's even a reason to experience it with the new quests and a new weapon that drops from Jackal! It sounds great!

Sadly the boss fight is just a chore. A stylish chore to be sure, but it's a choppy experience switching between gameplay and parazon cutscenes, it's always an unsatisfying experience to have our weapons be totally ignored by health gates, and the ceiling fan of fire that Jackal spits out might as well be dispensing Valium. I don't mind cheap tricks to keep players from ending fights with one shot but I'd like a rework to be more entertaining than what they changed.

To sum it up: I don't want to watch my character do things, I want to *be* the one doing things.

 

This might be off topic on this forum, but I'm not excited about how much focus the Dev team is placing on this Assassin's Creed/ robocop wrist-kinfe-universal-hacking-tool. I'm concerned about the future gameplay that Warframe has to offer, especially about how a lot of their new content has been received. Warframe used to pride itself on listening to the players and providing the experiences they wanted, now we're subjected to the whims of an out-of-touch team that's continually surprised with each negative response.  

[Slamminslug]

I like it, it feels like a boss battle because you can't just blow it away like the damned sergeant. may be a bit tedious to farm, but all it drops is rhino, so thats not really an issue. I like the cut-scenes, the transition is indeed quite choppy, but I think it could be pretty neat if ironed out a bit better, I really like the cut-scenes on the Ropadopalolyst for example, as its cut-scenes occur after you've driven it into one of the pylons, making the inciting action still be in your hands, as opposed to being a simple keystroke. I generally like what they're going for, but yeah it could use some work.

[Sevek7]

11 minutes ago, BigBadBagelBite said:

To sum it up: I don't want to watch my character do things, I want to *be* the one doing things.

I think you're generally correct with your points here, and I agree with your point about "press x to do the cool thing" instead of doing cool things ourselves. However, I don't think the devs are out of touch. I think they're caught between a rock and a hard place. 

Engaging content takes a lot more work than this. DE can make engaging content, but they fear they'll lose their playerbase while waiting for it. So instead they have to make something else in the meantime. Unfortunately, this "meantime" becomes "all the time" when there are so many other games competing for a player's attention. This also inevitably leads to "rushed" updates and neglected older content.

Not to mention, if the game becomes too engaging, the "casual" segment of the playerbase may leave because it's not for them (there were actually some posts back when the new Jackal arrived about people complaining they couldn't survive the wall of fire that could be avoided by walking slowly in a semicircle...)

Honestly, if I were a dev, I would love to make my dream game. Enemies that require us to dodge, take cover, shoot weakspots, manage energy, be a real threat, etc... But I recognize that the free-to-play model basically cannot survive with that type of game. Free-to-play requires easy content and massive grind as lifeblood.

[Elyann]

On 2020-08-24 at 10:12 PM, BigBadBagelBite said:

I've recently returned from a months-long absence from Warframe, and like usual I return to find lots of new shiny stylistic changes to the game. The in-mission UI is different and more spread out, Trinity's Energy Vampire doesn't glow blue any longer, and of course the entire Corpus tileset has been updated. And while I might not like the first two changes i mentioned, the changes to the Corpus content looks great! There's even a reason to experience it with the new quests and a new weapon that drops from Jackal! It sounds great!

Sadly the boss fight is just a chore. A stylish chore to be sure, but it's a choppy experience switching between gameplay and parazon cutscenes, it's always an unsatisfying experience to have our weapons be totally ignored by health gates, and the ceiling fan of fire that Jackal spits out might as well be dispensing Valium. I don't mind cheap tricks to keep players from ending fights with one shot but I'd like a rework to be more entertaining than what they changed.

To sum it up: I don't want to watch my character do things, I want to *be* the one doing things.

 

This might be off topic on this forum, but I'm not excited about how much focus the Dev team is placing on this Assassin's Creed/ robocop wrist-kinfe-universal-hacking-tool. I'm concerned about the future gameplay that Warframe has to offer, especially about how a lot of their new content has been received. Warframe used to pride itself on listening to the players and providing the experiences they wanted, now we're subjected to the whims of an out-of-touch team that's continually surprised with each negative response.  

I'm honestly more concerned about the fight's difficulty ; the Jackal is meant to be the first boss a new player will probably have to fight right after Vor...we are talking about MR 2 / 3 people who are still using their MK1 weapons , broken mods , whose builds are unfinished , who do still not have formas or potatos nor know what they are just yet...and they are thrown against a boss who's able to one shot veterans as well at the slightest mistake .
"But it's easy to dodge lasers" , sure is...but again , this is a fight meant for newbies...and they also have to pay attention to the Jackal's slam-knockback right after the laser ends and which will most likely knock them right into the electric field surrounding the arena thus one shotting them in case the laser failed to kill them in one hit . It's not a fun experience for a new player who doesn't even know the intricacies of the game . 
I kept seeing lots of low level players dying like flies against this boss for the past couple of weeks while I was farming for weapon parts , Protea or other stuff . It's honestly kind of silly how overtuned the Jackal's damage is . It should allow room for mistakes .

[(PSN)AccursedImmortal]

Pros:

The Boss fight looks very clean and beautiful.

The Boss is easy because you don't need good MR weapons to defeat it.

Cons:

The mechanics are boring, no shooting involved.

The Boss is difficult because the fire walls are hard to avoid for low health new players.

Fixes:

The mechanics are too simple and another phase should be added.

Some suggested more interaction to the quicktime event to make the player feel like they're the ones playing the game and not watching a cutscene. Ropalolyst is cited as an example. 

Note:

I farmed Rhino when Jackal had a frequent invincibility bug. I did not like the fight since most of the time I couldn't complete it.

[(PSN)AccursedImmortal]

On 8/24/2020 at 4:24 PM, Sevek7 said:

Honestly, if I were a dev, I would love to make my dream game. Enemies that require us to dodge, take cover, shoot weakspots, manage energy, be a real threat, etc... But I recognize that the free-to-play model basically cannot survive with that type of game. Free-to-play requires easy content and massive grind as lifeblood.

Steel path is so difficult for me that I use Ignis Wraith as my weapon to kill behind angled corners of walls or pillars. It made me wish that the game had a cover mechanic. Though if they did implement a cover/dodge system, the game might end up being too easy and slow.

[TheLexiConArtist]

^{I enjoy the little '2 weeks later' interstitial the forums now show for big timegaps.}
I still have to agree that the Jackal's 'redesign' is very.. well.. badly designed mechanically. This is a boss literally made for using hard cover if you're not overgeared, the redesigned version not only eliminates ALL that cover, but turns half the arena into Electric hazards and electric status procs are still absurdly over-damaging players since status rework.

All the fight gained is Laser Wall and Press X To Cutscene (*4). Literally, that's all that mechanically changed about the boss entity itself. The laser wall, maybe serves to help guide newbies to remember their Awakening and use some of that parkour instead of running back and forth. However, it kept all its super-targeting and "use cover to avoid" attacks, while now being able to destroy the cover entirely.

You can say it's easy, but if you say that you probably never tackled it with an equal-footing loadout. The only way to really avoid its attacks is to awkwardly dance around underneath it and try not to get stomped back out. What taught players that hey, cover still does work even without a button to specifically hide behind it, is now an exercise in frustration.

And this is on Venus. New players nowadays hit this boss before they even fight ol' Captain Vor. I knew from day one that newbies were probably going to have a bad time there now. Welcome to DE's patented Anachronistic Rework Strength Experience, it happens every time.

[Kaggelos]

It looks cool, but mechanicaly its a boring fight, for me at least 

Then again, its early game boss, so it makes sense in its simplicity 

[(PSN)thegarada]

Ya... DE think long invisibility frames equal fun.. it is not. I too prefer the older fight. As you OP, it is style over susbstance.