Building a ship that can sail to content islands

[Leqesai]

One of the major issues with Warframe's design is the isolation of specific types of game content. I haven't really read many practical ideas/plans that could help bridge different types of content. So here's my suggestion specifically related to Kdrive and Archwing missions.

Problem:

Currently Kdrive and Archwing are heavily isolated to the open world zones (with the exception of archwings also having limited use elsewhere). Additionally there is very little content related to Kdrives. (useful for the Kdrive races and traveling around the open world zones)

Solutions:

1. Register successful clears of Archwing mission nodes to a global bonus that is applied when players play missions associated with the archwing mission.

IE: You clear the archwing mission on Earth. A small bonus is then applied to Earth (small drop chance increase, extra credits, bonus energy/health regen etc.) and this bonus would stack to a maximum value based on the global clears (resetting per X amount of time, maybe once per hour or every few hours).

Each clear of the node could award, say, a 0.1% (numbers are placeholder) bonus up to a maximum of say 10% (100 global clears). This would encourage people to play the archwing missions and through the increase in player interest we would see an interest from the developers to add more content (hopefully).

2. Similar to the archwing thing, Kdrives should have one dedicated mission node per planet. This node would be played 100% from a Kdrive and be based primarily on a "Get to the end in X seconds" style of gameplay already present in the races. In this mode players would not fall off the Kdrive if they crashed (regular on-foot is disabled). Clearing the missions could reward ventkid standing as well as add to the same bonus counter as Archwing.

 

I know these suggestions may seem a little silly but the main takeaway is this:

Content Islands exist because there is no symbiotic relationship between various gameplay elements. Connecting these elements, in some way, will discourage the development of content islands and encourage the development of a singular, cohesive experience.

 

[Firetempest]

No. More like they need to rebuild Archwing to be fun and serve a better role in railjack and open roam instead of being tile taxi. K-drive is to gameplay as Frame Fighter, Happy Zephyr, and Wyrmius is to progression in the main game, It was a distraction for some devs from making the same game for 8 years.

To put in the effort tossing in obnoxious fractional benefits to bribe people to play bad modes is just worse than as leaving it as is so people can ignore it.

[Cerikus]

Well there is one thing that can connect all the islands. Ironically you already said it in the title of your post - a ship - Railjack .. we already have it, they just need to use it properly. What the should do is:

1) Update Railjack mission to look like: 
   - you pick a mission - ceres survival for example
   - oh no, you gotta break through grineer flotila above ceres before you can land to do the mission there
   - you destroy the flotila and land
   - normal survival mission continues

OR it can just be landing on open world to do bounties but destroing the flotila before it. 

2) They need to reduce the number of nodes on starchart and connect it to the Railjack planets.

3) People who play like this get railjack resources and resources of the respective planet while getting regular rewards from the planet mission and plus some special rewards.

BUT!

People who hate Railjack can just use regular starchart to matchmake into open squads that have already done the railjack part, but the forfeit the oportuinity to get Railjack and unique resources.

This leads to:

- connection of every content
- not alienating players who hate Railjack

What we get is basically a flowing stream of missions where you do ground mission - space mission - gound mission - space mission... Getting the rewards you want and more. And if they also would get the squadlink to work in that system, where players would benefit across squads. I think Warframe would become an absolute top tier living universe gameplay.

[(PSN)Yggranya]

33 minutes ago, Firetempest said:

It was a distraction for some devs from making the same game for 8 years.

I just want you, and more importantly any possible new player visiting these forums to know that this is the most appropriate description of DEs updates going back years. Also explains why they try to strong-arm ideas from other games into warframe. Hmph.

[hix3r]

22 minutes ago, Cerikus said:

Well there is one thing that can connect all the islands. Ironically you already said it in the title of your post - a ship - Railjack .. we already have it, they just need to use it properly.

Eh, okay, how does that solve Archwing and K-Drive stuff though? Also solo players then have mandatory Railjack for every mission, I guess.

[Leqesai]

50 minutes ago, Firetempest said:

No. More like they need to rebuild Archwing to be fun and serve a better role in railjack and open roam instead of being tile taxi. K-drive is to gameplay as Frame Fighter, Happy Zephyr, and Wyrmius is to progression in the main game, It was a distraction for some devs from making the same game for 8 years.

To put in the effort tossing in obnoxious fractional benefits to bribe people to play bad modes is just worse than as leaving it as is so people can ignore it.

I don't really think you're wrong but at the same time Kdrive and Frame Fighter both have the potential to be much more fun parts of the core experience. Though I really doubt we'll see much more done with Frame Fighter tbh. 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

They already said there getting rid of archwing nodes and it'll all be through railjack, anyway. I don't see them making any changes if they already have a plan in place. 

[Cerikus]

22 minutes ago, hix3r said:

Eh, okay, how does that solve Archwing and K-Drive stuff though? Also solo players then have mandatory Railjack for every mission, I guess.

Well it doesn't. It was rather responding to:

1 hour ago, Leqesai said:

One of the major issues with Warframe's design is the isolation of specific types of game content. I haven't really read many practical ideas/plans that could help bridge different types of content.

Sorry if I misunderstood that you wanted to only talk about archwing and kdrives.

[Yamazuki]

K-Drives are clearly just meant to be a mode of transportation for "open world" maps, and nothing else. I'm not sure what's wrong with that, especially when it's just a silly gimmick that isn't required for anything, and it's best that it stays that way.

Adding in nodes specific to K-Drives for the sake of it doesn't make it any less of a "content island".

Archwings also already have had uses outside of "open world maps". They're part of Railjack currently, already had their own nodes, and archwing mods have been tied to open world content, archguns usable on grounds, and then there's the recent Necramechs that use arch-weapon mods. When Railjack gets integrated into the rest of the game, if ever, that's how archwing also gets tied into the rest of the game even further. Railjack just needs a diverse set of objectives, rather than the current 99% exterminate style missions where a pilot spawn kills all the fighters.

[Hypernaut1]

This new "content island" buzzword makes everyone feel like they're a world class developer. 

Connecting content isnt as easy as you make it seem. You want devs to create all of these optional connections that will only end up being a waste of their time. Warframe is a sandbox looter. Its not meant to emulate an open world ARPG where everything is necessary.  All those optional connections will do is either make people feel like their forced to grind in ways they dont want to, or ignore these connections completely if its truly optional. 

It would be nice in some ways, but ultimately, its going to be just as hated as them not wasting their time on connecting everything. 

[(PSN)Mofojokers]

Just jumping in here to let you know they are removing archwing missions from the planets as per the 2nd last dev stream. Also should know that K-drives are not very popular and would only end up been removed as well. Just remember that k-drive races and the fact they give mastery are a thing.

[Leqesai]

50 minutes ago, (PSN)Mofojokers said:

Just jumping in here to let you know they are removing archwing missions from the planets as per the 2nd last dev stream. Also should know that K-drives are not very popular and would only end up been removed as well. Just remember that k-drive races and the fact they give mastery are a thing.

They are removing archwing missions from planets?

Interesting.... I can't say I'm totally against this given what archwing has become but I'm a little saddened to see missions (any) go.

[Leqesai]

1 hour ago, Hypernaut1 said:

This new "content island" buzzword makes everyone feel like they're a world class developer. 

Connecting content isnt as easy as you make it seem. You want devs to create all of these optional connections that will only end up being a waste of their time. Warframe is a sandbox looter. Its not meant to emulate an open world ARPG where everything is necessary.  All those optional connections will do is either make people feel like their forced to grind in ways they dont want to, or ignore these connections completely if its truly optional. 

It would be nice in some ways, but ultimately, its going to be just as hated as them not wasting their time on connecting everything. 

Content Islands is simply the term DE has been using to describe their content. 

I'm not saying change the core game, I'm simply trying to throw some constructive ideas into the pot of "lets get things working together a bit better" instead of "lets just be satisfied with the random crap DE releases"

[(PSN)robotwars7]

5 hours ago, Leqesai said:

They are removing archwing missions from planets?

not so much removing as reworking to include Railjack in the missions. there will still be Archwing Gameplay, as Archwing is basically just a means to travel between the Railjack and on-foot tiles in space, like Asteroid bases.

the best way to solve these problem, but perhaps not the easiest in terms of work, is to create a situation where the vehicle is required such as these:

Archwing: you are in a railjack mission, your objective is to get inside a Corpus Obelisk and sabotage it by destroying it's primary power core. the railjack can get you past the fighters and other defenses, but the only access points to the core are small vents, so you are required to use Archwing to get inside. while inside, Corus units defending the power core will engage you, leading to instances of Archwing combat. a mixture of narrow tunnels and wide open rooms means both short and long range Archwing tactics are requires in roughly equal measure. you reach the core, destroy it, and then it's a mad dash out of the nearest exhaust port back to the railjack.

K-Drive: a large battle is happening on the Plains of Eidolon, as the Grineer try to assault the Unum's tower, hoping to break the shield that protects Cetus. the Grineer have set up a massive long range cannon at the other end of the plains, which is heavily guarded by fortifications, thumpers, Ghouls and countless legions of Grineer troops. but here's the thing: normally you would just Archwing blink your way over there, but the Grineer have already set up huge amounts of AA defenses that prevent you from being able to Use Archwing, and time is of the essence as you must reach the cannon before it fires. queue a mad K-Drive sequence where you gun down Grineer with your pistol as you speed along the plains, and dismount at the grineer fort, which then becomes a regular combat sequence of killing everything in your way to reach the cannon and destroy it. 

TL:DR: create missions, or at least stages within a mission, that are specifically designed for the vehicles to be used. then they will have purpose. 

[Kaggelos]

Personally, I'd add K-Drives into regular missions by having some huge ass, hundreds to thousands of meters long (and wide enough so you dont bump into everything), underground highways/tunnels or something, with no way to use Archwing (hence why its underground or with a ceiling on top of us).

That way, instead of spamming bullet jump over and over again (which can get kinda repetitive even in regular missions), just use our hover boards to traverse those huge distances in no time. And if someone doesnt want to, just Speed Volt or Cloud Walk or Void Dash your way to the other end ^^

For Archwings, like everyone said, Railjack.

My two cents.

[Prexades]

Bring Railjack to the open worlds with connected squads. Make it a connected mission were one group of players queues for the Railjack and does bombinb runs and suppression fire while flying over open world tiles. The other group queued for ground missions has to do assignment on ground bunkers. Both have their own targets which are always tied to the activity of the other group. So when the ground ground disables the shield generators from within, the Railjack group can destroy the mission objective.

[FRTE_Ret5o]

Since the kingping sistem is not online yet the archwing feels isolated, yes.

But, once railjack becomes a link to all the origin sistem(and probably to tau) will not have such problems. 

K drives, personally I still desire the k drive room in the dojo

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

What "content islands" do we still have that aren't connected to other parts of the game. Serious question, because sometimes it feels like people use terms because they're trying to sound "hip with the lingo" and just generally don't know what they're on about.

[IIDMOII]

The problem is though, I don't have any desire to go to the content islands in the first place. The core game is why we play. The gimmicky distractions of the last few years are getting tiresome. Especially as they continue to copy-paste plains of eidolon.

Adding a taxi service via a ship isn't suddenly going to make poorly designed content, fun or better. 

When people say content feels disconnected, they don't mean physically. They mean in terms of progression and reward structure. 

We shouldn't have to double, triple, quadruple down on busy work to get all the stuff we need. There needs to be more crossover with syndicate progression, resource collection, endo, kuva etc.