Operation: Orphix Venom; Feedback on Necramechs

[Chol-Airth]

Going through a few of posts on this forum, I see people are either pissed at this new addition to the game or are calling other people salty. So, no actual place to give feedback on playable Necramechs inside standard missions. Which is why I have decided to post an entirely new thread with my feedback to this event.

I have played with it a bit these past days and all in all, it is more fun than I had anticipated. Definitely did not think there would be anything good coming out of being able to pilot a Necramech in standard missions. A few points of concern, though:

• Mechs feel way too powerful, being able to effectively run across the whole map. I see how such restrictions might have too much of an impact now but please consider Necramechs being deploy-able in certain areas only. Preferably, huge halls, hangar bays and other places where it actually makes sense for an equivalent of a tank to be deployed. Better yet, tie a special script/event that enables for Necramechs to be deployed.
• Necramech survival missions are fun but don't make them a habit. I don't think we need another type of mission where players get to play as this or that only. Honestly, even with disabling my Gear, Warframe etc. for Orphix Venom, I still try to grab every chance playing in my frame of choice. From few feedback threads I could see, other people are of similar opinion as well. So, you know, don't do that. It would perhaps be better to have events inside missions tied to summoning and fighting in a Necramech. Again, something that makes sense and warrants deploying an equivalent of a tank.
• Necramechs play surprisingly well with Operators. Please don't exclude Operators from this equation. Not going to tell you how to spend your resources or develop your game but I would really like to see Operators being developed in a way that actually warrants bringing them out of Warframes and have them be more of a connecting tissue between Warframes, Necramechs and whatever else you want us to control in the future. I am merely asking you to take another look at them.
• Other gear? Just a thought but this event made me realize how fun it is to include tools we have at our disposal beyond just Warframes. Why not implement a pursuit kind of transition between stages, where you chase after your target on a K-Drive? Or a transition from ground combat to archwing, similar to what had been done in Jordas Golem fight?
• All the good stuff are new mods, new enemies and new voice lines from Mo... I mean Natah. Really, top-notch. Would be great if you could make a quest out of this, just to introduce players to Necramech play.

Based on above points, here is my suggestion on what could be done to improve certain aspects:

• Don't design new mission types to accommodate for Necramech play. Piloting a Necramech feels good but being able to summon them whenever, wherever just shows to be terribly intrusive towards standard play as a Warframe. In my opinion, designing missions to include scripted events that would require (and provide logic behind) you summoning a Necramech make much more sense. Boss encounters could be a viable solution to this as well.
• Necramechs need to have restrictions on their movement. They cannot roam the entire ship. While it does make sense for them to be deploy-able in large halls and hangar bays, it makes no sense for them to be deployed in a corridor with absolutely no logical entrance from space. As the matter of fact, they shouldn't even be there, being too big for such small spaces. This again touches on the first point I made- create special, scripted events or boss encounters which make sense for Necramechs to be used. This is Warframe and we are expected to play predominantly with Warframes.
• I forgot how fun it was playing with Operators themselves until this event. Just love how we can exit Necramechs and get into those hard-to-reach places as Operators. Having said that, Operators really need to have more agency in this game. They are too much of a content island, when they should be a tissue that connects Warframes (combat suits), Necramechs (heavy ordnance), Railjack (tactical strike craft) and everything else coming in the future. It makes perfect sense, lore-wise! It is just a shame that their current abilities leave much to be desired... Playing this event I oftentimes found myself wondering if it wouldn't be great had I had more energy for a few more Void Dashes, or a stronger Void Blast to effectively destroy those Resonators.
• Seeing how Necramechs were successfully introducing one content island to the other made me wonder about all the possibilities, when it comes to the rest of our gear. Like I said previously, why not have a boss fight, or a transition from one level/tileset to another through a pursuit-style scripted event, where we are chasing after a target on our K-Drives? Something like how we transition from Grineer to Corpus ship during invasions? Or, why not transition from atmosphere combat into Archwing mode. Or extracting through Railjack? Invasion mission where we transition between Railjack and fighting on a ship? Bottom point is, I really don't think there should be a single type of mission for each type of gear we use. Why not spice things up with scripted events inside those very missions?

These were a few of my thoughts on the good and bad things in this event, as well as what was going through my head while playing it. Hopefully you guys will be able to make something out of it. The rest of my Tenno are welcome to go through these points as well and add their thoughts as well.

[Leqesai]

50 minutes ago, Chol-Airth said:

Mechs feel way too powerful, being able to effectively run across the whole map. I see how such restrictions might have too much of an impact now but please consider Necramechs being deploy-able in certain areas only. Preferably, huge halls, hangar bays and other places where it actually makes sense for an equivalent of a tank to be deployed. Better yet, tie a special script/event that enables for Necramechs to be deployed.

Are they as powerful as Warframes though?

[Chol-Airth]

On 2020-12-30 at 12:26 AM, Leqesai said:

Are they as powerful as Warframes though?

Great question! I reckon they are. They may not kill things faster than Warframes but you cannot ignore the fact that a Voidrig Necramech has around 4.5k health and at least half the amount of shields. That's without their Necraweb. They are very hard to bring down, which is okay. What is not okay is for them to be able to move everywhere on your standard map. It's great that Necramechs as one type of content are integrated into standard missions but it shouldn't be in a way where Necramechs are a preferred method for going through your mission.

[Lone_Dude]

Yes, DE should give mechs even more self-staggers recovery animations from jumping, sliding and using abilities, to improve the "heavy" feeling the mechs should have. Reducing their movement speed and decreasing the sliding speed and bonuses it gets from mods would help too. Maybe even making it so that mechs would require consumable batteries to run, just like Power Armor in Fallout does. It would be great to get out of the mech and do maintenance on it. If it sounds too harsh, perhaps DE should make it so that mech would consume warframe and operator energy if you don't have a battery.

Speaking of maintenance - DE should also add repair kits to use on mechs to repair hydraulics after every jump. Oh, and since mechs are so tough, perhaps we should make it so that enemies could destroy mechs limbs. Repair kits would make even more sense that way and give it a true gritty war-machine feeling. Maybe even add a new mini-game for that whole feature. That being said, I have to disagree with you when you say that mechs are as tough as frames, as a lot of frames provide better evasion and higher EHP and can also utilize more sustain options because DE is busy nuking said things on mechs, greatly reducing the amount of possible synergies. So I think perhaps DE should make frames a little bit squishier.

Limiting active areas for mechs is a great idea and reduced mobility would make more sense that way too. And summoning mechs should require a consumable item that requires argon to craft and takes 20 seconds to activate and has a 10 minutes long cooldown. Warframe is a very tactical game, after all - it's only natural that players would have to commit to using such a powerful tool. Also, can't wait for DE to add a mission that requires me to use a K-Drive to deal damage or reach the target, they would have to nerf or restrict tweak better mobility options just like they did with Itzal to enforce but I don't think that players would mind that at all.

Oh and new copy-pasted frame mods with reduced stats mods for mechs are great indeed. Also, DE should create new merch - 70 pound weights that anyone who likes clunky restricted movement in Warframe will staple to his or her privates to FEEL the exaggerated swagger of a necramech.

[Temragon]

Nicely presented feedback!

I agree with operator comments, and kdrive/other special connection activities. Not so much on restricting mechs, but eh.