About the mentioned changes in Devstream 152

[Kaotyke]

So, from the Harness Avionics, I was able to see we can:

Equip 8 Structural Avionics

3 Battle Avionics

3 Tactical Avionics

And we have 8 Space.

The Battle and tactical avionics is straight forward so I dont think I will speak on that.

But the Structural ones like Bulkhead and Hull Weave? There has to be a way to make this... be non-wasted in gameplay. It cant be a "pick the best of the lot" or we have people just taking them by default so they dont run the risk of "Wait... none of you brought it? / I thought someone would bring it, so I didnt bring mine!" and its Charlie-Foxtrot.

If this works as an Aura, like Psyche, which increases the whole squad's HP by a %, then the ship must have an HP pool that when alone its doable and when with 4 people its not a snoozefeast.

There's also the issue of enemy levels, damage done to the ship... to be honest, I would prefer if this part, of giving HP/Shields/Armor was scrapped and became integrated into the ship itself, like in the 2019 Tennocon: 5k HP, 5k Shields. You can then balance the enemies based on Normal/Elite Units and get rid of levels, perhaps make the ones of higher tier planets deal more damage anyways? Make them use abilities like give Shields make them faster, stealth...

This is probably wishful thinking, getting rid of levels... 

But another thing you could use is make the use of resources  to boost the ship, again, like shown in Con2019. Have it be the role of the Engineer, they can boost the ship mid combat, give shields some Damage Reduction for a time by using the resources available, better armor, less heat of the guns...

Well, going to wait for the Workshop, but I decided to put this out here.

 

 

[Althaline]

1 hour ago, Kaotyke said:

But another thing you could use is make the use of resources  to boost the ship, again, like shown in Con2019. Have it be the role of the Engineer, they can boost the ship mid combat, give shields some Damage Reduction for a time by using the resources available, better armor, less heat of the guns...

This micromanagement is what I miss most from the original Railjack presentations. It gives the Engineer a true role, and allows for teams (or advanced soloers) to properly push their ship to its limits. It makes the Railjack itself a proper Corvette, rather than a glorified fighter.

[Petroklos]

With the proposed new Modding Screen, you, the host, can fit in:

+Health, +Armor, +Shield Regen, +Movement, +Boost, +Damage, +Critical Chance, +Critical Damage, and the regular 3 Battle and Tactical Avionics.

The new proposed System reduces the Host's Mod Slots by one, and increases that of a whole Squad by FOURTY ONE, assuming that each Player's "Harness" can carry 8 Mods and 3+3 Battle and Tactical Avionics, as it was implied.

Not to mention that them being Mods, in the regular Modding Screen, with regular Polarities, implies that Forma-ing our "Harness" will be an option, allowing us to fit stuff that the previous Railjack Capacity couldn't handle.

So you could easily fit a near identical Loadout and drastically increase the total power and/or options if every Player brings the "right stuff".

As for "but what if randoms don't bring the right stuff", tough S#&$, that's how random matchmakers work. Use Recruiting Chat or your Clan for premade Groups. Also, when the dust settles and some meta develops, I'd wager that hopping on a Relay and saying "H Pilot, N Gunner Engineer", would get you people with close-to-meta Gunner and Engineer Loadouts.

For Solo Play, I'd expect that Command will allow Solo Captains to get something similar to a Squad's worth, out of their NPC Crew.

Finally, and maybe most important of all, we should wait for the Dev Workshop before we start making assumptions and crying wolf about stuff we assumed based on the loose Devstream descriptions.

As for a bit more specific on your points.

Mods acting like Auras would be an absolute mess to organize and would promote near identical Loadouts per Player, instead of promoting extremely different and specialized Loadouts per Role.

Asking for stuff they've scrapped to come back, is very unlikely to happen. We have a rose tinted idea of "what could've been" about these mechanics. They've designed them, designed around them and play tested them, only to decide that scrapping them is the better idea. They probably had good reasons to throw their work and ideas away.

[Krilexis]

2 hours ago, Petroklos said:

The new proposed System reduces the Host's Mod Slots by one, and increases that of a whole Squad by FOURTY ONE, assuming that each Player's "Harness" can carry 8 Mods and 3+3 Battle and Tactical Avionics, as it was implied.

Not to mention that them being Mods, in the regular Modding Screen, with regular Polarities, implies that Forma-ing our "Harness" will be an option, allowing us to fit stuff that the previous Railjack Capacity couldn't handle.

So you could easily fit a near identical Loadout and drastically increase the total power and/or options if every Player brings the "right stuff".

Totally agree with that I believe they are making the right choice and brings up RJ at the same or close to regular mission where the whole squad matters, I'm thinking about defense in arbitrations for exemple where you should bring aoe frames and stuff, eidolons too and ropalolyst that requires a bit of preparation. 

And about polarities and forma that means RJ is less of a content island too :D

Well lets wait for the Workshop thatll be interesting.

[Monsieur_Fromage]

On 2021-02-28 at 12:01 AM, Iamabearlulz said:

This micromanagement is what I miss most from the original Railjack presentations. It gives the Engineer a true role, and allows for teams (or advanced soloers) to properly push their ship to its limits. It makes the Railjack itself a proper Corvette, rather than a glorified fighter.

Scott mentioned that the forge would be getting a new role, since all players have their own resource pool that regens now. I suspect it's got something to do with this kind of "boost" system from the old presentation.

[Kaotyke]

ops. put them in my wrong thread

[Steel_Rook]

On 2021-02-28 at 2:01 AM, Iamabearlulz said:

This micromanagement is what I miss most from the original Railjack presentations. It gives the Engineer a true role, and allows for teams (or advanced soloers) to properly push their ship to its limits. It makes the Railjack itself a proper Corvette, rather than a glorified fighter.

I'm the exact opposite. I saw no point in the minigames DE showed off at TennoCon 2019, since they came across like a solution looking for a problem. One player can do most things, but we must make the other three people not feel superfluous, so let's give then listless busywork to simulate activity, even though the need for it is entirely artificial. Given how much of that Con was performative and not actual gameplay, I have to imagine they saw that in actual playtesting. Subsequent feedback from Live players only seems to have further cemented this notion.

That's not to say there's no room for cooperation in Railjack, but I'd rather see cooperation done through actual gameplay, rather than minigames. When it comes to game design, I subscribed to the "heads-up display philosophy." You want players to spend as much time as possible with their heads up looking at the in-game world and engaging in gameplay, while spending as little time with their heads down rifling through menus and checking stats. If you want to push your team to the limit, give them actual objectives to accomplish, rather than minigames with which to enable the pilot to actually play the game.

[CyberneticSusurrus]

I would rather see Polarities and their associated Forma requirements removed for Railjack, and the bonus points system from upgrading Grid slots retained.

There are far more options for builds with the Grid system than this upcoming replacement; you could (at any time) switch your loadout around completely without having to worry about the fuss of polarities. Once you had a slot upgraded, you could decide what you wanted to prioritise by placing them in fully-upgraded slots vs lower rank slots.
I'd rather see that system extended to the rest of the game than vice-versa.