Does anyone here still use kdrives?

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

I just have a few quick questions for you.

1.) Do you use Kdrives? Why or why not?

2.) What do you like and dislike about them?

3.) Can you think of any improvements that might make players use them more?

[Tyreaus]

11 minutes ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

I just have a few quick questions for you.

1.) Do you use Kdrives? Why or why not?

2.) What do you like and dislike about them?

3.) Can you think of any improvements that might make players use them more?

1. No - anything I'd want to use them for is done just as well, if not better, with Archwing. Or just being on foot.

2. The unique movement and momentum is fun, and being able to use secondaries while on them is nifty too.

3. Vastly increased speed to rival, if not surpass, Archwings. Archwings not only can bypass terrain, but they're substantially faster even in straight-line circumstances. If we're wanting more usability, K-drives should be the fastest means to get across an open area, while Archwings are faster to get through rough terrain (by virtue of just not having to worry about it). EDIT: also some way to streamline equipping a secondary would be nice. Felt kind of finnicky the first time around.

[Teoarrk]

1. No. The ragdoll mechanic is far too punishing. For a vehicle that is supposed to be a convenient way of travelling across open spaces, having to dodge even slight inclines is just too much of a hassle.

2. The trick system is nice. It allows you to make your own fun while getting from point a to b (when you're not being flung off in a ragdoll animation that can take up to a minute to complete)

3. Either get rid of ragdoll, or make it a much shorter stumbling animation that doesn't dismount you, just like Archwings.

[Tesseract7777]

I only use them for fun, by themselves to do races, they are WAY too slow for traveling on open world, you cannot use them in any regular tilesets for mobility, using a secondary on them is cool, but actually extremely clunky, and the only reason most people aren't mentioning how clunky it is, is because no one was bothering to seriously try in the first place. The damage mods for the k-drives are weak, archwings outstrip them like a jet engine passing a butterfly, and outside of "for funsies" there is just no reason to use them. 

DE has an opportunity here with this Yareli frame that looks like its riding a K-Drive. They could add them for use in normal missions, which would at least give them a niche as a mobility tool, then make their damage mods scale and improve the clunkiness of using secondaries on them and boom. K-drives are at least decent. 

They still would get outstripped on open world, but I've had ideas for that. Maybe like K-Drive portals that you boost through that teleport you to areas of interest around the open world map, to help them compete with archwings in a logical way other than just "make them faster!" which does nothing to fix the fact they glide over the environment and still deal with obstacles too much... speed wouldn't be enough, ever, to compete with archwings for mobility on open world, they would pretty much HAVE to like jump through a ring and just straight teleport to points of interest, otherwise I don't see how they would have a chance. Obstacles would always just get in the way too much and archwings can glide past them by shooting straight up into the air. 

[(XBOX)OdinsDottir]

Almost every time I used k drive I'd end up glitched under map and unstuck didn't help. These devil contraptions can just....no, they're bad. Archwings are much better.

[Tesseract7777]

3 minutes ago, (XBOX)OdinsDottir said:

Almost every time I used k drive I'd end up glitched under map and unstuck didn't help. These devil contraptions can just....no, they're bad. Archwings are much better.

Yeah the main thing K-Drives are good for besides funsies is for exploiters to purposefully use them to glitch under the map. 

[Tyreaus]

55 minutes ago, Tesseract7777 said:

They still would get outstripped on open world, but I've had ideas for that. Maybe like K-Drive portals that you boost through that teleport you to areas of interest around the open world map, to help them compete with archwings in a logical way other than just "make them faster!" which does nothing to fix the fact they glide over the environment and still deal with obstacles too much... speed wouldn't be enough, ever, to compete with archwings for mobility on open world, they would pretty much HAVE to like jump through a ring and just straight teleport to points of interest, otherwise I don't see how they would have a chance. Obstacles would always just get in the way too much and archwings can glide past them by shooting straight up into the air. 

One other thing that could also help is more of a step-up mechanic. Elevate the player over more obstacles for a smoother ride overall. That plus waypoint portals (which would also be nice as a way to restart races).

[Nash]

I use K-Drives in the open world against Grand bosses, but I'm a rarity. That's the only use I have for them atm. 

I like K drives but when you dismount especially in the air it doesn't feel smooth, it should keep the momentum from the K drive.

If they added races between players that would be the only way to improve K-drives, like mario kart or midnight club. If you are talking combat wise, then I'd say K-Drives need to act like DMC5 Devil Breaker: Punchline, where tricks do damage and stun/lift them.

[(NSW)Greybones]

1) Yes. I’ve flown before, and found that reducing the open world map to a 2D texture isn’t all that interesting. So I k-drive instead, since I can engage with the content more and get some nice immersion going instead of constantly rushing through.

2) I like the ability to grind on things that don’t seem grindable, and for some reason the board grab tricks are what I gravitate to. They don’t give a lot of score, but they feel cool. 🤔 Sometimes it’s a little clunky to align or turn, but I reckon #3 might help with that.

3) Not sure if it’d help, but I think holding “Back” on the control system could strafe the board backwards instead of turning around

edit: I’m not able to use my secondary sometimes, is this a bug?

second edit: Apparently back already strafes backwards as long as you aren’t boosting. Guess that’s me sorted then 😋

[Aesthier]

1.) Do you use Kdrives?

I occasionally break it out if I am bored and want to fudge around but to be honest it just really isn't my thing. 

 

2.) What do you like and dislike about them?

I never really enjoyed games like Sonic or Tony Hawk and my skill level pretty much matches my interest level. This is why I enjoy some level of content islands being in the game. You use Kdrives to get more stuff for Kdrives which I think is appropriate. Being able to enjoy more features of the game without locking my enjoyment of the game behind something I don't enjoy. Just because I don't enjoy it doesn't mean others don't. "Generally" I like it when games give us more playstyle options rather than limiting them. So again Just because it isn't my thing doesn't mean it should be removed for others or that I won't ever enjoy it.

 

3.) Can you think of any improvements that might make players use them more?

I worry about statements like this. Shouldn't the goal be to "increase enjoyment of use" rather than "making players use"?

a.)   For me one of the biggest hurdles is trying to level the darn things. I suck at doing tricks on them and tricks are how you level them (please let me know if you know a more efficient way to level them up besides races/tricks). I don't think the Kdrive challenges should be lowered just because I suck at them as there are many players that don't suck and actually enjoy the races/challenges. I just find the grind to level them to be overly frustrating and too long.

b.)   Being able to jump and bounce the bottom of my Kdrive off an enemy head/face while still mounted on it might be pretty cool and more ninja like. (not that I could ever pull it off but still entertaining to see.)

c.)   Decreasing the amount of hindrance when falling off/hitting something.

d.)   Actually allowing us to melee while on it or at the very least let me use my melee to dismount into a ground slam just like when I use an archwing. (for the love of god why was that never implemented?)

Again I do occasionally enjoy breaking one out and farting around but, as I never really enjoyed Sonic or Tony Hawk, KDrives just don't have the draw for me that it does for other players. "Making me use a Kdrive" would only increase my frustration with the game not increase my enjoyment.

[lowgrav]

i still use k drives as they dont cancel my abilitys that i have currently running and alow me to charge frame energy while on route to destination

[Soy77]

1.) Do you use Kdrives? Why or why not? Yes. Because I'm making more kdrives for collection purposes.

2.) What do you like and dislike about them? I like the idea. I mean who doesn't like hoverboards. I hate everything about the execution.

3.) Can you think of any improvements that might make players use them more? Make a good racing minigame content island. that doesn't force warframe into it (ex: please no mission that require me to ride kdrives to a corpus base, then do defense like usual.) please just good old racing. And make them available as decoration in my orbiter, like shawzins.

[UUDDLRLRBA_START]

I use k-drives occasionally to recover energy thanks to one of their later mods (something about trick score = energy regained).

[(PSN)Unstar]

1. Do you use Kdrives? Why or why not?  Yes, I still use K-drives.  They're fun!  Archwings get you where you want to go quickly, but K-drives let you do something fun on the way there, and you're actually experiencing the open world while you do it instead of just "skipping" it.

2. What do you like and dislike about them?  I think the only thing I dislike about K-drives is that they are certainly overshadowed by the speed of Archwings.  The player base of Warframe tends to focus on efficiency and fast completion times above all else, so if a mission goal is too far away I definitely feel like I "should" be using an Archwing.  But I think that's a shame, because if you're using an Archwing you're not interacting with the open world, you're just skipping it.

3. Can you think of any improvements that might make players use them more?  Follow me on this ride.  One idea would be to remove Archwings from open-world areas.  However, this solution doesn't work, as many players will tell you that they feel like there is nothing worthwhile to do while traveling from Point A to Point B in an open-world.  That's incredibly valid, because while I enjoy riding a K-drive and navigating the terrain, time spent traveling isn't extrinsically rewarding.  So instead of removing Archwings, I think what DE would have to do is to make it so that traveling on a K-drive earned you loot...and it would have to be enough loot that some players would opt to get that loot rather than get to the objective faster...so it would probably have to be a lot of loot.  I'm not sure how this would be implemented or balanced, but I think that's the change that would have to happen to encourage more players to slow down a little.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

3 hours ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

Follow me on this ride.  One idea would be to remove Archwings from open-world areas.  However, this solution doesn't work, as many players will tell you that they feel like there is nothing worthwhile to do while traveling from Point A to Point B in an open-world.  That's incredibly valid, because while I enjoy riding a K-drive and navigating the terrain, time spent traveling isn't extrinsically rewarding.  So instead of removing Archwings, I think what DE would have to do is to make it so that traveling on a K-drive earned you loot...and it would have to be enough loot that some players would opt to get that loot rather than get to the objective faster...so it would probably have to be a lot of loot.  I'm not sure how this would be implemented or balanced, but I think that's the change that would have to happen to encourage more players to slow down a little.

What an interesting idea 🤔

What if there were things like scanners or cameras that are usually deactivated when players arent doing missions, but are more commonly active when they are. These detectors would be best at detecting players on the ground.

The moment player shoots past one of them, it will detect the player and send a few enemies after them. Defeating the enemies gives the player a random amount of standing points for the faction they are helping, and possibly a bonus reward from the reward table of the mission or bounty theyre doing.

The game would be set up in such a way where the likely hood of you finding one of these detectors per mission objective is almost gaurnteed to be at least 1 or 2. It would be rare to find more than that.

Could be a start? It could not slow you down as much by having these enemies chase you in vehicles as well, allowing the player to keep moving toward their objective while disabling the enemies at the same time.

And to keep this detection equipment from being too annoying, maybe make it to where this equipment is noticeable and can be taken out in one shot. So players who want to keep on crusing can keep on crusing

[Pinegulf]

>1.) Do you use Kdrives? Why or why not?

No. They are inferior to Archwings. Slower, guns restricted, no abilities, and falling off is penalized. 

>2.) What do you like and dislike about them?

Meh. Idea is pretty ok, yet practice is lacking. 

>3.) Can you think of any improvements that might make players use them more?

PPL use them to get places. Make them faster or way to pump up the speed. Gauss run, for instance. Just give them abilities. Or make races give relics or something worth while. 

Edit: Just add melee to K-drives. 

[Sloan441]

Never seriously used them to begin with. It's an answer in search of a question. 

Occasionally, I'll bust one out on a flat open world area (read this as: earth plains) just because it's there and there's a nagging thought at the back of the mind that you should use the thing once in a while. Then you find you actually need functional travel for something and it hits the shelf again because it's borderline useless. It's promptly forgotten about and the cycle repeats itself. 

Now it is different and it can be (briefly) fun, but the fun is very heavily mitigated by assorted annoyances and outright damned nuisances. All of which adds up to the fact it's borderline useless and when you actually need to travel it's a non-starter. 

 

[Butterfly85]

I still use them from time to time, if I'm not in a rush.

I like doing the thing where you dismount but lined up so when you do the board shoots off and through enemies. I just wish that did some damage or a knock down.