Was it really necessary to force Liches into Railjack?

[Loza03]

30 minutes ago, quxier said:

I don't know what you are talking about. I've checked Halo & T2 but I see just a shooter.

Vehicle/ground interplay. In TF|2's case, the vehicles being the Titans, in Halo's it's a... bunch of stuff. I call out Silent Cartographer since that's one of the iconic ones where you roam around in a Warthog that serves as your means of transportation mixed with a different gameplay loop which ferries you between standard on-foot combat but it shows up all over the series in one form or another. Likewise, Titanfall's gameplay loop is entirely derived around a small, speedy pilot and a larger, slower, but more powerful Titan. Railjack serves not as logical conclusion to these two loops as it sits somewhere between the middle and going off in its own direction entirely, but nevertheless demonstrates its possibility as another option in the vehicle/driver dichotomy design space - a space that is no doubt difficult but opens far more space as you effectively have two different games that you can mix and match together.

40 minutes ago, quxier said:

So boarding a ship... that's like Pirate game. Completely different game... and it's... sorry... boring.

I'm not sure what are other possibilities that "could" work with current tech etc.

Obviously, I'm no expert on Warframe's tech, but judging by what the game can already handle (i.e. usually some 10-20 fighters, with up to four crewships and at most 50-ish regular enemies spawned at any given time), there's some fun stuff you could pull. Especially if you were to make use of the 'load a regular mission in a railjack mission' technology beyond just being a regular mission with extra steps.

How about a mission where you snatch a macguffin from an enemy ship, then need to transport it to point B whilst fending off enemy boarders who constantly get launched from specialised ramsled launching ships and try to steal the macguffin back.  Perhaps you need to break up a Point or two whilst keeping the macguffin in the back of your mind as you're ferrying it back. If it gets stolen you need to chase down the ship that has it whilst fighters swarm your ship. Finish off with a brief defence segment aboard, like a solar rail that takes all players that get's run as a regular ground segment (space is despawned) with tons of enemies.

What about a defence mission which instead of being defence but you need to earn the chance to get there, is instead you defending a space station or something from alternating waves of spaceships and ground forces. Perhaps the spaceships cause hazards in the objective like they do for the 'jack, and the ground crews might target secondary systems that do something similar for space missions. Cap out each five-wave rotation with a double assault.

Railjack objectives could be akin to existing player objectives - interception missions that restrict movement, or counterpoint, mission types that render parts of the map uninhabitable to one form of gameplay or the other. Or even just shake up the existing points of interest. I mean, we got Archwing too. Any reason why an archwing tileset can't get spawned? We know that archwing gameplay can be layered on regular tiles, we see in the War Within and with Sharkwing (to limited success practically, but in terms of tech) so could it not also show up as the game mode of a point of interest? That opens some new gameplay objectives.

That's just what my 'not a game designer' noggin can dream up. What I'm saying is that Railjack offers the opportunity to effectively change the environment that the player is in and the way they're playing on the fly. Warframe has a thing where it'll spawn you into a mission, spawn some mooks for you to kill under X situation and say "this is what you're doing for the next 20 minutes", with no variation and no change. Railjack flirts with the idea that you're switching things up, but instead... well, the RAILJACK portions of Corpus missions have you hop into a point of interest to do somethign defence-oriented, or maybe something where you're hunting down enemies. And then you jump out and are shooting fighters in a different environment. And then you spawn into a survival mission and that's what you're doing for the next 20 minutes, just mindlessly shooting basic enemies with no variation in what you're doing, often with little to even no change in environment either.

[Teletric]

On 2021-07-25 at 3:57 PM, Uhkretor said:

... Liches in a Railjack mission was shown in the Tennocon...

... People asked to have whatever happened in Tennocon properly delivered as such....

... DE tied the final battle against Liches into Railjack missions...

... People did not like having whatever happened in Tennocon properly delivered as such...

People did ask for whatever was shown at TennoCon 2019 to be delivered as such, but what we have now is not what was shown at all.

First off, consider that the only time they showed the final confrontation being on Railjack was for a lich that specifically gained enough power to command his own capital ship. It was never said or promised that every lich would be fought on Railjack (at least to my knowledge), only implied that it would be the case if they ranked up high enough. That's not what was delivered, because all liches -- regardless of rank -- are fought in a Railjack node .

Secondly, the final confrontation we have on Railjack is not like what was shown at all. All party members' liches are holed up in the same galleon for some unexplained reason, and it's a matter of just shooting them until they're dead. No unique mechanics utilizing the Railjack like were shown -- like destroying shield nodes from outside the ship to remove a Lich's invulnerability. So, how does the experience benefit from specifically being on Railjack? It really doesn't. It just appears as if they wanted to arbitrarily connect Railjack to some other part of the game..

 

 

[MacKenzie-Prime]

On 2021-07-25 at 2:59 PM, (PSN)Krikenemp said:

That wouldn't change the fact that I've been in this mission for 45 minutes now waiting for one person to figure out how to board.

Let's pretend that the game doesn't auto-summon the last squad member to the entry room, and pretend your claim is accurate....

The problem isn't the player who is having trouble, the problem are his squad mates who sit on their useless backsides for 45 minutes NOT helping a team-mate for not only the team-mate's benefit, but their own... or at the very least aborting mission and moving on with their lives.

But again, your claim is... well it's just a claim since the game will auto-summon that last player to the entry room for squad to board... so um... nice joke, bro?

Seriously... NOBODY, and I mean absolutely NOBODY AT ALL is going to just sit there for FORTY FIVE MINUTES like that.  Absurd claim is absurd.

[Uhkretor]

6 hours ago, Teletric said:

People did ask for whatever was shown at TennoCon 2019 to be delivered as such, but what we have now is not what was shown at all.

First off, consider that the only time they showed the final confrontation being on Railjack was for a lich that specifically gained enough power to command his own capital ship. It was never said or promised that every lich would be fought on Railjack (at least to my knowledge), only implied that it would be the case if they ranked up high enough. That's not what was delivered, because all liches -- regardless of rank -- are fought in a Railjack node .

Secondly, the final confrontation we have on Railjack is not like what was shown at all. All party members' liches are holed up in the same galleon for some unexplained reason, and it's a matter of just shooting them until they're dead. No unique mechanics utilizing the Railjack like were shown -- like destroying shield nodes from outside the ship to remove a Lich's invulnerability. So, how does the experience benefit from specifically being on Railjack? It really doesn't. It just appears as if they wanted to arbitrarily connect Railjack to some other part of the game..

What was shown then was, plain and simple, a Lich tied to a Railjack mission...

 

See all those nifty details you described? All theories.

And don't bother to post the vid here because what people will see is exactly what I described... Plain and simple, a Lich tied to Railjack mission.

... [DE]Steve specifically said that Liches are intended to be tied to Railjack missions, but they were released into normal missions as "early access" which would allow them to refine the system in the meantime... So, the "meantime" is already gone, apparently, as Liches are now tied to Railjack...

 

... It doesn't matter if they are all inside the same Galleon when a group boards into it... Its like a Forma Bundle, but of Liches instead. However, instead of Liches actually being captains of those Galleons, they are fulfilling the same role aboard the Galleons as it would aboard a Railjack - Defender.

... Of course, they won't be able to defend at all... Its just that they simply don't know it yet...

 

... The system currently has 1 foot on the correct surface and the other still behind on the wrong surface or, for easier understanding, half in half out... This is pretty much DE's pattern, like people usually say, isn't it?

But do mark my words, Star Charts will be unified in the near future and all these "half in, half out" systems that we've been seeing up until now will become "all in"... And I'm all ready for it.

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

I think the more advanced features of the Lich fights are still yet to come with the Squad Link feature... which is what the Endor scene thing was about, taking down the shield generator on the planet weakened the Lich in the demo.

So, so far, they've added the Liches (Part 1) being on the Railjacks (part 2). Weakening Liches through Squad Link objectives (Part 3) is future. (if they decide to keep that feature, given the glitchy nature of Squad Link, and the fact that they had to release "quasi-squad-link" in Scarlet Spear - it didn't directly link one ground and one space team, but all the collective ground and space teams into 2 groups helping each other. It's a start.

[Leqesai]

On 2021-07-25 at 12:57 PM, Uhkretor said:

... Liches in a Railjack mission was shown in the Tennocon...

... People asked to have whatever happened in Tennocon properly delivered as such....

... DE tied the final battle against Liches into Railjack missions...

... People did not like having whatever happened in Tennocon properly delivered as such...

 

... Seriously. Just accept it as it is, its less stressful that way.

Brother you are preachin' TRUTH here. 

Liches were always intended to be a Railjack thing. We just got a half-cocked version of liches on release because DE would rather push half-working content than no content.

[Perfectly_Framed_Waifu]

10 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

because DE would rather push half-working content than no content.

Hi Yareli.

[Famecans]

I think that mobile defence because forces a lot of spawn points

[quxier]

19 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Spoiler

How about a mission where you snatch a macguffin from an enemy ship, then need to transport it to point B whilst fending off enemy boarders who constantly get launched from specialised ramsled launching ships and try to steal the macguffin back.  Perhaps you need to break up a Point or two whilst keeping the macguffin in the back of your mind as you're ferrying it back. If it gets stolen you need to chase down the ship that has it whilst fighters swarm your ship. Finish off with a brief defence segment aboard, like a solar rail that takes all players that get's run as a regular ground segment (space is despawned) with tons of enemies.

What about a defence mission which instead of being defence but you need to earn the chance to get there, is instead you defending a space station or something from alternating waves of spaceships and ground forces. Perhaps the spaceships cause hazards in the objective like they do for the 'jack, and the ground crews might target secondary systems that do something similar for space missions. Cap out each five-wave rotation with a double assault.

Railjack objectives could be akin to existing player objectives - interception missions that restrict movement, or counterpoint, mission types that render parts of the map uninhabitable to one form of gameplay or the other. Or even just shake up the existing points of interest. I mean, we got Archwing too. Any reason why an archwing tileset can't get spawned? We know that archwing gameplay can be layered on regular tiles, we see in the War Within and with Sharkwing (to limited success practically, but in terms of tech) so could it not also show up as the game mode of a point of interest? That opens some new gameplay objectives.

Spoiler

 

 

That's just normal mission... but in space.

19 hours ago, Loza03 said:

That's just what my 'not a game designer' noggin can dream up. What I'm saying is that Railjack offers the opportunity to effectively change the environment that the player is in and the way they're playing on the fly. Warframe has a thing where it'll spawn you into a mission, spawn some mooks for you to kill under X situation and say "this is what you're doing for the next 20 minutes", with no variation and no change. Railjack flirts with the idea that you're switching things up, but instead... well, the RAILJACK portions of Corpus missions have you hop into a point of interest to do somethign defence-oriented, or maybe something where you're hunting down enemies. And then you jump out and are shooting fighters in a different environment. And then you spawn into a survival mission and that's what you're doing for the next 20 minutes, just mindlessly shooting basic enemies with no variation in what you're doing, often with little to even no change in environment either.

Dynamic maps(environment) or mission types are interesting... but, in my opinion, they are not very good in WF.

As for mission/enemies, it forces you into "the best gear that could deal with potential enemies/missions". For example Open worlds have bounties that have few different mission types. You cannot change frames so you pick "the best". For me, as for POE it was Mesa and as for Deimos it was Titania + Spectrorage.

And dynamic maps (Procedural generated) are fine but they are not so easy to do as some people may think. Sometimes well designed map is better than bad PCG map. It's "kind of easy" to do a PCG map that people don't have to play too much. However if a player will spend hours or even days in that map then it has to be good. Spawning different ship (that you can enter) is, imho, not something very good.

[Jarriaga]

Last year, I proposed for DE to integrate Liches to RJ as shown in Tennocon. However, my proposal included making the RJ fight optional while giving you bonusses for choosing to kill your Lich/Sister that way:

Quote

If the Lich is at max rank over Rank 5 (Say, Rank 10) and you have all the murmurs and requiem mods unlocked, a dedicated optional mission is unlocked to fight the Lich. These missions are on wide-area maps such as the PoE, Orb Valis, or Veil Proxima (To Help improve the sense of connection with the rest of the game). If you decide to take this optional mission to hunt down your Lich this way instead of waiting for it to spawn in the Star Chart, the requiem mod order doesn't matter (Guaranteed kill), but the Lich gets additional stat buffs that can only be disabled by completing other in-mission objectives in the wide-area map. This alternative final fight ties to the improved reward system as it affects weapon bonus damage, ephemera chance (If it didn't have one before), and bonus stats if converted.

The current implementation just drags on the cycle for no benefit at all. I would much rather prefer for the second Lich fight resulting in their weapon's bonus getting a buff to ease the farming (Less copies needed to max it out), or a second chance to roll an Ephemera if it didn't have one before. They could do this by allowing you to fully kill your Lich on the first fight by giving you the option to vanquish or spare in the first fight (Spare makes the Lich run to RJ), and then convert or vanquish+ in the second fight. 

[Loza03]

1 minute ago, quxier said:

That's just normal mission... but in space.

Not really? I mean, on the one hand, yes, the structure is similar, but that's the point. On the other the specific wrinkles are absolutely different For example, with the Cargo mission, it's effectively a mission type that switches between an offensive playstyle and a defensive one. That exists in the 'Assault' mission or Jupiter Sabotage. What differs is the specifics of what that entails, and both the scope and breadth of those specifics.

For one, the nature of a more dynamic environment. You're not fighting in the same location or in the same kind of environment, or even with all of the same tools. On board your Railjack, you have access to Tactical avionics, whereas elsewhere you don't. You've also got an energy refill on standby, and hypothetically other resources could be made as 'on tap' such as ammo and health. Outside your Railjack, these resources aren't available to you. That means that a defence setpiece on board your Railjack is different to a defence setpiece away. In addition, the element of co-operative play and the mobility of the Railjack adds further gameplay diversity. After all, you can dodge or shoot down Ramsleds before they land, meaning that with enough skill or support from teammates, you can effectively control spawns. The structure is replicable without the vehicle combat aspect, but the vehicles greatly enhance the degree of strategy and diversity available.

In terms of the Defence mission, it also adds sub-objectives that have in-game meaning, as well as needing the player to adjust their strategy to keep things interesting. Psychologically speaking, people are much more interested in things if they aren't doing the exact same activity every time. Injecting variety on multiple levels through having the combat environment and method change as well as through having to juggle defence objective and to a lesser degree Railjack maintenance. It gives the player more to think about and engage their brain on.

19 minutes ago, quxier said:

Dynamic maps(environment) or mission types are interesting... but, in my opinion, they are not very good in WF.

As for mission/enemies, it forces you into "the best gear that could deal with potential enemies/missions". For example Open worlds have bounties that have few different mission types. You cannot change frames so you pick "the best". For me, as for POE it was Mesa and as for Deimos it was Titania + Spectrorage.

And dynamic maps (Procedural generated) are fine but they are not so easy to do as some people may think. Sometimes well designed map is better than bad PCG map. It's "kind of easy" to do a PCG map that people don't have to play too much. However if a player will spend hours or even days in that map then it has to be good. Spawning different ship (that you can enter) is, imho, not something very good.

First of all, you're mis-identifying procedural generation. Warframe's tileset gameplay is a form of procedural generation. Most of Railjack is actually designer-made, not procedurally generated. Dynamically changing missions and environments are something completely different.

Aside from that, you're proving my point. "For me". "For PoE... and for Deimos". After all, you can't change frames in normal missions either, and so you are equally encouraged to bring the best frame in to them as well to ensure the greatest chance at success. The difference is, with regular missions the objectives are with few exceptions monolithically identical throughout the whole mission. This makes what the 'best' choice far less of a personal opinion, and far more of a fixed meta. With a fixed, single mission type, the 'best' option is usually easy to discern.

For example, In survival, the only objective is to kill as many enemies as possible, or to be more exact, collect the most drops possible. Therefore, nukeframes or drop chance multiplier frames are the best options because the former maximises actual kills and the latter maximises effective kills (since most or all corpses have two 'drops' that double his kill rate with regards to what matters in survival). Meanwhile with defence missions, nukeframes only have prominence because the only objective is to not let anything shoot the mission objective. Nukeframes are just the most direct solution to the problem - in times when nuking was less of a concern, frames like Vauban, Limbo and Gara had prominence because they were the best at preventing enemies from shooting the objective. You can bring other options, and you can succeed with other options, but in all practical respects, you are making the 'wrong' decision, because there is only a single situation being tested, and therefore bringing a loadout that doesn't specialise in that situation means that you're bringing less value to the team or mission. It doesn't matter that Limbo is terribly slow when attacking on a defence mission, because there's no offensive component. The enemies come to you to immediately freeze in the bubble and do... nothing.

But when that objective isn't singular 'for me' becomes a whole lot more relevant. Since you are no longer faced with a single problem to overcome, you are presented with genuine decisions. Do you bring a frame or loadout that is best at what you yourself are weakest at? A loadout that supports your strengths? Or a loadout that is effective across the environments and situations required for the mission at hand? There are more situations being tested, and thus more avenues for your loadout to matter. With the Cargo mission and Limbo examples I gave, Limbo would be pretty useless during the first part of the mission, because it's offensive (get to the macguffin, and retrieve it). He would be alright at the second stage, since he could serve as a backup if enemies breach the ship, but he's not extremely useful. But get to the last phase which is a more traditional defence segment, and he's the MVP because now his defensive abilities are all that stands between you and mission failure since you no longer have the Railjack's guns as a first line of defence.

[quxier]

4 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Not really? I mean, on the one hand, yes, the structure is similar, but that's the point. On the other the specific wrinkles are absolutely different For example, with the Cargo mission, it's effectively a mission type that switches between an offensive playstyle and a defensive one. That exists in the 'Assault' mission or Jupiter Sabotage. What differs is the specifics of what that entails, and both the scope and breadth of those specifics.

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Hijack

4 hours ago, Loza03 said:

You've also got an energy refill on standby, and hypothetically other resources could be made as 'on tap' such as ammo and health. Outside your Railjack, these resources aren't available to you.

"Me playing with my Carrier P + Zenurik + Pads" what do you mean "not available"? /joke

4 hours ago, Loza03 said:

The structure is replicable without the vehicle combat aspect, but the vehicles greatly enhance the degree of strategy and diversity available.

Maybe... but I don't think it's "greatly".

4 hours ago, Loza03 said:

the element of co-operative play

I feel like co-op elements are... not so interesting. At least not in this game. In some puzzle-like game, imho, it would be better.

... but I'm not into "huge" co-op (helping teammates or something small is fine but nothing more) too much so take it with grain of salt.

4 hours ago, Loza03 said:

For one, the nature of a more dynamic environment. You're not fighting in the same location or in the same kind of environment, or even with all of the same tools.

I could just play few different mission with any gear I want. With RJ we have ships and mechs/frames/operator/archwings. That's 2 "tools" vs 1, potentially different, per mission.

Environments might be different but how much? It's possible to load completely different tileset (Sanctuary onslaught) but is it feasible with RJ?

5 hours ago, Loza03 said:

In terms of the Defence mission, it also adds sub-objectives that have in-game meaning, as well as needing the player to adjust their strategy to keep things interesting. Psychologically speaking, people are much more interested in things if they aren't doing the exact same activity every time. Injecting variety on multiple levels through having the combat environment and method change as well as through having to juggle defence objective and to a lesser degree Railjack maintenance. It gives the player more to think about and engage their brain on.

Sub-objectives are fine but playing different games are not. You may like e.g. exterminate + spy but some might hate spies.

Some not "huge" differences are fine imho. "Someone" attacking you in the void brings something new to the game but, afair, it's not different than main objectives (killing stuffs).

5 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Aside from that, you're proving my point. "For me". "For PoE... and for Deimos". After all, you can't change frames in normal missions either, and so you are equally encouraged to bring the best frame in to them as well to ensure the greatest chance at success. The difference is, with regular missions the objectives are with few exceptions monolithically identical throughout the whole mission. This makes what the 'best' choice far less of a personal opinion, and far more of a fixed meta. With a fixed, single mission type, the 'best' option is usually easy to discern.

That's not exactly true.

Sure for some "high level missions" you need to bring "good gear", hence there are less choices.

However for "normal missions" you have more choices, even they are sub-optimal.

5 hours ago, Loza03 said:

But when that objective isn't singular 'for me' becomes a whole lot more relevant. Since you are no longer faced with a single problem to overcome, you are presented with genuine decisions.

Sure, decisions are much more important but they strips you from your freedom. If your team is good then you can pick a role like single-objective missions. However if your team is not good and you need to pick frame that fulfill more roles? You are forced to pick from less frames/abilities. And if you are playing solo then you are in this situation.

5 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Most of Railjack is actually designer-made, not procedurally generated. Dynamically changing missions and environments are something completely different.

I would say dynamically changing stuffs is part of PCG:

Quote

Can use player/system input: System can use inputs from player (such as their name) as part of the generation procedure;

https://medium.com/@eigenbom/dynamic-vs-static-procedural-generation-ed3e7a7a68a3

 

[Loza03]

50 minutes ago, quxier said:

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Hijack

Whilst that might be an escort mission, it's not exactly the most gracefully handled one. The old 'slower than you can run, slower than you can walk' problem.

55 minutes ago, quxier said:

Maybe... but I don't think it's "greatly".

I've already pointed out multiple added gameplay opportunities, and again, I'm not even a designer.

58 minutes ago, quxier said:

I feel like co-op elements are... not so interesting. At least not in this game. In some puzzle-like game, imho, it would be better.

... but I'm not into "huge" co-op (helping teammates or something small is fine but nothing more) too much so take it with grain of salt.

Cool. Then you can rely on your own skill or AI crewmates. Teamwork would make that process more streamlined, but it'd not be required.

51 minutes ago, quxier said:

I could just play few different mission with any gear I want. With RJ we have ships and mechs/frames/operator/archwings. That's 2 "tools" vs 1, potentially different, per mission.

That's my point. 2 main toolsets opens more combinations of interesting gameplay than one toolset.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Environments might be different but how much? It's possible to load completely different tileset (Sanctuary onslaught) but is it feasible with RJ?

Yes? I mean, it's possible right now in Railjack? The game is capable of loading multiple different tilesets in RJ. Besides, what matters in this case is the gameplay experience, which largely comes down to elements like "How big is the room? Do I currently have gravity?".

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Sub-objectives are fine but playing different games are not. You may like e.g. exterminate + spy but some might hate spies.

Some not "huge" differences are fine imho. "Someone" attacking you in the void brings something new to the game but, afair, it's not different than main objectives (killing stuffs).

Neither is having multiple main objectives in the same mission. They're still ultimately main missions after all.

And, to be honest, it's not like Railjack is some dramatically different game. It's still a shooter primarily focused around killing stuffs. You're just doing it with a spaceship rather than a Warframe. It's different enough to engage more of your brain, especially if the objective changes in some way, but it's hardly like you go from playing a shooter to rhythm game or something.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

That's not exactly true.

Sure for some "high level missions" you need to bring "good gear", hence there are less choices.

However for "normal missions" you have more choices, even they are sub-optimal.

The point is the 'sub-optimal'. It's cut and dry what's 'good' in any given mission. High level missions just enforce what is ultimately a strict, rigid and (quite frankly) stale meta, that exists irrespective of level.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Sure, decisions are much more important but they strips you from your freedom. If your team is good then you can pick a role like single-objective missions. However if your team is not good and you need to pick frame that fulfill more roles? You are forced to pick from less frames/abilities. And if you are playing solo then you are in this situation.

Solo player here. Even within these aspects, you are still offered meaningful decisions. After all, when you play solo, you are volunteering to take on all the roles, as you indicate.

But here's the thing, this is an action RPG. So your own skill as a player at fulfilling certain roles also matters. The same principle that lets you bring sub-optimal loadouts also applies here. Except instead of providing a brief respite from the banality of a stale and repetitive game mode that you are usually required to grind to get whatever doo-dad you want, this is allowing you options, as discussed, since you can build to capitalise on your strengths (such as if you are in a co-ordinated team) or cover for your weaknesses. You can even bring a variety of tools across a broad spectrum of uses to play as a jack of all trades.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

I would say dynamically changing stuffs is part of PCG:

Dynamically changing environments can also be outside of Procedural generation. Minecraft and CS:GO both have environments that are dramatically and constantly altered by the player on the fly. One of those is procedurally generated, the other is not. A dynamic environment is one that changes frequently or substantially. For example, if you blow part of it up, or if one part of the environment is substantially different to another despite being continuous and non destructible. In Railjack's case, two of the Corpus points of interest and some of the crewships have the environment change as you progress and you are placed in a variety of different environments, frequently progressing through environments in such a way that the flow of the gameplay changes.

The effectiveness gets reduced when after five minutes you get thrown into one procedurally-generated environment that's the same all the way through, but that's my issue

[(PSN)IndianChiefJeff]

Not to berate the OP, but yes. It was necessary.

Ever since Railjack & the Nemesis system were shown off together at TennoCon a long time ago (at least it feels that way), it was immediately indicative that both would be connected. Given how incredibly fragmented the game's development seems to be, it would have inevitably arrived at some point. Personal opinions, DE kept true to their promise. For better or for worse, the integration was planned & is official.

[quxier]

4 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Whilst that might be an escort mission, it's not exactly the most gracefully handled one. The old 'slower than you can run, slower than you can walk' problem.

I don't mean it's perfect.

6 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

That's my point. 2 main toolsets opens more combinations of interesting gameplay than one toolset.

Yeah but look at anything that's not a frame:

- Mechs are less agile/nimble than a frame, less interesting feature (47 frames vs 2 mechs)

- RJ - only guns?

- k-drive... no melee/primary, no some movements, I'm not even sure if features are good for combat (e.g. one I know is that ground-slams are bad)

- Operator - void status, sentients' resetting -> this one is kind of "nice"

 

IMHO, only Operators brings something nice into gameplay.

19 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Yes? I mean, it's possible right now in Railjack? The game is capable of loading multiple different tilesets in RJ. Besides, what matters in this case is the gameplay experience, which largely comes down to elements like "How big is the room? Do I currently have gravity?".

It's possible - great.

"A room" might be big but empty, hence easy to load... but that's implementation details.

25 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Neither is having multiple main objectives in the same mission. They're still ultimately main missions after all.

"Void guy" is not main objective (you can just let him be) but it's still objective.

26 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

The point is the 'sub-optimal'. It's cut and dry what's 'good' in any given mission. High level missions just enforce what is ultimately a strict, rigid and (quite frankly) stale meta, that exists irrespective of level.

You don't always need the best gear for that content.

33 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

You can even bring a variety of tools across a broad spectrum of uses to play as a jack of all trades.

Ok, go solo for POE's bounty, Liberate camp. No archwing (or other similar stuffs) of course - that would be cheating. Tell me how many frames were ok from ~47 frames.

If you could do it via most frames then I would believe in your quote.

45 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Dynamically changing environments can also be outside of Procedural generation.

Sure.

48 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

The effectiveness gets reduced when after five minutes you get thrown into one procedurally-generated environment that's the same all the way through, but that's my issue

Then I guess we agree on that.

[Loza03]

47 minutes ago, quxier said:

I don't mean it's perfect.

And it'd be better with a better implementation. I believe what I described would be such a better implementation, and it uses Railjack to achieve that.

In other words sure, Hijack exists. There's an escort mission game mode that bonds offense and defence. But why are we stopping there? Why are we looking at Hijack, which is effectively just a PvE Payload map from Team Fortress 2 and saying to ourselves, "yup, we're done here. That's all Warframe can offer in this respect. No need to innovate on a concept that was at least half a decade old when it was introduced, and has been done better both before and since".

50 minutes ago, quxier said:

- RJ - only guns?

Forgive me for ignoring the others, but Railjack is what I'm interested in for this particular conversation.

'The Railjack' as a larger vehicle also has abilities and maneuvers, as well as its own distinct resource management systems. And it also serves as a map and method of transportation. It already serves an upscaled version of the Role the Warthog plays in any Halo campaign mission that isn't a bombastic finale, that being a central focus point of a mission between more traditional gameplay segments. In some respects, it's also an objective of some missions due to the fact it needs to be defended and repaired. 

The Railjack is both a means to interact with space combat gameplay and on-foot gameplay, often with the two directly influencing each other (since space combat enemies can launch intruders that hinder your abilities in space). Despite sharing the same core as Warframe proper (being a shooter), it serves a very different role in mission design. This is in opposition to on-foot gameplay without the Railjack, which often has more emphasis on mobility due to the greater restrictions of gravity.

Railjack, whilst still highly mobile, isn't based on mobility. Like something like the Titans from Titanfall, it's more focused on the gun and ability play than the movement, which means that the mobility play of the Warframes can be put into the spotlight. 

1 hour ago, quxier said:

It's possible - great.

"A room" might be big but empty, hence easy to load... but that's implementation details.

Are you being intentionally reductive here?

Most Railjack points of interest are far from empty. If I'm honest, most of them are more vertical and parkour-intensive than most tileset rooms, including new ones (especially noticable in the proxima's which have dense rooms filled with obstacles in the PoI's vs the Deadlock ships which are very big but very very flat and empty. Point of Interests having a mobility-focused design makes sense due to the above point.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

"Void guy" is not main objective (you can just let him be) but it's still objective.

If you mean Stalker, then no, the doors lock around you and you can't leave the room you're in until you deal with him.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

You don't always need the best gear for that content.

You're just restating your point here. The point is that these gamemodes have a restrictive meta due to their over-simplicity. All that changes with difficulty is how hard the game punishes you for not ticking box A. There's no real choice either way.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Ok, go solo for POE's bounty, Liberate camp. No archwing (or other similar stuffs) of course - that would be cheating. Tell me how many frames were ok from ~47 frames.

If you could do it via most frames then I would believe in your quote.

Does regularly doing it without relying on abilities at all count? On a caster frame with limited survivability mods to boot, mind you.

Before I saw the light of low-duration Limbo, I'd get my kicks by trying to only use Limbo's passive. Eventually I got to the point where I'd kind of... forget about the passive a lot of the time. So just being a frame running around with whatever gun I liked most. I still do that a lot of the time to be honest, and it's frankly a whole lot of fun too.

I think that if I'm capable of handling that mission type comfortably without needing abilities on one squishy frame, I could do so with any given frame without much trouble, and far less if we're taking into account frames good at kill-per-second area denial.

[Klokwerkaos]

I for one like the change and prefer it and find it to be one of those rare times (albeit 2 years late) that DE actually delivered on a promise as advertised.

Is it strictly necessary?  No.  But neither is playing the game.  I like it with the RJ.

My solution to you OP, is don't run with PUGs if they are frustrating you.  There's no reason you shouldn't be able to get a group together that is invite only or run solo.  I have no sympathy.   We all have to deal with idiots in pugs in every game mode, here is no exception and your 1 anecdote doesn't change that this is not the experience of the vast majority of players.

[quxier]

8 hours ago, Loza03 said:

And it'd be better with a better implementation. I believe what I described would be such a better implementation, and it uses Railjack to achieve that.

But the thing is... RJ is not necessary to make it better.

9 hours ago, Loza03 said:

In other words sure, Hijack exists. There's an escort mission game mode that bonds offense and defence. But why are we stopping there? 

Nothing stops them but why it has to be RJ version? I see no huge difference (at least in potential) between RJ and old way. It's matter of preference. You like ships -> RJ, you like frames & co -> old way.

9 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Despite sharing the same core as Warframe proper (being a shooter), it serves a very different role in mission design. This is in opposition to on-foot gameplay without the Railjack, which often has more emphasis on mobility due to the greater restrictions of gravity.

Railjack, whilst still highly mobile, isn't based on mobility. Like something like the Titans from Titanfall, it's more focused on the gun and ability play than the movement, which means that the mobility play of the Warframes can be put into the spotlight. 

But it's the same kill/destroy stuffs. Am I right? Frames could play different roles while still being equally agile (few exception like Gaus that could dash). It's like worse version of frames.

... unless I'm missing some nice feature that RJ has and frame don't.

9 hours ago, Loza03 said:

The Railjack is both a means to interact with space combat gameplay and on-foot gameplay, often with the two directly influencing each other

So space team can influence "on-foot team". Am I understanding it right? I've tried to look for more info but I've only found old topic denying it:

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1254196-why-is-the-whole-team-forced-to-do-ground-missions-in-railjack/?tab=comments#comment-12080897

So I'm confused.

9 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Are you being intentionally reductive here?

Most Railjack points of interest are far from empty. If I'm honest, most of them are more vertical and parkour-intensive than most tileset rooms, including new ones (especially noticable in the proxima's which have dense rooms filled with obstacles in the PoI's vs the Deadlock ships which are very big but very very flat and empty. Point of Interests having a mobility-focused design makes sense due to the above point.

No, I don't mean it from "interesting" point of view.

I mean that 2 maps of the same size could potentially have different performance. One might have huge number of things while other might have it much less.

However that's "implementation detail" and it's out of the scope of such topics.

9 hours ago, Loza03 said:

If you mean Stalker, then no, the doors lock around you and you can't leave the room you're in until you deal with him.

I mean the one with Janus key.

And even as for Stalkee, you could probably hack consoles. Probably... Stalkee don't visit me too often nowadays.

9 hours ago, Loza03 said:

You're just restating your point here. The point is that these gamemodes have a restrictive meta due to their over-simplicity. All that changes with difficulty is how hard the game punishes you for not ticking box A. There's no real choice either way.

There is a choice but there is no point in arguing if you only want to use one frame/gear per given mission.

9 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Before I saw the light of low-duration Limbo, I'd get my kicks by trying to only use Limbo's passive. Eventually I got to the point where I'd kind of... forget about the passive a lot of the time. So just being a frame running around with whatever gun I liked most. I still do that a lot of the time to be honest, and it's frankly a whole lot of fun too.

I think that if I'm capable of handling that mission type comfortably without needing abilities on one squishy frame, I could do so with any given frame without much trouble, and far less if we're taking into account frames good at kill-per-second area denial.

Sorry for not believing you but that feels too much. I'm using mesa because she can shoot enemies without even seeing them from long distances. And I'm not the only one that had problems with that mission. So you using only a gun seems fetched. I may be wrong, and I'm sorry if I am, but I would like to see a video proof.

[Loza03]

23 minutes ago, quxier said:

Nothing stops them but why it has to be RJ version? I see no huge difference (at least in potential) between RJ and old way. It's matter of preference. You like ships -> RJ, you like frames & co -> old way.

Because the Railjack allows the players to have agency over the objective (thereby eliminating the problem of the objective being frustratingly slow or annoyingly fast), whilst also not unfairly gimping whoever has to carry the item because the spaceship does.

For my vision of Railjack defence, the Railjack segments serve to differentiate between waves and make the whole mission less monotonous, since you're regularly swapping between modes of play.

29 minutes ago, quxier said:

But it's the same kill/destroy stuffs. Am I right? Frames could play different roles while still being equally agile (few exception like Gaus that could dash). It's like worse version of frames.

... unless I'm missing some nice feature that RJ has and frame don't.

Like I said. Railjack offers a tighter focus on the combat elements and has them in a different environment. It also recontextualises several combat challenges. Space combat means that explosive weapons are overall less effective, positioning is completely changed in how it works, and as you'll notice, the weapons are also based on cooldowns.

The value is in the difference, not one being 'better' or 'worse' individually. In the fact that the designers and players have more tools to make fun challenges around, not 'better' tools. That allows the experience to be better and less monotonous.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

No, I don't mean it from "interesting" point of view.

I mean that 2 maps of the same size could potentially have different performance. One might have huge number of things while other might have it much less.

However that's "implementation detail" and it's out of the scope of such topics.

Well, I do mean from an interesting point of view. What I described appears to be well within Warframe's existing technical limitations. I don't know for sure, obviously, but suggesting that having multiple points of interest which have complex, interesting maps is somehow out of technical limitations when that's already in the game feels like a pointless argument.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

There is a choice but there is no point in arguing if you only want to use one frame/gear per given mission.

Believe me, I use sub-optimal frames a lot of the time. That doesn't mean I can't recognise that it's a strictly bad choice to do so, or that such simplistic mission design doesn't limit player expression at higher levels.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Sorry for not believing you but that feels too much. I'm using mesa because she can shoot enemies without even seeing them from long distances. And I'm not the only one that had problems with that mission. So you using only a gun seems fetched. I may be wrong, and I'm sorry if I am, but I would like to see a video proof.

I'm afraid I've not got much video capture experience and I wouldn't know where to start. If you could help I'd be happy to provide video evidence though.

I do have screenshots, however.

Spoiler

For reference, those two ability uses are from popping operator earlier in the mission. Turns out that counts as an ability use. This was also a tier 5 bounty, as well.

Nevertheless, outside of that instance I avoided using abilities for the whole bounty.

[quxier]

24 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Like I said. Railjack offers a tighter focus on the combat elements and has them in a different environment. It also recontextualises several combat challenges. Space combat means that explosive weapons are overall less effective, positioning is completely changed in how it works, and as you'll notice, the weapons are also based on cooldowns.

The value is in the difference, not one being 'better' or 'worse' individually. In the fact that the designers and players have more tools to make fun challenges around, not 'better' tools. That allows the experience to be better and less monotonous.

But that's just same stuffs (but in different games). It can be based on cooldowns or stuffs but you still have to shoot stuffs.

53 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

I'm afraid I've not got much video capture experience and I wouldn't know where to start. If you could help I'd be happy to provide video evidence though.

I don't have experience either.

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Loza03 said:

I'm afraid I've not got much video capture experience and I wouldn't know where to start. If you could help I'd be happy to provide video evidence though.

If you're running Windows 10 or Xbox you can use the Game Bar for this.  I've only done it a few times but found it pretty easy.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-activate-and-configure-the-windows-10-game-bar/

From there I uploaded to YouTube.

I'd warn you that bounty very often seems buggy though, and an odd mission to choose as a test case.

[Loza03]

10 minutes ago, quxier said:

But that's just same stuffs (but in different games). It can be based on cooldowns or stuffs but you still have to shoot stuffs.

It still results in a different experience. Halo Combat Evolved, Half Life and Doom are all games where you have to shoot stuffs, which lack elements like 'Enhanced mobility' and are single-player campaign focused. Yet the differences are quite noticeable. 

Ultimately, the difference between the two playstyles is the value. It opens opportunities for the interaction between them.

40 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

If you're running Windows 10 or Xbox you can use the Game Bar for this.  I've only done it a few times but found it pretty easy.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-activate-and-configure-the-windows-10-game-bar/

From there I uploaded to YouTube.

I'd warn you that bounty very often seems buggy though, and an odd mission to choose as a test case.

Thank you!

 

@quxier, here you go.

 

[DoomFruit]

17 hours ago, (XBOX)TyeGoo said:

I'm glad they're there. At least now we can actually fight them after acquiring the sequence.. previously they arrived on random, which in some cases even took me a dozen PLUS missions to get a spawn.

I take the Railjack mission over that by MILES. 

It doesn't improve anything. The lich railjack node only appears when you have already used the correct order of mods - which can only happen when the lich randomly appears. Under the old system, you'd have killed them already at that point. The ship boarding bit is just extra busywork that we didn't even need to do before.

[Lisdexya]

No.... ur right. its ridiculous  that they would make railjack mandatory to complete main game stuff. im pissed cause im new to the game and they just effed me over with a railjack mission that i need to complete this lich. liches are main game quests, which i, being new, had no possible way of knowing i was starting it, or that i was gonna be trapped into this ridiculous quest for a garbage item. this is an extremely unfair consequence to just shaft people with. i came here to play warframe. IF I WANTED TO PLAY SEA OF THIEVES SPACE EDITION I WOULD HAVE GOT A DIFFERENT GAME!! Smh the people that created this part of the quest should be severely punished for their pure negligence to the fact that railjack is add-on content and should have no play in progression of the main game. Fricken bonkers.

[DroopingPuppy]

My lich is still stuck in saturn, and I have no plan for the endgame because it's on railjack.

Seriously, WHY we need for a railjack, since it's lich versus tenno, NOT fleet to fleet battle? It's nothing but disgusting and annoying. Aren't Kuva Lich already boring and time consuming job? Why make it even worse and hard(actually, IMPOSSIBLE) to access?