Railjack's problematic pacing & what I would add to the experience

[Grizzmoe]

Since its launch, Digital extremes has vastly improved upon Railjack, adding more content and finely tuning it into a fun game mode, flying the Railjack of course being my favorite part. However this is a problem because of how Railjack missions are actually paced.

•The Problem 

As I've said before, I enjoy flying my ship, it's the bread and butter of the whole mode but more often than not the objective forces you out of your ship far too much.

I don't mind the on foot segments in Railjack missions however I wish there where modes in where you got to spend more time actually flying your ship rather than it just being a taxi to get you to your actual mission.

Basically I play Railjack because I want to fly a space ship which was suppose to be the whole point of the mode.

If I wanted to do a survival mission I would go to the star chart and skip the Railjack segment entirely, this isn't to say that these modes should be removed, I think just they should be kept, however more Railjack "ship" focused mission should be added.

•My Ideas

•Escalation: Think of it as Sanctuary onslaught but for Railjack, when you first jump into the node you will be fighting easy low level enemy fighters. Once you clear them out you will fly to a marker on the map that will take you to the next zone. The more zones you complete the harder the enemy fighters will get, but better resources will drop and spawn in the zones. 

•Heist: The goal is to disable an enemy cargo hauler and defend it while supplies are raided from it, you must stay within range of the cargo hauler in order for progress to be made. Once all the supplies are are taken, it's on to the next hauler.

•Evacuation: A Civilian space installation has come under fire by the enemy, you must protect the civilian transports escaping the doomed station and make sure they reach the escape vector without the enemy destroying them.

•Massacre: Skirmish but without on on foot segment. (Space exterminate)

These aren't perfect examples or but you get the idea, These modes focus more on being able to pilot your ship rather than having to abruptly stop and do on foot stuff while the NPC pilot has all the fun.

[TaricTheAncient]

I agree and want to do space missions in my ship not in enemy ships.

[Vahenir]

One i would love to see is basically "real" railjack survival. 

The forge is disabled and you have to rely on pickups for revolite etc to fix and rearm the railjack. Enemy fighters and crewships spawn in and increase in level every 5 minutes until you either leave or run out of revolite so the ship can't be fixed. So basically like survival, but instead of lifesupport the enemies drop revolite while the forge is turned off.

Railjack spy missions should have a more stealthy approach in general. Avoiding scanners and such on the approach so nobody knows anyone has even boarded the installation/ship with the datavaults. Detection will make the vaults harder in some way once the ship/installation is boarded. Let someone stay on the railjack to provide outside support via the tactical map by hacking turrets and fiddling with stuff like that.

Railjack sabotage could be really cool as well, like what was shown in the tennocon reveal. Where someone enters and turns off the shields on the reactor so that the one on the railjack can explode it using the big gun. Something for a volatile type mission on the grineer side of things.

 

There are so many things that can be done using railjack. Especially if spawn numbers are toned down and replaced with tougher and more interesting enemies on the ground.

[Shaden73]

I would like to see some heist missions with prep missions similar to gta.

The sabotage at tennocon looked really cool but what stopping you from simply going to the engine room and starting a core meltdown?

[MasterControl]

I'd like a proper defense, maybe defense/disruption/defection hybrid. There's a few ships roughly the size of a crewship on the field (tenno sympathizer refugees?) with void cloaks that have had their engines disabled by a void storm/emp/whatever, and grineer/corpus are trying to destroy it and/or seize it. Every once in a while one of the ships will have their void cloak disrupted by an incoming enemy ship (something beefy, maybe like a crewship that can be shot to death with turrets) and become a defense target. During this time the enemy will shoot it normally, and send boarding parties to shoot the reactor inside. Cover the ships while they make repairs, intercept enemy fighters, and board and clear if any make it past you. Blast the void cloak disruptor when it appears and the friendly ship will recloak, become invincible and begin repairing. New enemy units that sort of function as Railjack demolyst equivalent including a ship who's exclusive purpose is massive burst damage (imagine a ship that's just a gigantic cannon barrel with engines for the grineer) and an unarmed ship that can only launch a set number of boarding pods before trying to flee. The ship has internal turrets and will automatically clear enemies that board it eventually, but if it's low on hp you may have to board and help them out.

[Vahenir]

39 minutes ago, MasterControl said:

I'd like a proper defense, maybe defense/disruption/defection hybrid. There's a few ships roughly the size of a crewship on the field (tenno sympathizer refugees?) with void cloaks that have had their engines disabled by a void storm/emp/whatever, and grineer/corpus are trying to destroy it and/or seize it. Every once in a while one of the ships will have their void cloak disrupted by an incoming enemy ship (something beefy, maybe like a crewship that can be shot to death with turrets) and become a defense target. During this time the enemy will shoot it normally, and send boarding parties to shoot the reactor inside. Cover the ships while they make repairs, intercept enemy fighters, and board and clear if any make it past you. Blast the void cloak disruptor when it appears and the friendly ship will recloak, become invincible and begin repairing. New enemy units that sort of function as Railjack demolyst equivalent including a ship who's exclusive purpose is massive burst damage (imagine a ship that's just a gigantic cannon barrel with engines for the grineer) and an unarmed ship that can only launch a set number of boarding pods before trying to flee. The ship has internal turrets and will automatically clear enemies that board it eventually, but if it's low on hp you may have to board and help them out.

Ah yes, this would be nice too. I could even see things like repair mechanics where you can repair the friendly ship from the inside or give it a tow with the railjack itself.

Its just too bad that if it doesn't complete faster than like 5 minutes while you're solo then nobody will play it anyway like with current railjack stuff. Either it being extremely fast or giving like double rewards would make people play it most likely. Lots would be whining about it constantly as well since its not "warframe" and all future missions should be the same as the current (non open world) ground missions. The random groups are pretty bad as well since you have no idea what kind of a ship will be used, it could be completely unupgraded or maxed out. Something needs to be done about that, either by moving the equipped weapons, reactor etc, to the plexus or by making some kind of forced gear limits depending on mission so that you cant host in the veil without tier 3 gear in all slots for instance.

[Darth_Predator]

2 часа назад, Vahenir сказал:

The forge is disabled and you have to rely on pickups for revolite etc to fix and rearm the railjack. Enemy fighters and crewships spawn in and increase in level every 5 minutes until you either leave or run out of revolite so the ship can't be fixed. So basically like survival, but instead of lifesupport the enemies drop revolite while the forge is turned off.

You would probably disable the crew as well then. Cause the crew engineer has infinite revolite. But in that case solo players will be pissed.

All and all I would also prefer to have less railjack missions which want me to get out. Some stuff to do with the ship itself, not to the levels of Gian Point mind you, but akin to suggested survival. The idea is on the surface and I don't believe DE don't see it.

[Vahenir]

6 minutes ago, Darth_Predator said:

You would probably disable the crew as well then. Cause the crew engineer has infinite revolite. But in that case solo players will be pissed.

Ah yes or make revolite shared across the whole team, including NPC crew, in these missions. Which should make it work fine both with a full party and NPC crew while solo.

[sunderthefirmament]

5 hours ago, Harvenger76 said:

These aren't perfect examples or but you get the idea, These modes focus more on being able to pilot your ship rather than having to abruptly stop and do on foot stuff while the NPC pilot has all the fun.

I love your suggestions.  I'm hoping that DE keeps working on Railjack, because it is one of the most intrinsically rewarding game modes (no pun intended).  I wonder if Infested RJ will see the pendulum swing away from "taxi RJ" back towards actually using your RJ.

[DrBorris]

While I am all for some Railjack missions better utilizing the Railjack, I think putting too much focus on the Railjack in most missions is a bad idea. Railjack was supposed to be the glue that tied the game together, not another content island. The bread and butter of Warframe is on-foot missions, using Railjack as a tool to seamlessly connect segments of on-foot gameplay into an immersive experience is where I see the greatest potential in Railjack. Yes, this is basically just a taxi, but it is a taxi where you get to fly a big space ship and shoot down a bunch of enemies on the way.

On the Devstream when Scott was asked "why did you change your Vision of Railjack to just be a Taxi" he basically said "why not both?" Just because DE implemented a game mode where Railjack combat was less important it doesn't mean that all other mission structures are going away. DE adding Disruption didn't mean that they were deleting all other game modes. Railjack shouldn't be confined to a single archetype of mission structure. There should be some missions where the Railjack plays a key role in the combat, but that shouldn't be most. There is a potential for every mission to be a Railjack mission, where we never see a loading screen. Railjack in my eyes should be a tool to deliver us to more core Warframe content, not the content itself.

 

I don't think that having more on-foot combat is "bad pacing." If anything it is a better representation of what the future of Warframe could be. Railjack missions where the Railjack is the key are awesome and should be explored but they aren't, in my opinion, where Railjack's potential is.

[Grizzmoe]

3 hours ago, DrBorris said:

While I am all for some Railjack missions better utilizing the Railjack, I think putting too much focus on the Railjack in most missions is a bad idea. Railjack was supposed to be the glue that tied the game together, not another content island. The bread and butter of Warframe is on-foot missions, using Railjack as a tool to seamlessly connect segments of on-foot gameplay into an immersive experience is where I see the greatest potential in Railjack. Yes, this is basically just a taxi, but it is a taxi where you get to fly a big space ship and shoot down a bunch of enemies on the way.

On the Devstream when Scott was asked "why did you change your Vision of Railjack to just be a Taxi" he basically said "why not both?" Just because DE implemented a game mode where Railjack combat was less important it doesn't mean that all other mission structures are going away. DE adding Disruption didn't mean that they were deleting all other game modes. Railjack shouldn't be confined to a single archetype of mission structure. There should be some missions where the Railjack plays a key role in the combat, but that shouldn't be most. There is a potential for every mission to be a Railjack mission, where we never see a loading screen. Railjack in my eyes should be a tool to deliver us to more core Warframe content, not the content itself.

 

I don't think that having more on-foot combat is "bad pacing." If anything it is a better representation of what the future of Warframe could be. Railjack missions where the Railjack is the key are awesome and should be explored but they aren't, in my opinion, where Railjack's potential is.

Having on foot combat mixed in with Railjack isn't bad at all, I just feel that the pacing can get a little jarring after a while. For Skirmish missions it's really nice just to fly freely around feeling like an ace pilot dominating the enemy, this is definitely my high moment for Railjack that only becames stagnated when I suddenly have to pump the breaks and leave my ship to play an on foot objective.

 I play Railjack because it's a nice change of pace from our standard ground missions and being redirected back to those missions when playing Railjack can be a bit frustrating.

Railjack becomes less fun when I have to spend more time in the enemy's ship than I do my own.

The solution to this isn't to remove or even rework the already existing modes but to just add some modes that let you spend more time in your Railjack.