Feedback from a Toxic Ancient

[Aravanna]

I have been playing for a very long time, and clearly love the game. But I have been slightly dissatisfied with the Corpus Gas City and Corpus Ship tilesets. Some might take this as my being a salty toxic ancient, and those people may be right - though I don't personally believe so.

But my feelings about these newer tilesets are not based on 'change bad, player salty', more on the size scaling for the new tilesets. If you consider a max range exquinox (for example - though I would not normally play this) and then compare the older corpus ship tile to the new, the older tileset you would hit a substantial amount of a tile's area with your AoE, while with the newer tileset you're lucky to fill a corridor. The current corpus maps I feel are out of scale with other tilesets in the game. Sure they have grandeur, but they also make the player feel smaller. And that's without getting into the annoying parkour of gas city. No players that I have spoken with actually enjoy this - though doubtless some will respond to this.

Also, let us Sparta-kick Frohd Bek into the sun, pretty please?

[KitMeHarder]

I think the only parts most people dislike are the defense tiles, everything else is a welcome change IMO.

1 hour ago, Aravanna said:

but they also make the player feel smaller. And that's without getting into the annoying parkour of gas city.

Stuff like feeling smaller and doing more parkour in a game that lets you jump 3 stories on command, dash 200 meters in a split second, levitate mid-air, etc... is usually a good thing. As in it lets you use the tools you've been given to the fullest extent.

[(NSW)Greybones]

I sort of figure that the difference in scale between Corpus and Grineer tiles would be a running theme; Corpus are more open-space, good for Frames like Gauss and Yareli and Valkyr and in general longer shots and more capacity for maintaining distance, and Grineer are more claustrophobic and enclosed, good for frames like Atlas and Nyx and shotguns and close-quarters combat

[Kalvorax]

honestly...i LOVE the size. i wouldnt mind the grineer getting some much needed TLC now...maybe some new void tiles as well.

as others have said, it lets us use our whole kit....and honestly, its fun. I dont feel like im slamming into everything in the newer tiles like i do in the older tiles.

i personally wish they would take the endless missions and give them a free for all on tile mixes to change things up a bit. Survivals all tend to have the same tiles after awhile. I only see "newer" mixes when i run exterminates and captures.

but again for size, I feel that they maybe be a tad to large....but currently if they were any larger then there would be issues i would think.

[Graavarg]

It is not the actual size, which would be just fine if utilized in some way.

A lot of Warframe's environments are "spatially limited", much due to the impressive age of the game, partly due to the mission types and players otherwise getting lost. In missions where we "move" we are basically running a laid out track, with a "start" and a "finish" and something to do in-between. The tileset then has a track-laying function, as in being what creates the track for us. While quite functional from a gaming perspective, it also easily makes playing Warframe a bit boring. And occasionally a bit silly, since the "internal tilse-set" clearly could not exist inside the "visual container" (like the spaceship we attack). Open-air bounties also mostly follow the same formula, even going as far as pseudo-forcing players to play in one designated spot for "kill X enemies"-stages (when said enemies can actually be found all over the map).

With "indoor"/tile-set missions the size can be a negative factor for some mission types, due to their enemy spawn spots/systems. The new Corpus tileset has a notoriously bad "defense"-map, simply due to the enemies starting much too far away, which has the only effect of making the missions drawn out and tedious as h*ll. Otherwise the map is quite well designed, and occasionally (in some missions) it even shines.

That nearly no content actually uses "lots of environment space" for any gameplay-related stuff and that missions where players move are basically a track to follow from start to end. become highlighted on the new larger Corpus tileset. It is visually impressive and nicely and coherently detailed, but it has no actual function or effect on gameplay. Except extending distances for players and enemies to move.

So while I sort of agree with the OP I think it is wrong to blame the tileset (for being "spacy"). The problem lies elsewhere, with mission design and game content not using space for anything (which occasionally even turns "more space" into a negative thing). The solution is to make all that space relevant, not to shrink everything down again.

Generally I think DE should lighten the touch with leading players around by the nose (in missions) and pampering us, "black" map areas should all be fixed and falling off the map should result in death (no invisible ceilings or not functional floors resulting in "blacking out" and re-joining the mission from safe spot). The use of "cover" should be decidedly improved, both for enemies and Tenno. Improved in-game calculations including cover and walls and a clearer distinction on how area affects (weapons, abilities) and punch-through works in combination with  allowing enemies to regain health when not damaged for X amount of time and making (some of them) them seek cover when damaged has the potential to seriously improve the game. By making "space" more important (and giving fighting "with space" and "without space" more distinctive differences). And sure, this goes against the current "run through missions where enemies are basically gnats to be swatted this way or that"-playstyle. But then, that gets old pretty fast.

[KitMeHarder]

1 hour ago, Graavarg said:

"black" map areas should all be fixed and falling off the map should result in death (no invisible ceilings or not functional floors resulting in "blacking out" and re-joining the mission from safe spot). The use of "cover" should be decidedly improved, both for enemies and Tenno.

So discourage parkour... in the parkour game?

[Graavarg]

On 2022-01-18 at 12:13 PM, KitMeHarder said:

So discourage parkour... in the parkour game?

I don't follow. Removing "blacking out"-areas and instead making the whole of the environment functional buffs the importance of parkour. Since you can move and move around everywhere (unless physically hindered by something that is really "there").

Falling of the map and getting downed/dying also makes your parkour skills more important. The current kindergarden-version (where we are picked up, dusted off and put back on the map without any consequences) does absolutely nothing to underline the importance of parkour.

[KitMeHarder]

4 hours ago, Graavarg said:

I don't follow. Removing "blacking out"-areas and instead making the whole of the environment functional buffs the importance of parkour.

I was also saying there is no reason to improve the cover system for players, because there's no reason to encourage it.

But on the point of falling out of bounds, I am all for fixing them up. Even on reddit the other day, a dev responded to a post about a horrible one in the grineer shipyard. But "out of bounds" is a very grey area, that will never realistically please anyone... simiply because of the limitations of video games. Plus, we are Warframes, I can fly to the top of the skybox in Orb Vallis and fall down completely unaided and unharmed, no piece of level design should be unaccesable for us realistically (or should thigh deep water kill us instantaneously?). Not to mention the ping issues of a peer-to-peer network killing your when it's not your fault.

[Graavarg]

11 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

But on the point of falling out of bounds, I am all for fixing them up. Even on reddit the other day, a dev responded to a post about a horrible one in the grineer shipyard. But "out of bounds" is a very grey area, that will never realistically please anyone... simiply because of the limitations of video games. Plus, we are Warframes, I can fly to the top of the skybox in Orb Vallis and fall down completely unaided and unharmed, no piece of level design should be unaccesable for us realistically (or should thigh deep water kill us instantaneously?). Not to mention the ping issues of a peer-to-peer network killing your when it's not your fault.

Yep, sorry if I misunderstood your point (couldn't really figure out why "safe out-of-bounds'ing" would be a positive for parkour 🙂).

In some instances a more coherent and functional tilesets might lead to a less visually impressive environment, but even an invisible "hard" ceiling would be better than "blacking out and respawning on the ground". And there are more immersive ways of handling environment limits (like "soft" ceilings, that removes movement gradually/progressively). As to falling from great heights and hitting the ground at speed, well, compared to all the other things we can be downed from/die from that one should be quite straight-forward. The same goes for jumping out into space (without an archwing equipped).