Make the Balor Formorian and Razorback missions into Raids

[(XBOX)T00NYBOY]

The current structure of these missions really doesn't support the intentions of the events as a whole. What I mean by this is that the Balor Formorian missions are quite easy, ending with you chipping away at the behemoth's health as it inches closer and closer to one of the Relays. You won't allow the Relays to be destroyed any more because players would deliberately allow them to be destroyed. Instead of sticking with the current method of auto-destruction, make the missions into Raid-types that end in the Formorian's destruction. There is currently no risk to the Relays, so we're not missing anything by simply making it a mission that changes nothing about the Relays. The Archwing Quest gave me the idea that the first sequence should be approaching the Formorian, we can ignore the current interior and swap it out for something that facilitates a boarding-type sequence perhaps.

I'm not asking for Raids as complex and obscure mechanics-wise as Destiny, because that would turn many teams toxic the more difficult it is for new players to pick up, but I reckon they'd be better than the current event.

[chaotea]

I like the idea of raids being like Steel Path Sorties, but weekly, and less combat focused and more mechanic focused.

[Skoomaseller]

I agree, personally though I'd like to see balor fomorian turned into a railjack mission

[MutoManiac]

Right now, I get 200,000 credits and a catalyst (Fomorian) in about 3 minutes solo, so if they added more rewards it would be  worth it. But who am I kidding, I would love new content, so I would do it regardless.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

Formorians should be a Railjack mission: no more having to worry about Zeplens or having to go inside to destroy the core, just take down a bunch of enemeis defending the Formorian, then fire forward Artillery at the core and GTFO. I'd be fine with it being a bit longer/more difficult then as well. 

Razorback missions aren't bad as far as boss fights go, but a mission where you sabotage a whole fleet of them would be pretty neat; this could also take place on a Railjack tileset, but the Tenno still have to go inside to do some parts of the Sabotage. something about this hit-and-run style of Railjack Gameplay could be fun IMO and would help intergate the mode into the game more.

of course, newer players withotu railjack would probably still be stuck relying on other people's Railjacks or having to do the missions in Archwing, that's the downside.

[(XBOX)T00NYBOY]

4 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

Formorians should be a Railjack mission: no more having to worry about Zeplens or having to go inside to destroy the core, just take down a bunch of enemeis defending the Formorian, then fire forward Artillery at the core and GTFO. I'd be fine with it being a bit longer/more difficult then as well. 

Razorback missions aren't bad as far as boss fights go, but a mission where you sabotage a whole fleet of them would be pretty neat; this could also take place on a Railjack tileset, but the Tenno still have to go inside to do some parts of the Sabotage. something about this hit-and-run style of Railjack Gameplay could be fun IMO and would help intergate the mode into the game more.

of course, newer players withotu railjack would probably still be stuck relying on other people's Railjacks or having to do the missions in Archwing, that's the downside.

A couple of people seem to be interested in a Railjack V Fomorian type mission. I don't see this working, as not only are Formorians introduced (and said to be high in number) VERY early in the game, compared to Railjacks which aren't in the game until close to the end as far as progression goes. Not only that, but Formorians are supposed to be Capital ship killers, they obliterate anything they shoot at with a single shot, as shown in the Archwing Quest where you are forced to emergency deploy the Archwing because of a surprise attack on the ship you are sabotaging, then when you turn around, the ship is in pieces. The idea of a Railjack lasting long enough in a fight to not only destroy the smaller ships in the area, but damage the Formorian's shields to then work its way around to the back of the Formorian to fire at its core would only make the Formorians look weak and laughable. 

For Razorbacks however, Railjacks would actually lend themselves very well to the concept of a Raid, at least for the final segment. The second part of the Raid should be a sabotage mission similar to what we have currently. The objective would be to punch through the defenses of the Capital ship that defends the fleet of Razorback landing pods using Archwings, which would be the first part of the Raid. Once on the Capital ship, the goal is to essentially disable it's main gun, allowing the Railjack to approach the fleet. This sequence would have a boss battle with a singular Razorback like we have currently. Then the final segment of the Raid would be the fleet of Razorbacks trying to board the Relay, with a space battle with the Railjack and some AI controlled ships defending the Relay (c'mon, as if the Tenno are the only good guys with combat-ready ships. Get out) as the player-controlled Railjack defends the Relay from the Razorback fleet. Once the Razorbacks have been thinned out and the Relay defense fleet is confident they can defend the Relay from the remaining forces, the final boss is the Railjack vs the Capital ship, combined with the Archwings to take out/damage as many of its weapons as possible to help the Railjack out.

[Tyreaus]

3 minutes ago, (XBOX)T00NYBOY said:

I don't see this working, as not only are Formorians introduced (and said to be high in number) VERY early in the game, compared to Railjacks which aren't in the game until close to the end as far as progression goes.

Only thing is, I think this goes for Razorbacks too. They kind of go hand-in-hand with Fomorians in terms of their location in the content line. So it seems odd to have one of them require later progression than the other. If Railjack was an option, say instead of Archwings, that'd be one thing.

[(XBOX)T00NYBOY]

3 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

Only thing is, I think this goes for Razorbacks too. They kind of go hand-in-hand with Fomorians in terms of their location in the content line. So it seems odd to have one of them require later progression than the other. If Railjack was an option, say instead of Archwings, that'd be one thing.

The problem with making Railjacks optional is balance, you'd have to account for making the mission challenging for Railjack users, but in that hypothetical final sequence, the Archwings would have a lot of trouble doing it. Also, they go hand-in-hand currently in the events, because they are tied together in the Invasion system, but if you make them Raids, you can give them whatever story you want and just lock it behind having a Railjack. This game lacks enough railroading as it is in terms of story chronology, so whatever solution we end up agreeing on, Rising Tide completion is a requirement as far as I'm concerned

[(XBOX)T00NYBOY]

Just now, (XBOX)T00NYBOY said:

The problem with making Railjacks optional is balance, you'd have to account for making the mission challenging for Railjack users, but in that hypothetical final sequence, the Archwings would have a lot of trouble doing it. Also, they go hand-in-hand currently in the events, because they are tied together in the Invasion system, but if you make them Raids, you can give them whatever story you want and just lock it behind having a Railjack. This game lacks enough railroading as it is in terms of story chronology, so whatever solution we end up agreeing on, Rising Tide completion is a requirement as far as I'm concerned

That's what I really hated about Heart of Deimos. Despite the fact that almost nothing makes sense at that point in the game, you unlock it so early that it completely messes with the Sentient plot. This was fine when the quest originally came out, because for players that were up to date on the quests would be introduced to the new Sentient development. The Sentients have developed a new warform that's essentially the counter for Warframes, we are effectively useless against them. Whatever will we do? Then we find out about the Necramechs and how they are the "real" counter to the Sentients and the Warframes were just backup in case they failed (hate that retcon), but for newer players (or if you restart your account like me), you get introduced to the Necramechs and get the blueprints to build them before you even know what a Sentient is. Bruh. Please. Give me. Railroading.

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)T00NYBOY said:

The problem with making Railjacks optional is balance, you'd have to account for making the mission challenging for Railjack users, but in that hypothetical final sequence, the Archwings would have a lot of trouble doing it. Also, they go hand-in-hand currently in the events, because they are tied together in the Invasion system, but if you make them Raids, you can give them whatever story you want and just lock it behind having a Railjack. This game lacks enough railroading as it is in terms of story chronology, so whatever solution we end up agreeing on, Rising Tide completion is a requirement as far as I'm concerned

The thing is that separating them just creates more work. If one's further in progression, you're expecting higher levels and better rewards - so those have to get tweaked on top of whatever tweaks happen with the other. It's not hard to do, it just doesn't seem terribly worth the extra fuss.

That said, while I think it's doable - e.g. as a sort of hard mode, borrowing from Steel Path's philosophy - I don't think adding Railjack is terribly worth the fuss overall. Besides balance concerns and loot tables and all that other stuff to accommodate them on a technical level, it feels like they'd create more narrative speed-bumps than they'd enable. For example, with Fomorians, we'd pretty much have to make them an end-of-raid thing: they likely can't get close enough early on. At the same token, like you mentioned, Fomorians are brought up pretty early, so that would move them unusually far in the progression stream. And for Razorbacks, what do we need them for anyway? We're probably attacking some facility to stop Razorback production, and that's pretty much peak Warframe. They're the ones to go in and break machines. The Raptor mission on Europa is literally just that.

Plus leaning on Railjacks could limit some interesting end-scenes. If we're stuck with Archwings, maybe we literally disassemble one of the big cannons off the Fomorian, drag it a few hundred metres out to aim it, and get to fire a BFG as large as we are to blow up the works. You can't do that in Railjack.

56 minutes ago, (XBOX)T00NYBOY said:

That's what I really hated about Heart of Deimos. Despite the fact that almost nothing makes sense at that point in the game, you unlock it so early that it completely messes with the Sentient plot. This was fine when the quest originally came out, because for players that were up to date on the quests would be introduced to the new Sentient development. The Sentients have developed a new warform that's essentially the counter for Warframes, we are effectively useless against them. Whatever will we do? Then we find out about the Necramechs and how they are the "real" counter to the Sentients and the Warframes were just backup in case they failed (hate that retcon), but for newer players (or if you restart your account like me), you get introduced to the Necramechs and get the blueprints to build them before you even know what a Sentient is. Bruh. Please. Give me. Railroading.

I had, to put it lightly, many choice words about Deimos's narrative when it first came out. I think that was even before the Orphix mode. I still think that is one of the biggest narrative slip-ups. To set the player as secondary or a backup to something else, whether before or after touting them as the solution to the Sentient problem, in the context of a power fantasy game is...dumb. Just, dumb. And it's pretty much one line, maybe a few, which - by my recollection - is such a throwaway that it could be cut out and not ruin the rest of the quest. I don't even think the Orphix missions make reference to that. I think they just tell you to get in the Necramech.

Ugh, I'm going to get ranty if I'm not careful on that. That's the one thing in Warframe that pisses me off lol.

[TARINunit9]

15 hours ago, (XBOX)T00NYBOY said:

You won't allow the Relays to be destroyed any more because players would deliberately allow them to be destroyed. 

This is true for Fomorians, but for Razorbacks it's actually the other way around: when they first added Razorback Armadas, players farmed them so hard it drained to 0% in less than 24 hours.

Auto-decay on Fomorians, there to protect the relays. Auto-decay on Razorbacks, it's there to protect the Razorbacks

[(XBOX)T00NYBOY]

14 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

This is true for Fomorians, but for Razorbacks it's actually the other way around: when they first added Razorback Armadas, players farmed them so hard it drained to 0% in less than 24 hours.

Auto-decay on Fomorians, there to protect the relays. Auto-decay on Razorbacks, it's there to protect the Razorbacks

That doesn't make sense. Don't they provide the same rewards?

Also, how would the auto-decay preserve the Razorbacks? That would just kill them quicker

[Tyreaus]

1 minute ago, (XBOX)T00NYBOY said:

That doesn't make sense. Don't they provide the same rewards?

I think enemies at the time (maybe still do) dropped Orokin cells. So it was pretty common to farm the mission for those.

[(XBOX)T00NYBOY]

22 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

The thing is that separating them just creates more work. If one's further in progression, you're expecting higher levels and better rewards - so those have to get tweaked on top of whatever tweaks happen with the other. It's not hard to do, it just doesn't seem terribly worth the extra fuss.

That said, while I think it's doable - e.g. as a sort of hard mode, borrowing from Steel Path's philosophy - I don't think adding Railjack is terribly worth the fuss overall. Besides balance concerns and loot tables and all that other stuff to accommodate them on a technical level, it feels like they'd create more narrative speed-bumps than they'd enable. For example, with Fomorians, we'd pretty much have to make them an end-of-raid thing: they likely can't get close enough early on. At the same token, like you mentioned, Fomorians are brought up pretty early, so that would move them unusually far in the progression stream. And for Razorbacks, what do we need them for anyway? We're probably attacking some facility to stop Razorback production, and that's pretty much peak Warframe. They're the ones to go in and break machines. The Raptor mission on Europa is literally just that.

Plus leaning on Railjacks could limit some interesting end-scenes. If we're stuck with Archwings, maybe we literally disassemble one of the big cannons off the Fomorian, drag it a few hundred metres out to aim it, and get to fire a BFG as large as we are to blow up the works. You can't do that in Railjack.

I had, to put it lightly, many choice words about Deimos's narrative when it first came out. I think that was even before the Orphix mode. I still think that is one of the biggest narrative slip-ups. To set the player as secondary or a backup to something else, whether before or after touting them as the solution to the Sentient problem, in the context of a power fantasy game is...dumb. Just, dumb. And it's pretty much one line, maybe a few, which - by my recollection - is such a throwaway that it could be cut out and not ruin the rest of the quest. I don't even think the Orphix missions make reference to that. I think they just tell you to get in the Necramech.

Ugh, I'm going to get ranty if I'm not careful on that. That's the one thing in Warframe that pisses me off lol.

I've not thought too much about a replacement Formorian Raid, but my suggestion was to keep Formorians an Archwing focus, because having them only beatable via a Railjack would rightly mess everything up story-wise. I don't like the idea of ripping off its gun and firing it back at it though. I'd much prefer the idea of the original Formorian mission, but destroying the cores disables it's main gun as it's preparing to fire. You then board the Formorian and hijack it's Warp Drive or whatever and then next segment or two of the Raid is getting it to jump to a Grineer fleet/Formorian production facility and either get it to crash into the facility or self destruct next to the fleet or something.

[(XBOX)T00NYBOY]

Just now, (XBOX)T00NYBOY said:

I've not thought too much about a replacement Formorian Raid, but my suggestion was to keep Formorians an Archwing focus, because having them only beatable via a Railjack would rightly mess everything up story-wise. I don't like the idea of ripping off its gun and firing it back at it though. I'd much prefer the idea of the original Formorian mission, but destroying the cores disables it's main gun as it's preparing to fire. You then board the Formorian and hijack it's Warp Drive or whatever and then next segment or two of the Raid is getting it to jump to a Grineer fleet/Formorian production facility and either get it to crash into the facility or self destruct next to the fleet or something.

Also, I should have added, my suggestion for the Razorback Raid was that we aren't just going to the production facility of the Razorbacks and sabotaging it, because the story/context of the Raid is that the fleet is prepared and is approaching a Relay for an attack. The first segment is the Archwings slipping through the fleet up to the Capital ship's and boarding it, fighting a Razorback in person that ends with the Capital ship's primary weapon being disabled, allowing the Railjack to approach the fleet along with the Relay's own defensive fleet and fight off the Razorback drop pods that are attempting to land on the Relay. This fleet battle is the second segment. The third segment is a Railjack + Archwing space battle against the Capital ship. The Archwings fly around the Capital ship, destroying/disabling as many of its guns as possible to help the Railjack out while it opens fire on it, ending with the Capital ship's destruction. The Capital ship isn't the production facility, its purpose is to defend the transport ships for the Razorback fleet.

[CrownOfShadows]

I'm all for a railjack raid event.

No need to replace Fomorian to make that happen though.

[TARINunit9]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)T00NYBOY said:

That doesn't make sense. Don't they provide the same rewards?

No, Fomorians and Razorbacks drop very different rewards

1 hour ago, (XBOX)T00NYBOY said:

Also, how would the auto-decay preserve the Razorbacks? That would just kill them quicker

Auto-decay prevents player damage to the Razorback Armada, so no, decay makes them die slower

[(XBOX)T00NYBOY]

8 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

No, Fomorians and Razorbacks drop very different rewards

Auto-decay prevents player damage to the Razorback Armada, so no, decay makes them die slower

Oh. I guess that makes sense from a development perspective. Either way it wouldn't matter if we'd make them Raids instead of events

[(XBOX)T00NYBOY]

9 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I'm all for a railjack raid event.

No need to replace Fomorian to make that happen though.

There would be, because with how Fomorians are described and set up, there's no way to convincingly show a Railjack 1v1ing (bruh, that's not even spellchecked. What happened to this language) a Fomorian. They are by word of mouth said to be Capital ship killers, and they are built to destroy Relays. We shouldn't have Railjacks involved in the Fomorian Raid, because the Fomorian fleet is constructed almost at the beginning of the game, Railjacks are found by the player almost at the end as far as content progression goes, so narratively it makes no sense for the Raid to take place so long after the Fomorians are built as opposed to taking place shortly after their construction.

[TARINunit9]

16 minutes ago, (XBOX)T00NYBOY said:

There would be, because with how Fomorians are described and set up, there's no way to convincingly show a Railjack 1v1ing (bruh, that's not even spellchecked. What happened to this language) a Fomorian. They are by word of mouth said to be Capital ship killers, and they are built to destroy Relays. 

Chalk this up to engine limitations, but Fomorians and Galleons are the same size. I checked. Galleons are 4km long, Fomorians are 4km tall.

Fomorians aren't really an orthodox ship pattern. The way I describe them is weapons platforms. Yes, they can tear apart a Relay in one shot, and pulverize a 20km Corpus Hammerhead in a one-on-one, and yes they have monstrously strong shielding, but that's all they can do. They can't carry troops and they can't haul cargo. The primary lasers have terrible target tracking and no point defense weapons. A Railjack could fly circles around them with no threat to worry about

(As for spell check, it doesn't always know how to handle combinations of numbers and letters. It threw no complaints for my kse of "4km" even though that's wrong, it's supposed to be "4 km")