Veilbreaker: Launch & Hot Topics Week 2

[[DE]Rebecca]

Tenno, 

 

It’s been a week since our last Friday Update post and we wanted to shed some light on where the development team is at. At this point, Tenno have had the chance to take down both Boreal and Amar and may have even completed Kahl’s first weekly ‘Break Narmer’ Mission to reach Encampment in his Garrison.
 

As this content continues to roll out over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking for ways to improve the player experience, and we already have a few concrete actions we will be taking:

 

Kahl’s Bonus Challenges are getting some quality-of-life improvements. Firstly, we’re working to ensure that progress in these Challenges will be cumulative. Tenno will be able to partially complete a Challenge (ex: only removing 3 of 5 Veils) and then have that progress counted towards completing the challenge when repeating the mission (i.e. only 2 more Veils would need to be removed). Additionally, we’ve already improved the visibility of Chipper’s Tools and added a sound to the K-Drive parts as a result of player feedback. Another week brings another Mission to take on with Kahl, Veils need breaking - and we’ll be watching to prepare tweaks and improvements in upcoming hotfixes. 

 

We’ve kept a close look on Archon Hunts, and still have plans to iterate these fights based on Community Feedback. Nira is on deck next week, we’ll be keeping an eye out to see how the Final Archon fight fares. We have some experimental changes we’re testing out related to damage attenuation but don’t want to rush it out the door too early. We want to make sure we have stats for each fight and how we can apply rules holistically. We will share the stats in our upcoming Devstream (which of the three Archons had what type of success rates, etc), and will provide deeper explanations of the challenges in using damage attenuation vs. having ‘single digit second’ boss fights. It will be an open discussion, and we will invite you to join us when we announce our next Devstream. 

 

A hot topic this week is our most recent changes to Styanax. We made a couple of changes to his Final Stand, one to avoid him casting in the air indefinitely and another to make the ability non-interruptible. We had no intentions to remove the fun after his launch, and these were truly unintentional mechanics that required fixing. It’s on us that it wasn’t changed before launch. We also made a couple of key fixes to using Rally Cry in squads to ensure the strongest Styanax buff applies and fixed the Vortex effect on his Axios Javelin not functioning for Clients.

 

Next week we have Archon Nira on deck and a whole new ‘Break Narmer’ Mission to take on - it’s important to note that we’ll be organizing a bigger Hotfix for the next round, so it’s unlikely we’ll have a Hotfix out at all next week. We’ll give you a heads-up on what’s coming and when.

With all that said, once again, thank you for everyone’s feedback
Have a wonderful weekend, Tenno!

-[DE]Rebecca
 

 

[(NSW)XMittens64X]

K thanks, imma make Nira into a hedgehog with Styanax's javelins even if it doesn't do damage against her.

[fo3nixz]

ty looking forward to nira

[Garrasur]

Zitat

We made a couple of changes to his Final Stand, one to avoid him casting in the air indefinitely and another to make the ability non-interruptible. We had no intentions to remove the fun after his launch, and these were truly unintentional mechanics that required fixing.

Any plans to return some of the unintentional functionality? Casting abilities while his Final Stand is active made Styanax feel smooth and fun and it hurts to have lost this.

[MrsSilverAndro]

> Tenno will be able to partially complete a Challenge (ex: only removing 3 of 5 Veils) and then have that progress counted towards completing the challenge when repeating the mission (i.e. only 2 more Veils would need to be removed).

Very glad to see this change! Wasn't what I was expecting either, I figured yall would just add more duplicates in the mission.

[(PSN)IndianChiefJeff]

I hope you guys plan to expand on Kahl (and any other prospective characters that we'll be able to play as) outside of these little missions. It'd be really cool if we could take the Railjack AI Crewmate mechanic & implement it in regular missions. Running around with Kahl & his brothers on the Plains would be pretty neat.

Also, completely off-topic, will you guys adjust Entrati Lanthorn drop rates to be less, I dunno, miserly & meager?

[BiancaRoughfin]

Just now, [DE]Rebecca said:

Firstly, we’re working to ensure that progress in these Challenges will be cumulative. Tenno will be able to partially complete a Challenge (ex: only removing 3 of 5 Veils) and then have that progress counted towards completing the challenge when repeating the mission (i.e. only 2 more Veils would need to be removed).

Unnecessary... I replayed this mission 3 times to successfully do all the challenges, it was fun and it came to the point i was flashbanging the schitt of the Deacon so easily they were no longer a threat to me.

Why is it necessary making these missions easier if they are suppose to be a challenge for the Vets?

[Wheelhouser]

5 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We had no intentions to remove the fun after his launch

-[DE]Rebecca

Maybe not, but you did.

For many, stealth and pixel hunts just aren't any fun, and not what was expected of Kahl's missions.

The way the syndicate works is very much not-Warframe.  Is this to be expected in the future?  Feels very mobile gaming timegatey.

Overall, Veilbreaker, at least for me, hasn't offered up anything fun to do.  Boring and pretty easy boss fights, uninteresting Kahl first mission, and oddly designed new syndicate.

Odd choices, and hopefully not a sign of the future.

[Nekromast]

Thank you very much DE for your transparency, didn't except a second post for the Hot Topics and not even so fast for the just added changes! 
Incredible job, keep it up! :)

[(PSN)Dragon_God_87]

Any chance of getting Khal move off of drifter camp so that those of us who don't want to use it are not forced to maybe maroo has a free room for him and his band in her relay or maybe I'd be happy to let him chill in my dojo anywhere but the drifter camp

[Maryph]

il y a 7 minutes, BiancaRoughfin a dit :

Unnecessary... I replayed this mission 3 times to successfully do all the challenges, it was fun and it came to the point i was flashbanging the schitt of the Deacon so easily they were no longer a threat to me.

Why is it necessary making these missions easier if they are suppose to be a challenge for the Vets?

Those missions aren't really made to "be a challenge for the vets" tbh.
Unless you think that spending 30 minutes to find K-drives parts in a mission or redoing the mission 3 times to get everything while avoiding bad AI is considered a challenge.
You can literrally run past the Decons 3 meters behind them without anyone noticing, speedrunning everything without attracting anyone.

This progression QoL is needed, as we'll still need to rerun the mission multiple times (unless when you have big luck finding everything under 15 minutes in the 1st run without dieing).
 
Nothing is difficult there, nothing is challenging. It's just tedious.

[HunterDigi]

14 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

added a sound to the K-Drive parts as a result of player feedback.

What about also showing it on radar if you're close enough? :P Accesibility and all that.

[Vit0Corleone]

9 minutes ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

they are suppose to be a challenge for the Vets

You got that backwards IMO.

If it was a challenge for the vets, we would be using our frames/abilities/weapons/mods and player skill acquired over the years.

Khal missions have none of that. It's new gameplay outside of the normal gameplay we're used to. We're basically all at the same level here - new players and vets alike.

[PublikDomain]

What's the plan for Tauforged Archon Shards? Specifically, adding the ability to combine or upgrade lower-grade Shards like you can with Focus Lenses and systems that support Valence.

Edit: and to echo other commenters, adding the ability to interact with Kahl/Chipper without changing to the camp.

[Reitrix]

13 minutes ago, Garrasur said:

Any plans to return some of the unintentional functionality? Casting abilities while his Final Stand is active made Styanax feel smooth and fun and it hurts to have lost this.

That was a bug?! 
Damn, first time i've ever been sad that a bug was fixed ... Not even trolling. 
It was legitimately fun and interesting to be able to use abilities during Final Stand. 
I had Pull on my Styanax. It was really fun to hit Final Stand, Pull every mob in range directly in front of me and strip armor while my ghost mates hurl spears everywhere.

Would love to see this return as a function of the ability, Even if it was at the cost of increased energy costs or something to balance it out. 

[Aceofgods]

Make Archon Hunt daily, please.

I would much rather ask for weekly timegating to be removed entirely, and rather have an RNG based system as the easy answer, or adding a fractional currency/resource for the shards as mentioned here but I'll ask for the more likely possibility of change if nothing else is to be done at all.

[phoenix1992]

23 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

A hot topic this week is our most recent changes to Styanax. We made a couple of changes to his Final Stand, one to avoid him casting in the air indefinitely and another to make the ability non-interruptible. We had no intentions to remove the fun after his launch, and these were truly unintentional mechanics that required fixing. It’s on us that it wasn’t changed before launch. We also made a couple of key fixes to using Rally Cry in squads to ensure the strongest Styanax buff applies and fixed the Vortex effect on his Axios Javelin not functioning for Clients.

The issue has occured, which is okay - to Err is human. Handling the issue is more important, and in this case if the goal was not to remove fun... then why was it removed and not returned?

[RoadCrewWorker]

41 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We had no intentions to remove the fun after his launch, and these were truly unintentional mechanics that required fixing. It’s on us that it wasn’t changed before launch.

Please reconsider this, DE has shown adaptability to turn a fun "unintentional mechanic" into a well received feature before. This is a strength, not a weakness.

You can always monitor his (over?)usage afterwards and adjust according to that instead of what feels like an overly hasty kneejerk reaction that - at least from the player's perspective - doesn't feel properly justified from actual balancing viewpoints.

[Wiz3rd]

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We made a couple of changes to his Final Stand, one to avoid him casting in the air indefinitely and another to make the ability non-interruptible. We had no intentions to remove the fun after his launch, and these were truly unintentional mechanics that required fixing. It’s on us that it wasn’t changed before launch.

Okay, so you're saying you changed the abilities to the state you intended them to be in before release.

We still don't know why you think being able to fly using Final Stand, or casting abilities during it would be bad for his gameplay, so maybe touch on that?

It doesn't seem necessary, or fun to change them to what you intended, so why go ahead with those changes anyway?

What you said was:

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We had no intentions to remove the fun

Fact of the matter is that

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We had to remove the fun

[Voltage]

Can we get an open discussion going on why the new syndicate, Archon Shards, Tauforged Shards, and Prime Resurgence all feel like the game is heading into Mobile Game territory?

Week-gates are unenjoyable for everybody. The die hard players will need years upon years to have a decent amount for the enormous Warframe roster, and anyone who misses some weeks or are newer to the game will never catch up. I'd argue Archon Shards feel just as bad if not worse than Login Tributes before it was capped at 1000 for unique items and players were allowed to choose milestone rewards.

[KIREEK]

3 minutes ago, Voltage said:

and anyone who misses some weeks or are newer to the game will never catch up.

I just hope there won't be an actual catch up mechanic, you know the kind i'm refering to.

[LightOfDuskandDawn]

Loving most of the update so far, though I think I've gotten lucky on empowered frames on the hunts that've made them much more bearable (last week was Gyre, this week was Xaku).

I do have a request: can we get Narmer Isoplasts from either Kahl's missions, Chipper, or from the Archon Hunt missions? x2 Caliban and his scythe and helmet need a lot of those things and bounties/open worlds can be rough on a lower/mid end PC. Of course, the amount of standing they reward could be lessened, but it would be nice to be able to get those from somewhere other than bounties and this is Narmer related content.

[NightmareT12]

I just want to appreciate how you're willing to take and communicate these things openly -- will definitely help steer discussion and make big updates with lasting additions better.

Still gotta try Veilbreaker missions outside the initial quest before giving proper directed feedback, but I want to note I'm enjoying the game as a lil' kid for the first time in years and that many additions are welcome. Keep it up guys, what's working is great and what's not working I'm sure you'll solve :)

[Numerikuu]

26 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Tenno, 

 

It’s been a week since our last Friday Update post and we wanted to shed some light on where the development team is at. At this point, Tenno have had the chance to take down both Boreal and Amar and may have even completed Kahl’s first weekly ‘Break Narmer’ Mission to reach Encampment in his Garrison.
 

As this content continues to roll out over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking for ways to improve the player experience, and we already have a few concrete actions we will be taking:

 

Kahl’s Bonus Challenges are getting some quality-of-life improvements. Firstly, we’re working to ensure that progress in these Challenges will be cumulative. Tenno will be able to partially complete a Challenge (ex: only removing 3 of 5 Veils) and then have that progress counted towards completing the challenge when repeating the mission (i.e. only 2 more Veils would need to be removed). Additionally, we’ve already improved the visibility of Chipper’s Tools and added a sound to the K-Drive parts as a result of player feedback. Another week brings another Mission to take on with Kahl, Veils need breaking - and we’ll be watching to prepare tweaks and improvements in upcoming hotfixes. 

 

We’ve kept a close look on Archon Hunts, and still have plans to iterate these fights based on Community Feedback. Nira is on deck next week, we’ll be keeping an eye out to see how the Final Archon fight fares. We have some experimental changes we’re testing out related to damage attenuation but don’t want to rush it out the door too early. We want to make sure we have stats for each fight and how we can apply rules holistically. We will share the stats in our upcoming Devstream (which of the three Archons had what type of success rates, etc), and will provide deeper explanations of the challenges in using damage attenuation vs. having ‘single digit second’ boss fights. It will be an open discussion, and we will invite you to join us when we announce our next Devstream. 

 

A hot topic this week is our most recent changes to Styanax. We made a couple of changes to his Final Stand, one to avoid him casting in the air indefinitely and another to make the ability non-interruptible. We had no intentions to remove the fun after his launch, and these were truly unintentional mechanics that required fixing. It’s on us that it wasn’t changed before launch. We also made a couple of key fixes to using Rally Cry in squads to ensure the strongest Styanax buff applies and fixed the Vortex effect on his Axios Javelin not functioning for Clients.

 

Next week we have Archon Nira on deck and a whole new ‘Break Narmer’ Mission to take on - it’s important to note that we’ll be organizing a bigger Hotfix for the next round, so it’s unlikely we’ll have a Hotfix out at all next week. We’ll give you a heads-up on what’s coming and when.

With all that said, once again, thank you for everyone’s feedback
Have a wonderful weekend, Tenno!

-[DE]Rebecca

Awesome, thanks for the Challenge tweaks.

Regarding damage attenuation, Incarnon form weapons--the Laetum especially--are absolutely busted on Archons currently. If modded around headshot damage and Overwhelming Attrition, along with Radiation damage, the Laetum's Incarnon form 2-3 shots Archons in each of their phases 🥴

[Pakaku]

Styanex's 1 has a forced hop when cast mid-air, and it throws my aim off way too much. Will that ever be looked into? He's more or less flawless asides from that one complaint.