Chaining Mission Together - Bridging the Islands - Proxima Heist

[Grav_Starstrider]

Maybe this could kind of be it's own specific game mode. This would essentially be a combination of the Railjack demos (where they descended down to Orb Vallis or the Plains of Eidolon), and the more narrative-story-esque nature of the new Archon Hunts that still more or less just resemble semi-randomized missions in Sorties, and the bonuses we see from multiple rounds of Endless Void Fissures.

"Proxima Heist"?

You'd start from your Railjack (either from your Orbiter or Dojo or Relay), and be able to select a Proxima, at each Proxima you're offered either global cycling or consistent "Objectives" of 1-3 specific evergreen resources from that region. Nothing you couldn't just grind in other ways.
The reason you'd do this instead of other "easy speed-runnable" repeatable missions is that this is a chain of missions that'd specifically give you a guaranteed sum of the objective-resource, increasing per each mission you do in the chain, in a rewardingly steep bell curve that gets you to play a good few missions but eventually has diminishing returns (go touch grass). Choose only one Heist per day.
"Good work Tenno. The system has heard word of your successful heist, retrieving so much [Resource] from the [Faction] in [Proxima Name] will further our cause, but they and other Proxima will be particularly on guard for a short while."

You could eliminate tons of loading-screen and menu fiddling and streamline the experience by having the only option, at the end of the mission when you're getting into your Railjack mission, is to Continue, or Bail Out, and if continuing, to confirm and select your next mission's loadout, wherein you'll get general buffs to your loot gains, but increasing difficulty, but another guaranteed reward lump sum. (Altogether it'd make it feel not dissimilar to just running 1 singular endless mission, except with more variety because the actual mission type is changing, and occasionally the enemy type)

Ideally this is also accompanied perhaps by a slightly overhauled and updated Loadout system, like one that lets you flip between configs on each piece of equipment, change Focus School, and a feature that allows you to use Loadouts to only overwrite specifically selected slots on whatever Loadout you already had equipped. This overwrite feature could allow you to have a Loadout that only overwrites your current selection to Banshee and your companion to Shade and its weapon, since it's the best stealth option, but you keep your previously equipped melee and gun selection because they're automatically silenced by Banshee, and you were wanting to use them.
This could make a specific Melee Weapon and Naramon a matched pair, or a specific pair of weapons that have synergistic Amalgam mods available for them. etc.

Thoughts? (Ideally constructive)

[Grav_Starstrider]

 

Oh and if it wasn't clear, the idea would be that this heist has a chance of being any mission types for that Proxima's Railjack Missions AND the corresponding Star-Chart's ground missions, and even Archwing missions.

However, to make it make more logical sense, it should ideally be somewhat specific sequences and mission types. So I thought of a specific sequence.

This does however, look different than I originally pitched. You or DE are welcome to prefer or criticize one over the other, or mash them together somehow, haha.

 

So it could start with something like the Lotus (or someone from Fortuna or Cetus, or other notable characters) telling you they heard a few  tips or rumors on some resources they heard the Corpus  or Grineer (or Narmer?) were stockpiling or gathering for nefarious purposes, or merely to collect and transport to cover deficits in other regions they hold.

Stage 1 - Tips/Rumors

Spoiler

The first mission would be something like a solo Spy, Mobile Defense, or Interception, or anything (whether ground missions, Open World Bounty mission equivalents, or Archwing missions) where it makes sense as an information-gathering mission, to get more confirmation or insight or direction on the original tips or rumors, to figure out what resource is being transported/collected, and to find out who to go to in order to get even more information on that resource's collection.
(Additionally, they could provide an element of in-mission choice if multiple waves/hacks are available, so after the first objective completion, players would be presented an option that they could immediately head to extraction for the pursuit of, otherwise get through the next one and pick which one they'll retain and which one they'll drop, until the third one where after they pick they're automatically extracted or have no further options aside from heading to extraction, where they're picked up by Landing Crafts or their Railjack depending on what the next mission is about to be)

Stage 2 - Obtain Detailed Intel

Spoiler

The second mission could be Rescue, Capture, Defense, or Assassination (or Bounty or Archwing or Railjack equivalents), where somebody can be procured (or looted) who knows something about how the collection is occurring. You'll also get some of that Loot you chose in Stage 1.

Stage 3 - Commandeer the Collections

Spoiler

Now you have the gameplan. Smash and grabs and operation-disrupting missions of various types (exterminate, archwing rush/pursuit, Disruption, a loot variant of the Grineer Hijack, Sabotages with mandatory caches that your scanner or added hacks point the way towards, Spy missions where each hack reveals a Cache location, any Railjack/Open-World-Bounty equivalents).

At the end of these missions, you're given the option to up the ante (level and per-mission rewards) by doing more smash-and-grab and operation-disruption missions, up to a total of 3 stage 3 missions total. Of course, you're again actually getting even more loot than in Stage 2, and more per each mission you do in this stage. You'll also be able to see what mission type the next mission is, so if you want less Railjack or Archwing or Ground missions than you want to increase the payout, you can choose to go straight to stage 4. Your vote upon getting to extraction can determine whether you wait for your teammates, or go immediately, and whether you're getting picked up by your Railjack or by your Landing Craft.

Stage 4 - Proxima Heist

Spoiler

The more Collections of the resources that you Commandeered in Stage 3, the more care the enemy took to consolidate all of their security to defend all of their resources at once. More difficulty and risk, more reward and loot. This mission is a one-time pass/fail per each Heist, Tenno will want to ensure they have an uninterrupted network and availability of time, and their best Loadout for the job (bring your A-game!).

This will always be a Railjack mission that instead of offering a standard extraction, will merely conclude after a 10 second countdown after the objectives have been completed, followed by a unique mission completion animation showing all 4 player's own Railjacks appearing next to the Galleon or Base or the hijacked Transport Ship containing the stockpiled resources, with each of the players being seen towing some shipping pallets or nets full of Cache lockers towards their respective Railjacks (visually emphasizing how much loot was taken).

Optional Stage 5 - Cleanup

Spoiler

If you didn't give the enemy enough time to consolidate all of their resources prior to transport or utilization in stage 3, by only doing 1 or 2 of the optional 3 missions, then the remaining number  (+1) can be continued with diminishing returns and slightly lower enemy levels per mission in this final stage. Rewards in this stage shrink by a bit if you failed the stage 4.

Misc additional thoughts

Spoiler

Ideally, you'd have the freedom to switch your loadout at the ends of the missions via a Loadouts menu option, up until the moment the next mission starts, which you'd more seamlessly proceed to via Railjack or Landing Craft (dependent on what the next mission type is, except for Railjack to land missions, which you'd be dropped off by your Railjack instead if your Landing Craft) without returning to the orbiter or any navigation menus to queue up for each mission, unless you specifically choose to do so, in which case your Landing Craft (unless you're in your Railjack) is what will appear to return you to your Orbiter for your brief reprieve.

Also ideally, the number of Railjack missions across stage 2 and 3's mandatory mission are kept to only 1, with the remaining 3 optional missions in stage 3 and 5 also being kept to only 1 Railjack mission, as I'm sure some players will want to do at least do the Proxima Heist for the resources, but may not be so keen on more than 2 out of 4 mandatory missions for the resources being Railjack ones, nor a total of 3/7 for the maximum amount of loot. Could ensure that no 3 missions in a row are the same type of gameplay (ground/archwing/railjack) and that no 2 missions in a row are the same mission types, and that at least 1 out of the 7 total are either an Archwing or Open World mission (on applicable Proxima/Planets) to ensure there's no severe monotony to the mission types.

This is my a major fantasy that I dunno if DE would ever do, but I'd love it if we saw a weekly Steel Path Narmer Heist that allowed us to grind for some small amount of Steel Essence, Riven Slivers, Kuva, or Stock, with doing all 3 Stage 3 missions resulting in an Archon (different one from the Weekly Hunt) showing up to defend the cache in the Stage 4 (in that case always a Murex Assassination Railjack mission) with no Stage 5, that allows you to get a Shard instead of more of the Cache, that prevents Chipper from having a Shard for purchase the following week. This way players can choose between a way harder piece of Warframe content for a chance at a Tau-Forged Shard (and maybe earn some Stock so that they can buy it if they fail the Assassination), or (upon failing) to keep needing to do Kahl missions to get enough Stock to just buy the Shard the next week.

If this was a new, higher-level weekly "Sortie" equivalent with the same Sortie pool as Sorties and Archon Hunts, we would probably see more consistent play with Railjacks, and another method for high-level players to power-grind for things like Kuva, Credits, Endo, Void Traces, Riven Slivers, or other endgame-y evergreen-y always-mostly-useful-to-stockpile resources, in a very difficult piece of endgame content that's super engaging and rewarding to play if you can succeed at it.

[TARINunit9]

Any sort of bridging, I am in favor of. Archwing wouldn't be a "content islands" if they released more content for it. Railjack, same thing. Open words, same thing. But DE takes one look at the initial jankiness, rushes out one last hurrah fix, then leaves it to be a content island forever

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

Ideally, a large Open World style Proxima with Points of Interest popping up from time to time. Then the Squad Link system kicks in. Sending random generated mission to idle Tenno in orbiters or relays as Special Alert missions.

[Grav_Starstrider]

On 2022-11-15 at 7:25 PM, (PSN)jaggerwanderer said:

Ideally, a large Open World style Proxima with Points of Interest popping up from time to time. Then the Squad Link system kicks in. Sending random generated mission to idle Tenno in orbiters or relays as Special Alert missions.

I'd feel a lot better about procedurally generated solar rail routes or whatnot that you can use to transition between proxima missions and ground missions more seamlessly, rather than one big consistent-ish space with slightly changing points of interest and stuff. Like, endless fighters with points of interest en route to the solar rail. Maybe as a way of preserving your resource reserves between missions, and maybe to accumulate some amount of a bonus for continuous mission strings the same way we get on waves of endless Void Fissure missions.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

Yeah I know what you mean. Don't want any "Host Migration" happening after 2 hours of gameplay.