Player experience and Orokin tower rework

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

Since we no longer need void keys to access the void how do we travel to the void? Can our orbiter travel into the void at will now?

For those aren't aware accessing the orokin towers required void keys that would drop from various missions but DE changed in favor for the void fissures system. This change, I felt, created a gap in the story telling. Currently we can start void missions in the void but with no explanation how we got there. In fact, there is no in-game explanation (non-codex) of the void until we play the second dream.

I propose the following update to the void mission branch. 

First idea: add a juction node between the void and the planets it connects to with a warframe specter guarding the orokin gate. This the easiest way to explain to new players they accessed a new area and it makes way more sense as warframes were suppose to protect the orokin and their secrets.

Another idea: rework the orokin towers and missions. First, take Larissa mission node on Neptune and rework it to be a mission where we discover the corpus have accessed the void via a gate. My initial thoughts is an assault mission with the gate being the extraction point. Most of the void missions would remain the same except the final node being an assassination mission with player fight corrupted verisons of the bosses with currently fight in void sabotage. After defeating the bosses with pickup the key, wrap back to the planet of origin, blow up the portal and extract. I feel reworking the missions in this way would enhance the story telling potential of the missions.

Little adjustments like the one above and/or adding smaller quest lines about defeating the various planetary bosses in the system would greatly help with the new player experience because it would be an adventure. Helping players, especially new players, understand more of the why we do things. DE's story telling has improved since second dream but the devs still needs to take a look into the early game story progression. The specters of rails update helped what to do next but not the why we do it - heck they still need an explanation of why they are there too.

[TARINunit9]

4 hours ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

Since we no longer need void keys to access the void how do we travel to the void? Can our orbiter travel into the void at will now?

Yes. That's where it spends 99% of its time

4 hours ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

For those aren't aware accessing the orokin towers required void keys that would drop from various missions but DE changed in favor for the void fissures system. This change, I felt, created a gap in the story telling. Currently we can start void missions in the void but with no explanation how we got there. In fact, there is no in-game explanation (non-codex) of the void until we play the second dream.

"I will keep the Orbiter hidden in the Void. You can count on me."

--Ordis

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

42 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Yes. That's where it spends 99% of its time

"I will keep the Orbiter hidden in the Void. You can count on me."

--Ordis

Funny, ordis says that but when I look outside the ship I see the planet I recently played in. 

*granted this line may have been something that was left behind when all we saw was empty space from the orbiter. 

[GrayArchon]

5 hours ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

Since we no longer need void keys to access the void how do we travel to the void? Can our orbiter travel into the void at will now?

Void keys are still used to enter Void portals. We've just removed that part of the process from the gameplay and it happens behind the scenes. The Orbiter and the Landing Craft have always been able to enter the Void. The process by which they do so is unknown but probably doesn't require Void keys (not all routes of entering the Void use them).

2 minutes ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

Funny, ordis says that but when I look outside the ship I see the planet I recently played in.

What you see on the Starchart is the Landing Craft orbiting the recent planet. You almost never see the Orbiter, which is the main ship where your Arsenal, Foundry, etc is located. It does feature prominently in the Drifter Camp, though.

[TARINunit9]

1 minute ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

Funny, ordis says that but when I look outside the ship I see the planet I recently played in. 

You also see hostile warships less than two kilometers away (which we know from Railjack is more than close enough for a missile lock). The Orbiter is also at least as big as a Railjack from the in-game model, and concept art makes it even bigger

I always just assumed the Orbiter is indeed in the Void, literally hidden there, and can still see the planet out the windshield because of some Void reasons

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

4 hours ago, GrayArchon said:

The process by which they do so is unknown but probably doesn't require Void keys (not all routes of entering the Void use them)

See this the part, I feel needs explaining. If we can access it freely then something in game should say it be it Lotus or Ordis - particularally when we grab the ship segments for the first time.

I can get behind if the ship is stealth using void energy similar to limbo.

Edit: ordis does use a void cloak per the intro quest.

[TARINunit9]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

See this the part, I feel needs explaining. If we can access it freely then something in game should say it be it Lotus or Ordis - particularally when we grab the ship segments for the first time.

I can get behind if the ship is stealth using void energy similar to limbo.

The Void is just hyperspace. It's the Warp from 40k, it's The End from Minecraft. It's a parallel universe from a fictional story, the only real restriction on getting in or out is "you need a spaceship with some thingy on it" or "some other thingy opens a portal to let you in." The thingies in question don't even need to be machines, the War Within ends with you teleporting hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the Orbiter to the Kuva Fortress using the Void channeled through your body

This isn't a lore apologist post, this is a reality check: there have literally never been clearly defined rules about the spaceships or the portals. Up to and including those were the only ways in or out. Void keys could do anything from give you mission rewards to bring people back to life. Taking them out of gameplay changes nothing and does not require an additional explaination

[GrayArchon]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

See this the part, I feel needs explaining. If we can access it freely then something in game should say it be it Lotus or Ordis - particularally when we grab the ship segments for the first time.

There's a lot I would like some explanations for or little lore details about the mechanics. Void access is on the list but might not be at the top for me.

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

1 hour ago, GrayArchon said:

There's a lot I would like some explanations for or little lore details about the mechanics. Void access is on the list but might not be at the top for me.

See I do not need a mechanical explanation of how the voidspace or hyperspace works, nor how exactly we get to it. I'm fine if DE leaves that part ambiguous. Warframe is not a hard science game like star citizen. My issue is more of the player's journey.  If you think back to the second dream, the void gate is made into a big deal by Alad V but we [the players] can access the void prior to the quest. I believe the earliest, we access void mission is through phobos.

Now some narrative parts of warframe were explained in previous one time mission events and updates, but we not recorded in the codex. For instance the previous tutorial cinematic showed Vor using the void key to travel into the void where we encounter him the first time and escape back to earth via the portal. 

OG tutorial

This however was changed to our warframe starting in an abandon temple on earth. So now where does the void come into the narrative now? 

It's these little narrative details that get lost as warframe adds new updates and changes things. There is so much lore that's not entirely included in the game such as the old operations: Gate Crash, Operation: Ambulas Reborn and the Alad V saga*. 

The orokin towers in the void and how we access them is really just a small part of warframe's narrative problems at least until you beat second dream then story and subsequent updates flow smoothly. 

*You know Alad V has a lot of lore in warframe. Some quests, teaser transmissions and operations that hinted to but not entirely included in game like operation: mutatlist incursion where he created the mutatlist strain of the infested virus, causing a new breed of infested and releases it on the corpus fleet on Eris. I had always thought that was an ancient infestation until I read about it in the wiki.

[GrayArchon]

11 minutes ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

My issue is more of the player's journey.  If you think back to the second dream, the void gate is made into a big deal by Alad V but we [the players] can access the void prior to the quest. I believe the earliest, we access void mission is through phobos.

Now some narrative parts of warframe were explained in previous one time mission events and updates, but we not recorded in the codex. For instance the previous tutorial cinematic showed Vor using the void key to travel into the void where we encounter him the first time and escape back to earth via the portal.

Oh yes, the narrative arc could definitely do with a healthy polish. The significance of the Void, some more detail about the Orokin (in my opinion the new tutorial cinematic, while amazing, actually furthers confusion regarding the Orokin and Old War for new players), and the timelines that have been really messed up, like Alad V or the Grineer-Corpus war. All the old events that laid foundational lore need to be put somewhere to see so that a new player can start the game and actually figure out what's going on and how the Origin System got to this point.

[CephalonCarnage]

I disagree - the best kind of lore is that which leaves a heap of stuff out and lets you wonder about it. Even better is if it gets expounded upon as you progress with more-but-not-enough extra information that gives you more questions than answers.

The only thing that should know is someone at DE with the Lore Bible, and that's only really there to prevent outright inconsistency. BNut now we have eternalism, anything can go and be explained with a hand-wavy "multiverse innit"

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

10 minutes ago, CephalonCarnage said:

I disagree - the best kind of lore is that which leaves a heap of stuff out and lets you wonder about it.

I'm not necessarily arguing about lore. It is more about consistent narrative. Now the bit about Alad V that is lore but that is lore that has already happened to the player because he speaks to us as we have lived this history, so that it gets confusing.

[TARINunit9]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

My issue is more of the player's journey.  If you think back to the second dream, the void gate is made into a big deal by Alad V but we [the players] can access the void prior to the quest. I believe the earliest, we access void mission is through phobos.

I'm double-checking the quest transcript.

Alad V isn't making a big deal about Void Gates. It's actually Lotus making a big deal about one specific Void Gate that Stalker used: the one she used to hide the Moon

[Yakhul]

7 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

Yes. That's where it spends 99% of its time

If you swap to the camp on earth, you can see only part of your orbiter, so now the orbiter is on Earth