Removing Contentbloat: Railjack

[NovaLP]

Hi,

I recently had a great discussion with friends about games like Warframe, Path of Exile or Final Fantasy 14 having contentbloat that reduces the experience for newer players coming into these games. Especially because some content like Railjack, Necramechs, etc. make it impossible to streamline the games progression and leave newer players confused at alot of points in their playthroughs.

This is supposed to be the first post of a few to start discussion about some content islands in the game that have no reason to stay. In this case I wanna talk about Railjack.

Railjack has been reworked twice by now, with the first rework (close after empyrean launch) changing up the power level of the railjack so it completely invalidates enemies and the second rework (Railjack Retrofit before Tempestarii's launch) simplified all sub-systems of railjack to a point where they can be mostly ignored and also added new corpus themed missions where the Railjack itself doesn't matter for 95% of the mission. After this Tempestarii launched with voidstorms, a slower, more buggy and overall more annoying way too open relics that has a bonus drop table with close to no evergreen rewards besides radiant relics and void traces, with Sisters of Parvos close after removing void traces from the drop table and replacing them with corrupted holokeys a non evergreen reward.
As much as it hurts to say as someone who loves and plays space sims like Everspace 1&2 and Elite Dangerous, but railjack currently sits at a failed state in the game even after multiple reworks and additions. Also, Railjack hasn't received a single touchup / change from the feedback given since Sisters of Parvos, with Sisters of Parvos actually making Railjack (Voidstorms) worse thorugh the replacement of void traces, proving DE doesn't know how to handle this gamemode and its systems.
Altho removal of Railjack could pose a problem nowadays since it has been worked into some quests, but that might be fixable through giving us a standard railjack without modding or any systems or missions from "rising tide" to play through "call of the tempestarii" to then use the tempestarii in new war instead.

Would love to hear what the opinion of the community is on this

[Rathalio]

I'm curious though, since when game removing their content is a good thing? It's great to have more things to do in a game. Why do you sound so worry about how fast a new account can speed run the game?

And also Railjack is far from being bad, it's quite enjoyable at its current state imo. The main issue with Railjack is that it always involves in playing rather long missions which is suboptimal for farming efficiently most of the time.

[Genitive]

38 minutes ago, Rathalio said:

I'm curious though, since when game removing their content is a good thing?

It usually isn't, unless it is absolutely necessary. OP mentioned Final Fantasy 14, but content bloat wasn't a reason why that game was reworked.

[Xaero]

To become popular, RJ needs bigger and better rewards for the time it consumes. Also, Corpus RJ mission objectives should be reworked into pure RJ gameplay.

[NovaLP]

1 hour ago, Rathalio said:

I'm curious though, since when game removing their content is a good thing?

In fact yes... multiple reasons actually

1) new players have waay to much to do in terms of dailies weeklies and just general content all around to progress, which in turn kills player interest especially if given content is not refined or deep enough to retain engagement in said content
(i know of at least 5 friends who feel that exact way especially in Warframe and Path of Exile)

2) diluted matchmaking (Warframe generally has that problem but its especially prominent in Railjack imo)

3) dead content spreads DE's ressources thin, remember dev's need to waste their time to retain integrity of given content somewhat (same reasoning to why old raids were removed back in the day)

4) unrefined or not worth to refine content reduces the quality of the overall product, again killing potential interest of newer or returning players when forced to play

[quxier]

1 hour ago, Rathalio said:

And also Railjack is far from being bad, it's quite enjoyable at its current state imo. The main issue with Railjack is that it always involves in playing rather long missions which is suboptimal for farming efficiently most of the time.

*enters RJ rant mode, sorry*

RJ, for me (solo player) is sooooooo boring that your average small games that people try to make is much better than RJ. I try to aim at the flies/ship. Go to shoot bigger ship using forward Artillery going through few steps and holding mouse. Or going to ships/places require me to click dozen of buttons/keys, rotate 180 and sometimes even enter "places" manually. Repeat such stuffs many times. When I go to Griner mine I have to go through Slingshot 3-5 times.

Even clunky Mech is much more enjoyable than RJ. And I don't like Mechs either.

2 hours ago, NovaLP said:

Altho removal of Railjack could pose a problem nowadays since it has been worked into some quests, but that might be fixable through giving us a standard railjack without modding or any systems or missions from "rising tide" to play through "call of the tempestarii" to then use the tempestarii in new war instead.

Half methods are imho bad. If you want remove, then remove whole, RJ ship too.

To be honest RJ could be locked to some planet/junction/mr. Still bad solution.

[Grommile]

I'm not going to spend a whole evening in Railjack, and I'm certainly not going to spend a whole evening in Corpus Railjack missions, but it's a fun place to visit from time to time. (More fun than the Index, that's for sure.)

40 minutes ago, quxier said:

To be honest RJ could be locked to some planet/junction/mr. Still bad solution.

Not quite sure what you mean by that.

(As it stands Railjack content is gated behind MR3 and the Rising Tide quest, which in turn is gated behind completing The Second Dream, which requires you to reach Neptune Junction.)

[NovaLP]

57 minutes ago, Grommile said:

but it's a fun place to visit from time to time.

Most of RJ gameplay is sadly just Seeker Volley spam with a frame that can regen energy. Just one of DE's many mistakes removing the Railjacks "flux energy" and replacing it with your warframes energy.

RJ can be summed up in "death by a thousand cuts"

there are soo many things wrong with it its hard to enjoy even if you are trying to

[quxier]

1 hour ago, Grommile said:

1 hour ago, quxier said:

To be honest RJ could be locked to some planet/junction/mr. Still bad solution.

Not quite sure what you mean by that.

(As it stands Railjack content is gated behind MR3 and the Rising Tide quest, which in turn is gated behind completing The Second Dream, which requires you to reach Neptune Junction.)

Then move Rising tide quest as reward in some of the latest junctions.

[Grommile]

2 hours ago, quxier said:

Then move Rising tide quest as reward in some of the latest junctions.

For what it's worth, there are only three junctions after Neptune (Pluto, Sedna, and Eris).

[Pakaku]

Railjack has been neutered so hard that I think it would be a better idea to overhaul it and replace the Railjack entirely with Archwing-focused gameplay instead. Something like the landscape maps we have, with Archwing launchers to enter space combat, where the majority of the mission would take place.

[Frendh]

It is rather dumb to remove existing content. If you do not like it then do not play it more than you have to.  I got my Railjack only after DE retroactively locked me out of Arbitrations. While annoying, hardly a big deal.

What would be a decent argument would for instance be "Railjack confuses new players, move it further down the progress line before they encounter it." Not that I believe that statement to be true. Just an example.

8 hours ago, NovaLP said:

2) diluted matchmaking (Warframe generally has that problem but its especially prominent in Railjack imo)

This is the only thing listed that I find valid.

 

[Duality52]

18 hours ago, NovaLP said:

1) new players have waay to much to do in terms of dailies weeklies and just general content all around to progress, which in turn kills player interest especially if given content is not refined or deep enough to retain engagement in said content
(i know of at least 5 friends who feel that exact way especially in Warframe and Path of Exile)

Currently as of now, there isn't really anything time gated behind Railjack. Like the rest of the game, best to pace yourself out and decide what to tackle at the buffet then devour it all at once.

16 hours ago, NovaLP said:

Most of RJ gameplay is sadly just Seeker Volley spam with a frame that can regen energy. Just one of DE's many mistakes removing the Railjacks "flux energy" and replacing it with your warframes energy.

RJ can be summed up in "death by a thousand cuts"

Isn't that just like the rest of the game? Railjacks being the warship equivalent to Warframes? I'm aware how unbalanced and weak the Corpus Fighters are compared to the Gokstad Grineer, but your Railjack even without Seeker Volley spam can breeze through enemies.

Removing Railjack is still a no-go considering the following:

• Quests

The Call of the Tempestarii and especially the New War requires the Railjack. A quick note about the Kuva Lich/Sister of Parvos confrontation, only that latter needs the player their own Railjack due to the Call of the Tempestarii. Confronting a Lich requires the player to finish the War Within (which by that extent owning an Archwing).

• "Jack of All Trades" Farming

The amount of Credits and Endo from Railjack is actually decent due to mission completions and the Wreckage you can scrap. Perhaps opening Relics in Void Storms, which can also net you some Radiant Relics will help out as well.

• Intrinsics & Plexus

Collectively, they grant 81k Mastery Experience (75k Intrinsics + 6k Plexus like a Warframe). Due to the increased Affinity amount from most Empyrean enemies, this isn't too much of a hassle even for Rank 10 Intrinsics.

Some Intrinsics are universal, with the most famous being the On-Call Syndicate Crewmembers.

• Kuva Lich/Sister of Parvos Confrontation

Not an entire promise to the demo of Tennolive 2019 where Reb and the others confronted their first Lich via Railjack, but that can't be dismissed.

• Cephalon Cy

Duviri recently has some memorable NPCs, but no one can match the one and only Cephalon Cy.

19 hours ago, NovaLP said:

3) dead content spreads DE's ressources thin, remember dev's need to waste their time to retain integrity of given content somewhat (same reasoning to why old raids were removed back in the day)

4) unrefined or not worth to refine content reduces the quality of the overall product, again killing potential interest of newer or returning players when forced to play

Railjack isn't the case of Infested Salvage, Defection, or heavens forbid the Conclave. It surely isn't "dead content" considering the aforementioned reasons.

The last point is something DE must always respect, especially with players wanting Railjack improved: the time-to-reward ratio. Short and simple, are the rewards worth the amount of time I spent? That along with the mission design of the Corpus Proximas are still worth the "refinement" aspect.

[NovaLP]

6 hours ago, Duality52 said:

Isn't that just like the rest of the game? Railjacks being the warship equivalent to Warframes? I'm aware how unbalanced and weak the Corpus Fighters are compared to the Gokstad Grineer, but your Railjack even without Seeker Volley spam can breeze through enemies.

I still feel like i have more options in warframe then in rj, all other options are far below Seeker Volley because there is nothing else needed for railjack - fighter combat. At least in SP warframe (i mean its not too much better, yes thats true) if you shoot an aoe into a room full of enemies a few eximus with barely their overguard broken and some heavy units will remain. You could choose too fire a second aoe in there, but you will need more shots to get the surviving eximus down, which is just a waste of ammo. So the base game at least has some more steps of having to think about the game but rj simply doesn't. Fighters are just funny coloured shapes on my screen that i get rid of by pressing 3, there are also not many attacks to avoid because they are all hitscan so ye... not much to it

6 hours ago, Duality52 said:

Removing Railjack is still a no-go considering the following:

• Quests

The Call of the Tempestarii and especially the New War requires the Railjack. A quick note about the Kuva Lich/Sister of Parvos confrontation, only that latter needs the player their own Railjack due to the Call of the Tempestarii. Confronting a Lich requires the player to finish the War Within (which by that extent owning an Archwing).

thats why i proposed to replace it in quests with a standard rj without modding, turrets, missions etc. kind of like the orowyrms or a golden maw.

6 hours ago, Duality52 said:

The amount of Credits and Endo from Railjack is actually decent due to mission completions and the Wreckage you can scrap. Perhaps opening Relics in Void Storms, which can also net you some Radiant Relics will help out as well.

*looking at my 67 sevagoth and epitaph sets in my inventory* ye about that, there are honestly far, far, far better places to go for that sort of stuff

6 hours ago, Duality52 said:

Some Intrinsics are universal, with the most famous being the On-Call Syndicate Crewmembers.

Could be turned into a sort of specter system instead

6 hours ago, Duality52 said:

That along with the mission design of the Corpus Proximas are still worth the "refinement" aspect.

When DE added corpus missions did they change parts of the mission structure of the grineer proxima? not rly right? so what hope do i have that DE changes our already given proxima regions when they maby add infested proxima.

My friends actually ask me sometimes if i can help them in rj because they can't find pub's in there how is that a good new player experience? Especially compared too recent content like Zariman, Archon Hunts, Duviri which are lively and constantly being played by all types of players the state of rj just makes me real sad.

[BroDutt]

Reducing and rework mission Nodes on Starchart &  Railjack, Yes. Removing railjack HELL NO. Not only DE had to figure out how to recoup the intrinsic, upgraded, mod, resource & CREW that you collect/gain, some of the quest are actually good.

The problem is bloated and long mission only to do the same Survival, Defense and Spy mission. Rework Skirmish, Volatile and Orphix mission. 

And this is an opinion from a player who had to piggyback someone else RJ, confuse about Volatile mission, before finally had one that can cheese every mission in Veill Proxima.