Digital Extremes: Always Look Forward, Never Look Back

[Gamer_Auto]

I want to preface this by saying that I do not hold any resentment towards the people that work at DE. While I may be frustrated with their choices, I don't hold it against them. They're just trying to make the best game they can, and I greatly appreciate that.

My main critique is that DE's Warframe team, for some time now, has seemed to have a mindset of "Always Forward, Never Back". While this can be an admirable mindset, I don't believe the Warframe team has appropriately applied it. They will only refine new content for about a month or two before moving on to the next thing, and only rework something when there's enough community outcry and/or developer interest. As such, there are many things in the game that have been left in states that conflict with the current style of the game. And I feel that Warframe's developers are too heavily prioritized on what's ahead (the "shiny new thing" phenomenon) over what could (and arguably should) be reworked to fit with the modern game.

The following are just what I could think of in no particular order; and if anyone has anything to add or clarifications for what I've already put, I'll edit the list.

• Archwing Mission Nodes: The few Archwing Mission Nodes we have don't vibe with the rest of the game. On the Grineer-type Tile Set, it's a massive open arena that facilitates the unique control style of Archwings. On the Corpus-type Tile Set, it's a glorified hallway with a handful of open rooms interspersed with cramped tunnels that funnel you in a straight line. Neither version facilitates the kind of exploration every other Tile Set offers. They're very utilitarian. Do the objective, then leave. No Kuria, Cephalon Fragments, Somachord Fragments, Frame Fighter Data, or Ayatans to hunt for; no Relay Syndicate Missions ever spawn on them; there are no Bounties that require playing an Archwing mission; Simaris never asks for an Archwing enemy to scan; the gear and mods (minus Archguns) has no point outside of that one mission type. They're very disconnected from the main game despite being on the standard map. As well, there are no Infested, Orokin, Sentient, or Narmer missions. While I understand that there can't be Orokin Archwing Nodes for Lore reasons, I feel like Infested Archwing missions were something that was just randomly dropped and never thought of again (Jordas Golem, anyone?); and neither Sentients nor Narmer were even considered because the mode had been long abandoned by the time they were introduced. I think that a good way to rectify this would be to either treat these missions like others on the standard map (Syndicate missions spawn, Simaris gives Archwing targets, add exploration and worthwhile things to find, add more enemy factions, add more nodes period, add boss fights other than Jordas), or move them to the Railjack map.
• Arch-Melee - While Archguns have found a second life through the Archgun Launcher and Necramechs, the Arch-Melee weapons have been left by the wayside. They have little point to their existence, other than being the objectively best way to scan Archwing enemies for one's Codex. Adding them to Necramechs and allowing us to swap between the two weapon types would give them new meaning beyond scanning fast-moving enemies.
• K-Drives/Kaithes as a concept - Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of jet-powered hoverboards and Warframe Horses, but they don't feel like they fit the game even when initially added. K-Drives were immediately irrelevant, as Archwings were the most effective form of traversing the Open Worlds and are obtained fairly early in the game. And while Races are fun, they don't do anything other than give Ventkid Standing. Kaithes are only useful in Duviri, which they were made for, and have zero relevance in the Open World segments despite being able to earn the ability to summon one outside of Duviri. Having Bounties or dedicated Mission Nodes where the point is performing tasks on a K-Drive or Kaithe would be a boon to their usefulness and give more variety in gameplay.
• Railjack - Railjack suffers from some of the same problems as Archwing: none of the Syndicates have anything to do with it, all the modding is contained to something you can't use in the main gameplay, the Grineer and Corpus maps are different and neither really facilitates exploration in the Railjack itself, and it doesn't even feature all the enemy factions in the game. Insofar as feeling separate from the main game, I think it's acceptable purely because of the simple fact that Railjack has it's own dedicated map. Other than that, I don't think it can be improved on much beyond some of the same solutions I proposed for Archwing: add more planets, add more factions (Infested & Narmer, potentially turn Veil Proxima into a dedicated Sentient map), perhaps try and combine the Railjack and Archwing missions instead of Railjack and standard missions, add proper Railjack-focused boss fights that can't be solved with a single Omnicannon shot or a cheeky boarding action.
• Events - Much of the lore from the game's early days was given during limited time events and Three Nightwave Stories that have never returned. While yes, they were primarily a way to introduce new game features, I feel as though many of these should be reworked and added to the modern Quest system; especially given that Alad V, who becomes an important part of the story, had most of his lore formed by these events. Plus, having the game dynamically change as a new player advances through the content in the order it was introduced would be a great experience for those coming in 11 years after the fact; and it'd give the lore writers a chance to make sure everything fits and won't be contradicted by future updates. The Nightwave quests could easily be obtained by an item or blueprint in the Misc tab; and completing those quests can unlock a "previous reward" store to buy/earn old rewards related to those quests.
• Trials - There used to be an 8-player super-mission type called Trials, and there were only two of them: The Law of Retribution and The Jordas Verdict. Law of Retribution was a followup to Operation: Eyes of Blight, which introduced Fomorian Sabotage, and Jordas Verdict was a followup to The Jordas Precept quest. LoR can be easily rewritten into a quest chain. After The Archwing, make Eyes of Blight an introduction quest to the Fomorian Sabotage mission, which then leads into a quest version of TLoR to introduce the Vey Hek assassination node; and could even reward Hydroid's Main Blueprint for mission completion. JV could easily be rewritten into a quest that introduces the Infestation to both the Archwing and Railjack game modes.
• Damage Types - IPS, HCET, and Advanced Elements. If you've played Warframe for any significant length of time, you'll recognize these. Impact, Puncture, Slash, Heat, Cold, Electric, Toxic, Blast, Corrosive, Gas, Magnetic, Radiation, Viral, and Void. Every enemy in the game has some weakness or resistance to each of these damage types. However, many of you will know that at the moment, the only relevant Damage Types are Corrosive and Heat to remove Armor, Viral to weaken an enemy's health pool, and Slash to ultimately defeat an enemy. If something is supposed to be resistant to those damage types, they can still be defeated purely by raw damage. Radiation is primarily used against Eidolons and Corrupted, Magnetic is sometimes used against enemy shields, and practically everything else is irrelevant. Even Void, which is supposed to make fighting Sentients easier, can be bypassed by slapping them with big number sticks. In my honest opinion, if we're going to have all these damage types, they need to all be relevant. If you have to implement an optional pre-mission loadout screen to accommodate swapping on the fly, then fine. I'll take that slight inconvenience over useless features.
• Relay Syndicates - Faction Syndicates, which I call Relay Syndicates to avoid confusion with the numerous other factions, have a unique system to how their Standing works. Each one has a relationship to the others, and that can either get you bonus Standing or even lose Standing. For example: When you gain Standing with Steel Meridian, you will gain bonus Standing with their ally (Red Veil), neither gain nor lose Standing with the factions they're neutral to (Arbiters of Hexis & Cephalon Suda), lose a little bit of Standing with the faction they dislike (New Loka), and lose Standing equal to what you gained with their enemy (Perrin Sequence). The idea is that you're supposed to choose a pair of factions and only grind those out, then trade for other rewards with other players. But here's the catch: you can easily exploit the system to gain Standing with 3 Syndicates. By manipulating the game's calculations (explained on the Wiki page), you can be at max rank with Hexis, Suda, and Meridian, or at max rank with Loka, Sequence, and Veil. And I've since been informed that it's possible to get all 6 to max rank if you decide you want to juggle that tedium. This lessens the intent behind the system. And the entire thing was made outright irrelevant when Cetus was introduced. Now, with 14 Syndicates that disregard this system (11 if you remove Conclave, Operational Supply, and Nightwave; 10 if you also remove Simaris), the mechanics behind the Relay Syndicates feel outdated and pointless. There are two ways to resolve this. Option 1, hard-lock a Player when they choose to back a Relay Syndicate (either that single Syndicate, or an Allied pair). Option 2, develop a Quest/Quest Chain than can easily be slotted into the early game that explains why they don't hate each other anymore: Introduction to each Syndicate and their drama (either as 1 Quest with 6 "micro-quests" or as 6 full Quests that properly flesh out each faction), Stopping the six from going to war with each other, Mediating an Alliance for the good of the Origin System.
• The Conclave - Warframe's ghost town of a PvP mode that introduced the late Teshin. The majority of rewards from Conclave are mode-exclusive mods and honestly mediocre cosmetics. The only things of actual worth are some non-exclusive Augments at Rank 4 (which can now be obtained elsewhere), a Warframe Exilus Adapter blueprint at Rank 5 (which can be gotten in other ways), and the starter trio of Excalibur/Volt/Mag at Rank 5 (each of which can be gotten far easier than grinding to max-rank in Conclave). The only way you're going to consistently make progress in The Conclave is by using Universal Medallions. It's long past time to overhaul or remove The Conclave. The only reason anyone goes down to Teshin's Refuge anymore is for Steel Path rewards. Either The Conclave needs an overhaul that replaces PvP with something else (pre-set challenges to give Legendary Ranks?) and gives worthwhile rewards, or it needs to be removed from the game entirely so that data space can be used for better things. Which sucks, because Lunaro actually looks kinda fun; but not fun enough to sit around for hours waiting for people to join. That can easily be turned into a Clan Dojo activity by adding a "Lunaro Locker Room" that lets you gear up, group up, and deploy to one of the four unique maps it has.
• The Stug - I fully comprehend and understand that there needs to be lesser weapons at the start of the game so the more powerful stuff feels good to acquire, but the Stug is bad even by MR0 standards; let alone MR2. I don't expect it to carry me over five hours on Steel Path Mot, but it's not even viable for memeing. Either rework it to make it at least a viable meme weapon, or chuck it in the garbage. It has no place in the game otherwise.
• Vendors - Darvo is an insulting joke, because all his weapons are easily made by oneself. Darvo should be either a bulk resource/Mod shop (only Mods that you have collected before) or another "these used to be rewards and now we're bringing them back" shop. Baro Ki'teer needs his inventory to always be static; and if that would be too much for one Vendor, then move everything with "Prime" in it's name to Varzia for just Aya or Ducs and Aya. Nightwave has SO MANY ONE-TIME REWARDS; if they're gonna be recurring then just make them evergreen, if they're not gonna come back for a while then either put them in the offerings tab or split them between Baro and Varzia.

"Always Forward, Never Back" is admirable. But when you have so much that could be modernized or otherwise made more convenient, then maybe you should stop looking forward for a bit.

Edited February 26 by Gamer_Auto
Apparently you can get to max rank with all 6 Relay Syndicates. Further proving my point that the system is pointless.

[Traumtulpe]

You're overthinking things. It's much simpler than that, DE is a business, the question is simply "does this course of action make sense monetarily?" New content does, fixing bugs/reworking Archwing does not, it's "not worth paying a developer for a month to fix obscure bugs".

In other words, you're a hamster in a wheel, and DE cares not whether the wheel needs to be oiled or a new coat of paint. As long as you keep it spinning.

Edited February 25 by Traumtulpe

[quxier]

27 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

Archwing Mission Nodes: The few Archwing Mission Nodes we have don't vibe with the rest of the game.

You haven't seen RJ...

27 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

Railjack

oh

:D

IMHO RJ is just meh. Archwing while not having all this stuff (kuria, syndicate's medalions etc) it's still interesting. RJ is just boring "ship" fights.

29 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

Arch-Melee - While Archguns have found a second life through the Archgun Launcher and Necramechs, the Arch-Melee weapons have been left by the wayside. They have little point to their existence, other than being the objectively best way to scan Archwing enemies for one's Codex. Adding them to Necramechs and allowing us to swap between the two weapon types would give them new meaning beyond scanning fast-moving enemies.

Or convert them to normal weapons some way.

 

[Gamer_Auto]

12 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

You're overthinking things. It's much simpler than that, DE is a business, the question is simply "does this course of action make sense monetarily?" New content does, fixing bugs/reworking Archwing does not, it's "not worth paying a developer for a month to fix obscure bugs".

In other words, you're a hamster in a wheel, and DE cares not whether the wheel needs to be oiled or a new coat of paint. As long as you keep it spinning.

Yeah well, with that outlook, DE also doesn't care if I jump off the wheel. Lose if I squeak up, lose if I leave. I'd rather squeak up and hope I grab someone's attention.

9 minutes ago, quxier said:

IMHO RJ is just meh. Archwing while not having all this stuff (kuria, syndicate's medalions etc) it's still interesting. RJ is just boring "ship" fights.

Honestly, Archwing and Railjack are about the same for me, because I'm constantly flying outside my Railjack using my Arch-Melee weapons to get codex scans and grind them out for Mastery. If they either made more Archwing nodes or did a better merge of the Archwing and Railjack game modes, my opinion might go up. I just know that the only endless mission they have - Interception - isn't suited to solo play. Would prefer an Endless Survival or Defense in the levels where grinding these weapons would be worth it.

44 minutes ago, quxier said:

Or convert [Arch-Melee] to normal weapons some way.

While that's a nice thought, I distinctly remember someone at DE saying that Arch-Melee would not get the same "Launcher" treatment as Archguns. Whether that's an innaccurate memory or they've changed their minds since is up in the air.

[quxier]

56 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

1 hour ago, quxier said:

IMHO RJ is just meh. Archwing while not having all this stuff (kuria, syndicate's medalions etc) it's still interesting. RJ is just boring "ship" fights.

Honestly, Archwing and Railjack are about the same for me, because I'm constantly flying outside my Railjack using my Arch-Melee weapons to get codex scans and grind them out for Mastery. If they either made more Archwing nodes or did a better merge of the Archwing and Railjack game modes, my opinion might go up. I just know that the only endless mission they have - Interception - isn't suited to solo play. Would prefer an Endless Survival or Defense in the levels where grinding these weapons would be worth it.

I mean, Archwing is like proper game. Archwing is "balanced" so you don't go fighting bullet sponge OR flying faster ships.

RJ on other hand is not great. Shooting (only thing you can do) is just like killing flies flying. Destroying stuff inside enemies ships/stuff is not great as well. Doing it solo is just "fetch quest" few times... Without any team & solo you are constantly fixing something instead of fighting. With good ship & team you are just...... boring shooting.

56 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Or convert [Arch-Melee] to normal weapons some way.

While that's a nice thought, I distinctly remember someone at DE saying that Arch-Melee would not get the same "Launcher" treatment as Archguns. Whether that's an innaccurate memory or they've changed their minds since is up in the air.

They don't have to have launchers. Just simple convert. Maybe add some gimmic like +5 range -0.2 speed OR other gimmick.

[Gamer_Auto]

1 minute ago, quxier said:

58 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

1 hour ago, quxier said:

IMHO RJ is just meh. Archwing while not having all this stuff (kuria, syndicate's medalions etc) it's still interesting. RJ is just boring "ship" fights.

Honestly, Archwing and Railjack are about the same for me, because I'm constantly flying outside my Railjack using my Arch-Melee weapons to get codex scans and grind them out for Mastery. If they either made more Archwing nodes or did a better merge of the Archwing and Railjack game modes, my opinion might go up. I just know that the only endless mission they have - Interception - isn't suited to solo play. Would prefer an Endless Survival or Defense in the levels where grinding these weapons would be worth it.

I mean, Archwing is like proper game. Archwing is "balanced" so you don't go fighting bullet sponge OR flying faster ships.

RJ on other hand is not great. Shooting (only thing you can do) is just like killing flies flying. Destroying stuff inside enemies ships/stuff is not great as well. Doing it solo is just "fetch quest" few times... Without any team & solo you are constantly fixing something instead of fighting. With good ship & team you are just...... boring shooting.

If we're saying that Archwing is like the main gameplay (hoard killing), then so is Railjack. It's just hoard killing in a different manner.

On-foot, you're using two guns, a melee weapon, and four abilities to kill enemies.
In a Necramech, you're using one gun and four abilities to kill enemies.
With an Archwing, you're using one gun, one melee weapon, and four abilities to kill enemies.
In a Railjack, you're using three guns (1 pilot 2 gunners), three customizable abilities, and your Archwing gear, and your on-foot gear, and your Necramech gear (depending on the mission).

Grineer Proxima is honestly my favorite of the bunch, because it doesn't pretend to be the Standard Star Chart. I haven't played much Veil because I'm severely under-powered, but I like that the Sentient Anomalies are a somewhat unique mission type. The Corpus Proxima missions are just pretending to be Star Chart; and if they're gonna do that, I'd rather they pretend to be the Archwing nodes (or at least make a bigger map for Orphix Venom; the mech can't fit through the Corpus Ship tile doors).

[--Leyenda-yight6]

hace 3 horas, Gamer_Auto dijo:

But here's the catch: you can easily exploit the system to gain Standing with 3 Syndicates.

You can actually be allied with 4 sindicates at the same time, I have alliance with steel meridian, red veil, cephalon Suda and hexis arbiters.

[Gamer_Auto]

7 minutes ago, --Leyenda-yight6 said:

You can actually be allied with 4 sindicates at the same time, I have alliance with steel meridian, red veil, cephalon Suda and hexis arbiters.

I found that to be too bothersome for me, but I'll add it to the list.

[quxier]

7 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

8 hours ago, quxier said:

9 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

10 hours ago, quxier said:

IMHO RJ is just meh. Archwing while not having all this stuff (kuria, syndicate's medalions etc) it's still interesting. RJ is just boring "ship" fights.

Honestly, Archwing and Railjack are about the same for me, because I'm constantly flying outside my Railjack using my Arch-Melee weapons to get codex scans and grind them out for Mastery. If they either made more Archwing nodes or did a better merge of the Archwing and Railjack game modes, my opinion might go up. I just know that the only endless mission they have - Interception - isn't suited to solo play. Would prefer an Endless Survival or Defense in the levels where grinding these weapons would be worth it.

Expand  

I mean, Archwing is like proper game. Archwing is "balanced" so you don't go fighting bullet sponge OR flying faster ships.

RJ on other hand is not great. Shooting (only thing you can do) is just like killing flies flying. Destroying stuff inside enemies ships/stuff is not great as well. Doing it solo is just "fetch quest" few times... Without any team & solo you are constantly fixing something instead of fighting. With good ship & team you are just...... boring shooting.

If we're saying that Archwing is like the main gameplay (hoard killing), then so is Railjack. It's just hoard killing in a different manner.

I don't mean you just kill or gathering loot (I guess that's what you mean by "hoard" part). Yes both have that part.

I mean how it's done.

Archwing is just like original missions (Interception, Capture, Mobile defense) but in space (3D movement).

RJ on other hand doesn't feel like this. It has few different parts. You have Ship part. You are just using guns and few "abilities" AND you see much less (in front of you). It's much slower compared to frame/arcwhing missions at not "normal experience level". Then you have "fetch quests". You go to ship, do some stuff, and go back. Sometiems it's so simple that the most time is just traveling from/to your RJ. And if it's some kind of mobile defense then why not just do that mobile defense in normal mode. RJ doing this is just overcomplicated list of tasks. It's not hard with good enough ship (just time consuminig). It's much less fun because you are banned from using 50+ frames and their abilities while doing "ship part". I would be fine with RJ doing it's part - creating good ship fights. I might not like it but I wouldn't considered it that bad.

7 hours ago, --Leyenda-yight6 said:

10 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

But here's the catch: you can easily exploit the system to gain Standing with 3 Syndicates.

You can actually be allied with 4 sindicates at the same time, I have alliance with steel meridian, red veil, cephalon Suda and hexis arbiters.

Even 6 ;)

10 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

By manipulating the game's calculations (explained on the Wiki page), you can be at max rank with Hexis, Suda, and Meridian, or at max rank with Loka, Sequence, and Veil. Even 4 if you really want to learn the balancing act.

I'm sorry. I don't meant to offend you. It's just sound realatevily hard but when I read about 6 syndicate your comment about "manipulating" sounds silly:

 

10 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

he mechanics behind the Relay Syndicates feel outdated and pointless. There are two ways to resolve this. Option 1, hard-lock a Player when they choose to back a Relay Syndicate (either that single Syndicate, or an Allied pair). Option 2, develop a Quest/Quest Chain than can easily be slotted into the early game that explains why they don't hate each other anymore: Introduction to each Syndicate and their drama (either as 1 Quest with 6 "micro-quests" or as 6 full Quests that properly flesh out each faction), Stopping the six from going to war with each other, Mediating an Alliance for the good of the Origin System.

You need to ask WHY they are like this. They are meant for players to trade stuff they don't have BUT you have to work for it.

Other syndicates rely on slow standing gain and actively gaining standing. In Vox solaris you need to gain toroids (random loot) and defeat at least 1 Profit taker (was 3, 2 with boosters) to gain Crisma toroid (rank 5 requirement). Then you have mostly 10k standing arcanes to trade (21 to max). My team can take it in ~5 minutes at best and 10-15 at worst (I'm not that great either, probably) to get single Crisma Toroid. That's 6k standing. So per hour you get 24-72k. That's 2-7 arcanes. To max 1 arcane you would need 11-3 hours. The prices are like 100-200 afair. Not to mention all level up to get to rank 5.

What about relay syndicates? You pick 1 syndicate (it was wearable sygils that you can forget to wear, if you changed frame, I'm glad they changed it!). You gain standing by doing most of the mission (I think only duviri doesn't count). You don't need to do anything specific. Doing more syndicates means more work - they have to be "paid" according to their work.

 

Option 1 is bad. You are just timegating or locking players. It's not good. If players wants to earn something at some point - let them. Don't do silly stuff like Archon hunts.

Option 2 is for what? Immersion? Yeah, I can see that. It's still silly that e.g. *let's make it not precise to avoid spoilers* , doing something for Suda and next time she send DEATH, yeah, DEATH squad and says your are WASTE is just... degrading (or silly).

 

[CrownOfShadows]

While there's no denying DE is much more focused on the new things, I don't think it's quite fair to say they NEVER revisit previous content. They do, it's just a slow, slow burn compared to what we'd like. Like if you put together a list of all the QoL improvements we've got in the last year alone it would be pretty impressive. Like you bring up the Stug but dude, should we talk about the incarnon revolution in the same breath? Like wow. AMAZING arsenal uplift, and the stug might be in the next wave of that. And companions?!?!?

I'm not saying there's not dead content islands. (IDK how you left out Kahl lol), and I'm definitely a little salty that RJ and necramelee aren't being actively pursued, and I have an entire dream sequence involving WF pvp/pvpve, but I'm just saying any kind of post like this would do well to acknowledge the amazing improvements we've gotten recently too.

[Gamer_Auto]

6 hours ago, quxier said:

18 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

By manipulating the game's calculations (explained on the Wiki page), you can be at max rank with Hexis, Suda, and Meridian, or at max rank with Loka, Sequence, and Veil. Even 4 if you really want to learn the balancing act.

I'm sorry. I don't meant to offend you. It's just sound realatevily hard but when I read about 6 syndicate your comment about "manipulating" sounds silly:

What else would you have me call it? Exploitation? Because that's what it is. We're exploiting a loophole in the mechanic to manipulate the game into doing something that probably wasn't intended.

6 hours ago, quxier said:

You need to ask WHY they are like this. They are meant for players to trade stuff they don't have BUT you have to work for it.

Other syndicates rely on slow standing gain and actively gaining standing. In Vox solaris you need to gain toroids (random loot) and defeat at least 1 Profit taker (was 3, 2 with boosters) to gain Crisma toroid (rank 5 requirement). Then you have mostly 10k standing arcanes to trade (21 to max). My team can take it in ~5 minutes at best and 10-15 at worst (I'm not that great either, probably) to get single Crisma Toroid. That's 6k standing. So per hour you get 24-72k. That's 2-7 arcanes. To max 1 arcane you would need 11-3 hours. The prices are like 100-200 afair. Not to mention all level up to get to rank 5.

What about relay syndicates? You pick 1 syndicate (it was wearable sygils that you can forget to wear, if you changed frame, I'm glad they changed it!). You gain standing by doing most of the mission (I think only duviri doesn't count). You don't need to do anything specific. Doing more syndicates means more work - they have to be "paid" according to their work.

 

Option 1 is bad. You are just timegating or locking players. It's not good. If players wants to earn something at some point - let them. Don't do silly stuff like Archon hunts.

Option 2 is for what? Immersion? Yeah, I can see that. It's still silly that e.g. *let's make it not precise to avoid spoilers* , doing something for Suda and next time she send DEATH, yeah, DEATH squad and says your are WASTE is just... degrading (or silly).

I am well aware of how the system works and fully experienced what it was like before their rework. I've been playing regularly since Fortuna and have 1,684 hours in the game. But even if you look at it as DE more than likely intended, Relay Synds are still exactly like Cetus, SU, Entrati Fam, Holdfasts, and Cavia. Run the gambit of missions, trade special items for Standing, use Standing to buy swag that gets more Standing. Repeat until the shop is cleared out. The only difference is trading for "enemy" items, which I think is just dumb because it's not that hard to max out the Relay Synds.

What I am saying is that either:
1. DE needs to implement an admittedly draconian measure to preserve the intent of the mechanic (locking a player to one Syndicate and maybe that Synd's ally).
-or-
2. DE needs to implement lore quests to properly introduce the 6 Relay Synds instead of the brief speeches their leaders give New Players; and a quest chain to do what should have been the goal of the Tenno all along: uniting their allies against their common enemies. Which not only would necessitate removing an outdated and pointless mechanic (when was the last time you traded Synd items and weren't just selling augments for plat?) and aid the immersion of the later quests involving Loka, Sequence, and Suda. Trust me, I AM FULLY AWARE OF HOW BASSACKWARDS IT IS TO BE MAX RANK WITH NEW LOKA AND THEN PLAY OCTAVIA'S ANTHEM LIKE SUDA HASN'T BEEN TRYING TO MERC YOU THIS WHOLE TIME (Thread is Spoiler Tagged, don't worry about it). While Immersion is part of it, we also need the game to flow together. Being the mortal enemy of a Syndicate you're helping in a quest does not jive with the actual gameplay. And doing it in a fun way by making early-game quests about uniting the 6 Relay Synds would both give newbies something cool to do, and give Veterans an explanation as to why the old mechanic is gone. And, because they're DE, I'm sure that they'd insta-max you if you've already been maxed with a Synd before.

27 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

While there's no denying DE is much more focused on the new things, I don't think it's quite fair to say they NEVER revisit previous content. They do, it's just a slow, slow burn compared to what we'd like. Like if you put together a list of all the QoL improvements we've got in the last year alone it would be pretty impressive. Like you bring up the Stug but dude, should we talk about the incarnon revolution in the same breath? Like wow. AMAZING arsenal uplift, and the stug might be in the next wave of that. And companions?!?!?

I'm not saying there's not dead content islands. (IDK how you left out Kahl lol), and I'm definitely a little salty that RJ and necramelee aren't being actively pursued, and I have an entire dream sequence involving WF pvp/pvpve, but I'm just saying any kind of post like this would do well to acknowledge the amazing improvements we've gotten recently too.

A lot of that is stuff that jives with the modern game, though. Incarnons are a modern thing, and the original Incarnon weapons proved popular enough that DE started expanding in a way that made sense from a longevity standpoint. The Companion fix is just doing what they should have done when Companions were first introduced; but it's not like people never use Companions like they never use K-Drive. And I highly doubt Stug will get an Incarnon. That's wishful thinking, even by this thread's standards.

What this thread is talking about is the stuff that DE put in and never iterated on again. Like Kahl, and K-Drives, and Railjack, and Relay Syndicates, etc. The stuff that obviously should have been given a few more iterations, but got left to gather dust because of "the shiny new thing".

Edited February 26 by Gamer_Auto

[CrownOfShadows]

4 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

A lot of that is stuff that jives with the modern game, though. Incarnons are a modern thing, and the original Incarnon weapons proved popular enough that DE started expanding in a way that made sense from a longevity standpoint. The Companion fix is just doing what they should have done when Companions were first introduced; but it's not like people never use Companions like they never use K-Drive. And I highly doubt Stug will get an Incarnon. That's wishful thinking, even by this thread's standards.

What this thread is talking about is the stuff that DE put in and never iterated on again. Like Kahl, and K-Drives, and Railjack, and Relay Syndicates, etc. The stuff that obviously should have been given a few more iterations, but got left to gather dust because of "the shiny new thing".

.... so anytime they fix or update something it doesn't count?

Again, I'm not denying that there's old stuff that needs to be updated or ideas they had that they just flat out dropped - some of which many of us wish they'd pick back up, but at the same time why aren't you giving credit where credit is due? Hydroid? Inaros? Mag? Excal? They also updated the syndicate pledge system. The list of improvements is really long, I could go on. Yes these are all parts of the game that are more in people's focus, but can you blame them for prioritizing that stuff? Like I would 100% rather have a Chroma overhaul than a weak pass on conclave.

And why is the stug unlikely exactly? I mean I never in million years though I'd be using the kunai in high level content, but here we are.

[Gamer_Auto]

14 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

.... so anytime they fix or update something it doesn't count?

Again, I'm not denying that there's old stuff that needs to be updated or ideas they had that they just flat out dropped - some of which many of us wish they'd pick back up, but at the same time why aren't you giving credit where credit is due? Hydroid? Inaros? Mag? Excal? They also updated the syndicate pledge system. The list of improvements is really long, I could go on. Yes these are all parts of the game that are more in people's focus, but can you blame them for prioritizing that stuff? Like I would 100% rather have a Chroma overhaul than a weak pass on conclave.

And why is the stug unlikely exactly? I mean I never in million years though I'd be using the kunai in high level content, but here we are.

It's not that it doesn't count, it's that people still use those things. Companions, Hydroid, Inaros, Mag, Excal, adding Incarnon to old weapons to make them more viable. What I'm talking about is stop adding new game modes to the game for a bit and focus on tightening up what we already have so there's a more consistent feel to the game. This thing's been going on for 11 years now, and there's a ton of bloat, a ton of old systems that could be streamlined, a ton of old lore that could be reworked and added back into the game, more Frame and Weapon reworks than one every six months.

It's not that I don't appreciate what's already been done. I'm saying that there's still a ton left to do and they need to pump the breaks on new content after 1999 comes out so they can devote more time and resources to tightening up the old content. ESPECIALLY NOW THAT THERE'S AN ENTIRE NEW PLAYERBASE COMING INTO THE GAME 11 YEARS INTO IT'S LIFESPAN.

And why Stug specifically?

18 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

The Stug - I fully comprehend and understand that there needs to be lesser weapons at the start of the game so the more powerful stuff feels good to acquire, but the Stug is bad even by MR0 standards; let alone MR2. I don't expect it to carry me over five hours on Steel Path Mot, but it's not even viable for memeing. Either rework it to make it at least a viable meme weapon, or chuck it in the garbage. It has no place in the game otherwise.

[quxier]

58 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

7 hours ago, quxier said:

19 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

By manipulating the game's calculations (explained on the Wiki page), you can be at max rank with Hexis, Suda, and Meridian, or at max rank with Loka, Sequence, and Veil. Even 4 if you really want to learn the balancing act.

I'm sorry. I don't meant to offend you. It's just sound realatevily hard but when I read about 6 syndicate your comment about "manipulating" sounds silly:

What else would you have me call it? Exploitation? Because that's what it is. We're exploiting a loophole in the mechanic to manipulate the game into doing something that probably wasn't intended.

No exploitation, just simple game. It's just you sound like you have done something "great" but other guys I've posted done so much more.

1 hour ago, Gamer_Auto said:

What I am saying is that either:
1. DE needs to implement an admittedly draconian measure to preserve the intent of the mechanic (locking a player to one Syndicate and maybe that Synd's ally).
-or-
2. DE needs to implement lore quests to properly introduce the 6 Relay Synds instead of the brief speeches their leaders give New Players; and a quest chain to do what should have been the goal of the Tenno all along: uniting their allies against their common enemies. Which not only would necessitate removing an outdated and pointless mechanic (when was the last time you traded Synd items and weren't just selling augments for plat?) and aid the immersion of the later quests involving Loka, Sequence, and Suda. Trust me, I AM FULLY AWARE OF HOW BASSACKWARDS IT IS TO BE MAX RANK WITH NEW LOKA AND THEN PLAY OCTAVIA'S ANTHEM LIKE SUDA HASN'T BEEN TRYING TO MERC YOU THIS WHOLE TIME (Thread is Spoiler Tagged, don't worry about it). While Immersion is part of it, we also need the game to flow together. Being the mortal enemy of a Syndicate you're helping in a quest does not jive with the actual gameplay. And doing it in a fun way by making early-game quests about uniting the 6 Relay Synds would both give newbies something cool to do, and give Veterans an explanation as to why the old mechanic is gone. And, because they're DE, I'm sure that they'd insta-max you if you've already been maxed with a Synd before.

I don't think anything HAS to be done. It's not like 2nd wouldn't be nice but it's not necessary. And 1st is detrimental, so big no.

[Gamer_Auto]

7 minutes ago, quxier said:

1 hour ago, Gamer_Auto said:

8 hours ago, quxier said:

19 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

By manipulating the game's calculations (explained on the Wiki page), you can be at max rank with Hexis, Suda, and Meridian, or at max rank with Loka, Sequence, and Veil. Even 4 if you really want to learn the balancing act.

I'm sorry. I don't meant to offend you. It's just sound realatevily hard but when I read about 6 syndicate your comment about "manipulating" sounds silly:

What else would you have me call it? Exploitation? Because that's what it is. We're exploiting a loophole in the mechanic to manipulate the game into doing something that probably wasn't intended.

Expand  

No exploitation, just simple game. It's just you sound like you have done something "great" but other guys I've posted done so much more.

That's a problem with your perception, then. I'm under no illusion that I've done anything but the bare minimum.

9 minutes ago, quxier said:

1 hour ago, Gamer_Auto said:

What I am saying is that either:
1. DE needs to implement an admittedly draconian measure to preserve the intent of the mechanic (locking a player to one Syndicate and maybe that Synd's ally).
-or-
2. DE needs to implement lore quests to properly introduce the 6 Relay Synds instead of the brief speeches their leaders give New Players; and a quest chain to do what should have been the goal of the Tenno all along: uniting their allies against their common enemies. Which not only would necessitate removing an outdated and pointless mechanic (when was the last time you traded Synd items and weren't just selling augments for plat?) and aid the immersion of the later quests involving Loka, Sequence, and Suda. Trust me, I AM FULLY AWARE OF HOW BASSACKWARDS IT IS TO BE MAX RANK WITH NEW LOKA AND THEN PLAY OCTAVIA'S ANTHEM LIKE SUDA HASN'T BEEN TRYING TO MERC YOU THIS WHOLE TIME (Thread is Spoiler Tagged, don't worry about it). While Immersion is part of it, we also need the game to flow together. Being the mortal enemy of a Syndicate you're helping in a quest does not jive with the actual gameplay. And doing it in a fun way by making early-game quests about uniting the 6 Relay Synds would both give newbies something cool to do, and give Veterans an explanation as to why the old mechanic is gone. And, because they're DE, I'm sure that they'd insta-max you if you've already been maxed with a Synd before.

Expand  

I don't think anything HAS to be done. It's not like 2nd wouldn't be nice but it's not necessary. And 1st is detrimental, so big no.

They've literally added "unnecessary" introduction quests for every other Syndicate. The New Strange (Simaris), Saya's Vigil (Ostrons), Mask of the Revenant (Quills), Vox Solaris (Solaris United, Ventkids, & Vox Solaris (faction)), Heart of Deimos (Entrati Family & Loid), Veilbreaker (Kahl's Garrison), Angels of the Zariman (Holdfasts), Whispers in the Walls (Cavia). None of those needed to be tied to a new Syndicate, yet they were anyway. Even non-intro quests. The Silver Grove, Octavia's Anthem, The Glast Gambit, Chains of Harrow, The Deadlock Protocol, The Waverider. None of these needed to be tied to Syndicates in any way, and yet they were.

I just. Want. Consistency. And you're starting to sound like you're trying to convince me to not want consistency. Which is it? Are we going to be consistent and make the game flow as smoothly as possible for the people joining an 11 year old game? Or are we going to leave it a patchwork mess of half-finished and abandoned content buried under each shiny new thing like DE's embarrassed of it?

[Xylia]

Warframe and its storied development, at least for the parts of it I was here for, always struck me as "Throw noodles at the wall and see which ones stick."

If it sticks, they'll use that.

If it doesn't, they'll just leave it laying on the floor and not bother picking it up.

Like, all the open world systems are basically copypasta, they all use the same systems for their standing, their vendors, etc. Those are noodles that stuck on the wall.

Archwing and Railjack are noodles that kinda-sorta stuck but fell onto the countertop. They were grabbed and thrown into the pot and used, but not really cared about. Every now and then they'll have you use one of these in a quest or something.

And then there's the noodles that fall on the floor and are left there, forgotten. Some of the one-time rewards, some of the other things in the game that nobody seems to care about anymore, like K-Drives.

The Kaithe is still important because it's the only means of Air Travel in Duviri, but that's a Duviri-specific thing, it feels like. It's way too slow to even think about asking us to use it outside of Duviri especially when we could instead use the Archwing.

[Gamer_Auto]

18 minutes ago, Xylia said:

Warframe and its storied development, at least for the parts of it I was here for, always struck me as "Throw noodles at the wall and see which ones stick."

If it sticks, they'll use that.

If it doesn't, they'll just leave it laying on the floor and not bother picking it up.

Like, all the open world systems are basically copypasta, they all use the same systems for their standing, their vendors, etc. Those are noodles that stuck on the wall.

Archwing and Railjack are noodles that kinda-sorta stuck but fell onto the countertop. They were grabbed and thrown into the pot and used, but not really cared about. Every now and then they'll have you use one of these in a quest or something.

And then there's the noodles that fall on the floor and are left there, forgotten. Some of the one-time rewards, some of the other things in the game that nobody seems to care about anymore, like K-Drives.

The Kaithe is still important because it's the only means of Air Travel in Duviri, but that's a Duviri-specific thing, it feels like. It's way too slow to even think about asking us to use it outside of Duviri especially when we could instead use the Archwing.

That's my point. Why leave the stuff that didn't stick in the game and not do anything to make it better? If you aren't gonna use it, remove it. If you don't want to remove it, then make it something that works with the rest of the game.

[quxier]

2 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

2 hours ago, quxier said:

No exploitation, just simple game. It's just you sound like you have done something "great" but other guys I've posted done so much more.

That's a problem with your perception, then. I'm under no illusion that I've done anything but the bare minimum.

I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not trying to offend you in any way.

2 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

I just. Want. Consistency. And you're starting to sound like you're trying to convince me to not want consistency.

Let me explain what "necessary" means. Via google:

Quote

required to be done, achieved, or present; needed; essential.

Food is necessary to live. Movies are not necessary. You can live without movies. It might be less "fun" but you can survive. That's why I mean option 2 is not necessary. It might nice.

[Gamer_Auto]

9 minutes ago, quxier said:

2 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

I just. Want. Consistency. And you're starting to sound like you're trying to convince me to not want consistency.

Let me explain what "necessary" means. Via google:

Quote

required to be done, achieved, or present; needed; essential.

Food is necessary to live. Movies are not necessary. You can live without movies. It might be less "fun" but you can survive. That's why I mean option 2 is not necessary. It might nice.

I never once said it was necessary. I said it would make it consistent with everything else. Am I seriously not communicating anything to you here? Is this a me problem? Am I not typing English? Am I not using a keyboard correctly?

[Xylia]

48 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

That's my point. Why leave the stuff that didn't stick in the game and not do anything to make it better? If you aren't gonna use it, remove it. If you don't want to remove it, then make it something that works with the rest of the game.

Easier said than done.

For example, K-Drives.

Can't remove them because they are integral to the Yareli questline, and there are probably people that enjoy playing Olli Olli or whatever that game was called. Not my thing, but some people enjoy it I guess?

And so if you wanna update it, then what? What would you do to make them compete with Archwings?

[Aevire]

There’s a very interesting point here about how [DE] very rarely improves old content and instead focuses mostly on making new content completely separate from it (thinking of how we only ever got the 2 tileset reworks). Your statements about how the “only” good damage types are corrosive heat viral and slash are definitely just empirically not correct - first of all current brain dead meta is toxin slash to bypass shields and armor, and second of all electricity is very significant for melee influence (elec/gas) reasons, for murmur (best damage type against them) reasons, and for DPS reasons for a good deal of weapons. I think that it is more accurate to say that cold, magnetic, radiation, and arguably gas are just weak right now due to a lack of support and usability in content, and while I would love to see a damage pass where these are reviewed and brought more in line with each other there’ll always be people who insist that viral and slash are the only damage types in the game because they saw a content creator say that and don’t know enough about the game to see how that isn’t true. I strongly agree with you that Archwing needs a significant overhaul (maybe concurrent with a Grineer Galleon tileset rework? DE pls?) and that it shouldn’t be a content island - same with Railjack, which only interfaces with the Lich gamemode for one mission at the end, and otherwise is entirely its own thing. I think those two overhauls are huge projects that [DE] should focus on instead of Kahl 2, or whatever else they’re going to try and make us replay Warframe 1999 content with. K-Drives and Kaithes are movement options that make a little sense for their content islands but I think don’t need to be major or significant role-players in the rest of the game given that Archwing does everything they do but better and more satisfyingly. 
 

I agree with you that Events should have more of a focus - I really didn’t like how they gave up on Nightwave being this sort of story pack and content update introduction all in one, especially with Arlo which introduced a new tile and boss instead of just being its own little content island (although the Nihil boss fight is still really cool). Gargoyle’s Cry was a step in the right direction and I hope we see more events more frequently.

 

Trials as they existed were spaghetti code to the spaghetti code. I think that they should be brought back because they’re simultaneously a big story development (LoR killed Vay Hek and JV killed Jordas Golem, and were also significant worldbuilding that teased the Infestation’s role in Warframes and the reality of the Queens) and replayable interesting endgame content which brings people back every day or week without being grating and overbearing. I hope to see new Trials or an equivalent and hopefully the Deep Archimedea are the on-ramp to that and not the closest we’re going to get for the next 5 years. 
 

The relay syndicates are fine. They should definitely get more new content than just augments every year - I’d especially love to see syndicate Arch-weapons or Arcanes, if we can’t ever see new syndicate normal weapons - and being able to “Max” the system at extremely low efficiency isn’t exactly a game breaking oversight. Nightwave having one time cosmetics is fine, and the old weapon augments from wave 1 of the augments are now in permanent nightwave rotation so we can expect the same to happen to the others going forward. I do think in general Warframe has a problem with vendors - Baro has an increasingly vast selection of items every two weeks while every other vendor still has an extremely limited selection - and in the future it’d be nice if some of the weight Baro is bearing for all of these items and cosmetics were off-loaded onto other vendors. He already sells primed mods and prisma weapons, how about the steel meridian gets the vastilok like Perrin sequence gets the tenet melees and the baro-only dual stats are finally added to a normal drop table that isn’t torture to farm? How about we put the Baro wraith and vandal weapons back into events or invasions so they aren’t a non-system so fast? 
 

in general I agree with you that [DE] doesn’t spend enough dev time on improving, revamping, and making worthwhile old content, but I think the solution is maybe to take that project one thing at a time. Damage is in a fine place that allows for build diversity as long as you’re not a content creator. Nightwave is fine as a free battle pass. Conclave is fine to leave how it is. I think they should focus on tileset overhauls, improving old shops and systems, and eventually a large Archwing and Railjack rework that hopefully integrates them more into the game as a whole. Bringing back trials would be nice and probably convenient for that last part if the code for deep Archimedea and op links play nice with each other or the 8 man squad tech is salvageable but ultimately shouldn’t be the focus of their improvements until they’ve at least improved the in game communication and feel of star chart progression significantly.

[Xylia]

8 minutes ago, Aevire said:

There’s a very interesting point here about how [DE] very rarely improves old content and instead focuses mostly on making new content completely separate from it (thinking of how we only ever got the 2 tileset reworks). Your statements about how the “only” good damage types are corrosive heat viral and slash are definitely just empirically not correct - first of all current brain dead meta is toxin slash to bypass shields and armor, and second of all electricity is very significant for melee influence (elec/gas) reasons, for murmur (best damage type against them) reasons, and for DPS reasons for a good deal of weapons. I think that it is more accurate to say that cold, magnetic, radiation, and arguably gas are just weak right now due to a lack of support and usability in content, and while I would love to see a damage pass where these are reviewed and brought more in line with each other there’ll always be people who insist that viral and slash are the only damage types in the game because they saw a content creator say that and don’t know enough about the game to see how that isn’t true. I strongly agree with you that Archwing needs a significant overhaul (maybe concurrent with a Grineer Galleon tileset rework? DE pls?) and that it shouldn’t be a content island - same with Railjack, which only interfaces with the Lich gamemode for one mission at the end, and otherwise is entirely its own thing. I think those two overhauls are huge projects that [DE] should focus on instead of Kahl 2, or whatever else they’re going to try and make us replay Warframe 1999 content with. K-Drives and Kaithes are movement options that make a little sense for their content islands but I think don’t need to be major or significant role-players in the rest of the game given that Archwing does everything they do but better and more satisfyingly. 
 

I agree with you that Events should have more of a focus - I really didn’t like how they gave up on Nightwave being this sort of story pack and content update introduction all in one, especially with Arlo which introduced a new tile and boss instead of just being its own little content island (although the Nihil boss fight is still really cool). Gargoyle’s Cry was a step in the right direction and I hope we see more events more frequently.

 

Trials as they existed were spaghetti code to the spaghetti code. I think that they should be brought back because they’re simultaneously a big story development (LoR killed Vay Hek and JV killed Jordas Golem, and were also significant worldbuilding that teased the Infestation’s role in Warframes and the reality of the Queens) and replayable interesting endgame content which brings people back every day or week without being grating and overbearing. I hope to see new Trials or an equivalent and hopefully the Deep Archimedea are the on-ramp to that and not the closest we’re going to get for the next 5 years. 
 

The relay syndicates are fine. They should definitely get more new content than just augments every year - I’d especially love to see syndicate Arch-weapons or Arcanes, if we can’t ever see new syndicate normal weapons - and being able to “Max” the system at extremely low efficiency isn’t exactly a game breaking oversight. Nightwave having one time cosmetics is fine, and the old weapon augments from wave 1 of the augments are now in permanent nightwave rotation so we can expect the same to happen to the others going forward. I do think in general Warframe has a problem with vendors - Baro has an increasingly vast selection of items every two weeks while every other vendor still has an extremely limited selection - and in the future it’d be nice if some of the weight Baro is bearing for all of these items and cosmetics were off-loaded onto other vendors. He already sells primed mods and prisma weapons, how about the steel meridian gets the vastilok like Perrin sequence gets the tenet melees and the baro-only dual stats are finally added to a normal drop table that isn’t torture to farm? How about we put the Baro wraith and vandal weapons back into events or invasions so they aren’t a non-system so fast? 
 

in general I agree with you that [DE] doesn’t spend enough dev time on improving, revamping, and making worthwhile old content, but I think the solution is maybe to take that project one thing at a time. Damage is in a fine place that allows for build diversity as long as you’re not a content creator. Nightwave is fine as a free battle pass. Conclave is fine to leave how it is. I think they should focus on tileset overhauls, improving old shops and systems, and eventually a large Archwing and Railjack rework that hopefully integrates them more into the game as a whole. Bringing back trials would be nice and probably convenient for that last part if the code for deep Archimedea and op links play nice with each other or the 8 man squad tech is salvageable but ultimately shouldn’t be the focus of their improvements until they’ve at least improved the in game communication and feel of star chart progression significantly.

One thing I will say, is that at least they stopped with One-Time Quests.

Remember the Fusion MOA quest? Or the Gradivus Dilemma? Or that quest where Frohd Bek enlisted you to go fight Alad V (some of the coolest voice lines in the game are the things Frohd Bek says to Alad, lol).

I remember them. Vaguely.

I will never see them again, because they are gone. Forever.

At least they stopped doing that.

[Aevire]

1 hour ago, Gamer_Auto said:

That's my point. Why leave the stuff that didn't stick in the game and not do anything to make it better? If you aren't gonna use it, remove it. If you don't want to remove it, then make it something that works with the rest of the game.

I think it’s fine to have some things that are misses for people. [DE] doesn’t have infinite dev time and I would like to see the things that are the most important to the total progression of a player’s account - even and especially things that I already did - improved, so things like Invasions, tilesets, Archwing, syndicates, and Baro rewards. Baro especially just has too many items now for new players to get everything from him even in a year unless they’re committing to ducat farming the majority of their year. Having to debate and do research on which unpopular items should be removed seems like a rehash of the removal of Trials, except that they’re not doing it because it took a plurality of dev time to fix every update. It’ll just make people upset.

[Xylia]

10 minutes ago, Aevire said:

I think it’s fine to have some things that are misses for people. [DE] doesn’t have infinite dev time and I would like to see the things that are the most important to the total progression of a player’s account - even and especially things that I already did - improved, so things like Invasions, tilesets, Archwing, syndicates, and Baro rewards. Baro especially just has too many items now for new players to get everything from him even in a year unless they’re committing to ducat farming the majority of their year. Having to debate and do research on which unpopular items should be removed seems like a rehash of the removal of Trials, except that they’re not doing it because it took a plurality of dev time to fix every update. It’ll just make people upset.

I'm a big supporter of reducing prices of stuff over time, especially in a game that involves power creep.

Why should a weapon that cost, say, 20k credits when the game came out, that had 1% of the power of the best weapon of the game at the time, still cost 20k credits today when it is 0.001% of the power of the best weapon today?

That thing should cost like 2k now.

 

I posit the same mentality should be taken towards the various vendors and their wares. If you're gonna keep adding stuff to vendors, old stuff should have price reductions to make them cheap and easy for people to catch up. If you want the latest and greatest, you'll pay more.

EDIT: And yes, I know THAT will ruffle some feathers. "Why should they get it cheap when I had to pay out the wazoo?" .... because you got it when it was new and fresh to show off to your friends. The person coming along 5 years later, just wants something to spruce up their orbiter with, and the item they are buying cheap is old hat now.

Edited February 26 by Xylia

[Gamer_Auto]

58 minutes ago, Xylia said:

Easier said than done.

For example, K-Drives.

Can't remove them because they are integral to the Yareli questline, and there are probably people that enjoy playing Olli Olli or whatever that game was called. Not my thing, but some people enjoy it I guess?

And so if you wanna update it, then what? What would you do to make them compete with Archwings?

I wouldn't make them compete with Archwing. We already have the teleport nodes, so the point is moot. K-Drives can get you to the objective just as well as Wings now. Hek, even the Mechs can get places quickly with the tele-nodes.

What I would do is give them their own mission node, or their own "cinematic" bounty mission based on what content we already have: Arcade-like races, and limited combat. Example:
"Alright, Sparky. There's a (Corpus/Narmer) transport convoy en route (from/past) Fortuna to a cargo ship. We need you to intercept them and (objective here; hijack, destroy, hack for "tracking" purposes, etc.). Problem is, they're used to you swoopin' in on those fancy wings ya got, so they've got some heavy flak; and you don't have time to stomp around in that big rig. Only way to catch up is by K-Drive. Get in, (complete objective), and hightail it outta there. My boys have found a spot for your blue/red Cephalon friend to pick you up. Good luck, Sparky."
Translation: Enemy Convoy is heading to Hostile Extraction. Target is heavily protected by anti-air defenses, rendering Archwing useless, and utilizing the Railjack is overkill and too conspicuous. Enemy Convoy is also moving fast enough that Necramechs will be completely unable to keep pace. Only way to catch up is to use the small, nimble K-Drive. Catch up, complete the mission, then move to Friendly Extraction.

From there, you get a mission in three parts.
First part plays like a K-Drive race. You have to utilize your Board's boost mode and either pass through boost rings or perform tricks for a speed boost. I might even make it so this mission, as well as Races, automatically propel you forward, so you can spend more time on navigation and tricks rather than speed modulation; to really lean into that Arcade-style gameplay.
In the second part of the mission, you've caught up to the target and swap to combat mode. Sticking with the Arcade style, you only have to worry about dodging left and right and shooting back at enemies. Maybe even allow certain abilities like Excaliber's Radial Blind or Rhino's Roar to be used while in this mode. Once the enemies are clear, you jump on the objective, swapping back to normal gameplay for a bit as you complete the objective; be that Hijack, Sabotage, Spy, Mobile Defense, whatever.
In the final part, once you've completed the goal, you have to race to extraction, dodging both terrain and enemy fire, until your Landing Craft or Railjack (depending on progression) is able to pick you up while covering you (cameo of the Turret and Carpet Bomb Air Supports to entice newer players to find/buy their parent ships?).

Rewards would include Standing for the three Fortuna Syndicates (SU, Ventkids, VS), possibly blueprints for a unique K-Drive, K-Drive Mods (Alternative source for same mods as Ventkid shop), and vary from there based on mission type, enemy level, and so on; with examples being Fortuna & Venus materials, Corpus/Narmer weapon blueprints, Debt-Bonds/Toroids/Narmer Isoplasts, and so on.

This mission would be mostly geared towards a Solo player, but given time and input, I could probably think up ways for a full squad to play. Maybe two people take up anti-air turrets while the other two do whatever it is the mission requires, and there are bonus rewards like Aya and Relics for shooting down certain numbers of enemy reinforcements.