Content idea for more Incarnon Adapters

[Ar-takka]

TLDR at the bottom-

Intro:

With the release of Deep Archimedia (and of course Duviri before), it's become more apparent that DE intends (for now) to lean into loadout restriction as a means of difficulty. This isn't an inherently bad thing, however it opens the door to a discussion about the downsides of restricting loadouts to receive rewards, and the negatives of forcing players to use weapons that so clearly were designed with the early-game in mind.

It's already been proven that Incarnons are a fantastic response to this. They've been well-received and it's safe to assume that most players would like to see more. How though do you add more Incarnon Adapters without further diluting the already spilling pool of Incarnon weapons in the Circuit?

Quest/Weekly:

I believe a great way to do this is via a small quest that comes with a weekly mission. Yes, we already have Archon Hunts, Circuit, and now Deep Archimedia, but this new source of Adapters would be a place to earn them for players that have all of the Circuit Adapters. It would also of course keep the pool of Circuit Adapters limited, otherwise players might have to wait months before a particular weapon shows up again.

The quest itself would ideally be related to the current story; Cavalero could host it, or Fibonacci. It could be something as simple as: "The Indifference is seeking to punch a hole in our Solar System. You have to put a stop to it." I'd rather not dream of the specifics due to potential story implications. The point is that throughout what would be a set of three missions (plus an Assassination), we'd be completing familiar objectives: defending specific points (Mobile Defense), eliminating enemies (Exterminate), destroying points of interest (sabotage), but we'd (ideally) do this on an entirely new tileset that could be used again in the future. We could also see alterations on current mission types, like Void Cascade. How cool would it be to do Void Cascade but with the Murmur as the faction of enemies? The reasoning behind the mission would be different of course, but the mechanics would remain the same.

Tileset/Missions/Boss/Enemies:

I'm picturing the floating rocks of the Murex tileset, but in a void-kissed world like the bridge in Mirror Defense, with massive instances of broken clutter clumping together as the areas in which we navigate. There's an open "sky", and Orowyrms can be seen flying around. The roar of the Void-tongue can be heard growing more frequent as you get closer to the Paragon. I for one would love to experience running across a horizontal Unum Tower that's just floating in the Void while fighting enemies, with objects as big as asteroids floating about. I realize that this would almost require a new faction of enemies, however there's a solution to that. DE could theoretically reskin some of the Murmur (the Culverin mostly) to have silver-void accents like Incarnon weapons do. This would sell them as Mechs that have had a much greater/raw exposure to the Void. The Murmur themselves would of course be present, along with the reskinned Culverin. Void Angels and a new take on Thrax (as the tough enemy to watch out for; similar to Voidrigs) would spice it up as well. We could grant ourselves access to this tileset through the Sanctum (Whisper in the Walls would be the prerequisite quest). The quest itself would be discovering and powering up a portal to this new Void area; one that Albrecht had created at some point. I'll reference the Void Key missions that have us open the doorway to Earth as a template; it would be nostalgic for older players, and symbolize just how far DE has come with the game :). There could also be an added objective of maintaining the portal and keeping it open during the three missions, otherwise the squad fails and is lost to the Void forever.

The three missions would end with a separate boss-fight (Assassination); something akin to "The Fragmented One". The playerbases reaction to that secret boss fight was almost entirely positive based on what I saw; it would be a mistake to not press that and add more of it to the game. The boss itself could be called: "Paragon of Indifference", and it could force the player to make use of dodging-based defensive mechanics. The Fragmented One did really well in this regard, which is certainly part of why it was so well received. The Paragon I think should fall between the Steel Path and "secret" versions of the Fragmented One in terms of difficulty, but I'm curious as to how some of you might feel about it...

"Paragon of Indifference" could be a massive Void Angel/Murmur hybrid that was created specifically by TMITW to shut us down. Void Angels currently have the means to force players out of their Warframe, but what if this new giant Void Angel could do the opposite? and mid-fight, we had to use our Warframes to free our Operators from the grasp of the Indifference? Just like how we have to use our Operators to free our Warframes from the grasp of Void Angels? This could be a mechanic that applies a stack of Transference Static ("Mark of Indifference"?) to the player if you don't free yourself in time, and 3-4 stacks would of course result in death (it would be possible to dodge this attack though). It would be even better if you could also assist your squad with freeing Operators. It would certainly provide more of that "team aspect" that we're beginning to see more of.

Just some ideas; the idea that the Void is capable of defeating either our Operator or our Warframe, but not both is just very compelling to me, and it'd be cool to see that represented more in gameplay. The foundations of that specific idea have been built already in regards to other enemies, and I'd love to see it return against the Void. If this has lore implications that I'm not aware of, I wouldn't expect to see this included of course; honestly that goes for this entire post.

Rewards/Mission specifics:

What about rewards though? Well, there's numerous ways to do this. Assuming you're applying all of the restrictions, both Archimedia missions are comprised of 6 standard missions. Assuming absolute efficiency, at 10 minutes a mission it's still going to take a squad about an hour to get through it all. That's assuming you get all the rewards in one go.

There's really no reason then why this proposed new weekly shouldn't fall into a very similar time-frame. An hour or so (four 15-20 minute missions) for 1-2 Incarnon Adapters once a week seems reasonable enough, but this is certainly a debatable point. Given all of the Incarnon Adapters already in the game, and the immense commitment that Circuit asks of the player, it would certainly be better for this new weekly to ask for less of your time (especially given the ever growing number of weeklies that already exist).

Perhaps you could be guaranteed an Incarnon Adapter for completing the four missions, and another if you complete each of the initial three missions' bonus objectives (think open world bounties). Theoretically, it could be worked in a way that lets the player earn the second Adapter by doing another round of missions, but that would obviously take twice as long. This is where the appeal of completing the side objectives comes in: skillful play is rewarded when squads are capable of completing the side objectives, but players still have the opportunity to earn both adapters if someone costs the squad an objective or something happens that prevents its completion. Assuming "poor" gameplay, this new weekly would yield 2 Adapters in about the same amount of time that Archimedia yields its rewards, or one non-stop run on Circuit to R10. Skilled gameplay/prepared players will have the opportunity to greatly shorten that time here however.

The Assassination would have no bonus objectives, in order to steer clear of previous content. It would also disregard the mechanic of maintaining the portal, as the Paragon is what's trying to close it (now it's directly focused on you).

These objectives would of course have to be appropriately scaled to match the reward, after all an Incarnon Adapter is a much heavier prize than 200 extra rep. They could be similar in nature to Bounty objectives, like how Void Cascade will require you to not let the meter reach a certain point. Another example could be as simple as not letting any Demolysts destroy a key (keys needed to help keep the portal open), or as complex as destroying three, heavily guarded "towers" (think of the Sentient Crystals in the Murex Kahl mission) during an Exterminate. Interception would be a great mission type for this as well (reaching at least double the enemy %). Ideally, these objectives would be something the squad would have to work together to do, but not necessarily communicate with each other to understand. The missions themselves would not be easy; for two Adapters they'd have to be on the same level as Deep Archimedia. Given my lack of inclusion of self-applied restrictions like Archimedia has, the enemies would probably have to start at around level 300, maybe even 400 to be considered genuinely challenging for the category of players this content is geared towards. As mentioned before, there would also be a side objective, AND the maintaining of the portal. As a means of balance, it might be best to either disregard a portal mechanic, or ensure that it's relatively very easy to complete. After all: nobody likes to fail a mission.

As far as Archimedia-like loadout restrictions and self-applied debuffs go, I'm more curious as to what some of you think on how well that would work with this concept...

Conclusion:

At its core, this content idea is just filler until we get a mainline update, so why even consider it? Because it addresses a couple of problems before they really become an issue while giving the playerbase what many of us want more of: meaningful, relevant, engaging content with worthwhile rewards. New Incarnon Adapters are bound to be added, and neither putting them all in Circuit or Cavaleros Platinum shop is a truly sustainable solution. A weekly rotating pool of Adapters that you can choose from before going into this... Void Hunt, keeps what really matters the same, but differentiates itself enough to be entertaining. The content itself while mildly ambitious, is theoretically made up of already existing assets that once combined, could then be used for even more content in the future, providing a worthwhile return on what initially seems like a lot of work for just a weekly.

It also expands upon the current story while still leaving plenty of wiggle room for the future, especially given the concept of Eternalism (this is why the Ostron Tower is even in here btw). This ALSO appeals to players like me who absolutely loved the Fragmented One and that experience, and desire more clear-cut boss fights, as well as players that enjoy the classic missions of Warframe, but want to see them switched up a bit every now and then. This of course appeals to DE as well, by giving players an extra reason to log in on a weekly basis, when they perhaps lost one or two reasons before (by completing Circuit for example). Everybody wins!

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I'm curious to hear some of yalls thoughts on what I've written here, and I hope to see it added in some capacity in the future. I'd love to see more Incarnon Adapters in the game, but it's clear that reward pools are beginning to be overfilled. This is ultimately just an idea of providing a worthwhile, balanced alternative to Circuit while opening doors for future content, as well as giving players a fun boss fight alongside fun missions.

TLDR:

Weekly "Void Hunt" that rewards up to 2 Incarnon Adapters a week; slight story progression and new source of Incarnons. Relatively difficult, engaging, "late-game" content for players that helps keep overall reward pools limited/balanced. (Attempts) to appeal to all players by following a familiar core structure as similar iterations, but expands on newly desired aspects.