Update 15 And My Personal Opinions About It

[ThaMega]

Let me start by saying this: These are my own opinions. If you disagree with them, please post a comment explaining so. It's nice to get a discussion going and seeing more thoughts arise on this topic.

 

With that out of the way, let's get started.

 

Archwings:

I actually like these things. The gameplay is different and rather fun. It doesn't feel like the regular Warframe I'm used to playing, which isn't a bad thing. For me, personally, it's a nice refresher and I gladly accept it into the game. However, at the moment, I do feel like there are some serious flaws. These include (but are not limited to):

 

-Few mission types to choose from (I'm aware that this will change over time, so feel free to skip past this one)

-Hellions and lock-on warnings. I'm surprised that, in a mode about space combat, there is literally no indication of you being locked on. No sound indicator, no HUD indicator, nothing. This, paired with the fact that lock on missiles to enormous amounts of damage makes these things extremely frustrating.

-The level gap is quite large. Okay, so you have Archwing missions covering all levels, but the problem comes to levelling. Usually, when levelling gear, most players go to endless-type missions. The only Archwing nodes that are endless type missions are either on Earth (very easy) or Uranus (very hard). 

-Mods and their current values. Many Archwing mods are underpowered right now, if not useless. For example, the Power Range mod for Archwings allows for a whopping total of +6% power range. Yup, +6% power range. In other words, almost negligible gain. I really hope these values are changed. (I'm aware of Scott's words, "Don't start them overpowered." But these are... well, too underpowered)

-Frame interaction with Archwing stats. Really, right now, the main way to play Archwing is to get your tankiest frame and slap all the tank mods on there. Why? Because those stats are mostly what matters. What does this result in? (Nearly) Everybody playing either Frost (Prime), Rhino (Prime), Valkyr, Zephyr, and a few other frames. What does this mean? The player NEEDS tanky frames in order to have an advantage when it comes to Archwing gameplay.

 

There would be a bit more than that, but the once infuriating bugs of Archwing are mostly gone.

 

Syndicates:

They sound like a cool concept. Work with a faction, against another faction, and get cool loot from doing that. The problem is that Syndicates are just a grind fest at the moment.

 

"But it's endgame and not meant to be powerlevelled."

No, it's not endgame. You do what you were doing before, playing the game, except you get little points as you do it. Sometimes you get reskinned alerts, which give you slightly more points. After a long amount of time, you finally gain enough points to rank up with a faction. After that long amount of time, you're greeted with a major nuisance. A bigger reputation cost, with no current way to increase your reputation gain, aside from platinum-purchased Affinity Boosters. And once again, you go, doing the same thing you've been doing since you've started Warframe. Eventually you'll trying and find a fast way to gain Syndicate reputation. What does this mean? The insane grind of Syndicates eventually leads you to want to powerlevel it in order to get some interesting mods. Either that or you give up on the insane grindfest that Syndicates currently are.

 

"It's optional."

And there's new, interesting mods and items hidden behind it. What does this mean? I'm getting penalized for not joining a Syndicate and grinding out all the points I can. Sure, I can trade for these mods, but at what cost? With the crazy amount of grind, "trading" for these mods won't be an option. It's not "optional", it's more like "Hey, I'm going to join this because it has no downside and eventually, after about maybe a year, I'll get some cool things." "But aren't death squads a downside?" Do you genuinely believe a group of a few eximus units are a downside?

 

"There's no RNG behind it."

What? Wait, so you're telling me that the requirements for ranking up aren't hidden behind a gate that RNGesus will open for you? Well, let's see. In order to rank up, in order, it takes:

-Credits (fine)

-ClanTech based resources + Credits (fine)

-Forma + Credits (Getting a bit iffy here. Technically RNG based, but I'll let it slide)

-Catalyst/Reactor + Credits, depending on faction (You know how to get these? Through very rare RNG based invasions or alerts. Or you can pay plat, of course.)

-A Prime Weapon component + Credits (Again, RNG based.)

-A Prime Warframe component + Credits (Woo, RNG extravaganza!)

 

You can make your own opinion on this one, but for now, I'm done with Syndicates they get properly fixed.

 

Excalibur Changes:

So, Excalibur got visited after a while. Let's look at that. Although a fair warning, I don't play Excalibur as much as I used to.

 

Slash Dash: Unchanged, surprisingly. Many community members rightfully asked for a buff to this skill, mainly because it's weak at the moment and it's only true use becomes mobility later on. It has a lot of potential with the new systems added within the past updates, namely Damage 2.0 and Melee 2.0. Kind of a shame.

 

Radial Blind: Nerfed and can't go through walls anymore. To be fair, this change doesn't bother me. I found this skill to be broken to begin with. However, this change does mean that Excalibur's end-game utility has been drastically reduced.

 

Super Jump: Now has a (rarely noticeable) stun and makes you invisible. Meh, not sure why this skill exists anymore with the addition of directional melee attacks anyways.

 

Radial Javelin: Now can hit through walls and hit an infinite amount of enemies. However, animation time hasn't been changed, nor have damage values.

 

All in all, it feels as though Excalibur got nerfed to me, which makes me sad to see. I would have been okay with the Radial Blind nerf if his other abilities got more attention, but I don't play Excalibur that much to begin with.

 

Ability Acquisition Changes:

I feel like this is a great choice and how abilities should have been acquired in the first place. Personally speaking, I feel as though this will allow a lot more unique gameplay for those who only had a one or two ability-centric build, while allowing people like myself to start to equip more survivability-based modes on ability-centric builds. I can't say much about this other than "I'm pleased" really, however I'm aware that one-ability builds (namely Desecrate-oriented builds) basically got nerfed. I do feel that, in the long run, it was mostly worth the change.

 

TL;DR:

Archwings: Neat, but incomplete. In due time, I'm sure it will be more fleshed out.

Syndicates: Not worth the time. Just a major time and resource sink that really needs to be looked at.

Excalibur Changes: Overall seems like a nerf, but at least some abilities got buffed.

Ability Acquisition Changes: Great changes in my opinion.

---

 

The fixes and quality-of-life changes that came along with U15 are very appreciated. Finally my dream of being able to search for mods has come true (I've always secretly wanted this since U7). This of course is one of the many changes made to the game that I'm grateful for. I can't really name the others due to time constraints and such, but I'm glad they exist.

 

Lastly, I do not intend for this to be a rant. I can understand it appearing so, mostly under the "Syndicate" section due to my large criticisms and negativity towards how they are currently implemented. However, please do not let this stop you from responding towards this, or any other point I have made. I wish to see community discussion over the points I have discussed, whether they agree or disagree with my opinion.

[TheErebus.]

Great feedback.

I disagree with the Synidcates though. 
I don't think it's a waste of time, it allows you to gain new augments (which I don't you mentioned) that affect abilities very differently.

[7grims]

Yup I agree with the archwing being only for rhino frost etc... bad move

 

also mod drops in space is such a BAD idea...

[TisEric]

I agree to some degree on all points.

 

Personally my biggest issue with archwing is its extremely stale combat system.

Flying around with the archwing is great , i love flying about doing flips and banking around debris and ship architecture.

But the combat is either press melee until you win/die or float gently with shield and peashooter until win/die.

 

Can't dog fight or escape bullets or do neat things or anything special.

Archwing abilities are pretty much meh.

 

The minimap while bad still conveys info if you take the time to look at it right , little arrow near the red triangle will tell you weather you should go lower or higher and then just look at it for general direction and then just guess based on proximity to yourself.

 

 

 

Syndicates i find just pointless to be honest.

It takes a colossal amount of time , effort and resources to rank up to the point of being able to spend those points.

The very idea of these faction asking us to pay for the privilege of helping them do their missions so then we can pay them with rep to get an underwhelming reward is ridiculous. Fact that we even need to pay them to display their own logo is baffling.

I was excited for the syndicates , not anymore.

I just passively slap an arbiters sticker on my frames and continue with the same old content, grind the game featured for its whole existence. 

Maybe in a year or 2 ill have enough points to get a mod for a frame ive lost interest in by then , if ill even be playing at that point.

Edited November 3, 2014 by TisEric

[ThaMega]

I disagree with the Synidcates though. 

I don't think it's a waste of time, it allows you to gain new augments (which I don't you mentioned) that affect abilities very differently.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the ideas of the new Ability Augment mods, and even screamed a little in joy after seeing those in the patch notes. However, the main problem I find is that they're locked behind the current implementation of the Syndicate system, which rewards the player over time spent rather than any actual difficulty. And to make matters worse, the amount of time spent is too large to justify the acquisition of one of these mods (in my opinion).

 

Still, the new mods are cool, and I'm very excited to try them out or see them in action... if that's even achievable without farming reputation points.

 

also mod drops in space is such a BAD idea...

Personally speaking, I haven't had an issue with mod drops in space. However, I have had issues with mods in space being affected by physics (for example, someone using Repel and then seeing a mod fly off into the unexplorable abyss).

 

Personally my biggest issue with archwing is its extremely stale combat system.

Flying around with the archwing is great , i love flying about doing flips and banking around debris and ship architecture.

But the combat is either press melee until you win/die or float gently with shield and peashooter until win/die.

 

Can't dog fight or escape bullets or do neat things or anything special.

Archwing abilities are pretty much meh.

 

The minimap while bad still conveys info if you take the time to look at it right , little arrow near the red triangle will tell you weather you should go lower or higher and then just look at it for general direction and then just guess based on proximity to yourself.

I agree with you almost entirely. The animations and their implementation in Archwing gamemodes are really cool, but the combat is very simple, almost too simple.

 

I have had a few moments where I've been in a few dogfight-esque moments with some of the Grineer enemies, and have somewhat dodged some incoming bullets, but that's my personal perception.

 

The abilities... yeah. In my opinion, they're decent, however drop off so heavily that in the Uranus Interception mission, Seeking Fire sees little use outside of taking out Dregs.

 

As for the minimap, maybe it's just me, but the scale feels... off. Mostly in Sabotage missions, the map just seems too small.

[TisEric]

 

I agree with you almost entirely. The animations and their implementation in Archwing gamemodes are really cool, but the combat is very simple, almost too simple.

 

I have had a few moments where I've been in a few dogfight-esque moments with some of the Grineer enemies, and have somewhat dodged some incoming bullets, but that's my personal perception.

 

The abilities... yeah. In my opinion, they're decent, however drop off so heavily that in the Uranus Interception mission, Seeking Fire sees little use outside of taking out Dregs.

 

As for the minimap, maybe it's just me, but the scale feels... off. Mostly in Sabotage missions, the map just seems too small.

 

Oh it definitely needs a lot of work but it's not completely unusable is all i'm saying.

 

Yeah you can simulate Dog fights to some degree but its more your imagination and a lack of clear focus that enables it.

I would love being able to have like a good 1 on 1 fly by shooting/melee without stopping every second to attack , would make for some memorable moments.

 

Fight your first Balor in a hyper speed dog fight. The dream.

[MichaelSD]

Excalibur Changes:

Radial Blind: Nerfed and can't go through walls anymore. To be fair, this change doesn't bother me. I found this skill to be broken to begin with. However, this change does mean that Excalibur's end-game utility has been drastically reduced.

 

 

Excalibur's only useful ability at high levels and it's only level which is significantly contributing to the team. The skill was not broken, or not more the MProime or Stomp. And I agree, at high level the Excalibur is not useful anymore.