Progression 2.0, A Complete Rework Of The Presentation Of Warframe (Update 1/27)

[whatorthat]

I'm going to slip in here briefly to comment: I think these are excellent suggestions. It would certainly take a lot of work, but I believe it would be well worth the effort.

 

I've always found WF's abstract approach to lore/storytelling compelling--but the lack of narrative direction can sometimes get a little frustrating. I'd like to learn more about this world and its people. I'd like to know who I'm slaughtering, and why. This past year's development cycle did a lot to expand the scope of the Warframe world. It breathes now. But as it stands, there are still large swathes of the game that (excellent mechanics aside) fall a little flat. Tying together what tantalizing morsels we have now with a cohesive story would go a long way to improve the game as a whole.

 

But there's more to it than fluff. I've tried to introduce a number of people to Warframe, and the learning curve is somewhat steep. While the introductory quests were a great way to get players invested in the game/ease them into the often-intimidating co-op, they stop when they realize they've exhausted the three or four we have. I'd really like to have more people join me in appreciating this awesome game, and I think something along the lines of what Borris suggests would be much appreciated by newcomers and veterans alike (given equal attention to high-tier stuff, of course).

 

Kudos to you, Borris! I love your work on this. :D

Edited January 22, 2015 by whatorthat

[DrBorris]

Well, If you're going to be verbose, don't expect people to read the whole thing (no offense meant to be given) 

 

 

Right, So I read more about the weapons. You know the game isn't linear. i wanna go back and forth between all the planets. I don't want to be stuck at a place around my level all the time. The power-gap is already to big, and you seem to want to make it larger. There are far simpler answers to the issue of progression than this. 

Well, if you are going to comment, it is expected that you read the post... If you don't want to read this, be my guest, I do not expect everyone to be intereted. But when you comment on something that was explicitly spoken about in the post, there is something wrong with that. Sometimes the hypocrisy of the forums is astounding, they talk about how they contribute to Warframe and whine when the ideas don't get implemented... but they cannot spend five minutes of their time to read a long post or make decent comment. Have you noticed all of the balance posts going around? Maybe the MR ones? Have you also noticed the amount of commenting on those posts? They are getting loads of comments very quickly. But... the OP has been circulating for longer than those but has had much less attention (few people reply, but have conversation). If you all are all so interested in balance, why are you all not spending time on such topic? Also, notice the abundance of long comments on this post. Rather than a long lists of "yes"s and "no"s, there is a conversation where people add their thoughts to better the main concept of a rework of Progression. 

 

Ah whatever, guess I am just being an @ss. I pretty much just accused the majority of forum goers as not really helping... at all. Rant over.

 

In regards to the big guns on low level stuff... as ChronoEclipse said, it is already addressed... So read the OP... I made reading plans, you do not have to read all 13,000 words. Just read the stuff not in spoilers and the "Difficulty/Power" spoiler section (in entirety) and you will have a good idea of where I am going.

 

Edit: Noticed i got kind of rude, so please ignore the stuff in strike through. 

Edited January 22, 2015 by DrBorris

[geninrising]

BWAHAHA! My thoughts exactly on most forum users Dr. To be fair though Innocent is usually much more thorough and detailed oriented in his/her perusals of posts. In addition he/she has normally provided a clear opinion and additional ideas to help flesh something out where he/she can be of help. I do admit that the overall post taken in it's entire breadth in a single read was akin to reviewing someones essay in school. However I also feel that providing a snap judgement on the matter was definitely uncalled for. Perhaps both of you could use a Snickers?

 

Edited January 23, 2015 by geninrising

[DrBorris]

BWAHAHA! My thoughts exactly on most forum users Dr. To be fair though Innocent is usually much more thorough and detailed oriented in his/her perusals of posts. In addition he/she has normally provided a clear opinion and additional ideas to help flesh something out where he/she can be of help. I do admit that the overall post taken in it's entire breadth in a single read was akin to reviewing someones essay in school. However I also feel that providing a snap judgement on the matter was definitely uncalled for. Perhaps both of you could use a Snickers?

Yup, I had one of those moments where I wrote the angry e-mail, then sent it before I let myself cool down (thus the redaction). Innocent_Flower went on to make his own post on Progression, so that makes me feel even worse about that. 

 

Oh, the real reason I am posting again is to make sure that those who are following this thread see the stuff I added to it. I got a bit more "revolutionary" with some ideas added to the "Difficulty versus Power" section (under "Two Alternatives to the above"). One of which involves a system very closely resembling what DE has leaked about Focus, the other goes even farther out there with an idea that makes everything equal and removes serration (and locks weapon power directly to Progression Rank). I do not know if the original idea or one of the two alternatives is the better option, just trying to add more as feedback comes in.

[geninrising]

Yup, I had one of those moments where I wrote the angry e-mail, then sent it before I let myself cool down (thus the redaction). Innocent_Flower went on to make his own post on Progression, so that makes me feel even worse about that. 

 

Oh, the real reason I am posting again is to make sure that those who are following this thread see the stuff I added to it. I got a bit more "revolutionary" with some ideas added to the "Difficulty versus Power" section (under "Two Alternatives to the above"). One of which involves a system very closely resembling what DE has leaked about Focus, the other goes even farther out there with an idea that makes everything equal and removes serration (and locks weapon power directly to Progression Rank). I do not know if the original idea or one of the two alternatives is the better option, just trying to add more as feedback comes in.

I would honestly support your final iteration in the Alternatives to the above section, with the proviso that they create an entirely different set of mods to allow us to fully customize the "feel" of our weapons. Things such as  explosive arrows(not thunderbolt with it's very own RNG monster), ricocheting bullets, impact rounds(think about a machine gun that allows you to knock enemies back a certain distance), additionally a means to convert base damage into elemental damage through elemental mods to further specialize your weapons(admittedly I have been on an Ember spree trying to develop a comprehensive feedback topic that encompasses all players concerns rather than the current b|tchfest we have currently in the mega thread). Things along this line of thought must be present in any future iterations in order to fill the customization gap left by loss of various damage mods.

[--Q--uaint]

I would honestly support your final iteration in the Alternatives to the above section, with the proviso that they create an entirely different set of mods to allow us to fully customize the "feel" of our weapons. 

 

THIS.

[Inbrax]

Wow...just wow. I read your entire post. Overall, I really liked it. I thought your ideas were fabulous, they were exactly what the community needs. Since I started playing Warframe back in Update 10, I always thought that it could be better, especially in the story department, but I never exactly knew how. I hadn't really thought about the difficulty much, and I hadn't thought about Conclave at all. I liked your chart of quests a lot, I absolutely agree that events and such should be put in an order to form a story. And I liked your idea of unlocking frames and weapons based on your progression through the story.

 

Under "Description of each Quest" you mentioned how we would unlock frames after quests, but for some of the frames you mentioned, they were the starter ones. Currently you can choose from Excalibur, Mag, and Volt as a starter frame. Yet you said we would unlock Mag and Volt after their respective quests. If your idea was implemented, would we still be allowed those three frames as starters? Or are we only limited to Excalibur until we unlock our next frame.

 

As for the different quests and stories, I liked that you repeatedly brought up the Void and Derelicts. Way back when I  got my first key, I wondered "what the heck is this?" I was given no introduction into what this was, or how it was related. This brings me to another thing I will another thing I will bring up next. I think that having a quest for (and explaining) the Void (as well as explaining the other factions) would be perfect for new players.

 

The next thing I wanted to talk about was the lore, and I am going to be brutally honest. It sucks. At least in my opinion, and all you people reading this can tell me I'm wrong, but in my opinion, it sucks. As a new player, I was thrust into the system. I didn't get an intro quest, I had to figure it all out myself (which is why I didn't know how to mod and probably why I sucked). But even then I knew nothing of what I was doing. I clearly remember telling my friends as we played that I feel that we are the bad guys, what is this "cause" the Lotus tells us about? Why are we ruthlessly killing Grineer? What are we actually doing? DE needs to take more care of their little Tenno babies. They can't just plant a seed and hope it survives till harvest, otherwise it will shrivel and die. But with proper care, and education, this seed can grow into the Bringer of Balance this system needs. When I eventually found the lore, there was little to be found, but thankfully DE is slowly adding more and more. If the lore was given to us more directly rather than us having to search for it, I think that'd at least be a small step in the right direction.

 

Under your "Difficulty versus power" section, I really latched onto your idea of Progression Locking, "Power Creep is Good" and your idea of Over/Underclocking weapons. I whole-heartedly agree that players under a certain rank should not be allowed weapons way above them such as Boltor Prime. If they managed to get their hands on it, they would lose the fun in the game as they can now just blast everything away, and it would be unfair to their peers. As for "clocking" (I don't want to repeat Over/Under every time) your weapon, I like the idea that you would get more affinity for going under, and less for going over. I think that would add another level of gameplay we could all take advantage of.

*Examples*

1) You're soloing a mission because no one is on it right now. You quickly realize this mission is too hard for just you. So instead of spending a crazy amount of credits leveling your mods in an attempt to be better, simply overclock your loadout. Sure, you get a bit (depending on how much you clock) less affinity, but at least you completed the mission.

2) You have your new items, and after a while you hit that awkward stage in your leveling. They're too high to gain like three levels a mission, but still far off from max. So you go to a planet where you're comfortable and lower your clocking. Now you can enjoy some slightly difficult enemies, and speed through your leveling process.

 

Another thing you mentioned was Power Creep, and the ability to recraft weapons. I agree with the fact that as you progress, your current weapons will lose their power and this will force you to get new ones. This will force players to experience a wider variety weapons instead of sticking with their one gun. But what happens to the old ones? This is where the Latron to Tiberon idea comes in, and I think it's brilliant. We've all seen it, for those of us who buy the blueprints at least. A weapon needs to have a weapon to make, like Dragon Nikana, or Tiberon, or Redeemer. I like the upgrading your weapon idea, because this allows you to keep your weapons which you have grown fond of, like me to Sybaris. I like the "feel", as you kept saying, of Sybaris. But it quickly grew too weak to take on what I am now fighting. And I would like to keep it around. So by crafting it into something else, I can keep it. But before players recraft their weapons, I think they need to have its levels maxed, and maybe even needing some extra leveling add on specifically for recrafting. Because going straight from say rank 18 to a new and improved version is just not fair. You mentioned keeping the catalysts and Formas. I can easily see the catalyst being transferred, but not exactly the forma. If you kept the same slots as is, you might have polarized a slot that maybe DE wanted the new slot to have something else (I'm suggesting DE make it slightly more than a stat and skin change, but more into a different weapon with similar unique feelings). My idea for the forma would be this; if you put in one forma, you get to polarize one slot free (no needing to reach rank 30). But for every forma beyond that, it would be half the forma used and then rounded to the nearest whole number. So I guess this also makes two forma only one free polarization upon crafting, but using three before gets you two. So I guess if you intend to recraft, you possibly sacrifice some elements of the gun but not too much to make it very different, and you lose forma  (unless you only used one).

 

I don't really know where to fit this in the best, so I'll just stick it here while we are talking about weapons. Although I do like the Progression Lock as it goes forward, I think it should also work backward too. What I mean is, higher leveled weapons are locked from playing on lower missions. Though I understand that locking weapons just because you wanted to play on a easier planet may be unfair. So instead, I propose two options. Option 1) there is some kind of algorithm to determine the level range for the mission. Just a quick idea off the top of my head, half the mission difficulty plus 7 levels. So for a mission ranked at a difficulty of 6, it would lock any weapons leveled above 10 (6/2=3, 3+7=10). Option 2) there would be some kind of algorithm that would determine the range of a player based off conclave level, and adjust the enemies levels accordingly. Maybe the range is +- 10%. So if your conclave level is 1000, your range would be levels between 900 and 1100 (1000x1.1=1100, 1000x0.9=900). What the game would do with this, is move the enemy levels within your range, so easier planets are harder if you have better weapons, and harder planets are easier if you have worse weapons, to an extent of course. Easier planets would get harder much more than harder planets would get easier. But another purpose for the range is for connecting with people.  I actually got this idea from Dark Souls. You couldn't connect or invade (PvP) other players' worlds if you were above or below their range. Though I realize this would make it hard for players in the Warframe community to connect, it was a little idea to make it more fair to newer players, or players using lower gear and to not get blasted out of the water by higher ranked users.

 

Your idea about splitting the Infested into the two factions makes a lot of sense. Why would a new player who hasn't experienced the Mutalists fight them? But then later, why would you exclude the Ancient Infested from the Mutalists? They are all Infested after all. If you meant for them to be together I apologize, but it was unclear to me whether or not you meant this. This is semi related. I don't think it needs to be specified, but obviously a player who has yet to unlock a mission should not participate in it. Like the Mutalists who cannot jump back in time, Tenno cannot jump forward. BUT Tenno from the future should be allowed to jump to the past and help out, provided they are equipped with weapons within the missions range.

 

Now onto the lovely things called Archwings. I have heard mixed reviews about them. I personally fell in love when I first got my wings, but I have since grown tired of the repetitive game modes and the horrific, and I do mean horrific, grind for the weapons. You also left out how terrible the mods are for the Archwings. One of two things needs to happen with the mods. Either their drain needs to be lessened, or their effects need to increased, or better yet, both! Right now, Archwings are too vulnerable and weak. Although I agree it needs to be implemented more and sometimes as part of a normal on-foot mission, I don't exactly thing force feeding us some buffalo Archwings is the best way to go. I wouldn't want to fly around in some tin foil covered wax wings and shoot wet noodles. I would much rather fly in some stable, Tenno quality metal and shoot some corrosive laser beams or whatever. If I can give and withstand a beating on foot, why not in space?

 

By now, I bet most people have stopped reading. If so, that is alright. Because I have not much else to say. I may have missed some stuff, but I think you get the idea. The community needs ideas for DE, not hate.

 

Ask not what DE can do for you, ask what you can do for DE.

 

Excuse me if that was too informal. But in case you couldn't tell, I write in a rather informal style. But you can't just say "this is bad. Do better DE". That's not going to get anything done, but if you give some ideas you think will make the game better, I think DE will be more than happy to consider it.
 

[DrBorris]

-snip-

Thank you for the feedback, awesome to see people still reading this.

 

As for the starter frames, you would still have the option between Excaibro, Mag, and Volt (Unless DE decided to change the roster again). Just like you can get Mag on Mars even if you picked Mag as your starter, you will still be able to do the quest. Excalibur does have his own quest way up the timeline, but that is DE putting Excalibur on Pluto. As in Mag's quest example, you are not required to construct the frame in order to complete the quest. The average quest where you get a Warframe is more about the Boss than about the Warframe, you are out to go kill Anyo, Ruk, or whoever is causing a rusk and getting Warframe parts in the process. You can only pick one frame as your starter and people pick different frames. Thus, there must be a way to acquire all of the starter frames separate from picking them as a starter. 

 

My goal with the "Difficulty versus Power" section was to allow all play styles to scale into the late game, so it is awesome that, that message is getting across.

 

I have thought about having high PR weapons being locked away from low level missions, but I think that that removes too much freedom from the player. You had to earn those more powerful weapons, it is unfair in a sense to never be able to see how much more powerful they are. That is why there is the affinity penalty. Between Syndicate Reputation and someday Focus, that extra Affinity will be valuable.

 

I am confused by your point with the Mutalist infested. The Mutalist infested and Ancient Infested are two separate factions, and will (hopefully*) remain that way. The Mutalist Infested are comprised of the new Mutalist enemies in addition to the Ancient Infested (Except the soon to be Juggernaut and any other "special" infested). the Infested we have now are the same as the Mutalist Infested proposed. The Ancient Infested are the current Infested minus the Mutalist enemies. The two factions will be separate in locations. The Mutalist "home" is Eris and the Ancient "home" is the Derelict. Once you have discovered both, you can fight either one you choose. Then the invasions would be separate. The Ancient Infestation Outbreaks would be led by Phorid, be available to all players who have completed Once Awake, and only have the Ancient enemies. The Mutalist Infestation Outbreaks would be led by Alad, be available to all players who have completed Operation Breeding Grounds, and have the Mutalist enemies. Hmm, that could be a change DE could do right now, make two separate Infestation Outbreaks, one with Phorid as a boss and one with Alad (No more beacons).

 

*I am serious that priority one for Corpus, Grineer, and Tenno should be to keep Alad's Mutalist Infestation separate from the Derelicts. Imagine the Mutalist enemies taking over entire fleets of Orokin ships. That... would be bad. So... both factions would hopefully stay separate forever... hopefully.

 

In this post I got more into big systems than small mechanics. I am not sure I entirely agree that Archwing mods are weak (I think normal mods are too strong) because we actually have a challenge at high level now. Back on topic though, there are tweaks still needed for Archwing mechanics (No more y axis please) and more importantly missions. I would be one for a Archwing Token system (you get tokens for completing Archwing missions, then turn those in for Achwing weapon BPs) to remove a bunch of the RNG (maybe have different classes of Tokens, some come from high level and some from low level missions). Force feeding buffalo Archwings  is going to happen, I wrote that more as a warning to the community than a personal request. However, Archwings COULD make Warframe a game that can really separate itself from the pack, but that would mean making it an integral part. How DE paralleled space combat and normal combat I do not know, but we need better game mods in order to show that. 

 

Nice statement at the end there. 

 

This post has never really been alive. It has been a few people giving very good feedback (like you), then a bunch of people pushing +1. The topic of this post is pretty much the topic of every post on the forums these days wrapped up under one system, so...

[geninrising]

By now, I bet most people have stopped reading. If so, that is alright. Because I have not much else to say. I may have missed some stuff, but I think you get the idea. The community needs ideas for DE, not hate.

 

Ask not what DE can do for you, ask what you can do for DE.

 

Excuse me if that was too informal. But in case you couldn't tell, I write in a rather informal style. But you can't just say "this is bad. Do better DE". That's not going to get anything done, but if you give some ideas you think will make the game better, I think DE will be more than happy to consider it.

 

So much of this. Glad to see your support of this prospect!

[Oberonight]

Ask not what DE can do for you, ask what you can do for DE.

I can't though.

 

First, I need to farm the new General Sargus Forum boss for key coords to craft a key in order to access a thread and I have 0.0001% of my post getting posted and 0.00000001% of it being responded to. Each time I post I have to roll a 24 sided die to roll a die to roll a die to loot "forum prime" parts.

I must rinse and repeat this until I get all 17 parts, which each require 9001 Tellurium to craft, for the "Forum Prime" melee weapon that takes a year to complete and requires 9001 plat to rush. After getting this weapon, I must forma out all 9 D polarities in order to have chance at T4 forums. Then I have a 0.000000000001% of looting a "ask what you can do for DE" part in C rotation.

 

Trust me, I would if I could.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Oberonight

[geninrising]

 

Keep out. This is not a place for Sarcasm or flaming. If you don't like things quit b|tching and try to help change them. THAT is what this place is for not your petty vitreol.

[geninrising]

Any other thoughts or suggestions on this matter?

[PookieNumnums]

im against this 

 

it takes away the freedom we have to go where and do what we want. 

 

 

we would lose players that get burnt out before they can get to a frame they like.

we would have the pay to win arguement resparked because of players buying the frames they want to use rather than playing the entire campaign just to get them

 

what about slots...

 

 

im all for quests and progression, but not for my personal progression being inherently locked to the quests.. not in a game like this where a big part is collecting crafting and ranking new gear.

 

 

also, im not feeling the order in which youre presenting the frames... 

 

 

and the frame is Mesa. Misa is a syandana.

Edited February 4, 2015 by T4LCOMX

[DrBorris]

 

im against this 

 

it takes away the freedom we have to go where and do what we want. 

 

 

we would lose players that get burnt out before they can get to a frame they like.

we would have the pay to win arguement resparked because of players buying the frames they want to use rather than playing the entire campaign just to get them

 

what about slots...

 

 

im all for quests and progression, but not for my personal progression being inherently locked to the quests.. not in a game like this where a big part is collecting crafting and ranking new gear.

 

 

also, im not feeling the order in which youre presenting the frames... 

 

 

and the frame is Mesa. Misa is a syandana.

 

Okay, but I think you missed the big picture. I am going to start off with a few quotes from the OP that will answer a few things. 

 

 

Obviously, there is a lot of stuff I wrote down. If you like everything I wrote… wow. There are some parts (especially the difficulty stuff) that I am sure that many may not agree with. All I ask is that you do not bash the entire post because of one portion of it. I am sure many are going to refute my “power creep is good if controlled,” which I am actually really excited to see where those discussions go, but also please look at the main ideas of this and comment on that also. Due to everything being so interconnected, do not just say “no” to an idea, give a replacement to fill the void that removing that idea left.  Also, there are many points that I left vague. If you cannot tell, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff. I could probably write a thousand words for every little detail here (but this topic is long enough). If there is something that you really want me to expand on I can either edit into here, make a new thread, or personally pm you (depending on the question).

 

and

 

...For the most part, all existing things in Warframe are left the same. Things such as what boss gives what frame, where bosses are located, level of planets etcetera. If a change as drastic as this was made, DE would be perfectly capable of altering everything. But for the sake of explanation with familiarity, I will keep some things constant in this example.

 

The gist of what those say is what i wrote is not final and I understand that there may be faults. The order of the frames is based on the logical progression of Bosses, not the progression of which frames are better (which no frame should be better, eventually DE will get them all balanced). For example, Mesa is obtained so late in the campaign because Mutalist Alad V is the most "recent" event. It is a similar case with Frost. Kril is a Ceres boss, Ceres should be unlocked during the Tethra stuff, this Frost must come after the Tethra stuff. I kept the frames linked with their current bosses for two main reasons, one is for familiarity so that some of the map thing makes sense, the other is that Bosses are specifically tailored to have aspects of the frame they drop.

 

I have been trying to come up with another way to acquire Warframes beyond their boss quests, I am aware of that fault with the current layout. Maybe having a "Lotus Shop" where you perform specific tasks for pieces of Warframes that is entirely separate from the main quest line. Maybe not have every frame, bot the "iconic" ones. Have the starters (Mag, Excalibur, and Volt) be in that shop, then maybe throw in Frost or Ember. It should be more grindy to gain Warframes in this manner, but it would still allow the option. 

 

On the other hand,is it that bad to lock away Frames? All of the main storyline quests leading up to Sling Stone are pretty much an extended tutorial. Quests themselves do not take that long to complete (unless DE does the time walls... which would be VERY bad). Newer players should not have every frame available. While all frames should be equally powerful, giving a new player a Mesa (Press 4 to win) or Ash (same story) would be bad because it would allow new players to float threw early quests without any real effort. Those frames are not really overpowered in higher levels, but they make the game too easy at lower. 

 

To sum up the previous two paragraphs, please don't just say "no." Look at the section this post is in, it is titled "feedback". Thus, we should give feedback rather than just bash to the ground (did you read the first bold/italic thing?). I would be fore allowing some other frames to be acquired in different ways (especially the starters), but in general "locking" is good. Oh, and the "pay to win" thing is BS, this removes grind, the largest hinderence of gaining Warframes. The situation "A player wants X frame but does not want to do the campaign" is like saying that a person does not want to have to play a game to progress. 

 

As for the "freedom", you are correct. However, throwing you into the vast system with no direction is not good either. The "Lone Tenno" thing died with hubs. This is not the end all be all. The star chart is still a very important piece of the puzzle. You do not go from quest to quest, you need to gain "power" between quests to combat the increasing "difficulty" (did you read that part?). There was one topic I saw about making Syndicates more dynamic. That system would go great in something like this. Not everything is on that tree, more happens than the "story" (invasions, outbreaks, etcetera). 

 

Thank you for the spell check, I am sorry for misspelling "Mesa". However, I am too lazy to redo the picture to fix one letter (it is interesting that so many people gave insightful feedback, yet did not comment on that spelling).

 

I have had a few people comment on the Warframes part outside this post, so I should probably give some more explication in the OP. 

 

 

I will repeat, I am fully aware that this is most likely not the best solution. However, no one person will ever come up with the "perfect" solution. it requires a community to build an idea, so feedback and constructive criticism is necessary. 

[Worker_Prime]

After reading this post I found myself a little sickened but also curious. While locking frame progression and planet progression under questlines may seem like an effective solution, I would like to draw your attention to another game - Battle Pirates.

 

Battle Pirates is a strange comparison to Warframe - it is a browser-based, F2P game that has extremely limited P2W abilities. Most of it's end-game items are hidden being revoltingly hard questlines and transient, common events (called "raids) that require extremely skill to achieve even a basic level of progression. 

 

Grinding and farming is a way of life in BP, like Warframe. Although it seemed that these quests would remove some of that, it has merely caused the game to be extremely newbie-unfriendly. All of the BP videos on youtube are about high-level, event-boosted players storming their way through quest missions and leaving absolutely no resources for new players to build off. The player base deviates towards a norm - the few specific builds that allow a player to get what they want extremely quickly. 

 

My worry with your proposed linear progression system is that it will create a massive gap between Newbro and Oldbro. Warframe has always been somewhat newbro-unfriendly but with this, certain items will be locked behind a massive grind wall that could easily burn out new players.

 

My favorite thing about Warframe is the freedom of progression - that you are free to do anything you'd like, even if you aren't ready. If you aren't ready the mission will fail and you will either throw yourself at the screen again and again in Blind Rage or learn. By learning a Tenno improves their own skill and refines their own unique playstyle. True, that "unique" playstyle usually goes somewhere in the direction of "Rhino & Boltor" but this is the product of the player themselves - their own choices. These choices can lead to a populous, varied Tenno populace where everyone has the potential to shine with something out of the ordinary.

 

With linear progression, Warframe will go the BP route - the most efficient build for getting what you want will become the new meta. We will see hordes of Rhinos and Boltors - literally the same as BP's Hammerhead fleets and Carriers. Because the strongest build will get you what you want, players will automatically deviate towards it. Human nature states that we will spend the least amount of energy to get what we want - thus linear progression, being extremely straightforwards, will cause an increased percentage of a certain build proved to allow you to cheese through the missions. 

 

I have personally never played Rhino myself - I don't want to. I've never used a Boltor before, and I've sold around 4 Boltor P sets without actually crafting it myself. I try to get other players to follow my example - to try new things and keep old weapons. I work hard enough for this - recently I convinced two clanmates to craft Braton P with their O cells instead of Boltor. I challenged a mate to a Sheev on Sheev duel. I just finished another forma on my Limbo. 

 

Warframe teaches its own Tenno. If a way of life doesn't match for you, Warframe brutally punishes you for it. If a way if life feels good for you you take it. Linear progression will have Tenno deviate towards specific builds. In this case, Warframe shapes the Tenno instead of the Tenno shaping Warframe. It creates a power vacuum - the newbros want the oldbro's stuff so they can be an oldbro, and it is this desire that causes the hourglass to form. 

 

But, here's my two cents, take it what you will. 

[Tyrian3k]

I have a suggestion on affinity gains:

If progression level is a direct indicator for power, why do you not use it for the affinity gain? Every planet is unlocked by progression at a certain level, so I assume that this planet will be balanced around a player with this progression level. If a player has a higher one he gets less affinity, and if he has a lower one, he gets more.

For this, DE could actually put players in charge of their own power, allowing them to choose their own progression level on a slider, up to the maximum they unlocked.

What I'm trying to say is: If progression level=power, then why would you need conclave ratings at all?

 

What I also have to say, though, is that making weapons equal on the same progression level will still require DE to balance their whole arsenal which they seem quite reluctant at doing, potentially because balancing stuff doesn't earn money.

 

Questions:

1) How do you intend prime weapons to differ from their regular (also Wraith, Vandal, etc.) counterparts? E.g. a Boltor and a Boltor Prime would be about the same thing. Would you give them certain minor bonuses over the regular counterpart like prime Warframes have or just a slight stat variation?

 

2) If we go with the way that lets elemental mods change the damage type, how do you intend to balance crit weapons? Without the damage increase from elemental mods, crit weapons have an advantage over other weapons since they can still get more damage from crit mods.

A solution would be to allow players to tinker with weapon stats as Geninrising suggests.

 

3) How would elemental mods change the damage type or rather: How much of it would they convert?

 

4) How would combined elements work? They still cost 2 mod slots, but don't give the player a definite benefit like they do now, so we may need mods for all damage types with this suggestion in mind.

 

5) Since this would be a massive change, do you think that it would also be a good moment to let all primaries use the same set of mods?

[DrBorris]

-snip-

I think that you may have not connected the dots the way I intended. This rework is as anti-meta as they come. Literally every weapon would be made equal in some way or another. Each of the three alternatives made in the "Difficulty versus Power" section makes it so all playstyles are equal to each other. You can take an equivalent of a Grakata or just a normal Grakata (depending on the alternative) against a Boltor Prime and they will perform equally well. I am sorry for that not being clear enough.

 

I have seen a few things outside of this thread comment on how this would lead to there being tiers for Warframes. I am going to refute that here. First of all, if you said that, the big picture went way over your head. I specifically stated that the pretty picture was in no way the final solution. If there was one major flaw in the picture, I would say that it is that it locks some frames far away from new players, and in a game all about playstyle that is a bad thing. However, in order to make the whole concept as understandable as possible, I kept frames linked to their current bosses. I locked the bosses away from new players in order to create a coherent story, the intention was not to lock the frames. The entire idea of having frames and bosses linked is an interesting one. It links the lore and story of a two "characters". The proposition I would make is a "Lotus Shop". Newer players could do specific favors for the Lotus in order to gain points that they could then use to gain access to blueprints certain frames. This would not be for all frames, just ones that are linked to a late game boss and essential to certain playstyles. Examples would be Frost, Excalibur, and Ember come to mind as the best frames to fit that. 

 

Questions:

1) How do you intend prime weapons to differ from their regular (also Wraith, Vandal, etc.) counterparts? E.g. a Boltor and a Boltor Prime would be about the same thing. Would you give them certain minor bonuses over the regular counterpart like prime Warframes have or just a slight stat variation?

 

2) If we go with the way that lets elemental mods change the damage type, how do you intend to balance crit weapons? Without the damage increase from elemental mods, crit weapons have an advantage over other weapons since they can still get more damage from crit mods.

A solution would be to allow players to tinker with weapon stats as Geninrising suggests.

 

3) How would elemental mods change the damage type or rather: How much of it would they convert?

 

4) How would combined elements work? They still cost 2 mod slots, but don't give the player a definite benefit like they do now, so we may need mods for all damage types with this suggestion in mind.

 

5) Since this would be a massive change, do you think that it would also be a good moment to let all primaries use the same set of mods?

I am going to base these answers off of the last alternative because I think that is what you are referencing.

 

1) No weapon would ever have an advantage over another. So... a Prime weapon would have no more power than its vanilla counterpart. The example I give is Latron Wraith versus Latron Prime. Both weapons pretty much identically powerful, the difference is that they support a slightly different play style. Primes would be the same way. One of the examples I gave was Boltor and Boltor Prime. Basically the difference between the two are that Boltor Prime is easier. Boltor Prime would be more accurate and a faster travel speed. The trade off for those advantages is that its DPS would be slightly lower than Boltor's. 

 

2) As for crits, I say it is time for a crit rework. First thing that comes to mind is having crits not happen on shields. I think I heard that was true one upon a time, but not sure. This would make Crits be much less effective against shielded factions, but would remain powerful against non shileded enemies. When creating base weapon stats (the initial proportions), crits would have a heavy weighting due to scaling. DPS =/= unmodded DPS, DE needs to accounts for scaling attributes of weapons. As for modding, crit mods would be more or less corrupted, less damage for more crit chance or crit damage. The most powerful part of crits are the 4x head shot multiplier, so if a player just throws on the "corrupted" crit mods and just sprays and prays, they may do less damage then without them. On the other hand, if the player is a head shot master, they will get more out of their weapon with the crit mods. 

 

3) The percentages may need a change, but here is the basic math I would expect. The first mod would have an expected result, it would convert the said value to the listed damage type. Infected Clip for example would, on a weapon that does 100 damage, have the weapon's damage be converted to 90 poison damage and 10 (proportioned of original stats) of whatever else. If you put on another 90% elemental, Stormbringer for example, it would transfer 90% of the remaining damage. Thus, the damage would be 99 corrosive damage and 1 of whatever is left. If you put on a third elemental it would go back to effecting the base 100 damage. If it was Hellfire, then it would transfer 90% of the damage to fire. But due to interfering with the Poison/Electric mods, it would only be able to convert 1/3 of the remaining damage. So the weapon would be doing 66 corrosive, 33 fire, and 1 of the other stuff. Yeah,the values would definitely need adjusting, maybe change the 90% to 60% and the 60% to 30%. 

 

4) ^

 

5) Uhhhhhhhh, maybe? The main difference between mods is the base damage, so that will be inherently made more equal. I guess it would be an option, but Hell's Chamber versus Barrel Diffusion versus Split Chamber would probably remain the same. To clarify on multi-shot mods, the same amount of damage will always come out of the gun, but may be separated into separate bullets. Having a separate mod for shotguns, which would find a higher multi shot more useful, then for secondaries, which have a wide range of weapon types under one category, might leave enough reason to have some separation in mods. But my personal answer is... maybe.

 

As you said, this is a major change, so it opens up the opportunity for reworking other major systems. 

[Tyreuzs]

TL;DR

but pics look great tho

[WarOverlord]

Whoo i was upvote 100!

[Raptorator]

It took quit some time to read the OP, but i must say it was worth the time.

I really, really like this concept, so i will try my best to support it with some random ideas that poped out of my mind, while reading your post:

 

1. Lordcancellor Hek and his "Fantastic Four"

My first idea is to increas Vay Hek's rank in the Grineer hierarchy and make him somthing like the lordcancellor of the Grineer empire. This would explain why the player whould have to made such a great effort to track his location.

If he is now made into this VIG ("Very important Grineer"), it would make no sense, to give vital information about him, to some regular Grineer guardsmen with a special aura (aka Prosecutors).

So my idea is to give the four beacons -that are nessesary to find him- to four Grineers, that are far more powerful in therms of combat and Grineer politics than a "sparkling" guardsmen.

A good choice for this new prosecutors whould be some of the other Grineer bosses, like Vor, Kril, Ruk and Regor. I chose these four bosses, because they are not only powerfull enough to have access to information about Hek, but also because they fit the elemental thema of the current prosecutors so well.

Ruk, would be the Fire Prosecutor, Kril the Ice Prosecutor, Vor the Electric Prosecutor and Regor would be the Prosecutor of Toxin (because of his bio-engineering of the Grineer).

 

2.The power inside

One main thema of your post was the "progression rank" of the player, that could also influence the power of a weapons (Over-/Underclock), and there of making every weapon viable in every state of the game, by simpli over- or underlocking it to fit in the missions you are playing at the moment.

My only addition to this system is a lore addition, which would explain, why a MK-1 Braton could be as powerfull as a Boltor Prime.

When you look at this two weapons it would make no sense that a "long-since-rendered obsolete Corpus manufactured rifle" (MK-1 Braton) could even be close to a weapon form the Orokin era.

The solution for this problem is quite simple, the power of the weapon is not determited by the weapon but by the Tenno who wields it. But how does a Tenno change the power of a weapon?

The answer is also quite simple, the "space magic" or "void energy" inside the Tenno, manipulates the power of the weapon. And the amount of this "power" or "focus" a Tenno is posessing at the moment is shown by his "progression rank". This also explains, why for example a Grakata used by a Tenno can be much more powerfull than a Grakata used by a Grineer Lancer, although it is technically the same weapon.

 

3.The nightmare of an other person

This idea is about the nightmare or hard mode and how it can be implemented in the progression system. My idea is that, when you decide to play a mission in hard mode, you play the same mission but from the perspective of an other charakter/Tenno who has some connection to the original mission. Here are some example how this could work:

 

-Instead of playing a survival mission form the perspective of the "distraction team", you play the role of the "lone Tenno operative".

 

-You play the role of a Tenno who tries the rescue a hostage, but when he arrives at the holding cell, there is one one there and the whole mission turns out to be a trap. At the end of the mission your Tenno is captured and is than later rescued for an other Tenno (which would than be your Tenno).

 

- You play a member of the spy cell that has gone mission, during their exploration of Phorid's lair. Bevor you died at the end of the mission, you send a last signal to the Lotus, containing all of the Information that your team could find about the abomination that we call "Phorid".

 

-You play a [insert syndicate] operative, who is tasked with the capture of an important target, but it turns out that your character is a traiter and backstabs his camerades, which will cause the call of the Syndicate for a loyal Tenno to capture this traitor.

 

I think you got the idea. This would not only be a great place to insert new lore into the game, but also explain some of the changes between an normal and a nightmare mission, like the stronger enemies, that are killed in the nighmare mission, so only the weak ones remain for the normal mission.

 

4. Minor ideas

 

-A possible transfer from a "foot" to an Archwing-mission could be, the event, that you failed to capture a capture target and it left the ship or planet with a small spaceship or rescue pot and you simply follow the target with your Archwing.

 

-During the "Eyes of Blight" Quest, the Fomorians could possibly destroy a colonie or a convoy of civilain ships if the player fails the mission. It could probably also lead to the chrash of the giant corpus ship that chrased on Europa. 

 

 

[DrBorris]

1. Lordcancellor Hek and his "Fantastic Four"

My first idea is to increas Vay Hek's rank in the Grineer hierarchy and make him somthing like the lordcancellor of the Grineer empire. This would explain why the player whould have to made such a great effort to track his location.

If he is now made into this VIG ("Very important Grineer"), it would make no sense, to give vital information about him, to some regular Grineer guardsmen with a special aura (aka Prosecutors).

So my idea is to give the four beacons -that are nessesary to find him- to four Grineers, that are far more powerful in therms of combat and Grineer politics than a "sparkling" guardsmen.

A good choice for this new prosecutors whould be some of the other Grineer bosses, like Vor, Kril, Ruk and Regor. I chose these four bosses, because they are not only powerfull enough to have access to information about Hek, but also because they fit the elemental thema of the current prosecutors so well.

Ruk, would be the Fire Prosecutor, Kril the Ice Prosecutor, Vor the Electric Prosecutor and Regor would be the Prosecutor of Toxin (because of his bio-engineering of the Grineer).

Any changes to what we have to create a more coherent story is awesome. In addition, reducing grind is almost always a step in the right direction. I am not sure that Hek being the number two to the Queens makes much sense though, to me it seems that the Queens just favor whoever is doing well. At first it was Ruk, then when he screwed up Hek came in charge, and now that Hek screwed up Regor seems to be taking control. 

 

 

2.The power inside

One main thema of your post was the "progression rank" of the player, that could also influence the power of a weapons (Over-/Underclock), and there of making every weapon viable in every state of the game, by simpli over- or underlocking it to fit in the missions you are playing at the moment.

My only addition to this system is a lore addition, which would explain, why a MK-1 Braton could be as powerfull as a Boltor Prime.

When you look at this two weapons it would make no sense that a "long-since-rendered obsolete Corpus manufactured rifle" (MK-1 Braton) could even be close to a weapon form the Orokin era.

The solution for this problem is quite simple, the power of the weapon is not determited by the weapon but by the Tenno who wields it. But how does a Tenno change the power of a weapon?

The answer is also quite simple, the "space magic" or "void energy" inside the Tenno, manipulates the power of the weapon. And the amount of this "power" or "focus" a Tenno is posessing at the moment is shown by his "progression rank". This also explains, why for example a Grakata used by a Tenno can be much more powerfull than a Grakata used by a Grineer Lancer, although it is technically the same weapon.

Exactly, and "focus" seems like a great way to explain such a system (cough).

 

 

TL;DR

but pics look great tho

There is not always a short answer, especially if the question is so large. The TL;DR would be...

 

"Create a pseudo-campaign for Warframe consisting of a series of quests, the amount of quests complete directly correlates to how powerful your weapons are."

 

The problem with that statement is that it can be host of ways, most of which are not the point the post is trying to get across. Thus, I did not put in a formal TL;DR.

[NyghttheClassy]

I must say, having stuck by DE's Warframe as long as I have, having enjoyed it yet watched friends slip from the game due to steadily growing dis-interest or a daunting, unclearly routed grind wall, I can whole heartedly say this looks like one of the best potential feedback/reworks I have yet seen.

 

True, it's evident there will be hiccups and obstacles, a tremendous undertaking of resources, time and effort, and no shortage of problems native to the idea itself. But damn. This idea, if carefully thought through, checked and checked again by the Devs, and patiently executed... it could be truly brilliant.

 

Sir. I salute you.

[Kn0xxPT]

I didn't read all the OP and sub-OP, post.

I've somehow interested in the "Serration" issue and mechanic. A more simple system can be applied without that many "Damage 2.0" holes and Warframe lategame Difficulty mess.

Aside from the Weapons "mutation/transformation" that is an issue that will greatly impact ( at first glance ) how DE gets some income from the Market, and don't think that is way to go wihout proper experiment financially wise ( DE is on top of all things... a company that needs profit/income ). I won't make a point in this subject..its away from my knowledge in"big picture wise".

MR can be tied to a simple system that was the first implemented on Warframes/Weapon at the begining
Mastery Rank can used as Mastery Rank Point's like that will improve Accounts User Stats... I think its more comum-sense in Warframe world set.

(! An Example)
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20150414001612/warframe/images/6/62/Warframe5.jpg

Imagine, that I have Warframe with HP 100, SHIELD 200 base stats, with my MR point tree, set +50 HP and + 50 SHIELD ( 150HP, 250Shield), and that will affect all warframes. Getting >MR20  acess to more tree points and "FOCUS" to your playstyle build.

The "MR Stat Tree" can have boost on HP, Shields, Power, Energy, Range, etc, etc....
And how about Warframes/Weapons unlocks ? Why not....

MR Progression Stats could be idealized like this. It really doesn't mean that REAL Player Skill Progression is fixed, but is a way to keep going...

Got me interested in that Campaign Progression...

Just my thought on the subject.
 

[DrBorris]

I must say, having stuck by DE's Warframe as long as I have, having enjoyed it yet watched friends slip from the game due to steadily growing dis-interest or a daunting, unclearly routed grind wall, I can whole heartedly say this looks like one of the best potential feedback/reworks I have yet seen.

 

True, it's evident there will be hiccups and obstacles, a tremendous undertaking of resources, time and effort, and no shortage of problems native to the idea itself. But damn. This idea, if carefully thought through, checked and checked again by the Devs, and patiently executed... it could be truly brilliant.

 

Sir. I salute you.

The point of this post, for me at least, is to try and make a place where the community can come together and make their voices be heard in designing a new Progression System. The OP is of course not a perfect solution, there are many holes in it, but that is why I am encouraging feedback as much as I can. There have already been a bunch of portions that I have rewritten or added because of comments, and my greatest hope for this is not to give an outline on how to rework progression, but rather to give a starting inspiration for a new system.

 

 

 

I didn't read all the OP and sub-OP, post.

I've somehow interested in the "Serration" issue and mechanic. A more simple system can be applied without that many "Damage 2.0" holes and Warframe lategame Difficulty mess.

Aside from the Weapons "mutation/transformation" that is an issue that will greatly impact ( at first glance ) how DE gets some income from the Market, and don't think that is way to go wihout proper experiment financially wise ( DE is on top of all things... a company that needs profit/income ). I won't make a point in this subject..its away from my knowledge in"big picture wise".

MR can be tied to a simple system that was the first implemented on Warframes/Weapon at the begining

Mastery Rank can used as Mastery Rank Point's like that will improve Accounts User Stats... I think its more comum-sense in Warframe world set.

(! An Example)

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20150414001612/warframe/images/6/62/Warframe5.jpg

Imagine, that I have Warframe with HP 100, SHIELD 200 base stats, with my MR point tree, set +50 HP and + 50 SHIELD ( 150HP, 250Shield), and that will affect all warframes. Getting >MR20  acess to more tree points and "FOCUS" to your playstyle build.

The "MR Stat Tree" can have boost on HP, Shields, Power, Energy, Range, etc, etc....

And how about Warframes/Weapons unlocks ? Why not....

MR Progression Stats could be idealized like this. It really doesn't mean that REAL Player Skill Progression is fixed, but is a way to keep going...

Got me interested in that Campaign Progression...

Just my thought on the subject.

 

You bring up an interesting point, in this post I tried to correlate Difficulty an Power as much as possible, but there is one thing I left out.... Warframe hp. Sure, you are gaining damage as you progress, but you yourself are not able to endure the increasing damage the enemy is turning out. In some ways this is good, as it makes the game get progressively harder as you go on, but it also makes the style of play vastly different from low and high levels. So... in that sense, maybe giving a basic tree for upgrading warframes with your Progression Rank could be useful, keep health mod stuff, but allow players to increase Warframe base stats with a "skill tree" of sorts.

So, maybe for every Progression Rank you can upgrade your Warframe 5 Health, 5 shield, or 5 armor (and have these stats effect your base Warframe stats so they ARE effected by mods)

I would think that, due to how multi-layered the progression is, that this would still be able to differentiate Warframe enough from the skill tree pack, but I really hope Warframe never goes too mainstream with a skill tree based progression.

[Vadrigos]

On the subject of grind, maybe the developers can slow down and be more transparent. Frequent "content" and odd changes without warning to promote a rush in player activity to meet the next surge in power creep meta. Gotta get the newest gear, gotta farm for ducats for the trader. It's nothing but a constant non-stop urgency to grind. A lot of people are just gonna throw down their pitchforks, break them in half, and move out of War-Farm.

 

 

After 17 updates of waiting for this to happen, you may as well surrender now, Dorothy.