General Archwing Feedback

[(PSN)IkariWarrior83]

I feel like most players don't like Archwing, but I feel like De doesn't understand why. There are only 10 weapons so far.  If we had a choice of 10 archwings, and 50 weapons, it wouldn't nearly be so boring.  Everything about archwing is the grindiest part of the grind, and I didn't realize that until recently.

 

I opted to do the Limbo Theorum quest shortly before Eyes of Blight came out.  The Limbo Theorum quest has its own problems, chief among them was the level 25 Archwing intercept that we're expected to complete.  I was able to solo it with hit-and-run tactics, but I think I burned 2 or 3 revives before I completed it (and that was before the Archwings had their own stats).  I spent the 40 plat on Tellurium because I don't feel like grinding for it on Uranus to make Itzal. Once that's leveled up to 30, I'll basically be done with Archwing until there's some fun, interesting weapons.

 

Getting the pieces for a non-prime frame? Kinda fun, especially when you have the boss figured out.  Getting the resources for a non-prime weapon?  Easy enough, just farm where you need.  Getting the pieces for an Archwing?  I didn't know I had to get the pieces for Elytron from Uranus intercept.  And do Onorix Blades even exist in the Earth Intercept drop table?  Getting archwing parts is as tedious or more tedious than getting Prime parts.

 

Archwing has none of the infrastructure that makes Warframe fun.  The controls are solid, the graphics are good, the combat is fun and frenetic, but getting new weapons and archwings is a dreadful chore.  I don't even know where half the things drop.  Do I get Onorix blades from the same mission as the handles? If so, why do I have 10 handles and no blades?  Why can't they just be a single blueprint requiring materials just like every other weapon in the game? That kind of thing just adds to the tedium, and makes the game feel more grindy and cash-grabby.  

 

I understand why De went with this direction of splitting up the Archwing weapon parts and Archwing parts the way they did, but I 100% disagree with that decision.  Splitting the weapons up into pieces to be found in archwing missions means farming for specific parts, which is basically worthless.  When you're farming for plastids, Rubedo, Ferrite, etc, you're farming for resources that, if you don't need them now, you can use them on something else later.  Onorix handles only work for Onorix, and that doesn't help me at all.  Treating Archwing like Prime Access is an absolute nightmare for people who want to try out the new stuff in that mode.  In the case of Elytron, I can understand, and I hope it's a makeshift measure until there is an Archwing boss that can drop those pieces.  For the rest of it, requiring us to find specific pieces for specific weapons is what makes it feel much less fun than farming for resources to build Warframe weapons.

 

When you build an event like Eyes of Blight around something that was rushed out the door with 1/10 the features of the 'main game,' it almost-literally highlights and magnifies the flaws within that game mode.  Having to do the same mission 10+ times of varying difficulty when we have 3 Archwings, 6 Arch-guns, and 4 Arch-melee becomes tedious quickly.  On top of that, I'd heard a rumor that the Eyes of Blight was rigged, that the relays that were destroyed were so destroyed as a prescripted event.  Destroying the relays did nothing but stagger when the Void trader shows up for whom. IF that's true (and I emphasize IF), then they had us playing the worst part of the game chasing our tails and banging our heads against brick walls.  If that's true, that's positively deplorable; I expect better from De than to give us a no-win scenario like that.

 

I really like Archwing as a concept, but as part of Warframe, it just sucks the fun out of the experience.  It doesn't help matters that Archwing was changed to be basically a separate game.  Nothing about our warframes carries over into Archwing now.  When I could boost the defense on my archwing by using a frame with a higher armor rating, it made it all feel cohesive. Now it has its own separate stats that level as it goes, so my frame is just window dressing.

 

Having a maximum of one archwing mission per planet is frustrating because it dramatically limits what we can do with our archwings on each planet.  If I want to do easy Intercept, I go to Earth, if I want must-be-level-30-everything Intercept, I go to Uranus. There are no other intercept missions with an "in between" difficulty.  That's really frustrating because Earth Intercept is boring and too easy, and Uranus is frustratingly too hard (I'm talking dead within seconds of my first enemy seeing me).  Saturn would be a good middle ground, but that mission is an exterminate.

 

Just so that this feedback isn't too rant-y in nature, I offer some suggestions to make Archwing more enjoyable:

 

1) Make weapons require resources like every other weapon.  The specific pieces for specific weapons mentality only works for prime and boss-dropped weapons.

2) Archwing bosses, please.  I know this is in development, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

3) More archwing missions. One per planet works for the current setup, but not very well, IMO.

4) Make Warframes more than just decoration.  I'm not sure exactly how, but what warframe you have equipped should affect the Archwing in some way.

 

Despite all that's written here, I do like Archwing, both in concept and execution, but a lot of the "meta" game that makes Warframe great is absent in Archwing, and that needs to be remedied if we want more people to experience this action-packed game mode.

[7grims]

You should copy-paste this text into the current hot-topics, were the devs actually asked about it and are supposedly reading it.

 

But yes, good points here.

Edited May 4, 2015 by 7grims

[(PSN)IkariWarrior83]

I have no qualms with doing that, thanks!