Devstream #52 Overview

[Thalahssalyst]

So parkour 2.0 coming in u17, did they say something about coptering changes? 

[SanguineSavant]

New Starchart

• Hoping to appear in U17

• 300 nodes are being condensed to 20 nodes

• There may be time-based instances, such as Vor appearing temporarily, dropping different things each time

• Similar to Alerts, but hopefully not something that punishes players for sleeping

• There will be some removal of player choice - you will no longer be able to select whichever mission type you want, whenever you want; hopefully this will be better for the game overall

• Re-viewing player made quests again and designing the starchart so that these will be able to fit into it; hopefully this will be the answer to players that resent the removal of choice

 

I am greatly concerned about not having any power over what mission I can decide to play. It becomes more a nuisance as I'll have to tweak builds prior to every mission and that could get annoying. =/

[xRufus7x]

For people like me, who have never done anything on Draco (unless it was needed to press onward), this is not appealing. I play with a friend, we like to exterminate, sabotage, defense and survival. It's two of us. We tend to avoid anything that needs 4 people. So if they're trying to discourage people from camping and such, it punishes those of us that run nodes for pure enjoyment. We're not heavy farmers.

 

I personally don't find it a better model if I have to play what I avoid like the plague due to distaste in the node style. As mentioned, I play mostly for pure enjoyment, not 'gotta catch them all' player. I like my goodies and all, but they're not my drive. So yeah, this type of change is more scary than optimistic.

Assuming they stick with the 20 nodes, there are currently 16 mission types not counting the raid, another 3 if you count archwing missions seperately. Not to mention that nodes now have the capability to have overlapping mission types(think syndicate missions, alerts and invasions) and they will be adding in difficulty options. 20 nodes could theoretically offer quite a bit of variety if implemented correctly.

 

All I am saying as it may not be as bad as we think. Perhaps we should wait to get more info.

 

With that being said my biggest concern would be limiting the ability to farm bosses for warframe parts or specific units for mods or dojo tints.

 

Resources shouldn't be an issue, as 20 nodes should still provide a lot of opportunities to farm the resource you are looking for.

[CLERINERT]

I see that a lot of people are speculating on how the aura might strengthen the "Tenno is Energy" theory, that mind you, has pretty much been shut down completely. My idea is that when Steve said that the aura is something that is very important to the Tenno and this other enemy, which most likely is the Sentients, it is probably the thing that allows both warriors to stay alive. The Tenno can revive, and so can the Sentients. In the TennoLive 2015 big reveal, you see the Sentients each having a swirling blue mass of energy in the middle. My theory is that, even though that may be the weak spot, you can probably still destroy the outer husk. However, if the mass of energy isn't destroyed, the hivemind or whatever can recollect the orb, and put another husk around it, successfully reviving or recreating another sentient. I don't know. Just what it seems like to me.  

[NeloAngelicus]

"300 nodes are being condensed to 20 nodes"

 

What the hell? Has DE lost their minds?

[Ashnal]

I'm not really fond of this whole "aura" collection in Annihilation. It's described as floating between players, and it must be collected to score a point, yes? To me, this sounds too much like Capture the Cephalon. Sure, you're not running between bases, but you're still hunting players that are carrying the aura rather than the cephalon and collecting things they drop upon death. To me, Deathmatch should be deathmatch, without having to worry about anything else.

 

I have a lot of reservations about this new starchart. I mean, what if I just want to use Frost and there's no Defense nodes available? Or the ones that are available are too high/low of level? Too bad, come back later? I predict a lot of "log on -> no good missions -> log off" in the future.

I think you misunderstood. There is no Aura carrier. You don't need to hunt down a specific Tenno. Every Tenno in the match has an Aura that drops on death, you merely need to collect it to score. It's basically Team Deathmatch with the added requirement that you run over your opponents corpse to score.

[Ashnal]

Thanks for this.

Not to knee jerk into anything but I'm a bit concerned by the proposed star chart changes tbh.

Less choice is rarely good and I'm not fond of certain play modes, I hope I don't ever log on and have nothing to do.

I'm actually very interested in them. What I hope is that they rotate rewards around between different mission locations and types. I'm hoping to see something like what syndicate missions did in a general sense, where the reward is constant, but the mission types shuffle around to promote variety of play. Think about it this way, weren't people happy when Raptor had Neural Sensors added to his drops? What if for a few days it was Alad V dropping them, but then 2 days later it was the Hyena pack, then 2 days after that Raptor? I would love this, as I wouldn't get so burnt out farming for Neural Sensors all the time. Now imagine if that happened to the void too? That one piece you've always needed from a Survival mission, that you've been running non-stop, has now been shuffled over to a Mobile Defense or Capture, and continues to shuffle around. As long as you know where it is at any given time and can access that mission, it gives you plenty of variety even though you're always hunting for the same part.

Edited May 10, 2015 by Ashnal

[-Noximilien-]

It honestly sounds like they're actively trying to tick off as much of the playerbase as possible.

[Ishki88]

It honestly sounds like they're actively trying to tick off as much of the playerbase as possible.

No no no, they are trying to stop us from grinding and tiring ourselves.  They want to bring us back to when missions were fun to do w/ incentives. 

[Mxysptlik]

It honestly sounds like they're actively trying to tick off as much of the playerbase as possible.

 

 

No no no, they are trying to stop us from grinding and tiring ourselves.  They want to bring us back to when missions were fun to do w/ incentives. 

 

Laughed so hard I cried... Well played Sir's.

 

Then tried to remember when the last time was I played a fun mission w/incentives.

 

Cried again.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

No no no, they are trying to stop us from grinding and tiring ourselves.  They want to bring us back to when missions were fun to do w/ incentives.

By not letting us choose the missions we want to do?

They're not trying to stop us from grinding. If they wanted to stop us from grinding they would remove some of the grind walls.

I want to be able to play the missions I enjoy when I want. I don't want to be told "Better log in today or you're not going to play this mission for another month!" and I don't want to be told "Sorry, this mission just won't spawn."

They're not doing it for new players either, or if they are they're not thinking through it well. New players are going to come in, play the tutorial and the 2-3 missions daily that they're leveled high enough to do, and then say "what's the point" and quit. Or they're going to play the random nodes with no real goal (it's not like there's a starchart to seek out and unlock), say "what's the point" and quit.

I may be wrong, but based on how they presented the proposed changes and how uneasy even Rebecca seemed to be about them, combined with their past, I'm not at all optimistic. I'm not about to start rioting or anything, it's just that right now this sounds like the single worst change the game will have made, so I'm really hoping there's a lot more to it than what we've been told.

[(PSN)kombatchamp]

I think what they are trying to do is focus more on storyline by condensing the tilesets. I think as it is now with saturn, jupiter etc there is too much "clutter" tiles. Earth, venus, mars have enough tilesets to keep it viable. These levels are also great for levelling up unranked weapons.

It also makes these earlier levels more replayable.

Not to make people cringe here but I think it was either in this thread or another one where someone hit upon this idea: a player has to reach either a certain MR rank or unlocked most of the planets, then the void levels would become available. This way players would actually have to make an effort and play the story to progress.

Edited May 10, 2015 by (PS4)kombatchamp

[arch111]

Is this then the end of unlocking the star chart? I don-t see how the current system can stay after this change.

It feels like every player will have their own instance-que connected to quests and bosses etc. How is this any differeny from Void Keys?

So.

Click Earth. Menu appears.

Current rng mission.

Optional Nightmare.

If Alert, click to play, else play normal mission.

I see this as 1 map but with several checkboxes to configure the game.

Problems:

Invasions will they stop or rotate? The previous systems charm was that it spread and jumped and created a living starsystem. But that will not work in the future.

So will every contested Node be under conflict but allso random tilesets?

Or allso a checkbox?

Bosses will no longer be farmable?

Special materialfarming gets harder, longer wait and dead-time.

Mastery Locks. How will they handle that? Unlock everything, or make it Mandadory of EVERY player to unlock the starchart?

Void, in separate Nodes? Derelicts in separate Nodes?

In one way this opens up for more sandboxing, if done right.

If replayable quests and events are added in Relays I forsee them being played alot.

Pvp seems to expanding into a more % part if the main Body of Warframe wether you like it or not.

[Korvun]

Yeah.

 

As some have said, "there will always be a Viver". If DE nerfs one farming spot, people will just migrate to the next best one. The only way to eliminate this mindset is to give us unstable ground that changes, so we don't have a single farming node to cling to. In that respect, it will succeed, because we will be forced into playing more game modes and more tilesets. But this is only true for the players that remain after the change is implemented.

 

As I mentioned before, this is just Vivergate on a global scale.

 

And to touch on what you've said.  The sole reason people feel the need to grind out (and thus find the best places to do so) credits and materials is because of the enormous amount of both that you need.  Sadly, I have a feeling that DE will follow the same path they always have and nerf the farming spots but never adjust the material requirements.

 

You need thousands of materials to make one stack of pads for a Trial.  The nature of the Trial sometimes has you dropping dozens of pads, especially if you're short manned.  That's tens of thousands of materials for a single Trial.  So far they've nerf'd every major farming spot and now with the new star map idea materials will be in shorter supply than they ever have been.

 

As long as DE continues to address only the 'effect' the 'cause' will NEVER be fixed.  The truly unfortunate part is DE has always taken a 'take your medicine' stance when it comes to doling out updates and changes.  They know how THEY want us to play their game so they'll keep pushing updates with verbiage like "hopefully this will be better for the game overall".  Hopefully?  How about you take a poll?  Maybe finally open a 'test' server for people to, I don't know, TEST stuff that you "HOPE" won't ruin the game?  And for the love of all that's holy, if people want to farm materials, credits or the void until their eyes bleed, that is their choice and likely how they wish to play the game.  Let them!  The Koreans have found that play style to be pretty damn lucrative over the years.

[AM-Bunny]

And to touch on what you've said.  The sole reason people feel the need to grind out (and thus find the best places to do so) credits and materials is because of the enormous amount of both that you need.  Sadly, I have a feeling that DE will follow the same path they always have and nerf the farming spots but never adjust the material requirements.

 

You need thousands of materials to make one stack of pads for a Trial.  The nature of the Trial sometimes has you dropping dozens of pads, especially if you're short manned.  That's tens of thousands of materials for a single Trial.  So far they've nerf'd every major farming spot and now with the new star map idea materials will be in shorter supply than they ever have been.

 

As long as DE continues to address only the 'effect' the 'cause' will NEVER be fixed.  The truly unfortunate part is DE has always taken a 'take your medicine' stance when it comes to doling out updates and changes.  They know how THEY want us to play their game so they'll keep pushing updates with verbiage like "hopefully this will be better for the game overall".  Hopefully?  How about you take a poll?  Maybe finally open a 'test' server for people to, I don't know, TEST stuff that you "HOPE" won't ruin the game?  And for the love of all that's holy, if people want to farm materials, credits or the void until their eyes bleed, that is their choice and likely how they wish to play the game.  Let them!  The Koreans have found that play style to be pretty damn lucrative over the years.

It's true that there are many situations in the game that are designed to accommodate current player trends. For instance, trials that require hundreds of restores. Also, Primed mods were seen as somewhat acceptable as people started to find spots good for farming cores. I can only hope (skeptically) that the devs have the foresight to alter these consequences once the changes go through.

I do think that this is a good way to address the 'cause' though. This is not a band-aid solution we've grown so used to seeing from DE.

[Korvun]

It's true that there are many situations in the game that are designed to accommodate current player trends. For instance, trials that require hundreds of restores. Also, Primed mods were seen as somewhat acceptable as people started to find spots good for farming cores. I can only hope (skeptically) that the devs have the foresight to alter these consequences once the changes go through.

I do think that this is a good way to address the 'cause' though. This is not a band-aid solution we've grown so used to seeing from DE.

 

Oh hell, I hadn't even thought about the Primed mods and the 500 something R5s it takes to max one (or any R10 mods for that matter), lmao.

[Fruxxy]

• There will be some removal of player choice - you will no longer be able to select whichever mission type you want, whenever you want; hopefully this will be better for the game overall

 

 

I fail to see how this could be better for the game overall. I understand the Starchart needs to be condensed to help matchmaking, but I really don't want to wait a few days just to play a defense mission on a certain tile set. 

Also how would this factor into blowing up the void?

Hopefully they can shed more light on this removal of choice thing before U17, and especially before they actually implement it. 

[Error989]

RIP Cloth Syandana

[Urlan]

The only way a condensed startchart would help force people into the same matches is if the ability to change matchmaking settings were also disabled. How many players here would gladly help out other players because you can't set yourself to friends only? Why do we have so many people telling new players who ask for help on region and recruiting get told to sod off so to speak; would the world suddenly become bright and rosy for these players if they had to play with the former? I know that this is surprising, but some of the stuff that goes on in region is sociopathic at the best of times and psychopathic the rest; do think those same personalities would gladly help new players or start trying to recreate Dark Souls within the matches that new players are now going be forced into?

 

The reason that warframe works is that not everyone has to interact to get the missions done or progress with events. Each Space Ninja can do their missions alone or with friends and do just fine. If the individual wants random help, then that option exists too. The only reason for reducing the nodes over improving rewards, is if the ability to choose to adventure with friends or alone; is also removed. I am not looking forward to playing in that setting.

[Judgebanks]

Still refusing to fix the root problem of the game, AKA energy?

[NalkorRN]

Knee jerk away, Rebecca has most the details we don't and she was visibly skeptical about the whole thing.

 

The worst part is, the devs are trying to pretend that it's so the starchart isn't overwhelming for new players, blah, blah, blah. That's not it at all.

 

Mogamu said "there will always be a Viver". People have said before that if the devs ever nerfed Draco in some way, people would just migrate to another farming spot, and another after that. People will always be drawn to the easiest, most efficient grinding spots, and this starchart overhaul seems to be designed to stop this.

 

You can't have a Draco when it changes daily. This is just Vivergate on a global scale.

I'm suddenly reminded of Rats - Day 1: Blow up the Meth lab asap to get to the escape prior next day, bring C4 for the safes then evac before Dozers, Shields, and Tasers show up, buy the Ace pilot and do the bare minimum of cash bags on Day 3 and do your best to do the cash bag throw rodeo from one Heister to the next.

 

Yes, I'm talking about how farming for xp (cards/loot was done by farming missions like Four Stores or something that was a 1 day job that could be completed fast) in PAYDAY 2. That's what this proposed change reminds me of: Crime Net's random selection of Heists, which had a set number of days, and random difficulty, but lacking Crime Net's function of being able to spend a lot of money to create a specific heist and difficulty in-case you got tired of waiting for RNG to favor you. Granted, that system was also easier because it cycled through Heists very quickly, not a daily set that might not appeal to some people depending on what RNG tosses their way.

 

tl;dr - year of 'quality' indeed.

[GreenKenny]

Make a game with a core gameplay of farming(grinding), then nerf it cz people do it too much... DE logic. Might as well limit play time to 1 hour per day for every account.... You gotta stop doing drugs at DE.
People farm, grind hard, draco all day long, so what? its  PvE game, nobody's gonna get hurt if i farm draco or smth else, dont try to "fix" a problem when theres no problem. If u want to do those starchart changes, u better go make a new game for a playstyle like that. 
I've been playing since open beta started, and all you do is experiment in the worst possible ways. I get it, its your job, but dont ruin this game, it was the best free2play, best 4-man squad shooter for me, overall a very good thing, and instead of basing the new stuff on the base of gold, u scrap all that existed for what? your answer is not a good reason to do it, and hell, there cant be any good reason for changing the game like this. It's not warframe anymore. If this thing actually happens, im out, even though ive played it for 3 years (maybe a little less).

[GreenKenny]

 

 

Tubemen of Regor

• Coming in 16.5 (soon)

• Huge update, the previous few hotfixes PC has received have been small in scale in preparation for this one

• Very ambitious event coming, that focuses on what made previous events great

• The first tileset that has completely received PBR

• Click

to see Rebecca playtesting the Sealab tileset

 

Law of Retribution 

• On consoles, Law of Retribution was operating at 12 fps, which is why it wasn't launched

• Multicore optimization has been a huge focal point, and maximizing optimization on the consoles will also improve performance for PC players as well

• Recent tests have been promising, should be sent for cert soon

• Nightmare mode is coming in 16.5, feedback so far has been "OMG too hard"

 

Excalibur Re-work

• Aiming for release on U17

• Recap: Slash Dash will ping pong between enemies in a cone shape in front of you, Radial Blind will be castable on the move and will open enemies up to Finisher attacks, Radial Javelin will become third power with heavy tweaks, new ult will allow Excalibur to draw an energy sword with a unique stance that fires energy waves with each slash

• Click

to see Excalibur's sword combo animations

• Click

to see Excalibut's new Slash Dash

 

Parkour 2.0

• Aiming for release on U17 (very tentatively)

• How stamina will interact with Parkour 2.0 is still up in the air - ironing out all the Parkour maneuvers first to decide how Stamina consumption will need to be adjusted

• Stamina is being re-viewed quite severely; the ideology is that it should restrict you from constantly performing powerful melee techniques, not from running on the walls in a cool way 

• Old tilesets will be tweaked to accomodate Parkour 2.0

• Potentially re-working the knockdown/getup animations (to allow directional rolling when you getup)  and the bleedout/buttscoot animations

• Rebecca shows off many Parkour 2.0 features including changing direction while wallrunning, braking on walls, charge jumping, zipline braking, zipline swinging, and more

• Click

to see Rebecca playing a live demo of Parkour 2.0!

• Click

to see pre-recorded clips of Rebecca doing neat stuff with Parkour 2.0

 

Genetic Foundry Upgrade

• Coming U17

• You'll have to retrieve a new module to upgrade your genetic foundry; not an automatic upgrade

• Automatic stasis of Kubrows that are approaching death

• There will be faster/convenient ways to get Kubrows in and out of stasis

• Kubrow Armour in U17 (next stream there should be art to show of this)

• New Kubrow breed: "Retriever" type; will have a very unique appearance

 

New Warframe

• Yin Yang frame

• Not coming in 16.5

• Very ambitious, future streams will spoil more details

 

Conclave Updates

• Annihilation and Team Annihilation game (Deathmatch/Team Deathmatch) modes coming in U16.5

• There is an aura that enemy Warframes drop upon death that must be claimed for the point

• There is some Teshin-related lore that will accompany this game mode

• Valkyr, Ember, and Oberon will become playable

• The old Conclave maps will return, with added polish, including a PVP version of the Sealab

 

New Starchart

• Hoping to appear in U17

• 300 nodes are being condensed to 20 nodes

• There may be time-based instances, such as Vor appearing temporarily, dropping different things each time

• Similar to Alerts, but hopefully not something that punishes players for sleeping

• There will be some removal of player choice - you will no longer be able to select whichever mission type you want, whenever you want; hopefully this will be better for the game overall

• Re-viewing player made quests again and designing the starchart so that these will be able to fit into it; hopefully this will be the answer to players that resent the removal of choice

 

Other Stuff

• There is a feature added to mute Warframe's sound while it's alt+tabbed

• There will be new arrow skins similar to the Valentine's day ones, but are not consumable

• Nothing predicted for Archwing until U17

• Syndicate emotes got postponed because the animation team got distracted by Parkour 2.0

• Dark Sector is not a completely canon prequal to Warframe

• New cloth Syandana is not coming in 16.5, but Boltor tonfas is

 

Make a game with a core gameplay of farming(grinding), then nerf it cz people do it too much... DE logic. Might as well limit play time to 1 hour per day for every account.... You gotta stop doing drugs at DE.

People farm, grind hard, draco all day long, so what? its  PvE game, nobody's gonna get hurt if i farm draco or smth else, dont try to "fix" a problem when theres no problem. If u want to do those starchart changes, u better go make a new game for a playstyle like that. 

I've been playing since open beta started, and all you do is experiment in the worst possible ways. I get it, its your job, but dont ruin this game, it was the best free2play, best 4-man squad shooter for me, overall a very good thing, and instead of basing the new stuff on the base of gold, u scrap all that existed for what? your answer is not a good reason to do it, and hell, there cant be any good reason for changing the game like this. It's not warframe anymore. If this thing actually happens, im out, even though ive played it for 3 years (maybe a little less). And knowing the way you work with the community, its safe to assume its over

[GDSK-NXS]

I actually think the changes look awesome, I support them, but the only thing that gives me this weird feeling is that "removal of player choice". I would like to ask a questions but they may not be answered:

 

The system will change so that we have "20 nodes instead of 300", but that also means that there will be 1 or 2 for "planet".

 

If they constantly cycle or change, doesn't that mean they become technically alerts?

 

Because, if they aren't going to be removed they look very similar.

One last thing: I think the most hyped line I have been hearing from you is "player designed quests" and is also the most feared thing for me. I would walk in and say "Something like the Steam Workshop where you create and then you download a map, with no reward but the experience" is the best thing that could happen, and I think it can't be possible for it to be that good. In the worst scenario: "Tenno Quest Design Contest: Break your leg designing a huge adventure and then cry over we only choosing to add 1! YES, 1!". Mainly because, even if it was fair and the best thing to do with Enemy/Weapon/Skin design, which could interfere with the game as you want it, would absolutely not work very well with quest design.

Peace!

[ErudiusNacht]

Hmmm,that new ult looks like it's from DmC4. But hey, that's nice.

Also, maybe we could get stamina tweaks per frame since melee stamina consumption is being reworked. Heavy frames should have less consumption on heavy melee and Lighter frames have less from light melee or something like that.

And as for parkour, maybe the dojo obstacle course needs updates too. Obstacle course 2.0?

Aside from that, imo it's all good.

Edit:

I missed the changes to the mission nodes. Well I do play Payday 2 so I get the random thingy, and also lore-wise it works since it's war time and everything's unpredictable.

But the core mechanic involves consistent resource and affinity farming (grinding). Imo this change will seriously affect play times. Please don't "Perfect World" this game.

Thanks.

Edited May 12, 2015 by ErudiusNacht