Update 17 Feedback: The Good, Bad, And Ugly.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

So we've had U17 for a few days now, and I figured I'd give my initial thoughts on what I've encountered so far. Overall I'm pretty pleased with U17, though as always there's room for improvement.

 

So let's start-

 

The Good:

 

Parkour 2.0 is both broadly fun and superior to everything we had before. Bulletjumping is only slightly slower than coptering but works with any weapon and frame combination and provides massively more verticality. It has some bugs that need fixing (I can't seem to latch onto walls reliably or ziplines unless I start from the top, and I hear people talk about bulletjumping leaning right, though I haven't seen it myself for two examples) and it takes some getting used to, but in general it's a major step forward. Hopefully new tiles and tilesets will have more verticality to take advantage of our new capabilities. Right now the current tilesets don't generally take advantage of the new system.

 

Stamina going away is excellent too.

 

The quest, once you actually wrestle RNG into submission to get it, is probably the best quest this game has seen so far. The characters all played off each other nicely and the gameplay was good.

Exilus slots mean we can actually put quality of life mods like handspring into our builds now, which is always nice.

 

Tyl Regor's bossfight is very fun and manages to avoid the pitfalls that make Ruk, Vor, and especially Hek tedious. Also, the fact that he's on the starchart rather than behind a keywall is an excellent decision, DE. As always, his voice and lines are wonderful. Head-fruit. Mmm.

 

Those Kuria are an unexpected addition. New lore is always nice, and it does give us a reason to explore missions again.

 

Capes are amazing.

 

The shotgun buffs have basically made shotguns worth using next to rifles. There are some issues (strun wraith probably wasn't the gun to try out a per-shot reload mechanic, said mechanic is somewhat buggy, boar prime's status chance didn't need to be nerfed at all, bronco and akbronco prime are garbage, both detrons could've used a buff), but on the whole, it made shotguns worth using.

 

The Bad:

 

RNG. Now, the equinox grind isn't as bad as it seems at first glance, but I'd have preferred if DE could have put the aspect BPs on the market like the main BP so we only have six parts to farm instead of 8. We're already waiting six days to craft her, putting in that level of RNG isn't really warranted.

 

Much worse, however, is the quest RNG. Quest content - content that generally has bugs we need to ferret out and report - should never be locked behind RNG. Now, apparently there's some "interest" mechanic that Steve tweeted about where if you do more missions in Uranus the drones are more likely to spawn, but there is no indication of this ingame or in the patch notes, and even so locking story content behind RNG is problematic. To fix this, I'd suggest at minimum putting an explanation somewhere: "Tenno, we've received reports of strange drones taking an interest in those who complete missions in grineer seabases. I'd like you to do some missions and try and find them."

 

Preferably, the drone spawn would be guaranteed once X sharkwing missions are complete. Quests aren't plat content, there's no excuse for them to be RNG locked.

 

Also, exilus slot grinding is another major issue. The idea of the exilus slot is good. However, the means of acquisition beyond the first is far, far too punishing. 50k Simaris rep is more than two days of scanning. Just scanning. This is, needless to say, a hell of a lot of scanning. Particularly when his current target only seems to spawn on long endless missions like infested survival. Simaris really needs medallions or daily scanning missions or something to circumvent the 20k daily cap, like what the other syndicates have. 

 

The huge forma requirement and the need for argon is also disappointing. By the time you've built your forma your argon will have already decayed.

 

Now, it's a great thing that there's a reason beyond transmutation cores to grind Simaris rep once you have the widgets, but that rep grind is far too high, considering Simaris doesn't have daily missions and a cap of 20k rep.

 

To fix this, I would reduce the cost of the exilus unlocker immensely. 10-15k rep, 1 forma, no argon. This way there is still a suitable forma sink, and tenno will still need to forma their frames to take advantage of the new slot, in all likelihood.

 

(Also, I'd like an exilus slot for guns and other weapons - there's a ton of utility mods on guns that can't compete with damage/elementals but could if given their own slot. Ammo drum, reload speed, etc. These are all niche mods that most builds don't use except in rare cases.)

 

Finally, there's one last issue: Blocking. Making Blocking a DR mechanic in response to losing stamina was the wrong decision. Melee is already in a poor position compared to guns. While parkour does allow you to get closer (a good thing), making blocking DR only unless channeling (and thus losing all your energy in seconds) merely makes blocking virtually useless and a waste of time. Melee playstyles are already hard enough compared to shooting; the ability to block all damage from the front without limit would have made them more viable. Why block at all when you have to parkour anyway to get to the target before your enemy with his 4 forma boltor prime guns them down? (This nerf also hit Excalibro hard and rendered reflex guard virtually useless.)

There's nothing wrong with being able to block all damage from the front forever, because it requires you to have your sword out instead of your gun and still leaves you vulnerable from the sides and rear, and enemies in this game love to sneak up on you. Please consider buffing block significantly so that it blocks bullets completely without limit. Failing that, give it significantly more DR. As it stands, it's a better idea to roll than block.

 

The Ugly:

 

Sharkwing. I really want to like Sharkwing. The idea is great. But the implementation could use some work. The audio and visual team did an amazing job on making it beautiful and cool, but I feel the gameplay team dropped the ball. Itzal, the fastest archwing, feels like it's flying through molasses, not water. Elytron makes me wonder if I've stalled out or something it's so slow. Melee lost the lockon mechanic that made archwing fun, and now seems really clunky and hard to use.

 

Sharkwing needs a speed buff, and preferably the lock on melee needs to come back to go along with it.

 

Also, the map gets really confusing. There needs to be either a better waypointing system to guide tenno through maze-like undersea areas, or the map needs to be improved and made compatible with a wholly 3d environment. Or maybe both. Normal archwing can get confusing too in corpus levels for the same reason, but corpus ships are mostly linear and much easier to navigate.

 

It's not a gamebreaking issue like the ultraslow sharkwings or the confusing levels, but I'm very disappointed at how little sharkwing integration there is in Regor's boss fight. In that fight, ideally the tenno don't use their sharkwing at all, and if they do go under water, it's in their best interests to get out of water immediately. Sharkwing integration in normal missions is generally very good, so it's baffling why it's so lackluster in what should all rights be the crowning moment of sharkwing-normal game integration.

 

Give us a reason to use sharkwings in Regor's boss fight please, DE. Maybe make Regor swim for a bit before turning on the zappy.

 

Speaking of sharkwings, there is another issue. Switching between sharkwing and land is very clunky and buggy. Going from land to sharkwing is smooth as silk and generally perfect, so I'm baffled at why going the other direction is so restricted and slow - it locks you into a two second animation and forces you to leave the water only near dry land (and detection for dry land seems buggy?) even though I'd much rather leap from the water like a dolphin and then bulletjump/parkour to dry land. That way, I won't have to break the flow of my gameplay.

 

I'd much rather sharkwing transitions be as smooth as going from air to water - let players leap into the air on their sharkwing momentum and have them shed the sharkwing as soon as they touch air, without the forced landing animation and clunky "can only land in certain spots" mechanic. The sharkwing preview back in the excalibro preview devstream worked nicely for this if I recall, so please bring it back to that level of integration. Make the transitions smooth both ways to let us really get our ninja on. Let us seamlessly transition between the two environments. It'll make for much better gameplay.

 

TL;DR:

 

Overall I was very impressed with U17. It had more hits than misses, I feel. But it needs some tweaks.

 

-Parkour 2.0 generally good. Maps could use some tweaks to make them more vertical and able to take advantage of new mobility options.

-RNG to start quest bad. Once started, quest is amazing. Please let players know about the 'interest' mechanic ingame (ingame email seems simplest?) and make drones have 100% spawn chance after X missions done in sharkwing.

-Equinox grind not as bad as it sounds, and is not as bad as old Hydroid/Mesa grind, but could still do with removing the aspect BPs from the drop tables and moving them to the market ala the main BP to make it a bit less painful.

-Regor bossfight fun, but should make more use of sharkwing.

-Exilus slots good, but too grindy to acquire. Plz make Simaris less greedy in his requirements. (10-15k rep, 1 forma, no argon?) Exilus slots for weapons would be nice too.

-Blocking as DR is bad and makes it useless. Please return it the way it was except without stamina limit. It won't be OP because it's only from the frontal arc and melee needs all the help it can get to compete with guns.

-Sharkwing needs to be much faster. Too slow now. Melee should lock on like normal archwing melee too.

-Sharkwing maps confusing to navigate. Please improve waypoint system to guide tenno, or change map when in sharkwing to better handle 3d environments.

-Sharkwing movement from water to land/air should be smoother and less restricted. No forced animations please, make it more like what happens when you jump into the water instead. Make our transitions smooth so we can seamlessly go from sea-ninjas to land-ninjas.

 

I can't talk about how Equinox plays or any of the weapons except the harpoon gun (which is okay but not stunning) since they're still researching/cooking in my case, but I don't anticipate them being huge issues. Can't talk about the doge improvements since doge still baking and foundry upgrade still researching. But I wanted to talk about the big issues of this update now while they're still fresh in my mind.

[7grims]

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/497978-update-17-echoes-of-the-sentient-masterthread/?p=5588153#entry5588153

[TheErebus.]

I agree with the Sharkwing, it's really slow and honestly just makes me wish they didn't put it in to begin with.
I haven't done the quest yet (THANKS RNG) but so far, it seems like people are liking it.

[Hayzemet]

First mature post about u 17 ive seen thx

[Flareux]

I disaggree with the RNG drone to enable the quest. I think it's awesome and something different.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

I disaggree with the RNG drone to enable the quest. I think it's awesome and something different.

 

The RNG drone is, right now, little different than farming for stalker or G3. I'm not really sure how it's a beneficial system to gameplay, considering how important the quest is in terms of story.

 

Basically, what does making the quest start RNG add to the game? As we can see by the reaction, the fans overwhelmingly don't like having their opportunity to see great story content locked behind what amounts to a slot machine, so what is the benefit to outweigh this drawback?

Edited August 2, 2015 by Cpl_Facehugger

[Stormandreas]

I like how theres a hell of a lot more bad and ugly things in this update than there are good. That's just saying something right there.

[Prof_Blocks_007]

On the topic of the Exilus Adapter, it really doesn't help that the targets now love doing this when the Kinetic Siphon Trap runs out:

 

[Cpl_Facehugger]

I like how theres a hell of a lot more bad and ugly things in this update than there are good. That's just saying something right there.

 

There's only so much I can say about good things so they don't get as much attention.

"Capes are great, good job DE" is not really very useful feedback, so I only made an offhand reference to them even though they are hands down the most beautiful cosmetics this game has ever given me. You know what I mean?

 

The flaws are a lot easier to point to and a lot easier to talk about improving since there's clear room for improvement, so I naturally spend most of my time on the flaws instead of on the things that are done well.

I just included the good parts to provide balanced feedback so DE knows what was done well so they can keep doing it well in the future. The main thrust of this thread is to talk about the problems and how to fix 'em.

 

On the topic of the Exilus Adapter, it really doesn't help that the targets now love doing this when the Kinetic Siphon Trap runs out:

 

 

Yikes, that is terrible. I usually use rhino stomp to stun the targets and get all their scan points in one go, so I didn't encounter that bug. But wow, yeah, this only makes the issues with the exilus thingy's huge cost even worse.

[Hayzemet]

On the topic of the Exilus Adapter, it really doesn't help that the targets now love doing this when the Kinetic Siphon Trap runs out:

 

They were doing this already... Often enough

[ben748]

They do spawn I believe every time on any tile that has that faction, I have never not seen a synthesis target spawn especially on Eris Exterminate missions, also the teleport seems to trigger if you do siphons sometimes before they "spot" you, I just go the lazy route and throw a rest ability on them after I unequipped my sentinel gun prior to starting, can scan them without them waking up.

 

@ Sharkwing speeds, I would also like a buff, but technically we are actually moving the same speed as space archwing, the model scaling is just normal size :/

Edited August 2, 2015 by ben748

[Culaio]

Today I finally found and scaned the drone which I was trying to find since update, I continued the mission was near the end when I had to jump into water to progress...........where my character decided to get frozen after archwing attached to me, unstuck didnt work, and since I was soloing no one could finish the mission which I had to abort, people cant even imagine anger I felt at that moment. yes I know soloing wasnt best choice but after doing mission on uranus with people that killed EVERYTHING in sight or spaming 4 to kill everything I dont think I had choice.

Edited August 2, 2015 by Culaio

[ben748]

Today I finally found and scaned the drone which I was trying to find since update, I continued the mission was near the end when I had to jump into water to progress...........where my character decided to get frozen after archwing attached to me, unstuck didnt work, and since I was soloing no one could finish the mission which I had to abort, people cant even imagine anger I felt at that moment. yes I know soloing wasnt best choice but after doing mission on uranus with people that killed EVERYTHING in sight or spaming 4 to kill everything I dont think I had choice.

Had the same issue, if you want the fastest way imo, theres a submersible capture near regor's node, it has NO sharkwing portion, can be run in < 3 - 4 min, still builds up the chance to spawn on the drones & they do spawn there, the exterminates break for me 1/2 the time or the sharkwing ones take way to long, been working on finishing codex for the drones doing the capture way.

[brizy99]

Its just not Carling

[OricSharp]

I have one thing to add, but it's more of a 'for the future' note: With Simaris becoming more prevalent as an acquisition mechanic (first it was just Helios stuff and transmutation cores, then it was Simulor, now it's Exilus, and it'll probably be yet more), having to load up the Relay and put up with his screen-blocking antics is more annoying than ever. It's especially irritating because I can't even check how much Standing I have without a loading screen, a stroll across the Relay, an elevator ride up, a further stroll to his room, and then HUGE STUPID BLOODY CEPHALON IN MY FACE. Then it turns out that I don't have enough, so, a second loading screen later, I've wasted two minutes (which are invariably some of the longest minutes of my in-game life, matched only by those in a 'Wing segment) on something I can do in three seconds on my ship with every other source of Standing - even the Conclave, which I've never had interest in or done anything for.

 

Point being, it would be really nice to be able to access the dweeb's stock from the Liset, like every other Syndicate, instead of having to put up with...well, him in specific and the relay itself in general. Even just being able to check Simaris Standing from the Liset would be a vast improvement.

[drunkpunk222]

Update is super short, i quit again soon till noticable content because nothing to do here right now, still no endgame content ,game is piece of cake, you need hours to reach challenging mobs, dark sectors not updated, archwings and raid still not removed, worst game parts, cephalon can go to trash also with pvp and parkour 2.0... new weapons are copy paste from other existing weapons, just different looks, useless warframes not fixed but improved already good frames, leveling everything is super fast, crowds of rank 19  five wave noobs, new boss is another piece of cake boss, boring because he teleporting and that take time, with new warframe nyx become even more useless, new mods meh i dont need them, hmm whats good, new warframe fun to play and i still enjoy defense missions and survivals and test different weapons,devs should improve damage counter, i hardly can see how much damage i deal, i need to screenshot nonstop to see damage after, i dont remember anything else, its so short, atleast devs should add new syndicate mods or fix useless ones to play with till next update.