A Worded Letter!

[Steemship]

I've refrained from giving a run down on my opinion on this patch until the end of the long weekend to increase the chance the devs would actually see it.

A disclaimer: I have not played or seen any of the Void related content with U8 and the following opinions and statements are based on everything non-Void.

This patch, overall, feels pretty mediocre and feels poorly thought out and incomplete for the actual content added.

Of the Grineer tile set, all I've actually seen is the new exit. If I have passed through other sections, and I'm sure I have, they all seem pretty much the exact same as the mining station. I understand this is part of the Grineer style, but it doesn't feel any different than the mining station.

The Grineer weapons are what is to be expected of them at this point (Subpar to already existing weapons), but the Vulkar is an interesting situation because they removed the Snipetron. The snipetron was always counter productive to the fast paced game style of Warframe. However, this doesn't make since because they added the Vulkar. Because they added the Vulkar, their was no reason to remove the snipetron. It looks like two different departments working independently of each other and no one could decide which should take precedents so they did both.

The new Grineer Flamethrower is great, but the Scorpion looks appalling. That is the only word to describe it. The animation for it is awkward and poorly done. I've been pulled through walls before. And the dragging animation is awful and disruptive to the flow of combat. The fact that it is unavoidable and half the time their is nothing actually connecting the player to the Scorpion is bad. Instead of having her disrupt combat, should could have thrown a projectile that, if it hits, it then is used to pull the player down or it could alter the directional keys to reflect the new force acting on the player.

The Dojo, even if it is in alpha, doesn't appear to have any concern for balance. Everything costs the same. They could've atleast made an attempt to balance the prices based on the importance of the building. Additionally, making the components cost Forma is a terrible idea. This wouldn't be an issue if the Dojos were superficial, but their is content that is locked out to players unless they are in a clan that can do it. This has caused another major issue: clan conglomerates and the impracticality of smaller clans of closer guys. Instead, it is now hundreds of players joining large clans to get the benefits of the Dojo. This is not healthy for the longevity of the game because these clans are business related and hinder relationship growth betwene players that keeps people coming back when the game starts to get old.

All of the minor and less visible things done this patch, however, are great. The bug fixes, alloy drop rates, and rhino improvements are a great addition. The best one, though, is probably the toggleable health display that fosters team play.

I am not enraged by any of this nor am I predicting the death of Warframe, but this patch leaves much to be desired and I look forward to seeing how DE improves the content of U8 and responds to the community's outrage (Even though a lot of it was pointless and misplaced).

TL;DR : The visible parts of this patch are rather mediocre, but the fixes and changes are good.

[Whatarewordsworth]

i agree with everything

[Agent_of_Change]

I disagree with your overall conclusions and  it should be stated a full half of the content from this patch is the part you are calling "not visible".

 

Personally I find the Grineer ship fantastic and a welcome change from the mines, fully with in the style and feel of the grineer while being it's own thing, but we differ on opinion there..

 

The new enemies might be a bit on the weaker side but they also create a more dynamic varied battle field so at least there is some improvement there.  The scorpion warriors have become a real hazard for the unaware player at higher levels so that has become a challenge.

 

As for the Snipetron, well if you looked through the forums you'd have known the answer to your own complaint.  they removed the snipetron because they re-purposed it for a research-able corpus sniper rifle more in fitting with the lore.  They put the Vulkar in there so people who like sniper rifles could still have one, and no one who already owned a snipertron lost it as far as i know.  So they removed a weapon generally acknowledged as bad, replaced it with a better version and re-purposed the asset to something new and different. Double plus good nothing to complain about there.

 

For the Dojo I tend to agree with you, costs could take some looking at, that or drop rates, forma is a bit ridiculous at this point considering my 18 member clan in a three day weekend actually only saw 1 drop and that was as a login reward.

 

now as to the bit you skipped which is actually one of the nicest things in warframe the void.

 

Large Sprawling and very pretty tile set, actual puzzles that require some skill to complete and if you fail them there is no second chance.  Significant rewards in terms of credits and modules, and at tier 3 a challenge that exceeds missions on pluto.  All in all very solid lots of praise for this, however The drop rate of teh "rare components" of the f prime the receiver and the blade definitely seem out of whack by a little bit.

 

reviewing U8 with out reviewing the Void is an incomplete review.

Edited May 28, 2013 by Agent_of_Change

[Skyblazer]

Nice to see some good, civil feedback in a sea of "OMG DE RUINED WARFRAME." With that said, I disagree on a couple points:

-Are you sure you've actually played the new tileset? I don't want to insult you, but there are two things which lead me to believe that you haven't: Firstly, DE recently added a new exit to the mining asteroid, which you mention as being the only new tile you've seen. Secondly, in my opinion the new map is quite different from the mining ship -- it has a lot more computer equipment, and no rocks or rubble to speak of. Here's a video I found of the new U8 tileset (

), watch it and see if its the same thing you played.

-while I agree that the aesthetics of the Scorpion are pretty unpolished, and obviously such a dangerous enemy needs to be distinctive, I think it adds some needed challenge to the game, and forces the player to think strategically -- it has a fairly limited reach, so you need to be on the lookout for them, and kill them before you close with the enemy. It also encourages team play -- if you get caught by one, your fellow players have to save you. With that said, it seems to be cribbed from Left 4 Dead's smoker, which I'm less thrilled about.

[Centaur]

I found that the griener ships look very differnet and a hek ( ;D ) of a lot "prettier" than than the mining stations.

I do like the grineer weapons, even if they are underpowered, i can look past that if the weapon looks nice, and they only took the snipertron out as it fired bullets when its a corpus weapon...its still usable ingame as i still have mine, you just cant buy it anymore

The skorpions are some weird dominatrix thing that i still dont understand, maybe an inside joke that became a concept, but i do feel that it was rushed and not as polished as it could have been, but it is a nice idea :P

The dojo right now is quite wonky, loveable, but wonky, its like that pet dog you have thats a little bit "special" but that only makes you love it more, its this mix of great concept, not great implementation and only the best of intentions

Centaur out

[Law_Abiding_Engineer]

I agree with pretty much everything you said.  i think they didn't attempt on balancing costs for dojos because they wanted to get a feel for what amount of matterials is too much/too little, and how do a clan's size relate in proportion to the amount of resources required.   The sad fact is, is that they will not change anything, or atleast not increase the requriements for larger clans because large super clans have already built everything there is to be built and thus if things cost more, they still have everything already built, thus have no issues with these changes.

 

 

However, I disagree with you about the grinneer tile set.  Besides that one ending, they added a spaceship tile set, and they are really nicely done.  Just do the first extermination mission on Mercury.

 

Of course the bug fixes and stuff were great, but lets just see how things turn out.

[BETAOPTICS]

The biggest tile set change I noticed is on Grineer defense missions, they are very different from other defense missions (Mobile Defense missions excluded)

[Steemship]

I disagree with your overall conclusions and  it should be stated a full half of the content from this patch is the part you are calling "not visible".

 

Personally I find the Grineer ship fantastic and a welcome change from the mines, fully with in the style and feel of the grineer while being it's own thing, but we differ on opinion there..

 

The new enemies might be a bit on the weaker side but they also create a more dynamic varied battle field so at least there is some improvement there.  The scorpion warriors have become a real hazard for the unaware player at higher levels so that has become a challenge.

 

As for the Snipetron, well if you looked through the forums you'd have known the answer to your own complaint.  they removed the snipetron because they re-purposed it for a research-able corpus sniper rifle more in fitting with the lore.  They put the Vulkar in there so people who like sniper rifles could still have one, and no one who already owned a snipertron lost it as far as i know.  So they removed a weapon generally acknowledged as bad, replaced it with a better version and re-purposed the asset to something new and different. Double plus good nothing to complain about there.

 

For the Dojo I tend to agree with you, costs could take some looking at, that or drop rates, forma is a bit ridiculous at this point considering my 18 member clan in a three day weekend actually only saw 1 drop and that was as a login reward.

 

now as to the bit you skipped which is actually one of the nicest things in warframe the void.

 

Large Sprawling and very pretty tile set, actual puzzles that require some skill to complete and if you fail them there is no second chance.  Significant rewards in terms of credits and modules, and at tier 3 a challenge that exceeds missions on pluto.  All in all very solid lots of praise for this, however The drop rate of teh "rare components" of the f prime the receiver and the blade definitely seem out of whack by a little bit.

 

reviewing U8 with out reviewing the Void is an incomplete review.

My lack of review of the Void isn't great, but neither is adding a whole bunch of content that can't be accessed without paying or grinding for hours. Maybe a better idea would've been to give everyone a single void key so they could atleast try it out and get a taste of the void. People, myself included, are less likely to pay for a complete mystery as opposed to paying for something we've tried before.

Their intentions were not made clear. I will not accept responsibility for not knowing information that wasn't clearly available . One more note: The Vulkar is not better than the snipetron. It does more damage, but the lack of armor-ignore kills its usefulness.

The Grineer did not a challenge at a higher level, but the Scorpion is currently poorly implemented. If it isn't in range, it is in range in less than a suck and the player is instantly downed in an awkward animation. Their isn't much skill to fighting them, they just awkwardly disrupt the player. The Shield Lancer is a better example of how it should be: it is tough and devastating, but avoidable and fight able.

Regarding the Grineer ships, I will try to find a few and take another look at them again and edit my original post accordingly.

Edited May 28, 2013 by Steemship

[Agent_of_Change]

Regarding the void, you aren't wrong and it's a choice you made, but it is still a major chunk of content of this update, I do argue that it's not easily accessible.  over the weekend between my group and i we found 20 some keys on top of the ones some members bought, hardly inaccessible IMO, but i do see where you are coming from.

 

Regarding the snipetron initially it wasn't entirely clear yes, but details have come out to make it more clear.  But the fault there is not with the update but with missed opportunity for DE to communicate something clearly.  We can agree to disagree on whether or not the Vulkar is "better" than the snipetron, as it is not a clear numbers game as you pointed out.

 

I can see your frustration with the scorpions but I stand by my statement, the animations need cleaning, but they do add a challenging element to grineer combat.  Solo you need to slow down a hair and use target priority to drop them before they tag you, with friends an ally can end the effect by killing the offending scorpion, and they make things rough as getting dragged makes you vulnerable to enemy fire.  It's an element you need to pay attention to, the only changes I would make is to be able to roll/jump to dodge it if you see it coming and be able to shoot while being dragged.  but it does add an element to combat that wasn't there before.

[Steemship]

I feel most of the issues were from not making information clear in the patch notes. Knowing the ways to access void keys and what they did with the snipetron would've cleared up a lot of the trouble.

As for the scorpion, my biggest issue is with the animations. I'm glad that it makes the game more challenging, but it doesn't need to do it in such an ugly way. The fact that it is so ugly and seemingly slap-dash reflects negatively on all of U8. I do still think a bit of a speed tweak is needed on it so it moves more reasonably or a better running animation to reflect its speed.

I want to bring up one point gleaned from information you revealed about void keys. You said you got ~20 keys without paying between your clan (Of 18 which you also specified). That is pretty close to 1 key every 3 days which seems unreasonable considering everything regarding Void keys (F2P game, new content, etc).

[Agent_of_Change]

Agree about the animations and that the patch notes could have been more detailed but then i think every patch notes i have ever been given for anything was incomplete.

 

 

I want to bring up one point gleaned from information you revealed about void keys. You said you got ~20 keys without paying between your clan (Of 18 which you also specified). That is pretty close to 1 key every 3 days which seems unreasonable considering everything regarding Void keys (F2P game, new content, etc).

 

 

we are a small clan I wanted to specify that, but I did reference my group I played with a rotating group of about 8 players (i used the term group but i could have specified) over the weekend and we saw about 2 key drops over the weekend each to me that's not so bad but YMMV. even at one a day or so of play would seem reasonable to me.  But Rng is Rng and sometimes you get (un)lucky.

Edited May 28, 2013 by Agent_of_Change

[Steemship]

Well, I feel that about finishes the life of this thread. One final note (As it is a matter of opinion and serves no benefit to debaiting): for content that is essentially cheap and expendable, a whole day (6 hours a day factoring in time out and what not) seems a bit too high, but like I said it is a matter of opinion and we'll find out if it is too high in the coming weeks. Nice chatting with you and good hunting.

[Agent_of_Change]

Well, I feel that about finishes the life of this thread. One final note (As it is a matter of opinion and serves no benefit to debaiting): for content that is essentially cheap and expendable, a whole day (6 hours a day factoring in time out and what not) seems a bit too high, but like I said it is a matter of opinion and we'll find out if it is too high in the coming weeks. Nice chatting with you and good hunting.

 

you too.