Update: Specters of the Rail

[METAHUMVN]

I appreciate all the passionate and hard work DE has put into this game, especially into the last and long-awaited update.

That being said, I have a few issues with the update, and hopefully the things I mention here can be inspirations for any future changes that might come to the game. I understand that my opinion will not always be received positively, and I understand it. But as a dedicated player I'm gonna voice them anyway in constructive manner.

1. Archwing 2.0. From what I've seen, about 80-90% of the feedback on Archwing 2.0 has been negative. However, I feel that AW 2.0 is step in the right direction. The movement system is much more immersive and visceral. It feel's more challenging as well, and definitively not as easy as AW 1.0. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction. Yes, it will make certain people vomit, but hey, it's flying. What do you expect. There are still movement issues that need to be fine-tuned, but overall, I give it an 8/10.

2. StarChart 3.0. I'll get right to the point. Is the progression clearer than SC 2.0? (Like which planet do you open up first, etc., what leads to what, etc.) Yes. Is it easier to navigate? Hell no. I also take issue with the new requirements that have been placed in these so-called junction thingies. I'm afraid many new players will turn away from the game after seeing important planets locked behind a bunch of requirements and quests that must be completed. Also, we were promised a StarChart that would include lore. I don't see any lore, sorry, other than the (spoilers) that show up in the junctions. 6/10.

3. Market Overhaul. Personally, I liked the old one better. Warframe is an extremely complex game, and I feel the old market did a better job of making it understandable. Complex game = complex market, can't do anything about that. The new market, in an effort to 'simplify' something that can't be simplified, seems to have made players even more confused. A prime example is Warframe/weapon blueprints. People who read the notes and know all about what frames/weapons come from where don't have trouble understanding why some items (or their blueprints) in the market can't be purchased for credits. But for the new player, it seems like a total inconsistency. "Why does Ash have a BP I can buy, but when I go to Atlas, it doesn't give me a choice?" <stuff like that. People who've been around long enough know that Atlas comes from the Jordas quest, but new players don't know that. At least in the 'buy BP' option of the item it could say something like, "This Warframe/weapon/item can only be attained by such-and-such." My rating on this overhaul? 4.5/10. 

4. Kavats. Need I say more. If you want it, get it. It's RNG grinding + resource investment, like anything else. Buy the incubator upgrade in the market, or wait for your clan to pull together 200 neurodes or so and wait for 72 hours to get it. Business as usual. Scan a feral kavat in the Derelict 20 times and get 7 DNA samples. Nothing new. How inspirational was this new addition? 4/10.

5. The Void. I don't know how to approach this, so I'll just go for it. The New Void system (replacing keys with relics, farming for relics instead of keys, getting parts by launching strikes on Void fissures, etc.) is an uninspiring way to get prime parts. If DE really wants to reduce the grind, I suggest that they make the Void farming/prime item crafting system more interactive. For example, allow each player to pick from 3 different rewards at the end of each Void mission cycle (like they are doing it right now, but don't involve rift battles). Or allow players to obtain blueprints for certain prime items and then make their recipes more complicated, to give it more of a challenge. But please, please do not make us fight random RNG generated battles and then have to use RNG generated 'relics' to scew the RNG that determines how the RNG scews the RNG. Seriously. I will miss farming stuff in the Void. I will miss those days when I played wave after wave of T4 Defense, waiting for that part to drop...yes, it was a grind. But an entire overhaul of the Void wasn't necessary if they just wanted to reduce the RNG grind. Another great idea I hope they (would have) implemented involves us building our own Void keys (like Vault keys) and then going into certain regular missions, finding the Void Engine, and then activating it so that we could enter the Void itself and do some sort of epic battle (kinda like those old Void sabotages). My sad rating? 3/10.

6. Draco. Is. Gone. I'm never used Draco much unless I was farming for focus, as I was a fan of survivals and dark sectors. However, I don't see the removal of Draco as an improvement, mainly for one reason: the reason why people use Draco is so that they can max weapons quickly so that they can actually use them to have fun. Truth be told, many people used Draco just to rank mastery fodder. But at least for people like me, I used it because I didn't want the grind of having to rank something up so just so that it could be decent. Once a weapon is max ranked/formaed, that's when it gets fun to use. And I play Warframe to have fun, not to rank weapons. I understand that DE wants use to 'play the game' to rank stuff. But let's not lie. Warframe is an extremely fast-paced game, and it isn't a leisurely stroll like some other games. My rating of this move? 2.5/10.

Specters of the Rail was certainly a bold move on DE's part, and Steve himself did say that they want our feedback, and that they may 'royally screw it up'. DE did a good job, but I'm afraid that many of their changes/fixes are in conflict with the free-to-play/not-pay-to-win model they aspire to maintain. I will mention, the addition of the (spoilers) at the junctions, the new map design that's more 'maplike', the giving of the Orokin Moon its own place in the chart, the inclusion of the remains of destroyed relays, and the lore fragments are wonderful and reflective of DE's creative inspiration and ingenuity. However, I had a feeling for the longest time that Update 19 was the going to determine the future of Warframe as a game, and as devoted member of the community, I really hope they set up a good path for us all. But for now, I am ambivalent. 

May Eximus be with you all. 

 

 

[Mados.sys]

I'm the only one who hated this update? 1 day and i want everything back, the void is useless, the keys are gone just for some egg things than make everything easy, is like "3 min for your reward... yay there you go, item, mission complete" whats the joke? i liked when the keys was like T3 Def and T4, endless, multi rewards, it was amasing and i loved it, because i play only for have fun, not for the items, but this update just focus on the items and not to have fun, i want my keys back, not having keys is one of the most boring thing i never saw before, i cant do anything

Edited July 9, 2016 by -Undyne

[Inarticulate]

1 hour ago, Naqel said:

Also, if PvE stances are so bad, why do they even continue to exist?

It's not that the PvE stances are bad, it's that they aren't suited for the pacing of Conclave where your opponents are significantly more mobile than the enemies in PvE.

 

Also, I'd just like to mention that the PBR of the Grineer Shipyard tile set (i.e. Ceres) is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.

[nicklam445]

1 hour ago, Avalona said:

So, why were you posting that the map is unplayable again?

Try not to give people wrong impression on the game mode you're bad at. They might started blindly accusing DE :^).

the problem is not map, not even the game mode.

Edited July 9, 2016 by nicklam445

[Cortanis]

Back holstering seems to be broken on Frost at the very least. Dual weapons are offset with one almost in the center of the back and the other almost on the shoulder.

[Hyday]

just played a RUSH mission for archwing and i have to say what the F***? i could not even reach the hanger before all three ships left. and the camera zooms WAY to far on your character the reticule for the gun is nice, but whats with the flipping around S#&amp;&#036;? Why am i upside down? i liked the normal centered and not wonky controls. I think there was alot in this update that went wrong. No offense, it is some good design and ideas, but i think it needed more testing and tuning before you put it out here.

i feel like the things you changed were fine, and didnt need to be changed.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Hyday

[Cortanis]

So wait... in the relics rewards pool, if we all choose a different reward, would we get each of those rewards potentially?

[Flade]

3 minutes ago, Hyday said:

Why am i upside down?

There is no ''upside down'' in space

[Hyday]

Just now, Flade said:

There is no ''upside down'' in space

...touche

[nicklam445]

10 minutes ago, Hyday said:

just played a RUSH mission for archwing and i have to say what the F***? i could not even reach the hanger before all three ships left. and the camera zooms WAY to far on your character the reticule for the gun is nice, but what with the flipping around S#&amp;&#036;? i liked the normal centered and not wonky controls. I think there was alot in this update that went wrong. No offense, it is some good design and ideas, but i think it needed more testing and tuning before you put it out here.

i feel like the things you changed were fine, and didnt need to be changed.

same, but here some tips:

1: use afterburner in burst, do NOT use it too much or you won't able to control speed and you will get stuck when you hit a wall.

2: sometime RNG hates you, so luck may required to reach the docking port before all ships escapes.

3: flipping will make you stuck when you flip, left, right, up or DOWN, but not back or forward.

also beware of your camera moving, as you will mess up, and hit a wall

5 minutes ago, Flade said:

There is no ''upside down'' in space

yes it has, it makes you confused, making rush mission competely ruined, then a corpus commander taunts at you when you fail, making you rage, or whatever.

Edited July 9, 2016 by nicklam445

[Hyday]

3 minutes ago, nicklam445 said:

same, but here some tips:

1: use afterburner in burst, do NOT use it too much or you won't able to control speed and you will get stuck when you hit a wall.

2: sometime RNG hates you, so luck may required to reach the docking port before all ships escapes.

3: flipping will make you stuck when you flip, left, right, up or DOWN, but not back or forward.

also beware of your camera moving, as you will mess up, and hit a wall

yes it has, it makes you confused, making rush mission competely ruined, then a F***ing corpus commander taunts at you when you fail.

thoughs are good tips, and i know the guy taunting you is extra messed up.

 

oh RNG....an old enemy....*looks at destiny*

[Arniox]

awesome update. But they added these glitches bellow:

 

total blackness - I think this is a shadow bug as it still acts like solid ground.

 

This one is perhaps the strangest bug I have ever seen. The liset ramp inside your ship seems to move down quite slowly and you can run fast enough to go under it. This means you're stuck forever and you have to relog to fix it.

[TomaLevine]

So... I haven't had a chance to try a lot of the new content yet, but this is my impression so far.

New star map. It looks really cool, but the lines and missions are way too small. I don't have great eyesight, and I'm stuck playing this on a TV while I sit across the room. Even zoomed in as far as possible, I can barely see the mission nodes, I can't read their names, and I can't tell which missions I've done, which I can do, and which are locked, I can kinda see some have different icons, but can't see what they are and I can't tell which nodes have alerts or whatever on them. Please, PLEASE give me a UI option to enlarge them or something.  You also can't see what resources are on a planet at a glance anymore which makes deploying extractors and trying to figure out what planets to farm much more annoying.  I'm going to miss Deception missions, I'd rather have kept them and got rid of interception missions. Are Dark Sector missions still a thing? I can't find them if they are. Also, what's up with that miniboss in the Mars Junction? I went in there in a level 24 Ivara with about 900 total health and shield and got one shot over and over (even while hiding in stealth bubbles). No spy mission on earth?

New Void system. Haven't tried it yet, but it looks like in your attempt to make it less grindy, you've increased the grind factor by several hundred percent. But as I said, I haven't played this yet, so I could be wrong. Also, where do you get mag prime now?

New Marketplace. Old one wasn't perfect, but it was generally easy to find what you were looking for. Main thing I wanted was an easy way to sort what you could buy with credits and what took platinum. This new marketplace is just confusing. Though the search function is a nice addition.

Display pictures sounds cool, but haven't figured out how to use them yet. are there any free ones, or do you have to buy from the market for play?

Overall, it still needs some work. Sorry guys, not very fond of it so far. I'm hoping you'll do fixes and tweaks and make it into something I really enjoy.

[And_Sum]

The game just became hell of more confusing.  As new player, idk where item blueprints r in market, where to get prime rewards from relics, how to unlock a damn codex scanner which is mandatory for my next mission, and how to freaking find relics.  New players should not have to go read forums and ask other people to know how to get all of that stuff.  If u r going to release a new update, then at least put in info pages in the game to explain what you changed and how everything works cuz even after reading the changes in the topic of this forum.  I cant seem to find void fissures anywhere on the relic mission maps.

[Hidlegarde]

MAP UPDATES AND CHANGES? It's pretty confusing, don't we have a list of those?

[Wiintre]

Yeah ... still stuck at 1630MB ... thanks for everything >.<

[StonedMakak]

2 hours ago, Naqel said:

 

Are these less horrible stances available in PvE?

Also, if PvE stances are so bad, why do they even continue to exist?

Nope, first thing I checked when the update hit. I' trade the entire Archwing overhaul for the ability to use shorter combos in PvE (and it wouldn't be a huge loss seeing as AW is a mess right now).

1 hour ago, Inarticulate said:

It's not that the PvE stances are bad, it's that they aren't suited for the pacing of Conclave where your opponents are significantly more mobile than the enemies in PvE.

 

Also, I'd just like to mention that the PBR of the Grineer Shipyard tile set (i.e. Ceres) is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.

Machetes want a word with you. 

Some of them are actually pretty bad, and even the good ones lock you in an animation with no animation cancel move. In a game like Warframe, with its frantic pace, this ranges from annoying to majorly hindering your combat effectiveness, and contrasts with the amazingly free parkour movement - One minute you're flipping all over the place, the next you're watching as your Tenno preforms a slow-mo combo because Berserker hasn't proc'ed. 

Pretty please DE, let us use those stances just for S#&amp;&#036; and giggles, see how they compare to vanilla versions in PvE. Kthxbai. 

I'm with you on the PBR, simply breathtaking.

Edited July 9, 2016 by tisdfogg

[Discofish97]

I used to love running Void missions for fun with a decent reward at the end, i liked running t4 survivals and t4 defences as a challenge then be rewarded with a random prime drop at each 5 minutes or whatever, now the void is like every other planet?!?!?! there is no reward for playing the missions. You can now get prime parts from corpus and grineer missions?!?! what the fudge... I wanna do t4 survivals not crappy corpus survivals, i can only imagine an equivalent to a t4 survival with bursas... overall this update sucks, sure its more friendly to new players, it makes quests more clear but killing the void was unnecessary, why not just make the fissure alerts or whatever apear in the void?!?! atleast that wont completely suck

RIP void 2016 

Edit- it would have also been nice to explain in a video the changes, i have no idea how the relics work, i just ran a mission and destroyed the fissure, fine but I was rewarded with random drops at the end which were no within the same relic, aswell as there being no prompt at the start of the mission for me to choose a relic... im so confused and i hate it

Edited July 9, 2016 by Discofish97

[Ryuhouji]

16 hours ago, Darkmoone1 said:

Not sure if DE knows this, but the community generally frowns on the nullifiers existence in this game...

That is most likely the entire reason they introduced nullifiers to begin with. It's their way of punishing us for minmaxing.

[Caine2112]

I've stated this last year when I first started the game, and I'll state it again.  The serious lack of in-game information is absolutely appalling.  It took me half and hour and a lot of star chart roaming around to find out where the weapon blueprints were.  I was fearful of paying plat for some POS weapon, but it was only by an accidental click that I saw you had a credits tab on the upper left of a selected weapon to find out that that was indeed the blueprint.

I'm sorry DE for being harsh, but you guys REALLY BADLY need to include information for not only changes, but pre-existing features as well.  It's appalling to have to go and sift through forums and wiki just to find out basic information.

Let the 19.1 patch be ZERO content, and ONLY information/tutorials and the like for everything save tactics and weapon/warframe builds.  It's a serious facepalm as to why this has never been addressed in the last 3 years.

[FrackingBiscuit]

Just some random thoughts from playing for a few hours:

Star Chart/Junctions:

New star chart was actually kind of confusing at first, but I think that's just because we went from big blue blocks to little points connected by narrow pathways.  It was really more a matter of legibility, and a lot of that was just getting used to the new format.  I've seen a ton of people say they would like a legend to be added to the map and I agree - it would be greatly beneficial to new players.

Junction tasks seem to be super buggy right now and that's really frustrating.  The Jupiter-Saturn junction, for example, seems to basically be non-functional because it isn't registering any spy missions.  We mostly believed that the delays for SOTR were to allow a high degree of polish, and Steve mentioned on Twitter that it looked like the update had basically zero bugs, which makes the whole thing doubly frustrating.

But as far as giving new players guidance, I think giving them a list of objectives to complete that will both open up new areas and give them rewards is a step in the right direction.  Fragments being thrown into this are also a very good idea - new players will be finding Fragments as they play missions to complete Junction tasks, finding tidbits of lore as they expand their game world.  The bits of lore also make the setting feel more populated.  The first little blurb about Venus may not seem like much, but not only does it explain why the Corpus occupy Venus, it both reveals a concrete aspect of the Orokin empire and speaks to the obsession the Corpus have with that lost civilization.

Market:

The market is a mixed bag.  The drop menu on the left is very good, but it's very hard to see stuffed up into the corner and camouflaged.  Those functions should be the first thing players see when they open the market.  As others have said, hiding blueprints behind plat items is obviously not being done to make finding blueprints easier for new players - if that was the objective, they wouldn't be hidden at all.  Related items seem to be completely arbitrary (I don't really know what else they would be).  Search tags seem to basically work, but I think items need to be naturally categorized better.  For example, when I open up Primary Weapons, I think it should already be divided into assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, bows, and arch-guns.

Archwing:

Archwing parts being added to Tenno Lab is good, I think.  Weapon parts being added to Syndicates is... weird.  Especially since no Syndicate has a complete weapon.  Also makes me wonder what the point of playing Archwing is now, since I can grind for its rewards outside of Archwing.

Really, it feels like a bandaid to a problem that needed a more in-depth solution.  Archwing weapons, even clan tech, were mostly built by farming for their parts in Archwing missions.  Most players really didn't like this - we would have much preferred to just build them from components like everything else.  But, they were the only reason to really play Archwing - the missions didn't reward anything else of value.  The answer to not liking how Archweapons were made was to make them like every other weapon - buy a blueprint, play missions where components drop, and build it at-will - while coming up with a new reason to play AW missions.  

Instead their parts were moved to Syndicates to be bought with standing, allowing us to buy a blueprint, play just about any mission to earn standing (essentially the same thing as farming for components), and build them at-will (sort of, since parts for weapons are spread out between Syndicates).  It's essentially what we were looking for, but a bit roundabout and ramshackle.  But there also wasn't any new incentive added to play AW missions, so...

6DOF works great in open space flying around asteroids, but in Corpus trench run maps it's very disorienting.  Those maps very clearly have a top and bottom and going through them sideways is just strange.  The changes to momentum also means that I can't just zip through these corridors anymore because I slide around too much.  Boost/afterburners is good for straight dashing and wide turns, but not for making sharp 90-degree turns with very small margins of error.  I think I'm just going to have to get used to these missions being slower - which is a bit of a pain with Archwing Rush, but...  Well, we'll see.

The new camera position in Archwing is something I'm getting used to.  Like 6DOF I think it works best in wide open areas, but in confined interior spaces like Corpus trench run missions, it drastically cuts down visibility.  The camera being positioned so close also means it's very hard to see threats to the rear, which really just becomes a headache for intense fights where I have zero information on what the things behind me are and how they're killing me.

Pursuit was very confusing at first.  Doing the Grineer mission, somebody had to tell me that the shield generators were the four vent-looking things inside the catamaran hulls at the front of the ship.  I would not in a million years have guessed those were shield generators.  If this was like other sci-fi flight sims I've played before, my HUD would put brackets around the parts of the ship I'm supposed to shoot instead of making me guess which of the dozen yellow lights has been arbitrarily designated as a "shield generator."

In summary:  I agree with most of the decisions made in SOTR and think we're moving in the right direction, but there are a lot of problems right now that all seem to stem from legibility - of the map, of the market, and of the environment.  There are also some pretty big bugs that managed to slip through that are making some features entirely unusable.  Steve said not too long ago that this was likely going to be a bumpy ride, that some features might not make it into the initial release, and that we would all need to hold on and stay with them as they run through multiple iterations of these new systems.  With that said, I will reserve my final judgment for this update until I see how DE develops it in the coming days and weeks.

Edited July 9, 2016 by FrackingBiscuit

[Sir_Karrasko]

Bugs.....bugs everywhere.....8/10 months without contents and...more bugs?

[Inarticulate]

18 minutes ago, tisdfogg said:

Machetes want a word with you. 

Some of them are actually pretty bad, and even the good ones lock you in an animation with no animation cancel move. In a game like Warframe, with its frantic pace, this ranges from annoying to majorly hindering your combat effectiveness, and contrasts with the amazingly free parkour movement - One minute you're flipping all over the place, the next you're watching as your Tenno preforms a slow-mo combo because Berserker hasn't proc'ed. 

Pretty please DE, let us use those stances just for S#&amp;&#036; and giggles, see how they compare to vanilla versions in PvE. Kthxbai. 

What I meant was the reason that they were replaced was not because they were bad, but because they didn't fit with the pacing of Conclave. Yes, some of them are terrible, but just some of them being terrible isn't justification for replacing all of them. Not fitting in with the pacing of Conclave (needing both mobility and short animations), however, is proper justification.

 

8 minutes ago, Ryuhouji said:

That is most likely the entire reason they introduced nullifiers to begin with. It's their way of punishing us for minmaxing.

Nullifiers exist to require players to have at least one working brain cell to play this game.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Inarticulate

[Crunchy121]

i really hate the new navigation look.

[Chaosmagistrate]

Hidden Messages quest now won't update properly either.

I finished crafting the Chasis and proceeded with creating the Mirage with the market blueprint.

The quest still is asking me to create the Mirage Chasis.  I hope it will update when my Mirage finishes in three days.