Archwing: The Game's Best Feature Right Now

[BlackCoMerc]

It has its flaws, sure. But right now, Archwing is easily Warframe's best feature. I've not been a supporter of the mode, true. But after 3 hours with it tonight, I think its the best thing the game has going right now. Let me tell you why, for all its flaws, Archwing should be the example the rest of Warframe looks to for direction as it begins to heal the damage done by gross power creep, out of control CC cheese and utter disregard for balance.

 

Its Balanced:

First and most obvious. Archwing is a well balanced game mode. Even at later levels, enemies never feel as if they are out of control in terms of armor or health. Even Shield Grineer (Dargyans or some such, I think they are called) can be taken down with melee, or some ranged weapons, with careful use. And the newer Grineer unit - the mini boss like Unit - is a nice touch. They spawn now and then, have slightly more health and armor, and can deal significant damage, yet, they never feel unfair or as if they are a brick wall in terms of difficulty. Archwing is a very well balanced game mode, for the most part; the rest of the game should take heed.

 

It Plays to Its Strengths (for the most part):

Warframe is a game about empowered warriors exhibiting superior agility and prowess on the battlefield to overcome seemingly overwhelming odds. Warframe shines when its showing off two things: Movement, and Powers. 

Archwing lets us do both. Almost at will. Even on missions where defending stationary objects is necessary, obstacles exist that block line of sight to enemies and that require maneuvering about to engage incoming targets. Movement is always needed, even when defending things (though this may or may not apply to an actual Defense mission, as I avoid those in both modes). Not to mention: as far as I can tell, enemies in Archwing all have real projectiles; there do not appear, to me, to be any hitscan weapons in the hands of enemies (correct me if I am wrong). This makes player movement a sort of "Agility Tank" and allows us to use skill to avoid damage in the first place, an area in which the main game could take a lesson from Archwing.

Likewise, Archwing lets us use our powers. Not only does it never see fit to restrict the player's toolset, it even enhances it, with built in energy regeneration. Enemies never outright shut us down. Nothing is ever just inexplicably turned off. Archwing powers and weapons behave consistently across all modes, allowing players to get to know their Archwing and what it can do, and to develop play styles for different missions, secure in the knowledge that no one is going to arbitrarily tell us our tools suddenly cant work when fighting a certain faction.

In exchange, Archwing powers cannot dominate the entire battlefield. Firstly the field is too large, a lesson seemingly copied recently when the main game moved the highest level Interception mission to a much nicer, more enjoyable large map on Sedna. Second, powers in Archwing are much more balanced and reasonable than in the main game (so far; I know nothing of Elytron to be honest, as I have not progressed that far in). Even Amesha, who is quite the powerhouse, cannot completely negate game play and interaction with enemies, as some Warframes have been known to do over the years.

 

Pacing is Much Better:

The Pace of Archwing missions is much better than most missions found in the main game. Larger battlefields mean time to see enemies coming, prepare and engage. Enemies never spawn one room over, 100 yards away, and then pop through an open door and into the player's face. They never spawn directly on top of the player's location (Fissures, I'm looking at you here) and their placement never feels cheap. 

Moreover, enemies never spawn in numbers where they overwhelm my screen. There are never a shortage of enemies in Archwing, but they also dont crowd the battlefield so badly that tracking the action becomes impossible, as has happened in many endless missions in the main game, as time wears on. Archwing's missions feature an ebb and flow, as waves emerge, close the distance, are dispatched and the cycle begins anew. This is an area the main game can learn from; missions shouldn't be filled with empty rooms. But empty rooms between engagements can also allow players to catch their breath and take a moment to regroup after a heated battle.

 

Combat is Fast:

Enemies are not damage sponges. Players do not have insane amounts of health, armor and shields. Combat is quick and deadly. Another area from which the main game needs to learn. 

 

Things I think Archwing Still Needs:

Truly separate controls. Bindings in Archwing need to be divorced from the main game completely, for both controllers and kb/m.

Roll control. We need this. Its...not really 6 DoF without it. 

A better radar. Radar needs to clearly identify targets and objects are behind or in front of me, and above or below me. Dont tie radar to the imaginary planetary plane or some arbitrary up and down as decided by the map. Tie it to me. To my aircraft. Take a look at YouTube, at the radar in Elite Dangerous. Just...do that.

More Missions and Nodes: Give us two or three nodes per planet. More Mobile Defense missions, Exterminates and Pursuits, please. Preferably these missions will take place out in space, as the game simply does not shine in the Corpus Trench Run tiles, to be honest.

Fewer Trenches and tunnels: They restrict speed and movement. They confuse the inner ear and the sense of direction. They simply are not where the mode shines. Get us out in space. Or screaming through the skys of Gas Cloud cities on Jupiter, or above the oceans and cliffs of Uranus. Get us anywhere with both lots of room to maneuver, and ample debris or structure to lend a sense of scale and speed. Empty space is boring; trenches and tunnels are too confining. The sorts of maps the Grineer missions use right now are perfect. 

More mods and frames. I would love to see the entire mode expanded, carefully. If Archwing has one major flaw right now its that new mods are taking their cue from the main game and increasing numbers. I would like to see Archwing move away from this and instead alter play styles. No one wants another game mode full of mandatory damage mods. Give us mods that alter how we use our frames and weapons instead. 

 

Warframe's Best Game Mode:

As it stands right now, Archwing is, in my opinion, Warframe's best game mode. Its balanced, plays to its strengths, for the most part, features good pacing and never, ever robs players of control or their toolset in order to try and force a false sense of challenge. Where Warframe has exploded out of control in terms of power creep, enemy compensation and CC Cheese, Archwing feels like a carefully tended garden, grown at a careful, controlled pace in order to provide a finely tuned and carefully cultivated experience by comparison. Whoever is leading the development of Archwing should lend their services to the main game, in an effort to reign in some of the problems there, as they have done a fine job indeed with this latest patch of bringing Archwing into its own as a finely balanced game mode.

[Cleesus]

I agree it has gotten better but still has a way to go

[BlackCoMerc]

4 minutes ago, theclinton said:

I agree it has gotten better but still has a way to go

I agree the mode could be better. But right now, I think its the best thing Warframe has going. Movement, while imperfect, is fun and exciting. We need to be able to steer during Afterburner, to some degree. Not with the precision of normal movement, but we need it nonetheless. Powers always work. Missions dont ever introduce funky restrictions or gross damage sponges. Its just a polished, well balanced experience, especially when compared to the increasingly messy main game.

[Varacal]

two things i can think of that can fix the archwing now is 1, give us more FOV in archwing, and 2, stop the autorotating, i dont know if it bugs other people, but its a lil bit disorienting when your archwing suddenly starts spinning.

 

i gotta agree though, archwing is really nice right now, i enjoyed it more now in fact, that i just forma'd my fluctus, and am thinking of crafting the amesha [deciding on it first, cause i have low count on my polymer bundles, and we still have yet to research the elytron part that required a bunch of polymer bundles]

[tifanator]

28 minutes ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Its Balanced:

First and most obvious. Archwing is a well balanced game mode. 

Edit: To be clear, I agree with most of your points. I love Archwing, especially with the new movement system. But I think calling it "balanced," even before Amesha, is a little bit of a stretch.

Edited July 17, 2016 by tifanator

[jinxeverything]

I always wanted to pilot a combat spaceship or even a Gundam, now i can :D

Already got used to it and i may be the only one but i feel like its slow, can DE increase the afterburn boost speed a bit more, like 2x?

[Brasten]

You would have loved Closed Beta Warframe, it was equally as balanced and well designed as Archwing is currently. Very few enemy types, very few frames (some of the crazy OP), almost no play modes, sometimes wanky controls. Great times, I do miss the little lights on my arm showing how many Mods I had installed.

This new mode has major play issues, for enough people, to get a decent sized reaction of nausea, disorientation, and headaches. All signs of acute simulation sickness. And from people who self report not normally having issues with space flight sims.

Archwing 1.0 was a half-finished Zone of the Enders style space hack'n'slash. Archwing 2.0 is a less than half-finished flight sim (doesn't even have speed control, just push WASD and go full speed). It's really hard to comment on what Archwing 2.0 plays like or should have played like, because it clearly wasn't released to us in anything but an alpha state (meaning internal testing levels of concepts, not finished systems). The keybinds haven't even been separated from the base game yet, which makes manual rolling nigh impossible. It was mentioned that the Archwing team was still having issues getting a 3D map to work, as late as the Thursday Prime Time stream.

I've said my pieces about where Archwing should be headed in terms of development in control mechanics without getting into nagging issues, like Affinity share ranges, enemy types, and rewards. We can start with how enemy units don't fly like we do now. They fly like they still have Archwing 1.0 omni-direction jetpacks. Very noticeable in Shield Dargyns, who were an issue before 2.0 launched are still a problem. Not as bad a Nullifers, but still rather infuriating enemy design.

It is so sad this was rushed out the door in the state it's in. And may very likely be putting off more people than ever from Archwing.

Edited July 17, 2016 by Brasten

[Xekrin]

31 minutes ago, Varacal said:

two things i can think of that can fix the archwing now is 1, give us more FOV in archwing, and 2, stop the autorotating, i dont know if it bugs other people, but its a lil bit disorienting when your archwing suddenly starts spinning.

Yeap, both points that Steve agreed need looking at when he was on prime time.

[BlackCoMerc]

Oh the new Archwing has flaws. And most of those flaws are still related to its movement system and FOV. Still. After TWO years of development. Which is I confess pretty inexcusable. Either fix it or kill it, but focus and pick and one, for crying out loud.

In the balance and playability departments, however - in other words, setting aside the simulation issues for the moment - its still the game's best mode. Granted, right now that's like winning the High Jump at a Limbo competition, but its true nonetheless. 

Archwing never robs you of either control, or your toolset. Your frame will always work the same on every mission. You wont have to wonder whether something on a Corpus mission might magically pop your defensive bubble. Or shut down your drones. Or turn off your frontal shields. You dont have to bring a requisite weapon type to a certain faction mission's. You never have to sit and watch as you are stunned, drug by things that continually clip through terrain, artificially slowed, knocked down or otherwise continually have your control taken from you.

Warframe has some great game PLAY. Right now, though, the main game isn't a very good GAME, in and of itself. It has more flaws than pretty much any game I have ever encountered. But many of those flaws do not exist in Archwing, and that's something the main game's developers can learn from.

Honestly, whoever is in charge of balancing and game play for Archwing, should just take over the main game, too. Maybe then we could be presented with occasionally challenging scenarios while still maintaining control of our characters.

[BlackCoMerc]

8 hours ago, tifanator said:

Edit: To be clear, I agree with most of your points. I love Archwing, especially with the new movement system. But I think calling it "balanced," even before Amesha, is a little bit of a stretch.

Oh, and much as I do like Amesha...I cant find fault with the claims made here. If you came to me and claimed to have invented the wheel, it would be about as original as this Warframe. Granted.

Oh...and I especially like the part, where she has three abilities to protect her from damage, and one...that encourages her to take it. One of these things...its not like the others. 

So yeah, she has issues. I wont deny that. I like her, but she definitely has issues. As does the whole game mode.

[Caelward]

Unfortunately I just can't agree that this is the 'games best mode' at this time. I enjoyed it before, yes, but not as it is now. But even before... best game mode? It's too shallow.

Disregarding any of the current movement controls, it just feels like it lacks a real connection to the rest of the game. Perhaps if there were ground missions that got you archwing parts and more archwing missions that got you ground based items it would help tie them together more?

I mean, aside for Jordas and bigger scarier Jordas, the rest of archwing I find to basically be a seperate game with a similar skin and less payback.

[HarrodTasker]

Let us all remember how miserable Salacia, Neptune was before this update.  What an ungodly hellhole it was, and you had to be there for more than a half hour to get a single relevant drop rotation.  Defending not one but two targets with 2K hitpoints a piece, easily destroyed in seconds by the weakest of enemies.  And how enemy spawns were a mile away from the defence objectives so each wave was a painful exercise in swatting flies and wondering if the aggro train got delayed at the station.  I can not overstate how miserable old Salicia was.  If you never went there, be thankful.

The problem with Amesha isn't that its OP its that Odonata is pure garbage.  Iztal is good for cheesing Jordas but since most AW is about enemy spams and not stealth sabotage its really not as good as it should be either.  If they would make arcwing spy missions that could be fun, except for how Iztal can't stealth and move.  Elytron is immensely satisfying.  I have a potato'ed and perfectly forma'ed Elytron that nukes enemies from the other side of the map and my only regret about the Elytron is that there's no land version for the thing.  Amesha is on the power level that arcwings should be at, its just that our baseline expectations are set in relation to a massively inferior Odonata.

[Gurpgork]

Don't forget that the mods are much better balanced, too. Multishot and % base damage increases are at a far lower percentage in Archwing than in the rest of the game, meaning that the power gap between an unmodded weapon and a fully modded weapon is less obscene. 

[rockscl]

i expeted them to keep archwing balanced under subtle power creeping, next thing they do is releasing Amesha

 

i hope they fix that cheese, they already have foot warframe to have it full cheese, now please do not do the same with archwing

Edited July 18, 2016 by rockscl