Vision vs. Reality - A POV on the Update Schedule

[melodicuprising]

2 hours ago, Hesyol said:

I thought the whole thing with No man's sky will teach people not to make hype of everything, to lower their expectations. But no...

OK, let's say they release it right now. Or even they release all updates at once. It still will take you week or 2 at max to complete everything new and you will have nothing to do again and will wait for next update that won't come in a long time

This is a different situation than No Man's Sky, imo. Where Hello Games had crashed is the making of false promises; people didn't really care that the release date was pushed back, as long as it was justified in the end. Ultimately, no it wasn't justified and the straight lies about NMS content gave major backlash. With Warframe, I don't believe there is much hype for this last update. Since the release date is constantly being pushed back, some people just expect delays, which is never a good thing to expect from a developer.

I am not asking them to rush TWW. At this point in its development, all we can do is wait and see what's in store in the future. I am mainly concern with the future of the game and how things can potentially proceed after TWW. Like I said earlier, if this is the case with all of U19, how will they handle U20?

[RainbowCandyCat]

My question is how does something get delayed 3 1/2 months? Last year that would've been a whole update plus another one right around now. They've been working on it for at least that time so what's up? They've said that "update is slated for sept" but it's not coming out next week so how can we be sure? They didn't sound too confident either

[Evanescent]

The thing is that they paced this badly. U19 was huge, so they could have mixed new content with reworks and finished the year with U21 War Within bonanza.

They haven't been feeding regular content weekly like they used to for U19 WW, and that has cost Warframe.

[DeMonkey]

16 minutes ago, RainbowCandyCat said:

My question is how does something get delayed 3 1/2 months? Last year that would've been a whole update plus another one right around now. They've been working on it for at least that time so what's up? They've said that "update is slated for sept" but it's not coming out next week so how can we be sure? They didn't sound too confident either

By not understanding your limits and attempting to work on too much at once. It's all guaranteed to go wrong and you're left with months of work and nothing to show for it.

That's the point where you stop teasing new content and show off your amazing wavy grass.

[Hesyol]

5 minutes ago, melodicuprising said:

This is a different situation than No Man's Sky, imo. Where Hello Games had crashed is the making of false promises; people didn't really care that the release date was pushed back, as long as it was justified in the end. Ultimately, no it wasn't justified and the straight lies about NMS content gave major backlash. With Warframe, I don't believe there is much hype for this last update. Since the release date is constantly being pushed back, some people just expect delays, which is never a good thing to expect from a developer.

I am not asking them to rush TWW. At this point in its development, all we can do is wait and see what's in store in the future. I am mainly concern with the future of the game and how things can potentially proceed after TWW. Like I said earlier, if this is the case with all of U19, how will they handle U20?

Yeah that's right, NMS wasn't the best comparison, I was talking about different thing.

I meant even if they release TWW and it will work perfectly and will be really interesting, it won't save all those people from burnout. Yeah there will be some hours of new content some new items. But once you've farmed them, you're back to old warframe mechanics. And if you're tired of that nothing will help you. So I don't think there is much problem with how DE is releasing new content. Just some people who need to take a break from this game and go do something else.

[melodicuprising]

9 minutes ago, Hesyol said:

Yeah that's right, NMS wasn't the best comparison, I was talking about different thing.

I meant even if they release TWW and it will work perfectly and will be really interesting, it won't save all those people from burnout. Yeah there will be some hours of new content some new items. But once you've farmed them, you're back to old warframe mechanics. And if you're tired of that nothing will help you. So I don't think there is much problem with how DE is releasing new content. Just some people who need to take a break from this game and go do something else.

Yeah my main concern is how DE plans to move forward from TWW. With the Second Dream, many finished it in about 3-4 hours and are then left with a half-baked Focus system. Looking at the trends of how these updates play out, who is to say TWW will be any different? All I am saying that Warframe has the potential to be more than a game with eventual burnout, the developers just have to emphasize on the cohesiveness of the WF universe (like an overarching quest-line w/ consequences or something). Then, I think things can start to fall together imo.

[mac10smg--Toa_of_Green]

8 hours ago, Redthirst said:

Now, how many of you actually like gameplay of Warframe? How many of you just fire up the game to play some starchart missions because you like the experience, not because there is some reward at the end?

>Raises hand< 

[OldSnakeMGS4]

I remember a livestream in early 2016 where Steve said we would have 2-3 "The Second Dream"-like experiences in 2016, I think it was when they were telling us that the Money from the buyout would be used wisely, and now we have September and haven´t seen even one "Second Dream"-like experiences so far...

And regarding the third part of the quest trilogy "Umbra" - now, last stream, when Rebecca pointed into the direction of a second cinematic quest this year, Geoff´s answer was "Pffff...." - that does say it all.

So we will have one quest this year, 2-3 were announced more or less and we got ONE Major update in 2016...

[(PSN)obsidiancurse]

This problem only really applies to vets though doesn't it? Once you have everything, no update is going to sate you for long because the update content is all you need/concentrate on, so is burned through faster than they can produce, much faster. I honestly cannot see a solution to this, it's a "ya cannae change the laws of physics captain" type problem, six months to produce, six hours to play through.

For me Warframe has two real problems.

New player experience isn't great in terms of tutorials, signposts, explanations etc. this is fixable though and if done correctly should ensure a steady stream of new players that stick with the game. If you take a step back and actually look at WFs content, it's truly staggering, to a mind boggling degree. A new player has years of content ahead of them, they just need nursing through the early stages better.

The second real problem is vets and endgame and is so much trickier to resolve. Players cannot even decide what they want from the game for a start. Partly caused by its hybrid nature, some see it as a 3rd person shooter/slasher, others as a loot em up. This is what causes friction between the nerf merchants and the rushers, one side see fun in the challenge, the other in loot acquisition and will use the optimal means to get through and acquire it. The one thing both agree though is currently the rewards are not worth the effort.

one possible solution may be meaningful dailies. The sorties are a step in the right direction but suffer from what I see as DEs major flaw. They have lots of great ideas but none ever seem to be implemented to their maximum potential. New modes and systems are introduced but they then move on to the next new idea before the last one was optimised/perfected.

Sorties should be a reason to log and play everyday but the reward pool is dissapointing for vets. There should be something new each time, even if it's just wraithing or vandalising an existing weapon. They also mentioned a token system ages ago, what happened to that? There could be exclusive  gear for sortie tokens, giving players another incentive to log and play regularly. New items don't have to be major products, they could just be cool skins for existing weapons, armour or syndanas, that could be added on a regular basis. They could do the same for syndicates, another neglected aspect that receive new wares very sporadically. skins that give cool effects to existing cosmetics shouldn't be excessively time consuming to produce and would also encourage players to buy the cosmetics concerned.

[ToaSirian]

TWW better be worth everything we've been through, the wait, the hype crumbling, the relic system removing core content. and all these things..

[melodicuprising]

2 hours ago, OldSnakeMGS4 said:

I remember a livestream in early 2016 where Steve said we would have 2-3 "The Second Dream"-like experiences in 2016, I think it was when they were telling us that the Money from the buyout would be used wisely, and now we have September and haven´t seen even one "Second Dream"-like experiences so far...

And regarding the third part of the quest trilogy "Umbra" - now, last stream, when Rebecca pointed into the direction of a second cinematic quest this year, Geoff´s answer was "Pffff...." - that does say it all.

So we will have one quest this year, 2-3 were announced more or less and we got ONE Major update in 2016...

I forgot about the Umbra mention. Much like how Titania was slated to be released with SotR, we are seeing the same pattern here as well. Honestly, unless DE has been working on a "two-part cinematic quest" (TWW & Umbra), then chances of another quest this year are slim.

[Tsunero]

As someone said before, in the past, major updates came out every 3 months. 9 months passed since U18 but U19 is not even finished yet and it is far from having 3 times more content as well. Really doubt they are gonna make anything worthwhile other than the TWW this year so yeah, that's 1 major update in 2016.

Honestly, who asked for Lunaro? I understand that they want some unique original stuff but it never should have been part of a major update just a simple pet project which should be worked on when they made enough progress on the major one.

The new star chart rework is what the 2.0 rework should have been in the first place. I was happy about this one at least.

The AW 6DoF movement could have also lived as a pet project considering it's generally not well received and the controls weren't even the problem with it in the first place.

We also barely had any events or tac alerts this year as well. I remember when we had something every 1 and a half month.... Guess the latter was replaced by sorties and they called it a day.

They really messed up resource and priority management this time. Just what were/are they doing all this time? They don't seem to be that passionate about the game anymore.

 

[melodicuprising]

1 hour ago, (PS4)obsidiancurse said:

This problem only really applies to vets though doesn't it? Once you have everything, no update is going to sate you for long because the update content is all you need/concentrate on, so is burned through faster than they can produce, much faster. I honestly cannot see a solution to this, it's a "ya cannae change the laws of physics captain" type problem, six months to produce, six hours to play through.

For me Warframe has two real problems.

New player experience isn't great in terms of tutorials, signposts, explanations etc. this is fixable though and if done correctly should ensure a steady stream of new players that stick with the game. If you take a step back and actually look at WFs content, it's truly staggering, to a mind boggling degree. A new player has years of content ahead of them, they just need nursing through the early stages better.

The second real problem is vets and endgame and is so much trickier to resolve. Players cannot even decide what they want from the game for a start. Partly caused by its hybrid nature, some see it as a 3rd person shooter/slasher, others as a loot em up. This is what causes friction between the nerf merchants and the rushers, one side see fun in the challenge, the other in loot acquisition and will use the optimal means to get through and acquire it. The one thing both agree though is currently the rewards are not worth the effort.

one possible solution may be meaningful dailies. The sorties are a step in the right direction but suffer from what I see as DEs major flaw. They have lots of great ideas but none ever seem to be implemented to their maximum potential. New modes and systems are introduced but they then move on to the next new idea before the last one was optimised/perfected.

Sorties should be a reason to log and play everyday but the reward pool is dissapointing for vets. There should be something new each time, even if it's just wraithing or vandalising an existing weapon. They also mentioned a token system ages ago, what happened to that? There could be exclusive  gear for sortie tokens, giving players another incentive to log and play regularly. New items don't have to be major products, they could just be cool skins for existing weapons, armour or syndanas, that could be added on a regular basis. They could do the same for syndicates, another neglected aspect that receive new wares very sporadically. skins that give cool effects to existing cosmetics shouldn't be excessively time consuming to produce and would also encourage players to buy the cosmetics concerned.

True, WF's content was not meant to be vastly replayable, just lots of grinding. However, I do not think that it is a hopeless situation with no means of escape. Someone mentioned that TWW orinigally planned several months back is vastly different than TWW being released in the future. I do not think it's a fair statement to say that it took them six months for six hours worth of content, as I would imagine DE working and reworking the new content from scratch to find the perfect scenario.

The concerns I put forth don't solely affect veterans, rather all players who want to experience Warframe's universe, not Warframe's loot system. Yeah, it's impressive of how much content there is for a new player, and it's daunting to think about it from their perspective. However, with a strong sense of direction, any player can tackle said content with a degree of confidence. SotR helps with its new starmap, but it leaves a lot to be desired in regards to an overarching questline and meaningful choices in the Solar System.

I agree, the endgame needs to be looked at. Although I don't have any solid suggestions on what DE could possible do to alleviate this problem, they should create interactive variety within difficult missions. Imo, a level 100 survival sortie, melee only, does not provide the excitement was what DE might have originally intended. This ties into cheesing missions, and that will just get too messy to discuss.

IMO, sorties were a good idea at first, but there will be an eventual oversaturation of seasons, with repeat after repeat of the same items. Eventually, the rewards will just as "bland" as Baro's stock. The proposed token system can fix some of this, but there needs to be serious consideration as to how to keep the difficulty of those endgame rewards.

[melodicuprising]

17 minutes ago, Momo93 said:

As someone said before, in the past, major updates came out every 3 months. 9 months passed since U18 but U19 is not even finished yet and it is far from having 3 times more content as well. Really doubt they are gonna make anything worthwhile other than the TWW this year so yeah, that's 1 major update in 2016.

Honestly, who asked for Lunaro? I understand that they want some unique original stuff but it never should have been part of a major update just a simple pet project which should be worked on when they made enough progress on the major one.

The new star chart rework is what the 2.0 rework should have been in the first place. I was happy about this one at least.

The AW 6DoF movement could have also lived as a pet project considering it's generally not well received and the controls weren't even the problem with it in the first place.

We also barely had any events or tac alerts this year as well. I remember when we had something every 1 and a half month.... Guess the latter was replaced by sorties and they called it a day.

They really messed up resource and priority management this time. Just what were/are they doing all this time? They don't seem to be that passionate about the game anymore.

 

It's hard to determine whether all of this time was spent planning/working on TWW. I mean, [DE]Steve had put something on Vine about Grass 2.0 or something. Sure, the game may look nice, but I don't know whether grass will contribute to the overall purpose of TWW. Sure, major updates always have a variety of updates to graphics and gameplay, but with all of the delays given to us, it may be time to hone in on what's really needed.

SotR should have been given the priority instead of Lunaro. I would rather have a buggy Lunaro match when Tennocon dropped, than SotR.

[ExaltedHysteria]

as a returning player to the game after a year or so away (and thanks to a new better laptop that won't overheat aha cx ) i suppose I don't suffer as much lack of content because i still have weapons/warframes to level and collect, 2 quests left to do and such but much like everyone else I am (or rather was) hyped about TWW, honestly i feel like they could have left out lunaro and the archwing rework - since I don't think I've seen many people hype for PvP content? and generally lunaro from what I've heard most people thought it was okay but that it wasn't really asked for? (archwing like many have stated is arguably much WORSE now)

DE was perhaps rather too ambitious in working on so much here, I'd have rather had these all as small updates with WW being it's own separate update and being priority before lunaro/archwing.

I would like to see the tactical alerts of the past perhaps re-implemented as side quests or something just so new players and old players that were not on for those alerts can experience them. It might also be nice to have a reason to play void other than the argon, perhaps implementing alt helmets as a rare reward on higher rotations? (or various weapon blueprints etc. so you can keep your credits, maybe some new rare sigils/glyphs? even some of the rarer resources maybe like nitian/tellerium idk) adding more collectibles and/or more lore entries to stuff in the codex would give something for players to sink their teeth into (I know I'd appreciate more lore c: )

heck, maybe more mini-games like the zephyr flappy bird might tide people over who knows?

idk I'm still looking forward to it in terms of lore/more content and perhaps something huge like in Second dream but yeah the wait is slowly killing my enthusiasm since it's been delayed for so long,

[melodicuprising]

2 hours ago, RiotDragon said:

as a returning player to the game after a year or so away (and thanks to a new better laptop that won't overheat aha cx ) i suppose I don't suffer as much lack of content because i still have weapons/warframes to level and collect, 2 quests left to do and such but much like everyone else I am (or rather was) hyped about TWW, honestly i feel like they could have left out lunaro and the archwing rework - since I don't think I've seen many people hype for PvP content? and generally lunaro from what I've heard most people thought it was okay but that it wasn't really asked for? (archwing like many have stated is arguably much WORSE now)

DE was perhaps rather too ambitious in working on so much here, I'd have rather had these all as small updates with WW being it's own separate update and being priority before lunaro/archwing.

I would like to see the tactical alerts of the past perhaps re-implemented as side quests or something just so new players and old players that were not on for those alerts can experience them. It might also be nice to have a reason to play void other than the argon, perhaps implementing alt helmets as a rare reward on higher rotations? (or various weapon blueprints etc. so you can keep your credits, maybe some new rare sigils/glyphs? even some of the rarer resources maybe like nitian/tellerium idk) adding more collectibles and/or more lore entries to stuff in the codex would give something for players to sink their teeth into (I know I'd appreciate more lore c: )

heck, maybe more mini-games like the zephyr flappy bird might tide people over who knows?

idk I'm still looking forward to it in terms of lore/more content and perhaps something huge like in Second dream but yeah the wait is slowly killing my enthusiasm since it's been delayed for so long,

Lol the title I've posted this on Reddit was "Has DE become too ambitious?" People took it the wrong way and started downvoting the heck out of the discussion. But yeah, it doesn't make sense that awesome operations (tubemen of regor or tethera's doom for example) that DE has worked hard on get shoved into obscurity. Like someone else said, they should work smarter, not harder.

[GrimMyfanwy]

First let me say that I will not just complain without offering some reasonable alternatives. This game thrives on feedback.

Personally there are 2 lessons I hope DE takes away from what is rapidly becoming a black mark on their record as developers.

1. They realize that, as cool as epic cinematic quest are (and they are pretty **** cool), they can't not ignore the smaller constant content that has kept the player base playing. Things like tactical alerts and non-story intensive events are vital to keep people's interests up, a new weapon or even a warframe just doesn't have the same impact.
    
2. They realize the need for consistant, accessible end game content. Even if they have to put it behind a wall like the sorties, players need a reason to max out their mods and forma their weapons, and the current game just doesn't have that. The Sorties were a good start, be they largely seem to have been forgotten, as as we hit week four of seasons 9's 15 day tenure.

Here is what I would suggest to address these issues:

1. Every other weekend should have something, opposite of Baro. It doesn't have to be much, it could just be a single 4 day alert that has insane modifiers (Remember the first hyena pack TA? that was a nightmare). Bring back the Acolytes, have them more active than they have been since they first showed up. There are all sorts of game modes that could easily be done with little back end work. I know they are a small studio, but surely something can be done. 
    
2. First and formost, remove Nezha from the sortie list and make it a dojo research. While they are at it, why not offer multiple sorties if they are going to go for so long, you still can only do each once a day, but you can choose from different reward pools. Or make an advanced sortie where you can bring back vaulted stuff. They could also let players select missions to do on various levels of nightmare modes to give the newer playerbase access to the nightmare mods like we had and with a higher drop rate for endo or access to these artifacts I hear about (limit it to 3 a day if you don't want to flood the market). I have spent over 500 forma on just equipment (not including forma needed to build items or rooms in the dojo). Give us a reason to keep doing that other than overkill.

I'm not going to doomsay and rant that the game is dying, it's not, but the path they are on right now is not a good one and they need to consider not just the success they have but how they managed to attain that success.

Thank you for your time.

[Iceheart125]

9 hours ago, melodicuprising said:

I mentioned an overarching questline earlier, which I believe can solve many of those problems. And yeah, 100% quest branches with unique rewards. Although, this may be beginning to take hold once DE implements repeatable quests, but that just circles back into my main point.

Another point, they should really reintroduce previous events and operations to the players that had missed them. If ALL of them were present in the game currently (with adjusted rewards ofc), then things would definitely be more exciting.

Even if it just gave more mods like we'be been getting, weapon specific, it wouldnt be too incredibly straining on development.

[xXx_mtv_xXx]

What makes you think TWW will bring a lot of content? It will probably be just a new quest with some minor changes to existing content. Don't get your hopes up.

[Omnimorph]

I don't think there's any problem with the update schedule per se, it's just an illusion of perspective.  We get new content all the time, in a steady stream.
 

[DeMonkey]

7 minutes ago, Omnimorph said:

I don't think there's any problem with the update schedule per se, it's just an illusion of perspective.  We get new content all the time, in a steady stream.

A steadily declining stream, yes. For clarification I am not including hotfixes as a weekly update.

Since U18 (9 Months ago) we have had ~17 'weekly updates' spread across the 40 weeks. Less than 1 every 2 weeks. In fact, it actually comes out to 1 every 2.35 weeks.

U14 had 10 'weekly updates' spread across 14 weeks. 1 every 1.4 weeks. 

Do you see the difference? It's not just U19 that has been delayed, but the steady stream of content has also suffered.

[melodicuprising]

1 hour ago, GrimKonstantin said:

First let me say that I will not just complain without offering some reasonable alternatives. This game thrives on feedback.

Personally there are 2 lessons I hope DE takes away from what is rapidly becoming a black mark on their record as developers.

1. They realize that, as cool as epic cinematic quest are (and they are pretty **** cool), they can't not ignore the smaller constant content that has kept the player base playing. Things like tactical alerts and non-story intensive events are vital to keep people's interests up, a new weapon or even a warframe just doesn't have the same impact.
    
2. They realize the need for consistant, accessible end game content. Even if they have to put it behind a wall like the sorties, players need a reason to max out their mods and forma their weapons, and the current game just doesn't have that. The Sorties were a good start, be they largely seem to have been forgotten, as as we hit week four of seasons 9's 15 day tenure.

Here is what I would suggest to address these issues:

1. Every other weekend should have something, opposite of Baro. It doesn't have to be much, it could just be a single 4 day alert that has insane modifiers (Remember the first hyena pack TA? that was a nightmare). Bring back the Acolytes, have them more active than they have been since they first showed up. There are all sorts of game modes that could easily be done with little back end work. I know they are a small studio, but surely something can be done. 
    
2. First and formost, remove Nezha from the sortie list and make it a dojo research. While they are at it, why not offer multiple sorties if they are going to go for so long, you still can only do each once a day, but you can choose from different reward pools. Or make an advanced sortie where you can bring back vaulted stuff. They could also let players select missions to do on various levels of nightmare modes to give the newer playerbase access to the nightmare mods like we had and with a higher drop rate for endo or access to these artifacts I hear about (limit it to 3 a day if you don't want to flood the market). I have spent over 500 forma on just equipment (not including forma needed to build items or rooms in the dojo). Give us a reason to keep doing that other than overkill.

I'm not going to doomsay and rant that the game is dying, it's not, but the path they are on right now is not a good one and they need to consider not just the success they have but how they managed to attain that success.

Thank you for your time.

You have valid points all around. It wasn't my intention to state that the game is dying when it isn't. Like I said earlier, TWW will probably amaze us, but how will their update schedule look afterwards? U20 can seem eons away from all of the perpetual delays. This is just speculation so we can't know for certain, but the path you mentioned is slowly causing the game to decline in terms of content as of now.

I do like your suggestions with how to fix some of the endgame issues. Multiple sortie seasons can alleviate the problem of oversaturation. Plus, those events you've mentioned do not seem hard to implement. Also, I have 8 Nehza sets and no one to sell them to, so that needs to be taken care of. :3

[melodicuprising]

1 hour ago, xXx_mtv_xXx said:

What makes you think TWW will bring a lot of content? It will probably be just a new quest with some minor changes to existing content. Don't get your hopes up.

On the contrary, I think the hype for the final part of this update is on the down low (from all of the waiting). TWW is the next cinematic quest, which is vastly different lore-wise (and perhaps gameplay-wise) to quests like The Silver Grove or Sands of Inaros. We have little confirmation on what will appear, but we can only assume it will be on-par with the Second Dream (hopefully better, given the massive delay).

[arch111]

I had a dream once.

When Steve talked about an immersive starchart and a Proxy War between factions. When he talked about adding Lore to the game. When he talked about Focus.

What has happened to that dream?

What we have is a Focus system that is not really used for anything more than passives. We have a social meetingplace that exist mostly for Fashionframe.

Granted, the Syndicates, Darvo and Simaris and Teshin are all a good blodtransfusion. So are the NPCs that exist there.

We have a ship, we have a dog and a cat, nothing wrong with that.

We have a fancy starchart that actually shows where we go, a planet or a ship, all good.

We have the Operators - a still a very underused feature - War Within will expand on that.

We have Conclave, something few asked for.

We have Lunaro that no one asked for.

We have Archwing, great in concept,  not as fun as the Coregame in reality.

We have Sorties and boss fights meant for endgame because they are so hard to do.

We have visual upgrades that are on going - PBR, animations,  stances, particles, grass, reflections, shadows, hd quality texturereworkes. There must be a big chunk of people doing nothing else.

 

BUT

We once had a Dynamic starchart, a war that raged over real control of planets and nodes.

We once had missions that were Dynamic that could have as many as 4 objectives.

We once had clear enemies like Vor and Alad that had real impact on the world.

We once had a Void that was mysterious that seemed like a magical treasurechest and that we would continue to explore.

----

Why is the starchart not immersive today? It was a good system. Why is the missions static?

Why don't we have clear enemies anymore?  They now feel like static Instancebosses, not real NPCs like they used to.

Why is the Void not used for adventure and mysticism? It had so much potential. 

Sorties could be mini quests that leave a mark on the world. Invasions could be part of a string of missions that give purpose and actually write a story that are recorded into the codex just like Gradivus.

Lunaro and Conclave could have universe meaning if that was tied into missions that spanned other missiontypes.

RPG Campaigns could be sewn together and even be trung together with other Alerts or Bosses for Epicness.

Like: Spy to find out location of prisoner. Rescue of VIP. Sabotage mining, do excavation = fight boss get loot.

- the game feels static apart from syndicatemissions. It CAN be so much more.

 

[Hypernaut1]

1 hour ago, arch111 said:

I had a dream once.

When Steve talked about an immersive starchart and a Proxy War between factions. When he talked about adding Lore to the game. When he talked about Focus.

What has happened to that dream?

What we have is a Focus system that is not really used for anything more than passives. We have a social meetingplace that exist mostly for Fashionframe.

Granted, the Syndicates, Darvo and Simaris and Teshin are all a good blodtransfusion. So are the NPCs that exist there.

We have a ship, we have a dog and a cat, nothing wrong with that.

We have a fancy starchart that actually shows where we go, a planet or a ship, all good.

We have the Operators - a still a very underused feature - War Within will expand on that.

We have Conclave, something few asked for.

We have Lunaro that no one asked for.

We have Archwing, great in concept,  not as fun as the Coregame in reality.

We have Sorties and boss fights meant for endgame because they are so hard to do.

We have visual upgrades that are on going - PBR, animations,  stances, particles, grass, reflections, shadows, hd quality texturereworkes. There must be a big chunk of people doing nothing else.

 

BUT

We once had a Dynamic starchart, a war that raged over real control of planets and nodes.

We once had missions that were Dynamic that could have as many as 4 objectives.

We once had clear enemies like Vor and Alad that had real impact on the world.

We once had a Void that was mysterious that seemed like a magical treasurechest and that we would continue to explore.

----

Why is the starchart not immersive today? It was a good system. Why is the missions static?

Why don't we have clear enemies anymore?  They now feel like static Instancebosses, not real NPCs like they used to.

Why is the Void not used for adventure and mysticism? It had so much potential. 

Sorties could be mini quests that leave a mark on the world. Invasions could be part of a string of missions that give purpose and actually write a story that are recorded into the codex just like Gradivus.

Lunaro and Conclave could have universe meaning if that was tied into missions that spanned other missiontypes.

RPG Campaigns could be sewn together and even be trung together with other Alerts or Bosses for Epicness.

Like: Spy to find out location of prisoner. Rescue of VIP. Sabotage mining, do excavation = fight boss get loot.

- the game feels static apart from syndicatemissions. It CAN be so much more.

 

I agree with this. My biggest disappointment is with this new star chart. sure, it looked pretty, but that wasn't the main issue with it before. Steve had plenty of awesome ideas for the star chart, but for some reason dropped them all for just a reskin.

IMO the navigation quick menu is what active planet nodes should look like. Sorties should tell a community wide narrative, maybe even playing a few days to a week. The map should be changing as if it was living, not be a mostly empty level select.

I hope WW is mind blowing. I like cinematic quest, but not if they're going to take a year to complete with all other side projects suffering (mag rework sl feels rushed).