[Raid Ideas] Two New Raid ideas that capture the essence of Warframe and what we have all come to love.

[MartianGHunter]

Background on why these Raids are needed

• The current Raids in the game do not show whether or not as a player you mastered the core game modes that the Warframe offers across the Starchart, these game modes being Survival, Defense, Spy, Sabotage, Exterminate, Mobile Defense, Interception as well as the Archwing game-play.
• The current Raids have enforced a Meta that has brought about mandatory frames to ensure guaranteed success which has eliminated the whole premise of Warframe which is that you can acquire any frame you want and become a true master at it and enjoy it it all(though not completely possible) content of the game.
• The current Raids are more a spam competition rather than actually game-play except maybe for the Jordas Verdict which is a brilliant idea that needs tweaks to get it to perfect sweet spot of challenging but also accessible to all.
• The current Raids also have a bit of a steep learning requiring players new to them to be carried and guided by veterans and the game is poor in offering any real guidance even in the basics of how the Raid mechanics work.
• In short, the current Raids need adjustments to make them viable and accessible to all Warframe players who are now looking for more of a challenge and a good example of how Warframe could go about this is using the method Destiny uses in their Raids to guide players without essentially spoon feeding them.
• With that said the rest of this post will be explaining the 2 new Raids i would hope to see implemented into the game, that will be easily accessible by the entire player base thus be viable for DE to implement as it will draw more players to the game.

Background on why they are 2 new Raids

• The idea of 2 Raids comes from the premise of 2 factions remaining without Raids - Orokin, Corpus.
• Each of these Raids will be focused on these factions and themed accordingly.
• They will take between 20 - 30+ min depending on how efficient the group you have is.
• They will also encapsulate a certain aspect of Warframe game-play that way it rewards players for getting all Warframes maxing them out and mastering thus they can serve an 'End-game' purpose rather than gather dust because Valkyr for example is solo frame and offers nothing in Raid (This is just an example with the current Meta with the Raids we have at our disposal.

That being said on to the Raids, I will describe each Raid individually and the lore that can be implemented along side it, Each Raid will consist of 3 phases and will utilize game mechanics already in the game. The enemies level will all be between 80 - 100 as this seems to be the balancing scale DE is aiming for and with Damage 3.0 coming soon this will help the Raids and hopefully negate cheese tactics from players and enemies (this hope for the near future). The premise of these Raids is to allow players (as I mentioned already) to be able to use all their frames for their strengths and weaknesses in high level, challenging and in engaging content as well as being rewarded for it as well as their maxed out gear.

Raid 1 - Orokin Raid - Name: Neural Invasion

Lore

Lotus has been scanning the Void had has stumbled upon a faint trace of what might be the Neural Sentry Motherboard. Knowing if this is the case it will be heavily guarded she assembles you the Tenno as a strike team 4 - 8 players to infiltrate and possible destroy this Motherboard which weaken all neural sentries in that Void region allowing Lotus' agents to enter and safely extract resources from them. Unfortunately Lotus has no way of scanning what awaits inside the Mother Tower and what dangers or traps maybe inside, thus she sends you in blind in hopes to discover more whilst your in the tower.

Phase 1 - Locate source of the signal and decode its meaning

• Lotus gets you into the tower and directs you to the source of the signal.
• You arrive at a Large singular tower
• This begins an interception mission but this is not a regular interception.
• Instead of the regular Interception of capturing 4 points and protecting them this one requires you to guard against a single point whilst Lotus decodes the message.
• The Neural Motherboard will send out as many corrupted enemies as it can towards in hopes to exterminate you.
• The 1st phase fails when the following occurs:

1. If all team members are downed
2. If all members leave the point and the Neural Sentry Motherboard regains control

• This first requires you to exterminate before your exterminated whilst still controlling the point(I know what your thinking bring CC frames and EV but you will know why this may not be so wise)
• After the signal is decoded Lotus instructs you to run to the next room (Your in a locked map after you succeed a door will open to next part of the map)

Phase 2 - Motherboard trap Survive whilst Lotus figures out a way to get you out

• As the title suggests you are locked into a new part of the map with 4 locked rooms.
• Each room has a single life support capsule that is slowly depleting.
• Lotus tells that on its own the capsule only has 2.5 min worth of life support
• This means that as you unlock each room to effectively stay alive you must constantly kill enemies for life support
• Now each room will have its own environmental hazards as the Neural Sentry Motherboard will try everything in its power to eliminate you
• The environmental hazards will differ from room to room e.g. radiation, fire, cold, electric traps throughout the room, viral hazard(whilst in the room team health is effectively half)
• These are a few examples the hazards will change every time you run the Raid so you can never be fully prepared
• The 2nd phase fails when the following occurs:

1. If all team members are downed
2. If the life support gets to 0%

• Effectively this is a 20 min survival with a twist requiring a change of game-play and strategy as you progress
• After 20 min Lotus leads you to the final part of the Raid.

Phase 3 - The Room Lotus located while she was decoding the signal

• The final phase of this Raid leads you into the Treasure room
• This Room will contain a single artifact (an arcane) that you must protect as Lotus figures out a way to get you out of the Tower as she has realized that it can not be destroyed
• The Neural Sentry Motherboard in final hopes of eliminating you or destroy the artifact your trying to steal will send out 5 waves of corrupted enemies that will each have different enhancements
• The enhancements can be the following(this is all subject to change depending on what DE feels is best): Augmented armor and shields, double damage multiplier, increased elemental damage of a particular type, resistance to specific elemental damage as well as but not limited to knockdowns, dispel auras that will reduce and or prevent the use of Warframe abilities on them e.g. Nova's MP will not affect them or Vauban's Bastille will not suspend them.
• Only one of these enhancements can occur in a wave and this is RNG-based thus it is unpredictable.
• The 3rd phase fails when the following occurs:

1. If all team members are downed
2. If the artifact is destroyed

That is the end of this Raid, obviously the details will be fine tuned by DE but this offers a challenge to players looking to kill and survive in true Warframe ninja style. And clearly there are many ways the Team can be built requiring players to have a good blend of CC, damage and Support in their respective setups. Note*I have not mentioned any condition or eximus units that completely take away energy this is because the Raid offers enough challenge without having to take away what makes Warframes great and it is important to observe that pure CC will not be enough to simply go through the Raid as tanks will be required cause these enemies will hit hard and we all know how squishy most CC frames, just a little food for thought here.*

Raid 2 - Corpus Raid - Armored Infiltration

Lore

The Corpus have located a massive score of artifacts(arcanes) from their explorations into the Void and are looking to transport them to a remote location so as to keep them safe for future profit to the highest buyer. Lotus has tracked down this massive cargo ship but getting in will not be easy. Due to the cargo ship coming out of the Void it requires time to re-power its drivers so that it can jump to the remote location which gives us a window of opportunity to strike.

Phase 1 - EMP madness

• The cargo ship has a high Magnetic Shielding which will prevent Tenno lisets boarding thus Lotus has dispatched EMP bombs around the cargo ships.
• They will be two bombs at opposite ends of the ship that will be arming simultaneously
• Tenno will need to use their archwings to protect protect the bombs whilst they arm meaning 2/4 players will need to protect a bomb whilst the other 2/4 protect the other one.
• The bombs will take 5min to arm after which Lotus will show you the vulnerable part of the ship for to land in.
• The 1st phase fails when following occurs:

1. If all team members are downed.
2. If one of bombs is destroyed.

Phase 2 - Spy insanity

• Once inside the cargo ship Lotus will tell that that she has discovered 8 spy vaults within the cargo ship.Key Point to note*By using a EMP Bomb on the ship this disrupted the communication between the forces outside and those inside thus you presence inside will be unalerted.
• Each these vaults must be successfully extracted for the next part to begin.
• These will standard vaults that we see across the Starchart with standard Corpus hacks(No ciphers allowed), moving stealthy is advised.
• Once all 8 spy vaults are hacked Lotus will tell that she has found a final vault that contains the artifact(these vaults only contained fragmented information)
• The final vault will be a new designed vault that required teamwork and good knowledge of how to spy in Warframe(watching enemy movements, remaining invisible, avoiding cameras and lasers etc) once this vault is complete move on to the final phase.
• The 2nd phase fails when the following occurs:

1. If all team members are downed.
2. If any of the 9 vaults are failed.

• Note*Detection before entering the vault will not result in failure as is the case in normal vault runs before you reach the vault.

Phase 3 - Strange discovery and sabotage

• Upon completing and retrieving the artifact Lotus discovers that the Corpus have also stumbled upon dangerous Orokin technology that could greatly strengthen Corpus proxies to Warframe levels.
• Thus Lotus instructs you to sabotage this ship so it never reaches its superiors
• This will involve simultaneously blowing up the 2 cores of ship in the normal fashion of Sabotage 2.0 thus the squad is advised to split up into groups of 2.
• After this is done Lotus will instruct you slaughter all members of this ship so that none will escape and report this to their superiors.
• The 3rd phase fails when the following occurs:

1. If all team members are downed.
2. If you fail to eliminate all the enemies in a specific time(It has to be a challenge in a way) as this will show that a member managed to escape, time frame can be decided by the Dev team.

That is the end of this Raid, more specific details can be added by DE. The point of this Raid is to use the more stealth oriented frame in a spy/sabotage mission which concludes with a fast paced extermination, this will see the use of more stealth frames such as Loki, Ivara, and Ash as will as speedsters such Volt and quick extermination frames such Ember maybe, as a good blend of frame that stealthy go through vaults and then have frames that can quickly eliminate enemies maybe needed. This is all up to how the player base will choose to setup their squads. Note that everyone in squad must be very well versed with Spy vaults in the game that way it will make the Raid more manageable and reduce likely hood of error. Due to the the slightly high challenge this Raid offers the arcane reward maybe more worthwhile.

Final Thoughts

This is not best ideas out there but it is a starting platform to get DE thinking of using in game ideas tweaking them up and combine them to form challenging engaging Raids that don't require you to stand on a button whilst spamming your abilities. Please do give your feedback and add on your ideas. Also the cool down will remain standard 24hrs for reward(Subject to change) but the raid is re-playable if you have keys for the sake of practice but keys will be consumed.

Also let's respect each others thoughts and opinions there is no right or wrong response but rather lets engage in a thoughtful decision.(BTW I have been playing Warframe for 2 years starting on PS4 (MR13) as a free to play player strictly now on PC (MR15) have put a put money where my heart is and invested quite a bit on PC, just encase you wondering how well I know the game and how long i have been playing.)

 

Edited September 22, 2016 by MartianGHunter
grammar errors