[Fan Concept] Thematic shift, new game modes, and new trial

[Malak-al-Maut]

Has anybody noticed that there are no "normal" people in Warframe?  There are only Grineer, Corpus, and Tenno.  Regular people are hinted at through the Sands of Inaros quest and Baro Ki'Teer himself but otherwise their oppression goes unnoticed.  Therefore, I am suggesting a massive shift in the theme of Warframe from one of the survival of the Tenno to freeing and defending the people of the origin system.

Lotus:  "Tenno, you have done well.  Our numbers have grown and you have become strong.  It is time to move beyond mere survival.  It is time to push back against those that seek to oppress the origin system.  It is time to protect those that cannot fight for themselves.  The code of the Tenno demands that we protect those that cannot protect themselves."

 

New mission type: Liberation

The Tenno are sent into a "normal" city with heavy occupation.  The purpose is to weaken or distract enemy forces enough so that local rebels can capture enemy supplies and fortifications to help liberate the city.  The player can choose several different paths to complete this mission.  1. Stealth assassin- the Tenno moves unseen through the city killing enemy combatants (Yay focus farm.)  If discovered the Tenno must kill all those that saw him/her before they raise the alarm.  2. Distraction- The Tenno purposefully or accidentally causes an alarm to be raised.  The Tenno must then kill as many enemy units as possible while staying within a certain area.  If the Tenno moves around to much then they will run across rebels trying to capture enemy supplies and the rebels could be killed in the crossfire.  The Tenno will be able to see on the mini-map the areas that the rebels are trying to get to.  He/she will need to draw the enemy units away from those area or kill them before they get to the rebels.

 

New Trial: Planet Fall

In an effort to help the local populace the Tenno are constructing on world bases.  The first phase of this trial is an archwing defense mission.  The Tenno must defend the drop ships bringing supplies to the new base.  This is fairly straightforward except there are planetary guns firing on the drop ships that need to be taken out before the ships come within range.  The team must split up and some land to destroy the guns while others remain in space and defend the drop ships.  The Tenno on the ground must infiltrate the gun emplacement and detonate the ammunition to destroy the emplacement.  Tenno in space should have some way of moving the drop ships or delaying them to prevent them from entering active gun emplacement range.  Gun range could appear as a red sphere extending up from the planet's surface.  There's an opportunity for some very cool visuals here with archwings entering the atmosphere and large gun emplacements detonating with an explosion large enough to be seen from space.  Phase 2 would be defending the landed drop ship from walkers (think AT-AT walker assault from Star Wars Battlefront.)  Grineer Titans would lumber across the battlefield.  Their shields and armor are to strong for the rebel forces to damage.  Tenno must run up to them and attack point blank by jumping onto the slow moving mecha and attacking its weak spot(s) revealing the power core which must be destroyed to stop it.  The number of Titans would be equal to the number of players +1 or 2.  Phase 3 starts when the first power core is destroyed.  Operator: "I'm overloading my warframe.  We will become the power core."  Players must have a full focus gauge to activate this ability.  There is a short cinematic of the warframe grabbing power cables that were attached to the now destroyed power core.  The operator appears behind the warframe and channels huge amounts of glowing light into it.  There is a flash and bolts of electricity arch out from the cables across the titan.  Grineer soldiers are seen running to jump off  the titan or being fried by by the shockwave.  The titan now glows with the operator's energy and is under the control of the player.  The player(s) then use the titans to smash the remaining titans.  Titans destroyed by another titan can't be taken over as the opposing titan will completely smash them.  The titans not under player control will turn to face this new threat rather than continuing toward the landing site.

Edited October 20, 2016 by Malak-al-Maut
Spelling errors

[Malak-al-Maut]

I realize this post hasn't gotten much attention but I'm going to add to it anyway in the hope that someone from DE will take a look at it.  I've been thinking and writing down some ideas and I've come up with some bigger and better options.

We would start with the Lotus addressing all Tenno.  The Tenno would be gathered at the relays in mass.  The Lotus would appear before them and give the speech described above talking about freeing the people of the Origin System and pushing back the Grineer, Corpus, and Infestation.  The scene culminates with thunderous cheers and war cries.  As we pull away from the scene though there are a dark and ominous figures watching from the shadows.  One figure moves away from a doorway (Teshin?)  one figure alighted on the rafters disappears in a puff of smoke (Stalker?)  And finally, from out in space a large shape (Sentients?) waits.

Phase 1

Solar Map Wide Invasion

The event would kick off by turning every location on the map except those in the void and relays into an invasion.  The mechanic would work the same as invasions and the Stalker acolytes with one difference.  The "health bar" for each invasion location will regenerate over time.  So, players must not only deplete the health bar by playing the missions, they must also continue to do so in order to make sure the health bar remains depleted.  This represents the enemies fighting back and attempting to retake the battlefield.  When all of the locations on a planet are depleted a special trial location opens up on that planet (The Planet Fall mission described above.)  The difficulty of the trial will depend on the level of the planet that the trial is on, being one tier higher than the planet.  For example, Earth would have a trial level of 6-16 while Pluto would have a trial level 40-50.  However, in order to do the trial the Tenno must use a Void Tower of the appropriate level from their clan that is collected from the tower capture missions described below.  While the tower used would be deducted from the team leader's clan the team need not be composed entirely of clan members.  The team leader is free to invite anyone who wishes to join.  Participating in the trial would be significantly different from LoR or JV in that you would queue for the mission similarly to the way you would queue for a normal mission.  Once queued, you would enter a "waiting room" where you could see the other Tenno waiting for the queue to fill.  That way, we don't have to wait or use recruiting chat to put together a team as long as we didn't mind a random selection.  This invasion serves several purposes.  First, it will get all players playing nearly all missions on the solar map.  Second, it will provide a reward goal of unlocking the trial when that is completed.  Third, this creates lower level trials for players that are not veterans to get their feet wet and lets them experience some end game content.

Void rework

The void would play a vital role in this battle.  The Tenno have very few spaceships and no warships of their own that we know of.  However, the indication from the void missions is that we are attempting to recapture the towers for Tenno use.  It's time to use them.  Towers would be "captured" by clans.  In order to capture a tower each clan must complete a series of tasks similar to opening the solar rails on the star map currently.  There would be four levels of towers that could be captured.  For example, a ghost clan might be required to complete Teshub four times, Hepit four times, survive 80 waves on Taranis, and kill Corrupted Vor in any mission in order to capture a tier 1 tower.  That means a team of four all belonging to the same clan could accomplish all the goals to obtain the tower in four missions (fairly quickly.)  Larger clans would require more work (they are capturing larger towers.)  As a bonus the clans that put their towers on each planet first (first one, first four, or the first planet done by each clan) would have their dojo permanently moved to the tower on that world.  So, if my clan was the first to capture say, Mars, or alternately if that was the first planet that my clan completed then our dojo tower would circle Mars on the solar map.

Phase 2

Planet Fall Trial (reworked and expanded)

I've made some refinements to my above idea for the planet fall trial.  First, the mission would begin by a group of Tenno (potentially more than 8) in an archwing exterminate.  Because of the complexity of this mission I think that having a mission briefing that describes the goals of the mission before each run and could provide some story (similar to one of my favorite games, "Homeworld") would be useful.  The lead tactical operator would come on and show a map of the planet that you are about to liberate.  The map would show an area with many enemy units that had to be eliminated on it before the tower could exit the void in that location.  The main purpose of the first part of the mission will be to exterminate any enemy forces in the area where the tower will exit the void and to take out any battleships (big guns) that could fire on the tower once it is in position.  Phase one will be an archwing exterminate.  Phase two will be where Tenno enter a battleship and destroy the core of the ship,  Tilesets and missions for most of this already exist.  After that there will be a 'reward cinematic' of the tower warping into location.  Once there, the tactical operator will inform the team that it will take some time for the tower's defense systems to come online.  Meanwhile, reinforcements have arrived.  The mission becomes a defense mission where the team must defend the tower (a large map) from several waves of enemies.  There should probably be several weak points (shield generators?) that must be defended.  Once the towers defense systems come online the players are again treated to a 'reward cinematic' showing massive volleys of missiles and lasers blossoming from the tower and annihilating scores of enemies (I'm thinking Macross Plus level scores of missiles.)  Now the mission diverges depending on whether the planet is a gas world or has a solid surface and which faction controls the planted.

Grineer rock planet

The Tenno team must defend drop pods with equipment and supplies headed to ground bases during entry as described in my previous post.  Once there, they have the Grineer Titans to deal with as I described above.  The main goal is to take out the orbital guns and defend the resistance fighters from the approaching Titans.

Corpus rock planet

Same as Grineer but the Titans will be giant bipeds and quadrupeds in the Corpus style.

Grineer gas planet

Tenno must defend pods bringing supplies to rebels in an asteroid colony or platform rather than the planet's surface.  The Tenno are notified that Grineer battleships are headed to the location of the colony.  The team must destroy the battleships before they can bring their heavy guns to bear while continuing to defend the colony from smaller enemies.  (These are not Balor Formorians.  Those will come later.)  The ships are to large for the tenno to destroy directly.  They will have to infiltrate the ships and knock out the power core.  However, once the core is destroyed the Tenno can 'posses' the ship similar to possessing the titans from the mission above and use them to attack the other ships.

Corpus gas planet

Same as above but with Corpus themed ships.

Infested

Something similar to the Jordas golem but I haven't come up with a good idea for it yet.

Phase 3

Retaliation

Vay Hek shows up with the Balor Formorian fleet to destroy the towers.  This mechanic has already been done but this lets the event have a permanent place in the game.  There would be a regular Formorian alert where Vay Hek was attacking towers.  Clans could potentially lose towers.  This serves the purpose of reusing material that was already completed and introducing a new game mode that was already tested and worked.  It also gives DE time to develop the next phase.

In addition to Vay Hek, the Corpus and Infested would be trying to destroy towers with their big ships.

Phase 4

Betrayal

Once there are towers on every planet of the solar map the real fun starts.  The Lotus is captured or possessed or revealed as a turn coat or otherwise disabled by the Sentients.  The Sentient return in force to destroy the threat posed to their existence by the resurgent Tenno.  The only chance the Tenno have is to rescue the Lotus and take out the Sentients at their base of operations... the Tau system.  This would open up a whole new map with insanely difficult enemies and bosses (not just Conculysts and Battalysts.)  An entire map of endgame content.

[Iccotak]

The game could definitely use this stuff. Had similar idea to the human city mission. Have a team of eight fend off grineer invaders on all fronts, include ground troops and have a turret to fend of airships. You have to keep a number of people safe or you fail the mission