My thoughts on things other than the quest itself

[Babellon]

Having now played past the quest and my initial aggravation at that element of this update I feel its important to remember and recognize that there are many other facets to this update and would like to put my input out about them. 

The fortress- I love it. simply said. It  is engaging, very large, heavily populated and involved. Exactly what one would expect from a grineer high command fortress hidden in the middle of space. Dark and mysterious I have enjoyed hours of play opening all of the nodes there. I would like to see a not so dark ( I mean ambient light not atmosphere) map scheme since at times it seems like all the lights are off and I just cannot see any details or nuance. That of course could simply be the settings on my own screen so I move on. 

The missions- I have enjoyed opening and discovering the new maps and all the subtle areas within them.

a: That new assault mission is very involved and very fun. I know at some point someone is going to start a campaign to convince you to reduce the mobs, make many of the elements of the objectives either removed or auto complete for them.. I beg you DE do not do that. Finally we have a mission that needs time, patience, and willingness to work at it to complete. Thank you for that. Please keep it like it is. 

b: The survival map is very large, somewhat hard to navigate in a hurry due to the layers but nevertheless quite fun. The dark feel of the atmosphere and the chatter from the worm is simply hilarious and fun to hear. IT is a survival. I notice that there are a lot of mobs there, even in solo play, especially in solo play and I want all of the survivals to feel like that one does.

c: That Defence map is outrageous. The environmental obstacles and damagers are insane the first time I encountered them while opening the map node I was completely caught off guard. That was an experience I have missed in Warframe and while at the one side of the conversation I did not particularly care for that defence map, I did like being taken off guard and having to think on the fly to compensate for it. I managed to complete my initial 5 waves to which I am a bit proud of myself for doing solo. - On a side note, the mobs tend to stay hidden away in the outer ring making it at times very difficult to kill them while also staying near the objective to defend-=that is how ever covered in another part of this thread.-

d: I thought that rescue mission was quite fun and it took me several tries to figure out how to even get into the prison area to free the guy in at all. Maybe its just because it was new and all that but I really liked the feeling of going into a new place with unknown variables to contend with. I have a feeling many of us are going to see the prisoner die several times until we figure out that map properly. poor prisoner. With that said I'm not sure how someone is going to do that with a frame other than Ivara for the long term stealth to get past all the obstacles. I look forward to all the experimentations. which makes that map amazing by the way. 

e: The capture mission was a little crazy, that guy runs very quickly but I'm sure its just normal capture and I'm not used to doing those especially on an unfamiliar map. 

f: Enjoyed that spy mission greatly, it was nice to feel involved a little while keeping the feel of the mission type. 

I really love the new look of the grineer queens guard. That red and black armor seriously changes the feel of the faction. The armor on the kubrow is amazing. It makes them look ferocious and I love it. Basicly everything about the fortress's look and feel is wonderful. There is so much of it to explore and see, so many ways other than the direct route to take. Little additions like rooms with various basic things (cups, papers etc) around really add to the feel and ambiance of the location. I'd love to see more of that exact type of thing on all of the maps. It gives the entire system a feeling of life happening albeit statically. 

I started doing the invasions tonight and noticed 'the worm' talking to us;. the lotus said there was something strange happening and ordered me to check it out...Seeing that extractor pulling in the new resource for the grineer was highly interesting. The lotus told me to destroy it, and I tried, but I'm still working out how to do that or even  if I want to...can I destroy the grineer syphon in an invasion where I am aiding the grineer? I don't know, but Lotus seems to think I can. I wonder if some of that dialogue was meant to be a part of the mission because the queen also told the guards to kill me once it was done. They did not of course, but nevertheless it was an interesting conversation. I haven't done the corpus invasion side of it yet but I am looking forward to what I am going to encounter there. I hope it is equally as interesting.

The new music I am hearing is quite nice and as always I applaud the sound department for their wonderful work on Warframe sounds. Graphics seem to be improving with each update and I didn't actually know that was possible to make it more beautiful than it already has been. The art department doing backgrounds and such definitely deserve some recognition for their work on the maps and layouts. I like the new cavats look.Much more appealing than the flat face. 

the new operator mode: Whats the point of it? I like it,don't get me wrong. I find it both interesting and amusing to hop out of my frame and walk around a map, or my liset. But, whats the point of it? I die almost immediately in mssions. None of the skills last long enough, do enough damage, offer enough utility to be useful in any capacity that I have found so far with my various experiments. I cannot open inaccessible locations with it, I cannot traverse hard to reach areas, I am not using it to do anything at all that my frame cannot do....again I like it, I just don't understand its purpose in the games current state of play.

--A small correction to myself about the quest--My feelings about the quest stem from the sense of being trapped in it. Being unable to progress forward at times or revert backward to get a break from it. The stress of dying multiple times to elements I felt were completely outside of my control and through no miscalculations of my own actions delayed and hampered my ability to enjoy the actual story and experience. I feel it was marred by that aggravation and as such it is that which I remember more than the other elements of it. With that said, the beauty of that final scene with teshin on the mountain top was stunning. The story itself was in fact interesting and enlightening. Other than my annoyance and those resultant feelings I did in fact like many aspects of the quest but I do hope that in the future such quests will not have those types of stalling, breaking of concentration and enjoyment type situations. 

My apologies to the story writers if I gave such a negative impression.

now a small critique:

It seems we've locked the grineer into the 'coward' faction feel. I'd love to see that changed. I always seem to be looking at their backs, chasing them, searching for them rather than being engaged and attacked by them. They don't make me feel in danger, rather I feel like I'm attacking them as they are trying to retreat and escape me. This is not honorable combat. this is a tyrant attacking a weaker force and slaughtering them willfully with no regard. This is not the tenno way. The grineer are supposed to be a faction bent on war, bred on death. They should by highly aggressive, not passive aggressive. How many ways can they hide, lock the door evade? I often make the joke they are sticking their heads betwixt their legs to kiss their 'arse goodbye...This should not be the feeling we have fighting the grineer. I implore you to consider revamping their attack dynamics and making them the aggressive fighting, hungry for blood opposition those 'space zombie' war dogs deserve to be. 

The new mods: they seem a little weird to me. I don't know about the objectives to level or unlock them, many others are already speaking to that and I have only done one, which needed 45 headshots to unlock I did that while eating lunch, However do we need another way to make ourselves ultra powerful? aren't we already? it just seems a little excessive. Added to that, the random nature of it. I equipped mine to my vectis because that was the weapon I was using, and the weapon I wanted it to be for. When it was done it turned into strativor mod exclusively. I never use that weapon. could be have a way to alter the mod to apply the weapon of choice? Maybe have it apply to the weapon we attach it to when we unlock it. I don't know, I simply don't see the point of this mod in our already highly saturated mod pool. 

 

Edited November 14, 2016 by Babellon
edited for reasons