Operators

[NanoVega]

SPOILERS GUYS! THERE ARE SPOILERS WOVEN THROUGHOUT THIS! DONT LET ME BE THE ONE WHO MESSED UP YOUR EXPERIENCE IF YOU HAVENT COMPLETED SECOND DREAM AND THE WAR WITHIN

 

 

I can't speak for everyone... In fact, I can barely speak for myself... But this is the feedback category, right? Here's some feedback.

I hate the operators. I hate these snotty little kids that took away the relatability of my space ninja killing machine biomechanoids. I hate them so much, I hate everything they represent, and it's really starting to make people like me hate the game.

I might be the only one, and if so, that's fine, I'll leave quietly. But I'm the past, I kinda looked up to the warframes. Silent vigilantes, each like their own sort of batman. They were just that awesome. Frost's cold determination, Ember's fiery extermination, oberon's quiet watchful eye, the way Nova could make enemies fly... It was special to each of them. They had personality. And now... We know they're just golems, puppeted by a kid in a stupid looking suit, with stupid lines and a stupid looking face. Not Frost's helm anymore... It's not his. It's not a warframe that could potentially mean something more than just a tool. But that's really what they are. They're extensions of some strange old child's will. I can't look at my mirage the same way, I can't look up to the strength of my rhino, because by giving them a face and a voice, DE has taken away their individuality. They're just a mask this kid wears now, they've been that way for a while, ever since the second dream. But for people like me, there was hope that maybe this obviously unhealthy symbiotic relationship would come to an end, maybe the warframes would be free of this puppet master, they teased that at the end of Second Dream, when your warframe moved on it's own, before the operator could control it without the transference device. But no. Apparently this operator having the ability to not only control the warframes without the transference device, but to actually inhabit the warframes themselves, is the "pure"est version of this way DE is going. And that sucks.

You don't get to have a character that's actually cool. Your character isn't Frost. My Frost Prime isn't... Mine... Anymore... It belongs to some fictional kid in another universe... And the way they're going... It'll never be mine again... It's time to give up whatever character you thought the warframes had. Because they all have only one character now, and as a result, have no character at all.

 

It seems like I'm just complaining, I pretty much am. But look at it like this... Three years ago or so, I was struggling to get up, everything hurt... It was hard to breath... They'd cut off life support... Things were going bad, my team mates were getting downed, we were running out of options. And then another player joined the game, a strange, freezing, sort of noise, and the bullets stopped whizzing by, a brisk touch of freezing air gave me the strength to look up and see hope. Clad in white and blue, Dual Zoren flashing as he flew across the battle field, slicing through enemies left and right, crushing through all opposition, coming back, and helping me get up, holding out my weapon to me that I'd dropped, and leading me to survival. 

 

That was my mag that went through that. She didn't have any hope left, they were all going to die, that was her last revive of the day, and the mission was going to fail. But she was saved. By a Frost who didn't know he was bringing about the conception of another Frost enthusiast.That Frost was the coolest personI ever knew, and I must have known him for all of ten minutes at most. But it was the Frost that saved my Mag, not some kid piloting a Frost through some convoluted plot machine. An Ember under the same account might not have saved me, not because they're just different ability wise, but because the character itself was different, and that's what we lost. The different warframes don't matter now, because in the end, it's the same kid in all of them, mine, yours, your friends'. All the same, all nothing when it comes down to it.

[Suncake]

Embrace the operator like operator embraced the void. 

[SenorClipClop]

I posted this yesterday in a very, very similar thread:

Quote

I don't with agree with you in this case, OP. But I understand you. Warframe persisted for a long time with entirely silent protagonists. This allowed the player to invent personalities based on the appearances and playstyles of the Warframes themselves, or just simply out of personal preference. This allows for the player to impart a personality to their Warframe. These personalities can be very different from player to player (you may see Trin as a "team mom", others may see her as continually angry, etc.), or impart no personality at all. When Operators came along, we suddenly were told that the Warframes we'd been imparting personality on didn't have this personality, had little to no free agency and were instead just shells for the Operators, who have some amount of voice and personality built in. This change can be very destructive to a player's perception of a game's characters.

In another example, Metroid Other M allowed Samus to speak for the first time in the long history of the franchise, and many people were incredibly unhappy about this. In lieu of a silent protag throughout the Metroid series, the player was able to impart whatever personality they wanted onto Samus, but when the franchise gave Samus a voice, many players found an incongruity between the character and how they imagined her.

DE mentioned before the release of the Second Dream that not all players would be happy with the outcome. Some would be angry at it. But it's clear that they had the Operator idea for quite some time and were going to implement it at some point. I for one am pretty enthused about this new element that is the Operators. They add an important foil to the Warframe. They are the "Tenno weakness", an element that is essential to our power but also quite frail. A being that, behind the cold and efficient metal mask, is still learning and making mistakes, can be gravely wounded and take some time to put things back together.

If you're still really pissed off about the change, there are some things you can consider. There is still a lot of evidence that points to Warframes having their own intelligence. The climax of the Second Dream is a prime example, with our Warframe breaking War without any connection to the Operator. While this may be a teaser to the improvements in Transference we discovered in the War Within, it may also be a sign that the Warframe is more than a high-tech golem. Despite all the mysteries that have come into the light, there's still so much we can only guess at. We still don't know what a Warframe really is or how it works, exactly.

From a gameplay perspective, you can toggle off the Operator popping up in the mission broadcasts, if you want.

 

[NanoVega]

14 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

I posted this yesterday in a very, very similar thread:

 

Respectable. I just kind of hate that they don't feel like they belong to the player. You can toggle the operator messages off, but there's still that kid sitting in the back of your ship, managing your focus. My friends and I used to have a joke that that kid is just the mechanic of the ship, not actually anyone of importance. I might go back to that head canon, but in the mean time, it's incredibly unfair of DE to add in this thing with no choice involved. They're telling us who our warframes are, not letting us imagine for ourselves, and that's kind of a horrible idea, considering the million different ways people can feel about something.

 

Its different for Samus, she's a defined character, belonging to the person who wrote her. But these warframes used to be ours, and honestly aren't anymore.

 

Im not asking you to make me feel better about it or anything, this post is mostly here to tell DE that there are still people who resent this change, if they even listen to the forums anymore, that is. Hell, the entire RP forum refutes Operators entirely. It's kinda funny.

Edited November 22, 2016 by ultimatumcore

[--RV--Meta]

27 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

I posted this yesterday in a very, very similar thread:

 

I feel that there's a pretty damn strong parallel between Samus pre-and-post Other M, and Tenno pre-and-post Second Dream.

I've been a huge fan of the Metroid series since my early childhood and throughout my life as a gamer, really. I liked Other M as a game, but still dislike how they portrayed Samus on the whole in that title. To me, even though she shows signs of hesitation here and there, she never really breaks down into panic attacks and becomes unable to fight effectively until that game...and it doesn't really make sense in the context of what happens because (spoiler I guess?) Ridley makes an appearance in damn near every adventure she goes on, so him popping up again after most of those adventures have already taken place suddenly giving her PTSD doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If they had waited on that and made it about the cloned Metroid Queen instead, I think that would have not only made more sense lore-wise--her feelings about the Baby Metroid would have resurfaced since she found it right after she destroyed the Queen the first time, and not to mention that the entire Queen section of the game was legitimately terrifying in its atmosphere and build-up (I was a little kid at the time, so yes it scared me)--but it would have been that much more understandable that a creature that only existed once before and was a horrific aberration and a real and present danger to the entire galaxy, suddenly being brought back into the mix...a freak out there would be more relatable. My reaction to Ridley was "So what? It's just Ridley. I kill this guy every year or so." My reaction to the Queen was "HOLY S#&$! There's another Queen! I'm so screwed!!!" So to me it was a miscalculation on their part to choose Ridley over the Queen.

Talked about that a bit more than I thought I would, but I do care about Metroid a lot (where's the next game already?).

Switch that to Warframe, and I agree with the sentiment there. Suddenly our stoic protagonist is given "Human" form and emotions...more so than that, the form and emotions of a teenager. It wasn't our choice, but we have to live with it.

Now don't get me wrong, I love The Second Dream and The War Within, both. Great quests, much kudos to all of DE for making them so good.

I'm not an insane fan of the Operator's present form, nor their fairly angsty 'tude. I kind of feel that by this point they would remember more, understand more, and be more mature, just from spending so much time using the Warframes and going out into the System. The physical weakness DOES make sense to me, too. The Warframes are supposed to be demi-god-like constructs of living metal, and thus nigh-indestructible. The Tenno...is an Orokin with Void goop. Squishy as hell makes sense when compared against the 'frames. I get it.

Now on that front, Steve and Scot have both dropped hints that a major leap in the Focus system is going to be coming down the pipes at some point, and I'm hoping that will introduce a new layer of survivability to our little squishies, along with some much-needed maturity boosts (really it's pretty close to them name-calling and blowing raspberries, and that takes me out of it).

I'm not suggesting that the Tenno should be as stoic as their Warframes, either, far from it. I'd expect a large and varying range of personalities for them, as much as the players behind the Tenno...but right now they're all lumped together under the blanket of angsty rebellion, and it's a bit cringey and a bit distracting when they're saying things that I'd never have them say. It's not as bad as Hayden as Anakin in the prequels...but it's in the same ball park....

Anywho, while the Pandora-cat is now out of the box-bag, I think that there can be some righteous improvements down the line, and I'm hoping that Steve and Scot are thinking along the same lines. Either way, I feel like I'll be able to continue to enjoy the game play.

[Flirk2]

I find it a little strange that for some people it's easier to relate to a faceless monster with super powers than to an unaging teenager with superpowers...

Those warframes, by the looks of things, were each built for an original Zariman child. The fact you can use them all doesn't change that. It was even reinforced somewhat by letting you use that Golden Maw.

Operator lines are almost always stupid and inappropriate. ''If we can avoid alarms it would be much easier''... Sure thing, let's do just that on a defense mission that just started! But you can turn those lines off, fortuantly. Teshin during quests babbling on about you beeing his pupil when you never went conclave once is much more annoying, IMO.

What I don't understand is why you absolutely can't be the child in the chair, that actually is a war veteran with god knows how many years of fighting (even if by proxy) under his belt? After all, the Void changed them, who can tell if they aged at all? No one knows how long the ''Old War'' lasted. But tenno culture was born, somehow quite distinct from the orokin. That can't happen overnight.

I just wonder, have you tried to look at the operator this way? That ''you are the tenno, you are the operator''? Just turn thier lines off, and suddenly it's not that hard to imagine. There is a reason so may people are against voiced protagonist in Fallout 4, for example. Much harder to roleplay when your avatar has it's own voice and says things that are out of charachter that you had in mind.

[NinthAria]

38 minutes ago, ultimatumcore said:

Respectable. I just kind of hate that they don't feel like they belong to the player. You can toggle the operator messages off, but there's still that kid sitting in the back of your ship, managing your focus. My friends and I used to have a joke that that kid is just the mechanic of the ship, not actually anyone of importance. I might go back to that head canon, but in the mean time, it's incredibly unfair of DE to add in this thing with no choice involved. They're telling us who our warframes are, not letting us imagine for ourselves, and that's kind of a horrible idea, considering the million different ways people can feel about something.

 

Its different for Samus, she's a defined character, belonging to the person who wrote her. But these warframes used to be ours, and honestly aren't anymore.

 

 

I respectfully disagree. There's a pretty good case to be made for warframes having their own (perhaps animal-like) intelligence and personalities. They don't speak, but there are other cues, like their animation sets (both poses and idle animations), the way they look, their powers, etc. Not to mention some of the stuff we've seen in things like The Second Dream or the warframe quests. Put another way: They were never completely ours, save maybe in the very early days of Warframe when every frame used the same basic animation set (and even that's debatable), but they're about as much "ours" after the establishment of the Operator as they were before. The Operator isn't the one who makes Chroma a hunter, Ivara an archer, Limbo a mathematician, and so on; they just add a new angle to the picture.

The unfortunate truth of any story you don't write, though, is that other people are going to tell you who the characters are. Even in games where you're given a lot of freedom to design "your" character, you're still exploring a possibility that somebody else designed.

Sometimes there's a lot of room for interpretation; sometimes there's not.

[NanoVega]

9 hours ago, Flirk2 said:

I find it a little strange that for some people it's easier to relate to a faceless monster with super powers than to an unaging teenager with superpowers...

Those warframes, by the looks of things, were each built for an original Zariman child. The fact you can use them all doesn't change that. It was even reinforced somewhat by letting you use that Golden Maw.

Operator lines are almost always stupid and inappropriate. ''If we can avoid alarms it would be much easier''... Sure thing, let's do just that on a defense mission that just started! But you can turn those lines off, fortuantly. Teshin during quests babbling on about you beeing his pupil when you never went conclave once is much more annoying, IMO.

What I don't understand is why you absolutely can't be the child in the chair, that actually is a war veteran with god knows how many years of fighting (even if by proxy) under his belt? After all, the Void changed them, who can tell if they aged at all? No one knows how long the ''Old War'' lasted. But tenno culture was born, somehow quite distinct from the orokin. That can't happen overnight.

I just wonder, have you tried to look at the operator this way? That ''you are the tenno, you are the operator''? Just turn thier lines off, and suddenly it's not that hard to imagine. There is a reason so may people are against voiced protagonist in Fallout 4, for example. Much harder to roleplay when your avatar has it's own voice and says things that are out of charachter that you had in mind.

I guess it's a matter of me being incapable of ignoring the truth of a thing. I can somewhat divert it, but I can't forget that the operator is there.

I honestly liked the idea that the operator was actually a mature and functional individual trapped in a child's body, that's an interesting concept, but The War Within seems to have been entirely designed to reinforce that the operator is, in fact, a stupid kid who makes stupid mistakes, throws tantrums, falls into obvious traps. The coming of age storyline they're going with seems to be saying that they really honestly don't know anything about how any part of their world works. The Operators know that they have a lot of power, and that they do what the Lotus wants them to do. 

[NanoVega]

8 hours ago, NinthAria said:

I respectfully disagree. There's a pretty good case to be made for warframes having their own (perhaps animal-like) intelligence and personalities. They don't speak, but there are other cues, like their animation sets (both poses and idle animations), the way they look, their powers, etc. Not to mention some of the stuff we've seen in things like The Second Dream or the warframe quests. Put another way: They were never completely ours, save maybe in the very early days of Warframe when every frame used the same basic animation set (and even that's debatable), but they're about as much "ours" after the establishment of the Operator as they were before. The Operator isn't the one who makes Chroma a hunter, Ivara an archer, Limbo a mathematician, and so on; they just add a new angle to the picture.

The unfortunate truth of any story you don't write, though, is that other people are going to tell you who the characters are. Even in games where you're given a lot of freedom to design "your" character, you're still exploring a possibility that somebody else designed.

Sometimes there's a lot of room for interpretation; sometimes there's not.

But all the animations and things are interchangeable, I can literally make Rhino walk around and blow kisses like Mirage does if I felt like it, writing a story isn't necessarily free range to entirely take away room for interpretation that people previously had.

I used to play under the belief that Operators simply provide energy that the warframes need in order to move, and that the warframes take care of the Operators and do as they say in return. This would have probably been a far better turn to take. Nobody really liked the Operators originally, and DE ignored all of us. Which kinda stings, because quite a large part of the people they ignored previously thought that their opinions mattered.

In most games where you get to create your character, they're very careful to write them in such a way so that it feels like these things are happening to your character, and you get to choose how to respond, rather than outright telling you who your character is and how they'd act. Back to the Samus thing, Samus is literally a named, voiced character, not yours, but the game developers succeed in making you feel like the way you played was yours, you could choose to use different weapons or abilities to beat the game. Here, the warframes used to belong to us, but are now, and reinforceably, no longer ours, the operator controls them, whether you like it or not, and it'll be uncomfortable for people like me for as long as that persists.

[NanoVega]

At this point, I'd honestly opt out of having focus powers completely. Energy regeneration is nice, and invisi-crits and Instarevives are incredibly helpful, but honestly not worth the lore implications. I'd rather kill off my Operator than have him remain around and in control of the warframes, because the warframes are pretty much confirmed as nothing but puppets with the operator in existence. You can say all you want that the warframes have some form of agency, with what happened at the end of Second Dream, but watching my warframe hang there limply when transference cuts off is much stronger evidence that no, the warframes aren't even technically alive without the operator, as a result of the operator.

If it seems like I'm mindlessly complaining, imagine a game where we could be rid of the operator, but need the energy to move through a different means. A grineer or corpus or even infested power source. You'd pledge yourself to one of them, and work for them as a result. It'd not only open up the lore a bit so it's not so two dimensional, but open up a lot of options gameplay wise. We've sat through thousands of missions wiping out all opposition, but we've never seen the diplomatic power a warframe could have. They have no personality themselves, and it'll keep coming back to that.

[Flirk2]

2 hours ago, ultimatumcore said:

I guess it's a matter of me being incapable of ignoring the truth of a thing. I can somewhat divert it, but I can't forget that the operator is there.

Well, the truth is, you are the operator. It's your actions that matter. The lines operator says in the quest are annoying, sure. Pulling out an object that is sticking out of your leg is just the wrong course of actions if you can't bandage the wound. You'll bleed out, after all... And the lack of options is annoying also. But it's a thing in video games. There are usually only 4 options in dialogues now, and they usually amount to ''a) stupid, b)more stupid, c) slightly less stupid, d) monumentally stupid''.

Can't be helped, really. As it was pointed out in some other thread... ''Stupidity Is the Only Option'' http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StupidityIsTheOnlyOption

2 hours ago, ultimatumcore said:

I honestly liked the idea that the operator was actually a mature and functional individual trapped in a child's body, that's an interesting concept, but The War Within seems to have been entirely designed to reinforce that the operator is, in fact, a stupid kid who makes stupid mistakes, throws tantrums, falls into obvious traps.

Then you have an option to still think of the operator as such. Falling for obvious traps could be explained by the warrior mentality:

''The Way of the Samurai is found in death.'' as Yamamoto Tsunetomo put it. They might be called space ninja often, but really, what ninja ever had a kill count in millions? What ninja depopulated the area during a spying mission? And what ninja ever took a sword longer then he is tall for a mission? They are much more space samurai than space ninja.

Tantrums... Well, it all was rather short clips without that much detail that could not be ignored.

2 hours ago, ultimatumcore said:

The coming of age storyline they're going with seems to be saying that they really honestly don't know anything about how any part of their world works. The Operators know that they have a lot of power, and that they do what the Lotus wants them to do. 

True. But it all can be explained by Teshin being slightly daft. He calls you his pupil even if you never once went into conclave, after all... How much more delusional one can get? :-)

And he hides facts from you till the last second. After bashing Lotus for the same thing in the Second Dream...

As for Lotus... Well, Alad V nailed her: ''you'll make a fine villain, Lotus''. But who else to listen to? There are no good sides in that conflict. No unquestionably good organizations at least.

Could operators be more... more? They could. But writing about what warriors are like is difficult in a world of entertainment. The response for an honest depiction of what realistic Tenno would look like and how they would act would not be good. They would need to go against all those TV tropes. And that would not go well with the general audience.

I wonder though, how many people desperately wanted an option to void blast Teshin from that mountain in the end?

[Shockwave-]

You are not alone. I play video games to be, well me... doing something else. I played until 2nd dream just that way. Vicarious action. The DE basically said nah, you are a kid playing a video game.... what a let down. It dovetailed nicely with the unlimited revive change to explain why you could revive 100 times a day without consequences. I prefered actual death consequences and wanted to avoid it rather than "let me die i need my carrier back" because now who cares, you aren't letting your buddy die, it's just a puppet, they will restart in a minute like a blue screened PC.

I despised 2nd dream for the story it told. It took away all semblance of escapism that video games are usually played for. The saving grace was it could be 100% ignored by players who wanted to play a game by putting themselves in the protagonist role.

TWW now forces you to play as the operator for Kuva... and I forsee more and more as they tweak the operator system. I still try to ignore it, but that makes Kuva missions seems like game breaking chores that have to be suffered through. I'll still try to ignore it as much as possible and play the game as my badass space ninja self. I just wish DE hadn't caved to the prepubesent hero a la harry potter /hunger games/divergent/ maze runner/the 100, etc etc. the trope is getting played out.

[NinthAria]

11 minutes ago, Shockwave- said:

 I just wish DE hadn't caved to the prepubesent hero a la harry potter /hunger games/divergent/ maze runner/the 100, etc etc. the trope is getting played out.

Considering there were hints in the game about the nature of the Tenno years ago (as early as U14), I don't think this is something they caved on. Also, it's fairly well documented that the devs take a lot of inspiration from other games and early animes; if there's anything they're taking cues from with the Operator/Warframe relationship, it's Evangelion.

 

3 hours ago, ultimatumcore said:

But all the animations and things are interchangeable, I can literally make Rhino walk around and blow kisses like Mirage does if I felt like it, writing a story isn't necessarily free range to entirely take away room for interpretation that people previously had.

I used to play under the belief that Operators simply provide energy that the warframes need in order to move, and that the warframes take care of the Operators and do as they say in return. This would have probably been a far better turn to take. Nobody really liked the Operators originally, and DE ignored all of us. Which kinda stings, because quite a large part of the people they ignored previously thought that their opinions mattered.

In most games where you get to create your character, they're very careful to write them in such a way so that it feels like these things are happening to your character, and you get to choose how to respond, rather than outright telling you who your character is and how they'd act. Back to the Samus thing, Samus is literally a named, voiced character, not yours, but the game developers succeed in making you feel like the way you played was yours, you could choose to use different weapons or abilities to beat the game. Here, the warframes used to belong to us, but are now, and reinforceably, no longer ours, the operator controls them, whether you like it or not, and it'll be uncomfortable for people like me for as long as that persists.

The trouble with a story that's constantly growing (especially one that grows relatively slowly, like Warframe does) is that sometimes those blank spots that we love to fill in are things that the authors just haven't gotten to yet; any attempt by the devs to fill those in is, inevitably, going to take away some of that wiggle room for us. There were a million different headcanons about who (and what) the Tenno were prior to The Second Dream--I certainly had mine. Then the mystery was solved, and those of us who filled in those blanks for ourselves--sometimes in great detail--had to adjust. Was it for the best? Hard to say. This is the paradox of mysteries: They can't stay a mystery forever, but they stop being interesting once the truth is out.

Also, I think it's a bit presumptuous to say that nobody liked the Operators when Second Dream came out. I remember pretty clearly that there was a sizable divide on the forums, with a great many people both liking and disliking them. I won't argue which side was right, because it's a matter of taste to a large extent, but I'm quite fond of the whole arrangement.

That all said, if the issue is that the warframes don't feel "yours" any more, I'd remind you that the Operator, too, is in large part your own creation as well. Even if, in-character, the choice to dress up Rhino Prime in bright pink with Titania animations is made by the Operator, what the Operator does is still dictated by you; by extension, they're still your decisions, and therefore your results.

[NanoVega]

38 minutes ago, NinthAria said:

Considering there were hints in the game about the nature of the Tenno years ago (as early as U14), I don't think this is something they caved on. Also, it's fairly well documented that the devs take a lot of inspiration from other games and early animes; if there's anything they're taking cues from with the Operator/Warframe relationship, it's Evangelion.

 

The trouble with a story that's constantly growing (especially one that grows relatively slowly, like Warframe does) is that sometimes those blank spots that we love to fill in are things that the authors just haven't gotten to yet; any attempt by the devs to fill those in is, inevitably, going to take away some of that wiggle room for us. There were a million different headcanons about who (and what) the Tenno were prior to The Second Dream--I certainly had mine. Then the mystery was solved, and those of us who filled in those blanks for ourselves--sometimes in great detail--had to adjust. Was it for the best? Hard to say. This is the paradox of mysteries: They can't stay a mystery forever, but they stop being interesting once the truth is out.

Also, I think it's a bit presumptuous to say that nobody liked the Operators when Second Dream came out. I remember pretty clearly that there was a sizable divide on the forums, with a great many people both liking and disliking them. I won't argue which side was right, because it's a matter of taste to a large extent, but I'm quite fond of the whole arrangement.

That all said, if the issue is that the warframes don't feel "yours" any more, I'd remind you that the Operator, too, is in large part your own creation as well. Even if, in-character, the choice to dress up Rhino Prime in bright pink with Titania animations is made by the Operator, what the Operator does is still dictated by you; by extension, they're still your decisions, and therefore your results.

While I do feel that everything you've said here is true, I'm afraid none of it can change the opinions I have about the operator. I've tried to like them, but that only bothered me more than anything, so it seems like that design choice will always be something I hate, and I'm just advocating that. Thank you for your rather Herculean effort in trying to help.

[SenorClipClop]

14 hours ago, ultimatumcore said:

Its different for Samus, she's a defined character, belonging to the person who wrote her. But these warframes used to be ours, and honestly aren't anymore.

Here I disagree with you. As attached as we are to the Warframes and whatever personalities we have imparted upon them, they have always been and always will be DE's intellectual and creative property. They have complete control and agency of what is done with these ideas. All we have the right to as players of the game (many of us free players at that) is how we perceive and imagine those ideas.

Samus was never a defined character. Before Other M, she never spoke, and the only writing of hers we ever saw (in the intro of Fusion, I believe?) was purely a recollection of facts and a statement that she missed her old friend Adam. The best we got were simple gestures in cutscenes of the Metroid Prime series, actions which were also pretty generic. Any personality we as players attribute to Samus over her 20+ year existence come entirely from our own imaginations, based on the choices we make in the games. It's a similar case with the Warframes/Operators.

Warframe has, for its 3 and a half years, remained  very Canadian in terms of its design. It likes to make sure that everyone is having a good time and that no toes get stepped on. It has numerous game modes that are mostly there for enjoyment and have no huge bearing on the game (Archwing, Lunaro, etc.), and they keep developing these alongside the core of the game because a group of players, however small, enjoy the game mode and want to keep playing it. It remains very additive, only taking stuff away when they realize it trivializes large portions of gameplay (looking at you, Blind Mirage).

However, sometimes they want to make firm, decisive steps in a particular creative direction. It is their game, their vision. They have every right to do this. In being so inclusive and additive, Warframe usually allows for many different perceptions of the same game by different players in the same  space without conflicting. I can play stealth, speedrun or full artillery all in exactly the same mission by only modifying my approach to it (and sometimes my Matchmaking preferences). But it's jarring when something like the Operators comes around and makes a step in one particular direction, because many players have until that point thought something else and never been called incorrect.

Nobody's trying to change your opinions, but we'd like to show you that even though many people dislike the Operators, many people like them too, and that DE has every right to do what they want with their game even if it upsets some of the player base. (Steve firmly stated pre-Second Dream that not everyone would be happy with the story.) I personally really enjoy the Operators, the further knowledge we have of the Tenno and all the stuff that's come with it. If you want to get more into that, let me know.

[NinthAria]

2 minutes ago, ultimatumcore said:

While I do feel that everything you've said here is true, I'm afraid none of it can change the opinions I have about the operator. I've tried to like them, but that only bothered me more than anything, so it seems like that design choice will always be something I hate, and I'm just advocating that. Thank you for your rather Herculean effort in trying to help.

That's entirely understandable. Even DE said there'd be a lot of people who wouldn't like it; that's the truth of any big revelation, no matter how cleverly written (or not). Best advice I can give is to turn the Operator voices off and toggle the hood on. It's not a perfect solution, now that they're pretty directly involved in the story, but it helps preserve that silent-protagonist fantasy for day-to-day playing.

[StabbyTentacles]

14 hours ago, Flirk2 said:

I find it a little strange that for some people it's easier to relate to a faceless monster with super powers than to an unaging teenager with superpowers...

I believe the hardest part is the lack of choice.

It's easier to relate to a faceless monster, because I chose it, in many cases I grinded it out, then I built it, then I leveled it, then I mastered it; also it was fun.

The unaging teenager with superpowers... was shoved down my throat, I was given no choice; I was now an unaging teenager with superpowers, where as before I was an awesome warframe; also playing UTSP is dull, and no where near as much fun as warframes.

It's a little strange/mystifying that some people like a third avatar, controlling the second avatar imo. 

**Everything the UTSP/Tenno executes/does ingame could easily, and far more convincingly be executed/done by the warframe.

 

[Flirk2]

5 minutes ago, StabbyTentacles said:

The unaging teenager with superpowers... was shoved down my throat, I was given no choice; I was now an unaging teenager with superpowers, where as before I was an awesome warframe; also playing UTSP is dull, and no where near as much fun as warframes.

Well, I'm not in love with how Operators are implemented. It would make a lot more sense, IMO if using Transference removed the Warframe into the Void. Same way ending Transference now brings your warframe to the spot where the Operator is. Just make death as operator work the same as ending transference and done. You already get a masive debuff, after all.

That way you would always be the Tenno. You would just change your avatar to suit your needs. A different body for a different set of powers. The same way you change Warframes but mid-mission.

And all they needed to do that was:

1) Implementing Transference the same way Equinox's Metamorphosis is implemented, maybe even with some thing (gear item, maybe? or exilus mod on a warframe) giving the same functionality as that of an augment for it.

2) Give the Operator 300 Health and 300 shields.

3) Make the beam deal %(opponents health) damage.

4) Let the Operator ROLL

5) give about 4 times more energy regeneration when not shifted, twice as large energy pool and about 5hp per second Health regeneration while in the void shift.

 

But there could be 1 thing that they could do to make playing as Operator worth it even as it is.

Let all the affinity gained by the Operator go to the primary focus school. (Special missions with focus points as a reward like syndicate system would be even better...)

Because it doesn't make any sense why would you only get focus through lenses on your gear when you can get things done and gain affinity as the Operator that has no way of leveling.

[RistN]

I already said that Warframe reminds of Ben 10.Operator part that is.Some kid taking form of space ninjas....

[FrostyEmbers]

I kinda agree with you. But after TWW, I feel more connected to the operator, more like my operator. Although I highly agree with your point about the unique personalities of the frames. It just doesnt really feel the same anymore. Well, you just gotta go with the times and embrace it i guess.

[Shockwave-]

17 hours ago, NinthAria said:

Considering there were hints in the game about the nature of the Tenno years ago (as early as U14), I don't think this is something they caved on. Also, it's fairly well documented that the devs take a lot of inspiration from other games and early animes; if there's anything they're taking cues from with the Operator/Warframe relationship, it's Evangelion.

 

So you look like you are disagreeing with me, then agree with me considering evagelion. That would be part of the "etc". There are lots of examples. Regardless your issue with the fact that "years ago" there were hints doesn't mean much considering those hints post date everything I mentioned, so I think I missed your point there.

In any case the Warframes were much better as silent question marks as to what was inside. That let everyone project what they wanted. Pigeon holing people into a prepubescent puppermaster safe in his liset was, I think, a bad choice for a game.

[NanoVega]

18 hours ago, Flirk2 said:

Well, I'm not in love with how Operators are implemented. It would make a lot more sense, IMO if using Transference removed the Warframe into the Void. Same way ending Transference now brings your warframe to the spot where the Operator is. Just make death as operator work the same as ending transference and done. You already get a masive debuff, after all.

That way you would always be the Tenno. You would just change your avatar to suit your needs. A different body for a different set of powers. The same way you change Warframes but mid-mission.

And all they needed to do that was:

1) Implementing Transference the same way Equinox's Metamorphosis is implemented, maybe even with some thing (gear item, maybe? or exilus mod on a warframe) giving the same functionality as that of an augment for it.

2) Give the Operator 300 Health and 300 shields.

3) Make the beam deal %(opponents health) damage.

4) Let the Operator ROLL

5) give about 4 times more energy regeneration when not shifted, twice as large energy pool and about 5hp per second Health regeneration while in the void shift.

 

But there could be 1 thing that they could do to make playing as Operator worth it even as it is.

Let all the affinity gained by the Operator go to the primary focus school. (Special missions with focus points as a reward like syndicate system would be even better...)

Because it doesn't make any sense why would you only get focus through lenses on your gear when you can get things done and gain affinity as the Operator that has no way of leveling.

You're talking about making the operator better. Whereas my point with this post was that Operators should be removed entirely. They break the game immersion.

[NinthAria]

8 hours ago, Shockwave- said:

So you look like you are disagreeing with me, then agree with me considering evagelion. That would be part of the "etc". There are lots of examples. Regardless your issue with the fact that "years ago" there were hints doesn't mean much considering those hints post date everything I mentioned, so I think I missed your point there.

My point was that this is something they've clearly been thinking about for a long time, not a snap decision they made to cater to trends. If your argument is that they're copycatting or caving to popular culture because Warframe includes a teenage protagonist and elements of a coming-of-age story, then I don't know what to tell you besides those kinds of stories are hundreds, even thousands of years old.

 

8 hours ago, Shockwave- said:

In any case the Warframes were much better as silent question marks as to what was inside. That let everyone project what they wanted. Pigeon holing people into a prepubescent puppermaster safe in his liset was, I think, a bad choice for a game.

Whether or not it was better is a matter of opinion. Personally, I really like the whole setup, even if it went against what I thought the Tenno were originally. It added a new dimension to the Tenno that wasn't there before (namely a weakness), and in the process shed a lot of light on other elements of the universe, like what the Orokin were really like. It does also constrict head-canons. A lot, even. It's understandable that people might not like that. As I said before though, the unfortunate truth of filling in the blanks of a story is that they might get filled with things that challenge the story we wrote for ourselves, or things we just plain disagree with. But I don't know that it's any better to just leave people wondering for eternity either.

Also, I think War Within made it pretty clear that the Operator's not as safe in the Orbiter as he/she might think.

[Angrados]

On 11/21/2016 at 11:45 PM, NinthAria said:

The unfortunate truth of any story you don't write, though, is that other people are going to tell you who the characters are. Even in games where you're given a lot of freedom to design "your" character, you're still exploring a possibility that somebody else designed.

You know, it's curious that you bring up this point, since I just got in an argument with my professor over this.

Basically, the moment that you release your story into the public eye the story is no longer yours, the canon is no longer yours, most things about the story are no longer yours--the author has the least say over what people think about their story. This, arguably, flies in the face of what you're suggesting, and frankly I have to disagree with your point. As much as I like the concept of the operator, and as much as the sentiment that they apparently don't exist is out there, I also have to look at the outrage surrounding it as quite valid. Basically, we cannot invalidate the opinions of the fanbase, as they are as much generators of the canon as the writers of the story are.

 I think that the outrage, while justified, is somewhat disappointing. I like the concept of the Operator, and I like the changes that TWW brought with it, even if the system itself feels horribly, horribly skeletal in nature and in need of some serious work. That said, I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops, and I think that the longer that we spend dealing with the operators and bringing them to a point where they're actually usable, the more we'll get used to the concept. It's gonna take a while, though.

[NinthAria]

7 minutes ago, Angrados said:

You know, it's curious that you bring up this point, since I just got in an argument with my professor over this.

Basically, the moment that you release your story into the public eye the story is no longer yours, the canon is no longer yours, most things about the story are no longer yours--the author has the least say over what people think about their story. This, arguably, flies in the face of what you're suggesting, and frankly I have to disagree with your point. As much as I like the concept of the operator, and as much as the sentiment that they apparently don't exist is out there, I also have to look at the outrage surrounding it as quite valid. Basically, we cannot invalidate the opinions of the fanbase, as they are as much generators of the canon as the writers of the story are.

To a degree that's true. When a story gets out, there's nothing the author can do to control people's opinions. (And even if they could, they'd be foolish to do so for a lot of reasons.) I wasn't trying to say people's opinions are invalid, or that they're not allowed to like (or dislike) certain developments in the story, but that rhetoric like "the story would be better if _____ happened instead" is a matter of opinion, and a matter that can be debated endlessly at that. Such things are useful, but only if change is realistic; few authors would commit the time required to rewrite an entire story once it's shipped, and considering DE's (already somewhat slow) development cycle and the effort they've put in already, I don't see them doing any rewrites around the Operators any time soon, if ever.

That all said, feedback on the story can be useful going forward, as long as it focuses on problems with the story and not trying to write the story ourselves.

19 minutes ago, Angrados said:

 I think that the outrage, while justified, is somewhat disappointing. I like the concept of the Operator, and I like the changes that TWW brought with it, even if the system itself feels horribly, horribly skeletal in nature and in need of some serious work. That said, I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops, and I think that the longer that we spend dealing with the operators and bringing them to a point where they're actually usable, the more we'll get used to the concept. It's gonna take a while, though.

On this, we're in agreement.