WARFRAME: TWO YEARS LATER.

[EscortAlpha]

WARFRAME: TWO YEARS LATER.

I joined Warframe in May of 2015, roughly when Update 16.6.3 was released.

In those two years, I’ve seen this game go through its fair share of changes; from the rework of Tyl Regor, to The Glast Gambit, from The Second Dream, to The War Within. But as with any ever evolving game, there are successes and then there are the miss-steps.
In this article, I will be talking about what I believe are some of those miss-steps and triumphs.

A bit of warning. Some of what I have to say in regards to the The War Within does contain spoilers.

 

THE WAR WITHIN:

The Kuva Fortress tile set introduced in The War Within is wonderfully militaristic: the grey and red rounded Grineer aesthetic erupting from the dark, jagged stone of the asteroid. The traps laid out across the maps, while feeble against most experience players, do serve well as a unique distraction and bolstering the atmosphere of this new region.

The quest, however, didn’t seem as polished as its direct predecessor . What looked like would be a story about being more literally ripped from your orbiter and forced to survive without it or your Warfame in the trailers, was reduced to a battle at the center of the mind. What could have been a truly epic battle between an exposed Tenno and the Grineer empire was reduced to a very “tell don’t show” exploration of the Zariman 10-0’s history. Like The Second Dream, we end the quest with a new weapons and a new power. 
While the staff has a unique and useful function, this new power is a one trick pony of the worst possible caliber.
Now, some may be saying that focus is a one trick pony as well. The difference between Focus and this new transference ability is how invasive or inharmonious it is with the abilities of a 

given Warframe. Focus can be used almost and as auxiliary power to the Warframes: a life line, a weapon of last resort. But most important, these focus abilities don’t hinder the Warframe.
Transference, on the other hand, are an outright downgrade from the previous mechanics: you have no real weapons, you take damage from falling, you can’t bullet jump. You can become invisible, but that steals energy from what little offensive capacities you have. It feels like an abysmal knock off of inFamous. And what does it do? It breaks Kuva siphons.

Our Operators are glorified can openers when they’re on the field. No tie-ins with their focus abilities, no capacity to use firearms or melee weapons, nothing. With all the talk about the different Tenno schools, one would think that there would have been some link between an Operator being directly in the field, and them being able to use there focus.
The only ties it has to focus is that it shares the same button, and cannot be separated from it: tap for operator, hold for focus.
Unlike the Ivara and Vauban that have a valid use for this kind of mechanic, focus and transference are diametrically opposed mechanics: one is on a timer that switches the player back to their Warframe when complete, the other is only really needed when a Kuva guardian or siphon is nearby. Focus may be needed in a pinch and may need a quicker deployment time, while transference has no practical use outside Kuva farming.

Transference feels unfinished, is only useful for farming Kuva, and conflicts with Focus on both a mechanical and key binding level.

SPECTERS OF THE RAIL:

Specters of the rail was a bit of a mixed bag. The star chart is wonderfully easy to navigate, and detaching planetary progression from the boss fights and node progression as a whole helps to get newer players into the fray faster (with the only exception being planets that require the moon be accessible to the player).

VOID RELICS:

They gave with one hand and took with the other. Yes, we can upgrade relics to improve our chances of getting rare parts, but the system to open them leaves holes where a player can be left behind before they can even open it, losing them a chance to gain a part they desperately want.

“Don’t fall behind.” “Play better.” Even a veteran player can fall victim to this: they enter an exterminate mission where most of the reactant had been used up. Their team doesn’t care that the mission end timer is going even if they say something.

A more personal item is that with the remove of void keys from the game, some of the lore has now been orphaned. What’s a void key? Why is the fact that the Stalker can make them impressive? What’s a Janus key?
I feel they could have implemented the mechanics of the void relic without sacrificing the lore: Maybe Keys could have acted as a onetime switch-teleport for items in the void?

But the thing that disappointment me was the loss of the social aspect Void keys had. 
A group of people get together to storm the void. They decide on a mission, select their keys and dive right in. four keys later, they’ve enjoyed their run but three have run out of keys and are about to call it quits. The fourth however has not run out, as says “what the heck, let’s give this thing one more go.” and lays down one last key.
One person could get four people a rare reward or a load of argon on a whim. I’ve been on both sides of this story.
This mildly altruistic aspect felt like a big part of the community. Now we have to check and double check that we all have the same relic because there are leaches out there now. Or that’s the perception anyway.

TYL REGOR:
After the rework, this is one of my personal favorites for a boss battle. His personality is perfectly sadistic and flamboyant, his attacks and movement speed are perfect for moderate players. And the dynamic environment gives the entire battle so much life. 

ARCHWING:

No game should be too easy. But the current archwing, especially in the corridors of a damaged Corpus ship, feel overly slidey and without finesse. While this may be a case of “right tool for the job” when it comes to missions like Race and Pursuit, a competent player, not just a veteran player, should be able to go in and not feel like is pure luck whether a mission is lost or won. And outside of those two mission type, the lack of precision in the movement leaves players flying aimlessly into walls and several meters passed their intended target.

Being able to move in 3D space does feel like a progression, however. Being a fan of Shatterd Horizons, I still feel archwing can be salvaged.

NITAIN/ ALERTIUM:

I hate this resource. With the exception of the Nidus (Thank you Digital Extremes) Every Warframe that has been released after the introduction of this grind agent have required it in its building requirements.
I’m one of those rare people that do have the time to watch and wait for this. Not many other people in the world do. I hope those poor people that got the Vauban Prime through relics while still holding down a 9-5 didn’t have to grind that long. 
Let’s do the math:
Nitain alearts occur roughly once every 6 hours at minimum. The Vauban prime requires 20 Nitain in total to complete. And let’s assume you don’t have any Nitain to start with, and you only have 5 hour of free time.
Assuming you manage to get a Nitain mission during those five hours, you’re looking at a minimum collection time of 20 days, Plus the 12 hours for the last part to build, and the next three days that Warframes take to construct.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NIDUS:

Aside from the fact that you have to get the parts from a modified interception mission (let’s face facts, that’s what it is), the blueprints for Nidus are, in my opinion, perfect: no decaying elements, no Nitain, and it even uses a mutagen samples as part of the crafting. I’ve always though that these research resource should have had a more practical application to crafting rather than simply being and ingredient to another ingredient. Well done, DE.

What about the rest of you? Newbies? Veterans? What’s your take? How has Warframe changed for you?

Edited December 25, 2016 by EscortAlpha

[NativeKiller]

How has Warframe changed for me?

 

A Ghost Clan needs 5000 Mutagen samples to research one single weapon, nuff said.

[NeithanDiniem]

20 days to build Vauban Prime is a paltry length of time compared to how long it takes some people to get normal Vauban. I know some people that took them 6 months to manage to be online or catch an alert for one of his parts. There are plenty of other absurd drop rate items in this game that take longer to get. I personally have gotten over 75 Dread BPs, 2 War BPs ,and a good 5 dozen blind justice mods from Stalker and nothing else, and I started playing back when you had to sign up for access in the closed beta. Vauban Prime is a joke compared to my luck with stalker's drops.

[Drasiel]

Awman why did you center align the entire thing? This makes it so much harder to read than it should be D:

[LuckyCharm]

Well I started way back before the release of vauban (original not prime) and the game was a challenge. The game is no longer challenging.

And that's not just because my weapons are forma'd and I have maxxed mods. No, it's because with so much power added to weapons that didn't need power added to them we have the likes of the tonkor with even basic mods can shred the entire starchart. We have the galatine and tigris prime, all the new hammers and a ton of other weapons like the simulor. 

To top it off enemies are given cheese mechanics like shooting through walls with flamethrowers, and the ability to completely turn my powers off or fuzz my screen with flies or poison. Not to mention all the sapping osprey spawns everywhere now. This doesn't make the game challenging it makes it annoying. 

Why do I still play? Because I still love the movement system, and while I'm completely overpowered with my frames, I still love most of their abilities. I just wish there was less energy regeneration so I'd be forced to think carefully on when I want to use them to best effect like we used to.

 

 

Oh and the nidus farm is killing me. 3 chassis, one neuroptics, a ton of endo, a whole stash of random common mods (from wave c rewards) and still no systems. 

[RideaTear]

I like the riven system. It gives me a reason to go back and try different weapons. 

I was really disappointed with The Glast Gambit. The first mission was great and I was getting ready for a nice adventure with the Myconia people. Then it turned into a boring repeating mission.

The War Within was okay and The Second Dream was good.

I'm pretty mixed when it comes to relics. I was pretty fed up with the key system before I went on a hiatus for a few months. I came back and the relic system was in place. I really liked the void tile set which I now feel is under used. Relics save time, something DE rarely implements. You no longer need to wait until rotation C for a desirable item and you can upgrade them. The down side is that 1 relic=1 reward and everyone needs one equipped. There is little point in staying past the first round in continuous missions unlike the key system where you could use 1 key and go through multiple rotations. I feel that recruiting chat has suffered.

[Aquifn]

The Glast Gambit was really disappointing to the point of possibly insulting. Started off fun and exciting, and turned into a forced repeated use of a prior map type.

 

The method of farming Nidus IS insulting. Forcing a terrible mix of interception/survival in which you must go 12-20 mins before even having a CHANCE at the drop, just to receive 80 endo.

 

Sorties could have been an amazing daily thing. Instead they're a beyond frustrating daily collection of 2k endo. And its only frustrating because of the reward system. I actually like the sortie missions themselves.

 

5k mutagen samples for my ghost clan. Really? It'll take YEARS to access that gun, and that's only if not a single other piece of equipment is released needing them.

[(PSN)Crixus044]

11 hours ago, LuckyCharm said:

Well I started way back before the release of vauban (original not prime) and the game was a challenge. The game is no longer challenging.

And that's not just because my weapons are forma'd and I have maxxed mods. No, it's because with so much power added to weapons that didn't need power added to them we have the likes of the tonkor with even basic mods can shred the entire starchart. We have the galatine and tigris prime, all the new hammers and a ton of other weapons like the simulor. 

To top it off enemies are given cheese mechanics like shooting through walls with flamethrowers, and the ability to completely turn my powers off or fuzz my screen with flies or poison. Not to mention all the sapping osprey spawns everywhere now. This doesn't make the game challenging it makes it annoying. 

Why do I still play? Because I still love the movement system, and while I'm completely overpowered with my frames, I still love most of their abilities. I just wish there was less energy regeneration so I'd be forced to think carefully on when I want to use them to best effect like we used to.

 

 

Oh and the nidus farm is killing me. 3 chassis, one neuroptics, a ton of endo, a whole stash of random common mods (from wave c rewards) and still no systems. 

I came in this game around the release of hydroid, and didn't seriously start playing it until operation gate crash. I whole heartedly agree with you on all points. I still remember level 72 enemies being difficult in at4 survival, and i remember the Phoenix Intercept being one of the hardest missions in game unless you had the right team setup. Now, I breeze through level 100 enemies with any frame and op weapon. It had put a damper on my excitement, but i hold out hope. Great topic op btw.

[Gunstray]

2016. Year of Disappointment. Or as what you Canadians say. THE CURRENT YEAR!

[EscortAlpha]

23 hours ago, NeithanDiniem said:

20 days to build Vauban Prime is a paltry length of time compared to how long it takes some people to get normal Vauban. I know some people that took them 6 months to manage to be online or catch an alert for one of his parts. There are plenty of other absurd drop rate items in this game that take longer to get. I personally have gotten over 75 Dread BPs, 2 War BPs ,and a good 5 dozen blind justice mods from Stalker and nothing else, and I started playing back when you had to sign up for access in the closed beta. Vauban Prime is a joke compared to my luck with stalker's drops.

You know what, you are absolutely right.