Frame acquisition quests, and why Glast Gambit was better for not really being one.

[Trentiel]

Ever since we started getting these frame acquisition quests, it's puzzled me... why make a quest related to a specific frame before we acquire the frame, rather than after? Now with the Nidus quest, it's become a significant question again. So I'm going to try and formulate my thoughts and see what people think.

Up until recently, frame acquisition quests felt like an arbitrary series of events to time-wall frame acquisition, designed to annoy a player into throwing down platinum to skip the story. Incentivizing players to disengage with the games narrative... seems like a bad move. A good story can pull a player along when the grind feels like work. The cerebral engagement of mystery, tragedy, and comedy through a good story just has merit on its own.

I agree with the people who have said that The Glast Gambit feels incomplete. Like there should be more, or that the story cuts off, and we don't really learn anything about Nidus or about Neewa's exact role and abilities. However it is a marked improvement over previous frame acquisition quests, because it really isn't one. In fact, I really like the way this quest disconnects the grind for the frame from the quest itself and just focuses on telling a short story about Neewa's rescue.

A small bit of criticism for this quest. I feel like they could have opened up a new faction vendor here, that exchanges valuable infested stuff (like frame parts) for things found through the infested salvage missions. This way they could have given more context to this new game mode and made the Nidus acquisition clearer. Or leave the Nidus part farming as is, and allow you to trade in extra part blueprints for large bundles of mutagen samples? Something to help mitigate that woefully disconnected mutagen sample requirement for the Hema.

As salty as people are about this quest. I think this could actually be a good model for "frame quests" in the future. Use them to tell a story about the world, without much grind, but with a focus on contextual objectives and gameplay. Then at the end, introduce some way of acquiring the new frame that IS grindy, but independent of the narrative. A side objective. Then, maybe follow it up with a second quest with a set of missions geared around that specific frames abilities. This feels like a missed opportunity to have frame specific missions.

TO SUMMARIZE- Glast Gambit is a good model for frame acquisition quests. Create a non-grindy, interesting quest that gives us a lead on where to find the parts for a new frame at the end. Separating the frame grind from the narrative, and allowing us to skip a grind rather than the story. Then, as a point of personal suggestion. Once we have the frame, have a second quest with gameplay entirely geared around that frame. That maybe continues some of the previous story? EG. Excavate some ruins of Baro Ki'teers old colony by using sandstorm to unbury them? Or have Titania go infiltrate some special moon vaults focused around fairy flight to find information about what happened to people Silvana used to know before she began her new life as talking geography. Or in Nidus case, some involvement with the Mycona Colonists. Using his grabby tentacles to pull things together, maybe to reinforce failing sections of their ship.