The Second Stream Podcast: Cyst, Hema resource cost, Damage 3.0, & Special Guest [DE]Steve!

[Blakrana]

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1. What's your view on the contagious Warframe Cyst?

As of the moment, there's two core issues as I see this aspect.

1) You have no control over being infected during missions, and removal remains unclear on just how precisely it'll work.

2) It's rather underwhelming in the grand scale of things at this time.

In regards to my first point, whilst yes diseases and illnesses aren't an 'opt in' thing in reality, genuine diseases at least have vaccines and countermeasures. Let's be frank, nobody wants to be ill by choice (or at least nobody sane). A situation easily out of our control, and essentially rendering people a limited set of options to resolve it, is in poor taste in a game which has the breadth of character customisation as one of its strongest elements.

In regards to my second point, the current use of the Cyst to create a charger variant is so far, somewhat unremarkable. Not to say others can't like it or find it an amusing diversion, but for all the build up and teasing about this room up to now...It's not really much of a pay off for the wait. Of course...Helminth itself is at least an interesting existence...however I'm sincerely hoping that this entity will have a much more interesting use than providing biomass to create more mutant mongrels.

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2. Do you have difficulty meeting the resource costs required to craft new weapons?

On occasion. As it stands I'm able to get most basic resources easily...but resources with a specific acquisition only can prove irritating. Cryotic and Kuva as of the moment I feel are in need of some other way to acquire it, beyond the dedicated modes just to provide an alternative. Doing the same thing repeatedly just gets tiresome and discouraging. Variation at least lessens that issue.

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3. Do you think weapons should require a significant time and/or resource investment to craft?

Personally, I believe that should be dependant on the supposed power of the weapon in question, and at what point it should be accessible. A weak weapon that is hard to make can simply be ignored. A strong weapon that is easy to make is compelling and competitive when one has limited supplies.

However...in as much as attempts to 'sink' resources go...it's a losing battle. Trying to drain out the resources of people who have an exceptional surplus will never really suffice as they can easily replenish or out pace the cost, whilst everyone with far more sparse supplies of materials is discouraged by the stark wall in front of them, which easily discourages someone from even bothering in the first place. If it's not fun to get the materials, where's the purpose in pursuing it?

It's essentially an economical problem; with an infinite surplus of resources it's simply not feasible to attempt to actually drain those coffers, as anyone actually affected by it won't have reserves to spare dealing with it, whilst those who can deal with it outright won't likely notice the reduction. Sadly this problem may be far too gone at this juncture to resolve, as applying limitations to the stocking of resources now would be an exceptionally difficult sell...In order to manage resources generating scarcity is necessary...but without limitations, there is no scarcity and the only ones affected are those who've not been around long enough to just brute force through the issues.

Ultimately it's an ugly problem that cannot simply be fixed by adding more 0's on either end. Supply and demand need an overview, else the chasm between those with, and those without, may only spiral further out of hand and drive people away.

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4. What is your first impression of a Nullifier weak point that would require heavy direct damage to destroy?

It depends on the scope of damage, along with the density of the unit in a mission. Too many units could end up rendering such a counter insufficient. End of the day...would need to be witnessed in play to form a solid opinion.

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5. What is your first impression of Damage 3.0 revolving around refreshing enemies rather than mods?

The pertinent question is how.

So far the main methods of dealing with the excessive amount of player power have boiled down to just outright ignoring it through invulnerability and resistance to CC effects. What can you do to make interesting targets, when we all know that the moment their protection is gone, they will cease to exist? Power is meaningless without an obstacle to test it against, and yet so far all attempts at an obstacle have largely revolved around providing means to just...ignore said power as a tacit admittance that they won't survive it without that barrier.

When I GM'd in the past, the most enjoyed sessions were when my players managed to snatch victory through their wit and resourcefulness compared to simply brute force. Capturing that is difficult...but if the review of enemies could be a step to that rush, that'd be a positive step forward. At the end of the day...if you can't fail, what satisfaction can be taken from the wine of victory? Overcoming something that demands more than simply brute force, also requires that we overcome something reasonable.

Making more enemies that just ignore what we can do until x condition is satisfied simply doesn't satisfy this quality of entertaining combat.

Any rate, apologies for going on, as ever.

 

[(PSN)Darkturn]

1. I don't dislike a virus thing but it should be a one time thing and then you can always use it after you remove it. Like you become immune after you body experience and manage build antibodies and the re-use of a game concept.

2. I normally have no problem to research since over 2000h in this game but then some new research come in, re-farm it or rebalance it by increasing drop so that the time i farm back then for the future it at best laughable (Oxium I look at you!). I like to play the game if new stuff comes and farm later for the wait of the new update but it seem even more that every attempt to be prepared and farm goes to hell, I can't wait for losing all my mutagen samples soon, that was made over all the years... yeah.. just in case you don't get it it's sarcasm, I don't like it.

3. Same issue like previous once with the resource but otherwise good, I'm ok that It take longer to research rather then increase the resource amount, some are quiet ridiculous. Please calculate this base on the drop amount/rarity rather some kinda new thing, like vauban quite a bit of nitain, I could add other but you got my flow here. Ohh yes please make use of the salvage and allow, I believe those are so much in many veteran (Void and Neural farm) and mostly likely also for many player.

4. A weak spot nice, but that don't resolve the problem of the unite actually hinder the gameplay massiv it cut 50% o what you can do, as it destroy warframe ability. Everytime new thing is add It goes through two test in my head, the Nullifier test and Good/Useable/Bad Test, the last one is obvious base of preference of play-style and person. The Nullifier test in other hand determined if it good for the second test or just worser then bad and will be use and put in the shelf to catch some dust. My Point is that the enemy is just not good designed, I have several way to improve it without to remove it and still have it support aspect but I don't think you want to hear it, since many in the community always have point it out. AND no the Nullifier is not there to stop us overpower the enemy that we will find a way and always will that is nature but it limit Your design space as you weapon must suddenly be viable against that too, less freedom, less creativity and more useless frustration.

5. No, simple, mod space mean more different build more unique weapon mod and more diversity. Multi make the weapon have better burst but eat more ammo? Brilliant! so it a matter if I want it or not and suddenly ammo drum become I thing or not. Heavy caliber give you more damage (adjusted prober hopefully in the new way, let say like 55 damage vs -55 aim) but has a penalty that is now base on play-style. BE honest you just to lazy to do so, like last one this limit your design space even further, since there always mandatory mod so build this weapon is like build x other weapon. not fun and for contend creater even less subject to cover as mod is always the same.

 

I know it massiv but I think this can help out if you would read it, I'm at the point because TWW it kinda lacking, I waited a year of a quest that is mediocre and a let down i some major aspect of mind and for the price of have less warframe just sound horrible, Don't let me down DE I still believe in you to turn it around! :D

[(PSN)kassemious]

Thanks   warframe 

[czcbibliothekar]

On 9.1.2017 at 7:34 PM, [DE]Drew said:

5. What is your first impression of Damage 3.0 revolving around refreshing enemies rather than mods?

As many have said, yes, enemies do need to bring something new to the table (and not just "yet another way to invalidate our abilities"), but damage mods need a big rework as well. Straight-up raw damage mods (Serration, Hornet Strike, ...) need to go and either be incorporated in the weapons - or enemy scaling has to follow suit and go down. Multishot should become something you have to think about when putting it on a gun because now it eats extra ammo as well. Physical and elemental damage mods should be an increase either (or only a minor one) and instead convert part of the weapon's damage to that type. And some mods just need a big buff or should finally be trashed (pure status chance & al.).

Multipliers as high as 220% from a single mod are just plain ridiculous in my eyes and part of the reason why enemies have to scale so insanely high. Those 30% from physical damage rifle mods are actually a pretty good baseline that other mods should follow. Crit shouldn't be something you can and have to rely on - and 200+% crit chance are more than wrong in my eyes. Especially when you can push the multiplier close to the double digits.

To sum it up, I'd be more than happy if enemies become more interesting and a bit harder to deal with, allowing to reduce their numbers again - but mods are another, important part that should not be overlooked. We are too powerful right now, so it doesn't matter what you do with enemies (unless it's immunity to our abilities and any other kind of damage - and that should never be an option) that stops us from mowing them down as they come through the door.

[Asphopickle]

As far as the cyst goes, I didn't mind it so much. yea it was a little off, but hey, its part of the lore and it didn't tweak me out all that much...especially knowing what I could get from it!. However, The thing that I really didn't care for was the idea that it was forcibly transferred to other warframes. I think its great if it is a CHOICE, but not so much as an imposed unpleasantry.

I love the idea of the Nullifiers having a weak point. Its always such a pain trying to blast away the shield from far away and alerting the enemy..that or running in guns blazing and it killing your abilities/effects. Its tactical how you deal with them, yes, but not so much on how you get rid of them.

Lastly; I WORKED TO DARN HARD ON MY MODS AND I JUST LEARNED HOW TO PROPERLY USE THEM DON'T YOU DARE

....I mean...yes, enemy modification instead of mod alteration would be preferable ^^

[Vermitore]

I have no issue with being infected without having a choice in the matter. That's how infections often work. My main problem is that everything else in the same context had a shovelware implementation. The infested room has been a mystery for quite some time, and it was disappointing how the end result of opening it and making use of it was a bland-looking infested placeholder. Furthermore, it is a largely unoriginal and uninteresting pet as well, bringing little new to the table. The quality of the infested room's implementation has been far below the typical quality of a new addition by DE.

Furthermore, unless something vastly more interested is not introduced as a feature of the infested room, then it is fair to conclude that it was all a case of much ado about nothing and the infested room can be chalked off as a really promising opportunity that culminated in a fiasco.

The opportunity is still there, but DE needs to implement something with a little bit more flavour than a poorly-implemented amalgamation of various colonies of mould living on a plethora of different types of spoiled food. That's what it looks like. If you don't believe me, have a good close look at it. 

[The66Monkey]

I do like the cyst mechanic but OH GOD GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! hand me my ignis!

But on so many of the other questions im not sure. I feel like maybe damage needs to be nuked from orbit and redone. Rethink the vision of Warframe, i liked the mechanics of L4D in space go back and look at what made early warframe good and feel good. I don't like that some weapons become completely enviable, maybe buff the weapons and nerf the mods (insteand of rivens).

[Alexion]

I personally think that Damage 3.0 revolving around refreshing enemies would cause a lot of conflict with the currect Slash/Impact/Puncture & Elemental system. Which is fairly new user friendly, and makes it to where they can discover a lot of things on their own, and it makes it less of a hassle when it comes to teaching the more complex side as well...
But, I agree with the original notion of removing the Raw Damage Mods, because if you make the damage innate to the weapon, it'd be easier to track & tweak within the system, and it'd give us more slots & tactical choices for mods.
For instance, I really love running my Soma with Crit AND Elemental, but it's difficult because I have to sacrifice a fair chunk of my Crit Damage or Chance for that Elemental damage. If Damage mods are removed, that makes that choice a lot less difficult.
But I think Multishot shouldn't be touched at all. Because there are some weapons that are really bad with it.
Angstrum and Ogris [If paired with -accuracy] are absolutely terrifying to use with multishot. lol

[JackMcRain]

I'm kind of fine with most of those subjects you guys mentioned there and even if I don't like to have my warframe with the cyst thingy on them I still kept on with it in case it would be necessary, either way it sorta feels like that the players would still have to cure the cyst everytime they create a new frame since that they are fresh ones.

Regardless, the thing that I'm not entirely sure about is your decision about the Damage 3.0, I understand that you guys are trying to introduce new mechanics to the game as well as trying to balance them weapons but adding new types of enemies isn't quite an "upgrade" to the old damage 2.0 but rather an introduction to new enemies instead. I would actually love to see new types of damage beyond physical and elemental if it was possible and that doesn't mean that you have to remove or even rework mandatory mods like serration. Also it's not like that the Riven mods are a solution to that, in fact these purple mods are a true type of RNG that the players can get because it's all about randomness which can be good in a way but I'm sure that I'm not the only one who hates RNG after all.

Either way I understand how hard it might be to balance the weapons and other stuff that the game has, it's basically somewhat similar to a racing game with upgrades but much more drastic. I once had played games like Need For Speed Underground 2 (good times) and even Need For Speed World which the servers were shut down a while ago. But anyway, what I mean is this: Imagine that you have on one side a very slow car, a Lancia for instance which is slow compared to a Lamborghini but if you upgrade it the car will then become a true beast of the streets, however it used to happen that the fastest of the car could also recieve the same type of upgrades which resulted in making them just way faster than normal, basically making the upgrades useless in the end because everything is still unbalanced.

That basically happens in Warframe where there are many types of weapons and yet most of them tend to be forgotten because of others that are superrior. I'm not sure what you want to do in order to solve the whole problem but I've seen some cool ideas on how you could, at very much least, try to balance the weapons by using some type of mechanic that would keep all weapons with balanced stats in a way that could make them more useful as they level up, or something along those lines. That doens't mean that you have to remove the mandatory mods but you could still rework them a something unique. All weapons are supposed to be balanced for PVE and used as well, basically each weapon must have like a stat that is the strongest to counter the weakest of all, like the Boltor being able to pierce through armour and the Some dealing critical damage. Then you would just need to be creative in terms of using particular mods NOT just to increase their best stats but MAINLY to increase their weakest stats. For example I want my Boltor to be good against shields because it's only good against armour.

Anyway, I just hope you know what you guys are doing and that you don't screw up anything in the end with all of those decisions. Don't put yourselves in a hole just because of that. Warframe is the best game that I've ever played and I don't want to see it being killed by a decision that went horribly wrong in the end.

PS:. I'm notincing that most people seem to want to have like more mods slots for the weapons which I'm not entirely sure if it's the anwer but it could bring more criativity to the players at some point. Who knows?

Edited January 14, 2017 by JackMcRain

[Boubonicus]

1.  I think the cure should have shipped in the same update as the cyst, other than that I don't really have issue. 

2.  Typically I only have issue with a few resources.  Poly Bundles and Cryo come to mind. When people farm for rarer items/resources/mods, they tend to accumulate the common/uncommon resources.  These stockpiles just kind of happen from simply playing the game and not having sinks. 

3.  Weapon cost should be related to how good a weapon is.  In short, the weapon cost should feel justified by it's performance. 

Because I'm pretty sure #2 & 3 were asked because of the hema I will just say I appreciate that your trying to get co-operation from individuals in clans, but this cost still feels a little much.  I personally believe the heightened cost should be transferred more to the build instead of research.  I agree 500ms a person is fair, but that mentality should be applied more to the build costs.  In regards to draining resources from people who have massive stockpiles and creating co-operation in clans, I think there are better ways to accomplish this than simply jacking up research costs.  Such as rebuilding relays where the clans/players which contribute most get their emblems/names displayed as a kind of status symbol, which they would be more willing to protect from Formorians I'd wager.  Anyway, that's my 2c on that. 

4.  As mentioned we really need to see how these nullifier weak points play in the game to make a judgement.  On the surface it does sound like it would make a sniper/bow viable to pop a bubble. 

5.  This sounds interesting and synergies which occur at higher levels, instead of just number scaling, could be pretty cool.  I still think the issue of mandatory mods should still be looked into though. 

[Tyrian3k]

1. The cyst's only problem that it was automatically infecting everyone. By the time I had Nidus and had a cyst, there was basically no one left to infect.
 Instead of having the effect happen automatically, it could have worked via a more controllable/avoidable path.

 

2. As a returning Veteran, the only resource that is scarce is Nitain, which is mostly just obtained by waiting for an alert.

 

3. If a weapon is expensive, it should at least be good enough to motivate players to get it. Neither the Hema nor the Sibear for example are all that great. Putting this cost in front of clan research is a bad idea, though, since it won't cost everyone the same that way. If you really want something to cost 500 Mutagen Samples per player, put that into the crafting cost instead. The other side of this is the availability of said resource. The Sibear wasn't as bad, as you could farm the resource on the side, getting relics, endo and possibly credits at the same time. Limiting us to the Derelict to obtain this resource makes it more of a chore than it needs to be, since the Derelict, like the Kuva Fortress, offers little to no incentives to revisit it.

It is, however, still a very bad idea to look at stockpiles of resources that players have and make them use most of those stockpiles for a single weapon. You should never try to get rid of player stockpiles via crafting costs of single items. If we could sell our resources for credits and maybe gamble for some rewards with those credits, those stockpiles would likely melt away.

 

4. I can't see a weak point work out on Nullifier Bubbles without those weak spots being stuck in ceilings or walls too often.

I'd much rather have the bubbles be subject to Punch Through, but treated as a solid object for this purpose. This means that you'd need a lot of punch through to cover the whole distance from the surface of the bubble to the Nullifier to hit him within it. Snipers should have loads of punch through for this purpose, so they can actually strategically take them out. Shotguns on the other hand would need to have their pellets count as multiple hits, so they don't fall behind.

Another option would be to just drop the hit requirement to pop a bubble, since they already take a minimum time to shrink and vanish, no matter how much you shoot them.

Weapons that rely on critical hits are also at a strong disadvantage here, since critical hits don't work on nullifiers.

 

5. Damage 3.0 is hard to estimate for us and many of us would like to see more freedom in our mod selection instead of just modding as much damage as possible.

Enemies do also need to be reworked, since, as it is right now, there's way too many weak enemies for us to kill, mostly rewarding us for spamming AoE all the time, since dealing with dozens of enemies is just impossible for powerful, but slow weapons like snipers or some shotguns.

[Vermitore]

2 hours ago, Tyrian3k said:

1. The cyst's only problem that it was automatically infecting everyone. By the time I had Nidus and had a cyst, there was basically no one left to infect.
 Instead of having the effect happen automatically, it could have worked via a more controllable/avoidable path.

 

2. As a returning Veteran, the only resource that is scarce is Nitain, which is mostly just obtained by waiting for an alert.

 

3. If a weapon is expensive, it should at least be good enough to motivate players to get it. Neither the Hema nor the Sibear for example are all that great. Putting this cost in front of clan research is a bad idea, though, since it won't cost everyone the same that way. If you really want something to cost 500 Mutagen Samples per player, put that into the crafting cost instead. The other side of this is the availability of said resource. The Sibear wasn't as bad, as you could farm the resource on the side, getting relics, endo and possibly credits at the same time. Limiting us to the Derelict to obtain this resource makes it more of a chore than it needs to be, since the Derelict, like the Kuva Fortress, offers little to no incentives to revisit it.

It is, however, still a very bad idea to look at stockpiles of resources that players have and make them use most of those stockpiles for a single weapon. You should never try to get rid of player stockpiles via crafting costs of single items. If we could sell our resources for credits and maybe gamble for some rewards with those credits, those stockpiles would likely melt away.

 

4. I can't see a weak point work out on Nullifier Bubbles without those weak spots being stuck in ceilings or walls too often.

I'd much rather have the bubbles be subject to Punch Through, but treated as a solid object for this purpose. This means that you'd need a lot of punch through to cover the whole distance from the surface of the bubble to the Nullifier to hit him within it. Snipers should have loads of punch through for this purpose, so they can actually strategically take them out. Shotguns on the other hand would need to have their pellets count as multiple hits, so they don't fall behind.

Another option would be to just drop the hit requirement to pop a bubble, since they already take a minimum time to shrink and vanish, no matter how much you shoot them.

Weapons that rely on critical hits are also at a strong disadvantage here, since critical hits don't work on nullifiers.

 

5. Damage 3.0 is hard to estimate for us and many of us would like to see more freedom in our mod selection instead of just modding as much damage as possible.

Enemies do also need to be reworked, since, as it is right now, there's way too many weak enemies for us to kill, mostly rewarding us for spamming AoE all the time, since dealing with dozens of enemies is just impossible for powerful, but slow weapons like snipers or some shotguns.

1, It was all a bit pointless, since the implementation of the cyst turned out to be rather subpar. Good idea, but it was largely for naught, or so it seems so far, unless further use is made of the phenomenon. A more controllable infection would only have made a somewhat dull feature at least not so obnoxious.

2, I've been playing for a fairly long time and I do not really keep track of my resources, since I hardly ever have a shortage of anything, but I would add Polymer to the list in addition to Nitain. You can burn through literally any number of restores. Sometimes I just pop a Power Restore for a quick 100 power and move along, since they're spammable. Or just drop 6-7 because I have no Trinity or something. Polymer is not scarce, but it is so easy to use it extravagantly and in a wasteful way.

3, Make clans compete with each other. Give monthly bonuses to clans which invest the greatest amount proportionately into the resource sink, such as persistent boosts, quicker research or what have you.

4, Why not give the bubble a huge buffer shield? So, for instance, in order to punch through the bubble, an attack's damage needs to exceed a certain scaling amount. A fairly hefty number, in fact, so that penetrating a nullifier bubble is done with weapons you'd expect to penetrate through sheer force. As a corollary, persistent fire and high RoF weapons would do no damage to it (unless, of course, they exceed a buffer - a tall order unless far over-level), but previously neglected weapons such as sniper rifles and similar single target powerhouses would be required to have a well-rounded squad which can deal with nullifiers. The bubble would also last as long as the nullifier lives, and the nullifier would only take the damage which spills over - the rest would be negated by the shield.

5, Wholeheartedly agree. The sheer dominance of aoe is encouraging a style of gameplay which is decidedly not skillful and imaginative. A more prominent role should be given to single target and punch-through. The problem with spherical aoe is that its placement is simple and dull. They had to introduce difficulty to it by making the trajectory and behaviour of the projectiles which yield them awkward to predict and leverage in the cause of launchers and persistent fire weapons have fairly limited range for the most part. I think, rather than having a paradigm which is just dull, there should be more room for punch-through to shine. I would introduce mods which not only increase punch-through, but they change its behaviour in addition to providing a baseline, respectable amount of damage so as not to just eat up a slot with no noteworthy increase in damage output.

For instance, I would like to see punch-through mods which alter the angle of the punch-through projectile, so that they might exit the initial target after splitting into multiple projectiles or a conical explosion, a discharge of flechettes in a radius around the target or a ground-level discharge of heat or electricity that does not affect airborne targets.

I base this recommendation on my own experience, but I should think the majority of gamers have a similar approach to the matter, whether unconsciously or knowingly. Simply put, if you can make a weapon work in a cool way, all the better. Anyone who played Bulletstorm, for instance, will know that. Imaginative is better than just dragging Boltor Prime across the screen and then back as new enemies spawn. Geographic and combination attacks are just fun, especially if they result in a skillfully attained number of frags. It is like the whole deal with the Saryn spores. It's just fun to use something like the Lanka to crit-proc a spored target into eschaton - more so than it is to spam spores on your molt. We need more of those amusing mechanics whereby clever and skillful gameplay is not only rewarded, but the contrary is actively discouraged.

Furthermore, I think we need to encourage use of cover and shepherding targets to line up better opportunities, rather than engage enemies as they come. Also, stealth needs to play a more prominent role. Warframes are the least stealthy space ninjas you could imagine, with some notable exceptions. They should be ways to drop off the radar and even flank enemies engaging other targets, so as to encourage a much more positioning-aware style of play. For instance, you could receive bonus damage, crit chance, crit damage or armour penetration when flanking a target already engaged in combat with someone else.

Targeting weak points should also be encouraged and rewarded. When I think of other games, Planetside 2 comes up, where being hit causes you to flinch. I should think that if you hit an npc target in the head or some other vital body part, it should throw its aim off for a few seconds or outright stun it, subject to diminishing returns. Also, I think you should be able to disarm targets if you hit their weapons with a projectile weapon and destroy the weapon even, if you deal enough damage to it.

I could go on and on, I mean there's a lot of ways the game could be improved. Crucially, however, I think it needs mechanical depth and mechanical counterplay to mechanical hurdles. There should be a right tool for every occasion and every occasion, too, should require a set of tools. 

[czcbibliothekar]

1 hour ago, Vermitore said:

2, I've been playing for a fairly long time and I do not really keep track of my resources, since I hardly ever have a shortage of anything, but I would add Polymer to the list in addition to Nitain. You can burn through literally any number of restores. Sometimes I just pop a Power Restore for a quick 100 power and move along, since they're spammable. Or just drop 6-7 because I have no Trinity or something. Polymer is not scarce, but it is so easy to use it extravagantly and in a wasteful way.

Thing is, instead of weapons with insane requirements like Hema to melt away stockpiles, we could better need more stuff like restores to keep our supplies down. Or maybe have restores just ask for one common and one uncommon resource when crafting and let us chose what we want to use (similar to weapon-from-weapon or specters).

1 hour ago, Vermitore said:

Warframes are the least stealthy space ninjas you could imagine, with some notable exceptions.

I stand by my opinion that we are no space ninjas but rather space samurai. That just doesn't make such a nice tagline.

Edited January 16, 2017 by czcbibliothekar

[Vermitore]

2 minutes ago, czcbibliothekar said:

Thing is, instead of weapons with insane requirements like Hema to melt away stockpiles, we could better need more stuff like restores to keep our supplies down. Or maybe have restores just ask for one common and one uncommon resource when crafting and let us chose what we want to use (similar to weapon-from-weapon or specters).

Yeah, that would work. And also allow us to craft any number of restores by just entering a digit, rather than going through the tedious task of crafting 10 at a time or, god forbid, 1 at a time. That is just torment.

[Casardis]

1. What's your view on the contagious Warframe Cyst?

It could have been worked on better before leaving it at the state it was in during the Glast Gambit update (before the cyst cure hotfix). For one thing, you introduced a fairly nice mystery element to the game in the form of the cyst. You got people wondering, questioning, speculating. However, you did not implement a perma-removal system firsthand, which should have been thought as a logical thing to do in my opinion considering how much you guys know we love fashionframe (and we take it very seriously).

Adding to that, the result of the cyst is also, to say the least, underwhelming. The Helminth Charger has many issues:
- Doesn't add anything new to gameplay, since it's just a reskin Kubrow (no new powers, no new precepts, no nothing)
-- Adding to that, they even bark and have wrong description names for their stuff, all mentioning and showing "kubrows". Feels placeholder.
- The skin is that of a Grineer charger, which leaves a bad taste of "placeholder" once more in many people's mouth, especially when it comes to quality design. We're not in the days of "large-red-infested runner J3-Golem" anymore, so I believe firmly that this kind of design choice is poor when I know you guys can do so much better.
-- The fact that only recently you've started to sketch ideas for a unique look furthers my point. It all feels like we were expected to just accept that Charger model, to the point that the Helminth Charger is featured behind Nidus in the loading screen wallpaper.

I applaud that you guys are working to make them unique in design, but I hope it goes further than that and you guys will work on their precepts to be unique too. Perhaps you should find inspiration in the Juggernaut's powers (poison darts throw, knockdown charges, tar spread and maggot spawn, radial blast, gas clouds).

All in all,  I find the Cyst mystery to not be worth it in the end because of all of this. Right now it feels like an easter egg more than anything, which is, in my humble opinion, a wasted potential for some interesting layers of lore and/or gameplay.

 

3. Do you think weapons should require a significant time and/or resource investment to craft?

Only if it's reasonable. For instance, the Hema research requirement and investment is a great example of what you should not do. The first reason given by DE can be summed up to them expecting all clans to be full with active clan members constantly hunting, which unfortunately is far from the truth to most clans in this community. DE didn't take some crucial data into consideration before making the research cost so high, nor do they have any reason to in regards to the weapon's utility (it's strong, but it's not a godly weapon, and you can get something stronger for much less hassle, such as Prime weapons).

The weapons gimmicks does not justify its cost IMO, especially considering how many other weapons have unique gimmicks, some stronger (Syndicate Weapons). This, coupled with the lack of change to the Mutagen Sample drop rates, just screams poor decision unfortunately (sorry for being blunt but I'm saying as I see it).

Therefore, yes, some weapons should require more time/investment to craft if and only if it's justified, not for some sort of "gimmick" or arbitrary reasoning revolving around unfounded data.

 

4. What is your first impression of a Nullifier weak point that would require heavy direct damage to destroy?

The idea is excellent on paper. What I'm worried about is the application. Take into considerations two of these aspects on Nullifier bubbles:
- They're huge;
- They're spherical.
Now, what do we often see in Warframe where Nullifiers spawn? Corpus ship tiles often have small corridors that doesn't have high ceillings. The Void also has many of those, and there's no restriction on what tiles enemies can spawn or get into. Therefore, if the "weak point" is located above the bubble as the concept arts show, then half the time the players won't even be able to reach it because it will clip through the terrain. Not only that, since it's high above a spherical shape, it means that the bubble itself may obstruct the weak point from being shot at accurately. Of course, as space ninjas, we can just bullet-jump, glide and then shoot from there... unless you are in a closed tile as I mentioned above where the bubble clips through the terrain.

Therefore, you either have to make the Nullifier bubble smaller, or relocate the weak point. Terrain clipping that prevents a gameplay mechanic to function properly should be an unacceptable pass in my opinion.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Casardis

[Combustionsquirrel]

On one hand I liked the immersion/real time progression of the cyst removal, but there was no story reason why chair man couldn't have removed the cyst right away. If he needed time to synthesize a vaccine or something, sure then that would have made sense, but as far as I can tell he could have just ripped it off any time he wanted to.

As for the crafting of weapons, there is a problem with large initial resource costs when a significant portion of your clan is inactive, or if your clan size is not near the limit of it's tier. I do think that more powerful weapons should require more resources to build though (once you have the bp), because you probably have more resources by then, or at least better ways to farm them.

Edited January 20, 2017 by Combustionsquirrel

[MobyTheDuck]

Is Steve going to play alone to farm 5000+ Mutagen Samples for his Hema research?