Collected Thoughs On U9

[Numot]

So we have new update, with new weapons, new frame, and even new bosses. Sounds exciting, feels underwhelming.

 

The new solar map

 

The good

- Looks nice, easy to find planets.

-Description of the area when you're at specific planet, with resources shown off to the side.

-Can see tile set when you mouse over a mission

 

The bad

-Can't mouse over planets to view what drops there like you used to, now have to click on them

-Gray/red pathways are great for trolling the colorblind out there (while I'm not, I can only imagine the frustration).

-Hard to tell who's in a squad when zoomed in. Suggest adding a "squad box" off to the side with player name and frame.

-Can't see active alerts while zoomed in on planets

 

Market

 

The good

-Can now buy resources! but...

 

The bad

-Have to use platinum to buy resources. This left a pretty sour taste in my mouth and I spend on the game. Personally the game needs more credit sinks, not just because its easy for advanced players to get flooded with them, but also because new players should have things they can actually buy. Suggest adding more credit purchases, with the option to spend credits or plat on resources.

 

Also your market is making you guys look really, really money hungry. The harder you cash grab, the more you're going to push away players just coming into the game. It doesn't look good to go into the market and see that you can buy nearly everything with plat, and little comparatively with credits.

 

Aura system

 

The good

-Can now rank up old artifacts

-Can select aura on warframe mod screen

 

The bad

-Can't see what your squad mates bring, meaning you have to ask them

-Can't change them 'on the fly' to suit the squad right before mission starts

-Are polarized, limiting options, lack an even distribution, further limiting choices

-Eat up mod cost, necessitating the use of forma for advanced players with 'maxed' frames

-Lack the team utility that old artifacts served. This system is now more selfish since it encourages people to bring an AURA that suits them, rather than general purpose.

-Can't be shared between warfames like old artifacts, you'll now need two enemy radars for example if you want to use it between frames without unequipping it first.

 

Lore

 

The good

-Can look up factions and characters of interest now

 

The bad

-Very scant at the moment. No lore on bosses other than Vor, even one's you've defeated. This is on par with what you learn just by reading the map. So nothing new here.

-No cinematics (don't know if there are plans to add them, but it would be nice)

-Not clear how to exit, 'esc' will take you out of lore, but there is not button or blurb indicating this, suggest adding one.

 

This can be very interesting, depending on how it goes, hoping it really gets fleshed out. Needs a lot of detail though.

 

Missions

 

The good

-Have adjusted enemy levels

-Nightmare mode is a bonus challenge for established, experienced players.

 

The bad

-Change to levels hurts new players just starting out, making progress difficult.

-Changes mean boss farming is very tedious on high level bosses.

-Little AI improvement.

-Nightmare mode doesn't have a toggle, it's just active.

-Nightmare mode offers an arbitrary challenge. Having things such as timers or constant heath loss doesn't make it harder, just frustrating. Nightmare mode should offer different enemy types and group compositions with improved AI to challenge players and make it rewarding.

 

New boss, Raptor

 

The good

-Flying boss

 

The bad

-Is a bullet sponge

-Its attacks can make it difficult to see, and thus aim at the boss

-Doesn't drop things on death most the time

-Mines don't expire, making it possible for it to drop loot in a pile of them that could kill the player or damage them heavily.

-Mines can't be cleared by shooting them, which would solve the issue above.

-Doesn't have distinct phases or patterns, thus is boring to fight.

-Can get stuck outside the map and drop his loot in an unreachable location.

-Appears to only take damage from armor ignore or armor pierce. Immune to all other types?

 

Kril is how you do a boss fight DE. Make more bosses like Kril. Raptor could be much improved if the fight had you shoot out its wings while it did bomb runs dropping mines, then you get to pound it when it crashes before it can take to the air again. If you guys are ever at a loss for how bosses should be, play Metroid Prime. I'm just going to assume that Raptor, as with most bosses is a place holder.

 

Boss revision, Vor

 

The good

-He's got new abilities

-Slightly more challenging (solo)

 

The bad

-THAT LEVEL SCALING, please fix so he's reasonable for parties

 

Overall Vor is an improvement, but his shield bubble annoys me personally since it slows down my kill time. Crafty grineer.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Numot

[Kongou-Arpeggio]

 If you guys are ever at a loss for how bosses should be, play Metroid Prime. 

 

This, I mean, imagine a boss with the tactics of Quadrixis, or even some of the final battles of the trilogy, or even Raptor behaving like prime 1's Meta Ridley, I seriously had to sit abck and just, think for a moment how sweet it'd be...And now I want to play all my prime games from the start...

 

Now on topic: Great list, and, I see that you actually thought out the entire thing and included pros, cons, and notes. 

[orangle]

+1 very well said.  Aura is a huge downer for me otherwise you said everything else very nicely!

[KyleOne]

A lot of good points here. A lot of good points. I do take issue with this:

 

"It doesn't look good to go into the market and see that you can buy nearly everything with plat, and little comparatively with credits."

 

Everything SHOULD be available for platinum. I play a couple missions a day, and the things that aren't available for plat are a challenge for me to get. I'm going to see guys tomorrow with braton primes that they're able to get because they choose to play the game a lot -- and I'm happy for them. Personally I'd rather work an hour and buy it than spend many hours farming.

 

I just last night started Frost Prime. Literally got the final component piece last night. If I could have bought him I would have. Waiting sucks.

 

Perspective of a guy who likes the game and likes supporting it financially. Has more money than time.

[Morgax]

Spoken like a true champ, well done my good Tenno have my +1 and my respect.

[Tejan]

Another downside to auras, that I have only checked on Rejuvenation, is that they are weaker than their Artifact counterparts.

 

Rejuvenation Artifact gave .5 health per 1 second.

Rejuvenation Aura at level gives .1 health per 1, so that means it's equal at level 4 and better at level 5.

 

I couldn't find any thing for sure on other artifacts so... I wasn't able to do any others out.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Tejan

[Xievie]

I was going to read your whole post, but I stopped here.

 

The good

-Can now buy resources!

 

Buying resources... good...?

Honestly, that should be in "The bad" for sure!

 

I know that a lot of players are angry at this, some are thinking DE is now greedy and money hungry. I don't want to believe that. Right now, I am hoping they remove this, along with other players.

 

We don't need this. We were all content without buying it before this update.

[CeePee]

Another downside to auras, that I have only checked on Rejuvenation, is that they are weaker than their Artifact counterparts.

 

Rejuvenation Artifact gave .5 health per 1 second.

Rejuvenation Aura at level gives .1 health per 1, so that means it's equal at level 4 and better at level 5.

 

I couldn't find any thing for sure on other artifacts so... I wasn't able to do any others out.

 

So you say it's a downside because at max rank it's actually better than what it used to be?

 

I fail to see your logic, really. Upgrading those artifacts takes very little effort and you get better than what you used to have, especially with the Rifle amp.

[Xievie]

 Upgrading those artifacts takes very little effort 

 

You make me cry inside. You make my Serration hurt. You make my energy hurt.

My entire being now hurts.

[Winterbraid]

Add to Raptor that he can get stuck outside the map and drop his loot in an unreachable location.

[Numot]

I was going to read your whole post, but I stopped here.

 

Buying resources... good...?

Honestly, that should be in "The bad" for sure!

 You should have kept reading, I then go on to mention that its bad they are selling it for plat with no credit options. Buying resources is a nice addition if it was doable with credits cause it protects players from terrible luck. You always get credits, you don't always get the resource you need. Eventually, we all become the poor sap who needs just a few of some resource and for some reason, no matter what we do, it just doesn't drop. Being able to just buy the last few of whatever you need is good at that point.

 

 

Add to Raptor that he can get stuck outside the map and drop his loot in an unreachable location.

Done

 

A lot of good points here. A lot of good points. I do take issue with this:

 

"It doesn't look good to go into the market and see that you can buy nearly everything with plat, and little comparatively with credits."

 

Everything SHOULD be available for platinum. I play a couple missions a day, and the things that aren't available for plat are a challenge for me to get. I'm going to see guys tomorrow with braton primes that they're able to get because they choose to play the game a lot -- and I'm happy for them. Personally I'd rather work an hour and buy it than spend many hours farming.

 

I just last night started Frost Prime. Literally got the final component piece last night. If I could have bought him I would have. Waiting sucks.

 

Perspective of a guy who likes the game and likes supporting it financially. Has more money than time.

The issue I have isn't that you can buy everything with plat, its that you can buy everything with plat, and so, so little with credits. Its the little things that count here, having more options for credit can help new players progress in the game and enjoy it, without feeling forced to spend. You want people to spend cause they want to, cause if they feel forced they will contemplate not spending at all more. It doesn't help Warframe that it is a pricey game to really spend on. Plat doesn't go that far unless you only buy potatoes.

[Sethrea]

A lot of good thoughts.

No mention about UI bugging out, maybe you were just lucky...

[Numot]

No mention about UI bugging out, maybe you were just lucky...

Can't say I've had that happen yet, if you can describe it I will add it though.

[Drasiel]

What about the Foundry UI update that was pulled back out. It definately had some issues.

 

It gave less information up front

Required more clicks to navigate

Still couldn't manage blueprints from it

 

The different sections for mod types was nice though.

 

Also about Nightmare mode It would be nice if it would give you information about what is the effect in the mission. Maybe it's supposed to be unknown I wouldn't know because I haven't been keeping up on the livestreams.

[Rottae]

Nightmare mode was really a big letdown for me, I'm mastery rank 5 and can with ease breeze through anyone of them in a non-maxed out 3 forma Saryn, and non maxed weapons except my melee.

I really want challenges! not difficulty due to Damage sponges or damage (Which in nightmare mod, ppl think they are. Heck just use any weapon after a certain mastery rank, this is supposed to be the hardcore players thing, but it just doesn't do that.)
I want to have to rely on teammates, I hate playing solo, but when every content and it's mother is soloable it just doesn't work for me.

[MiX3R]

rly well summarized, i agree with close to everything. I started a few days ago and its incredibly hard to do anything atm for me. I like when its challenging but its just way to hard right now. I rly dont feel like im progressing at all. If anything id like it if they maybe made hard and easy mode (easy being what it was b4 and hard what it is now) and made some mods drop only on hard and maybe made resources + mods drop a little more frequently on the harder difficulty compared to easy just to give ppl an insentive to play on hard rather than easy, and ofcourse give a bigger credit reward (just as an example). To me it feels like the game is now balanced around lvl 30 fully uppgraded mods and best weapons and nothing else.

[Numot]

What about the Foundry UI update that was pulled back out. It definately had some issues.

 

 

Since they pulled it, I chose to withhold talking about it, especially since I could only go off my memory for it. They pulled it probably because you couldn't make any of the dual weapons in the new foundry, such as dual broncos.

 

Personally it looked nice, though confusing.

 

Currently farming Nova for review.

[zephyrdragoon]

Farming for BP's is becoming increasingly difficult. Vor seems to never drop Seer or Seer parts. Raptor has buggy drop mechanics and what appears to be a low drop rate.

[Valasaxia]

+1