The Second Stream Podcast #16 - TennoLive Speculation, Devstream 94, Sorties, and more! ft. M.C. I.K

[lukinu_u]

2 minutes ago, Urlan said:

I couldn't say for sure, but those look like Tenno cryopods with distinctly Excalibur shaped silhouettes inside. Don't understand the very red human aligned eyes in the heads honestly - perhaps the comic itself will explain it - since Warframes don't have eyes in a traditional sense. I don't know, maybe Vor takes Grineer parts and attaches them to warframes with parts to confuse the Tenno linked to them? Or simply uses the cast off or unclaimed warframes to do something sinister?

Nop, they are not cryopod, they are this :

Probable a new breed of grineer, or maybe in contrary, an old stable state of stables grineer clones put into statis for use when they will be necessary.
We can't really says what they are but they are surely grineer creations, not warframe.

But considering Vor is hunting tennos, linking them to warframes is interesting because they can be a sort of hybrid between Grineer and Tenno technology, how Zanuka is made of warframe parts and Corpus technology.

[Heliozzenn]

3. Tokens, Vandal Exclusives or Primed Chamber as a legendary drop.
4. Umbra.

[Darkvramp]

wow rebeccas mike is horrid

 

[Trichouette]

13 minutes ago, Faulcun said:

Make them harder, but make them worth it.

Define hard.

Or rather, define hard that my warframes can't cheese through by simply using their abilities.

[Aenris]

 

What new Sortie Conditions would you like to see?
The point for Sorties (to me) is to revisit old tilesets with higher difficulty and a special twist. Something that makes it completely different of running missions normally. That said, I believe conditions for Sorties are just a "little annoyance". I believe they should be challenges, true challenges that makes us players to think the most efficient way to work around it. 

So, what kind of challenges i'd like? well.... some of the Riven conditions might be a ton of fun. Like running Exterminates while avoiding activating alarms (or even, avoiding being seen for extra difficulty).

I know most people will be angry at such things, but the fact that they will be angry is important: i feel Warframe becomes "too easy" at the point i never waste a single life in the entire sortie. I can make mistakes and still pull through it. In the other hand, i kinda don't want to run sortie missions with hobbled dragon keys lol. 

What new rewards would you like to see from Sorties?
-In the materials regard, the only material that comes to my mind is Kuva. You don't get a Riven but you get a hoard of Kuva to reroll one of your previous Rivens? that might be Ok. Of course, it should be way more than a single kuva flood. Perhaps enough to reroll a Riven with the highest kuva cost twice. That would make me care about some of my rivens that i've rerolled plenty again.

-Also, (this is something i got from Xenogelion) We could do something about the transmutation system: Xeno said in one of his videos "How about supercharged cores that helps us get Mods that aren't in our collection?" or at least those that drop from random enemies. It could be a reward from Sorties. Might be an incentive to collect every mod we can so we avoid getting trash from it.

-Another thing we could do is adding more to the Ayatan system. The Ayatan replacing the 2K endo reward was pretty good so why not adding materials to further improve it's visuals and Endo worth? Like "supercharged" stars for example, that makes the ayatan have a distinct look and also make it worth more endo.  And heck, you could add more statues, one per category (common, uncommon and rare). Imagine getting a rare statue and a supercharged star the next day: I imagine a really a big statue, like half my warframe of height with some kind of beautiful lights and aura (with visuals similar as the rifts on the moon), and be worth like 40k Endo (which is need to max out a Primed mod. Or even half of that might be really nice)

-Another prize might be a "raise your pet" pack. Everything you need to start a Kubrow or Kavat. Well, perhaps everything but the slot. Pet lovers might want that one, and low mastery rank Tenno will have something to do to raise their MR more

-Lastly, how about you could get a "Special Token" that let's you buy rewards? Perhaps it could allow us to choose something like 5 common items from the list, OR 3 uncommon OR 2 of the rares. Or perhaps less quantity, i might be going a bit crazy with it. Dunno, i'd like something like an item that is super rare and might get you a pack of rivens instead of only one.

Re-reading all of my suggestions, "Tons of" might be the key word for sortie. Give me tons of kuva, give me tons of endo, all in one shot. Things i farm normally around the system, but in great quantity.

How often do you visit low-level planets like Earth?
Frequently. But that's mostly because of one of two things: There's a Lith fissure i'm interested in, or i'm helping a clanmate deal with a mission or quest (and in those cases i unequip all my weapons but melee, just to have a bit of a handicap)

In this regard, please, don't think about adding a random special reward that only appears on earth... Again. It's not fun to run a mission with low level enemies that die with Equinox ult and that's it. When i had to farm the Silver Grove mods, it was.... boring. Tasteless. Nothing in the mission was difficult or challenging until we got to the specter (and the hard part there was scanning him, not actually killing him)

That's why i loved Kuva flood missions: the entire mission scales to a super high level and we veterans have fun running those. Perhaps making all the missions adapt to a "player power level" and raise difficulty? Still, i'm not sure if the best way to go, i believe only veteran players might like a system like that. New players paired with Veterans will have trouble running said missions.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Arandabido

[Hemmo67]

5.

to farm formas with antitoxins .-.

[brawler58]

18 minutes ago, AizenIchi said:

4. Please don't be Hydriod Prime, please don't be Hydriod Prime, please don't be Hydriod Prime. This would be really disappointing. A new quest or even Umbra would be a better announcement than Hydroid Prime.

A prime isn't a big enough thing for them to tease so soon and also say "We can only tease this much now". It's clearly about the next cinematic quest(umbra pls) 

[Darkvramp]

sortie rewards currently feel off. the endo reward is something that should not be random, it should come along with a good drop daily of lesser lenses (2- 4 random daily). having a greater lenses as a reward on the random drop table is ok, but getting one lesser lenses i have to have 4 of them to really make something that gives me use, that is not great. especially if there is a 1:5 ratio of a drop rate to get the one i want. Rivens to me are a crap piece of content that i am not happy to receive, because they way they are designed now is absolutely non gamer friendly. if i want a slot machine, there are things such as casinos to go to, i dont want such a thing in a game  masquerading as content. potatoes are ok, and the legendary core is  there only to do 2 things, make people plat from trades, and rank up a primed mod to full without any hassle. getting the ayatan sculpture more than once is kind of annoying to me as well, as its just more endo, because im not into customizing my ship and i already have boat loads of endo, sooo its useless to me.

[(PSN)DarXenon]

I don't think it's hydroid prime, it's early to announce him and if he is the big tennocon reveal... I would be really disappointed, after this Hype about tennocon i would think it's something big like Umbra, because everyone wants it to be honest, and it would really suit tennocon big reveal, i for myself really excited to see what will it be, hoping it is umbra.

[UvBenServed]

1. Daily

2.

Spoiler

I actually saw a thread on this recently. Some of the suggestions I made or I saw others make:

• Randomized loadout
• Disabled UI
• No sentinels/No pets (as two separate conditions, possibly with a bias towards "no sentinels" to encourage variety)
• Disable all gear (not just ciphers)
• If anyone in the squad dies (not just downed) the mission fails
• Decreased damage to enemy bodies, but increased headshot damage
• Dragon key required
• Launcher only (possibly with reduced self damage?)

Faction specific weapons sounds neat too.

3.

Spoiler

Some sort of exclusive ship decorations would be neat. But other than that, I don't see cosmetics working as sortie rewards, cause what happens when you already have all available skins/glyphs/sigils/etc? The only way I see this working is with a token system (REALLY glad to hear you guys are still considering that).

The only resource I think players would want more of is Kuva. Anything thing else could just end up being a massive disappointment if you've run out of things to use that resource on, like Nitain (if you guys want Nitain to be more accessible, tweaking the numbers on sabotage caches would be the best way imo).

The only thing I can think of that players would want added to sorties is relic packs, but more than what syndicates have to offer. More relics per pack? All radiants? A chance of getting a vaulted relic? 

Also, I'd like to see some changes to the current sortie rewards:

• 3 built forma instead of 1
• Build orokin catalysts/reactors instead of blueprints
• Change the 4000 endo to something else (still considering Kuva?)
• Move normal focus lenses somewhere else (I don't mind the greater ones staying in sorties). I know a lot of people have suggested Lua, but what I'd like to see is Acolytes permanently brought back with focus lenses added to their drop tables. They can unlock after finishing The Second Dream (revenge for defeating Stalker or something) and each Acolyte could drop a different focus lens. Except Misery. I think there should be a weekly mission where we can fight him for a guaranteed focus lens.

4. Not surprised that it's not Hydroid Prime. It's almost certainly a new quest and/or system. A lot of people have been speculating Umbra. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I just hope that it's related to the alignment system cause I really want that to actually mean something at some point.

5. Only if there's a sortie/kuva/syndicate mission there that I feel like doing.

[Othergrunty]

1. How often do you complete Sorties?

A few times per month, though it depends on the mixture of missions and factors. If the mission mix looks too frustrating or time consuming i skip the sortie. It doesn't feel worth to run a badly mixed combo just to get a handfull of endo or some statue you allready have by the dozens.

2. What new Sortie Conditions would you like to see?

Faction specific weapons.

3. What new rewards would you like to see from Sorties?

I picked cosmetics, because it's the choice from that selection which seems to be the most worth the effort of running sorties. Though that one seems too important as money maker for the game to be introduced for free in a large capacity.

Looking through the other answers so far i see Tokens. Had i seen that before voting, i would have picked that instead.

4. What do you think the watery teaser was about?

Hydroid Prime? It's like DE showing us a burning village and everyone assuming Ember Prime comming back. Or if a teaser for the mountain from The War Within would have been seen as hint towards Frost Prime returning.

Pretty sure it's for a quest that involves showing off all the work DE has done with the Earth rework.

So i guess it will involve some Orokin ruins, the Grineer and some dark secret being revealed.

5. How often do you visit low-level planets like Earth?

Mercury for testing out new weapons and Venus if i want to farm the resources that drop there.

Earth however, very rarely. For multiple reasons.

The environment isn't very comfortable to fight in, areas are often too large and too cluttered with objects to move or attack well in, while giving enemies plenty of chance to attack you from multiple directions and elevations. Not to forget that the cluttered terrain can often get you stuck at bits and pieces which can get annoying quickly. Feral Kubrows also constantly mess up the flow of the combat (and trying to do stealth kill runs).

All that while enemies are only low level. Mercury and Venus provide the same low level enemies, but in much more comfortable environments.

However what really makes me dislike running earth missions is the night versions.

The above mentioned issues with the environment are multiplied by the fact that the whole environment is now pitch black and the Warframes have no visual aid beyond that weird omni-flashlight all weapons get. A flashlight which feels unreliable to me and doesn't really illuminate the environment enough to help.

Shouldn't the neuroptics of the Warframes be advanced enough to provide some sort of night vision mode? Or multiple vision modes ala the Predators?

A gear item which would allow you to switch between a normal, low light and termal vision mode would be a neat addition which would really help with too dark environments like those of night Earth.

 

Edited June 21, 2017 by Othergrunty

[Awazx]

New rewards sortie:

1. Plans of reusable spectra. Definition: If the spectrum dies during the game, it can be revived and reused in the next.

2. Parts for the construction of customized combat robots. Definition: The pieces obtained can be combined in many ways to build different types of robots. If the robot dies in the game, it can be used in the next one (such as sentinels).

3. Credit packages. Definition: 200,000, 500,000, 1000,000 credits.

4. New mods for our Kavats and Kubrows.

[Mak_Gohae]

1- a couples times a week. Some missions i just dont want to do. You know, spy and rescues in certain situations.

2-

Pick from a few chosen frames, i mention specific faction weapons only, and must switch weapons every 25 seconds.

3- Build your own Syandana! You should have a modular syandana made up of four pieces that you collect and build into whatever look you want. And to keep people going for it, once you forge the 4 pieces into a specific look you cannot change it so you have to farm the pieces again if you want a different look. 

And you can do this with weapon looks also. Have different barrel looks, different stocks, etc, etc. But that would require more work. I guess you can do it with specific new weapons.

4- Fisherman-frame. He throws chum to draw enemies to one spot and then he hooks them and throws them around. When he hooks them he can draw extra loot from them.

5- whenever there is an alert, relics mission, sorties, or doing Nightmare missions.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Mak_Gohae

[Sannidor]

Remove 4k Endo from Sorties and replace it with 10k Kuva.

 

[Prof_Blocks_007]

2. Sortie Modifiers

For the randomized equipment modifer, I'd suggest something like this:

Quote

 

One of the battle arena modifiers in Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction was random weapon swapping. Every x seconds Ratchet's weapon would be randomly swapped to another.

Implementing a similar thing in Warframe could be done by having the player select, say, 6 weapons before the mission. During the mission, every x seconds the weapon would be randomly swapped to a different one from the ones selected at the start of the mission, with a 5 second countdown.

I don't know if duplicate weapons should be allowed/disallowed (e.g selecting two Braton Primes). Multiple variants of the same weapon would be reasonable though.

There is potential for a lot of technical difficulties though. Loading that many mod setups, hitches when changing weapons, how ammo pools would be handled, etc.

As for an explanation of the sortie modifier: It would be similar to the weapon disruptor modifier, but capable of disabling all weapons. The increased 'arsenal coverage' of the effect has a trade-off though: it can only pulse every 30s instead of being active all the time. Ordis would cycle weapons in and out of your hands as they are jammed (via use of the landing craft) and repair/unjam them.

 

3. Sortie Rewards

The usefulness and desirability of Sortie rewards can vary wildly from player to player. Personally, I have enough Reactors and Reactor Blueprints to last for a long time, and enough credits/resources (aside from Hema research, and maybe Polymer Bundles) to not make much use of Credit and Drop Chance Boosters.

On the other hand, I Forma gear fairly often, so I can make good use out of Forma and Affinity Boosters, and I farm Kuva frequently too, so I can make use of Resource Boosters as well. Catalysts see more use, as there are a lot of weapons to use them on, and Rivens encourage the re-visiting of weaker weapons. I still have a lot of mods to max out, so I have plenty of use for Endo (this also applies to Legendary Cores). Exilus Adapters have a similar usefulness to Reactors, but are more expensive to build, requiring 2 Forma, so the built status makes them a worthwhile reward to me, at least until I run out of places to put them.

I put Lenses on gear that I use frequently, so that I can build up Focus points over time for when it gets reworked, but given the current state of Focus, they aren't that useful. Also, the ability to use Lenses is unlocked in The Second Dream, but Sorties are unlocked after The War Within, so players can only obtain one Lens until they have done both quests. These would be better off something like drops/find-able items (like Ayatans) on Lua, instead of a (currently) dull Sortie reward. Greater Lenses are more valuable, but unfortunately they're still dull due to the state of Focus.

I have one Sortie reward left to cover, and that's Rivens. I'll quote the question I have made in recent Devstream threads:

Quote

 

These have the power to raise sub-par weapons to a level where they can compete with the top-tier 'meta' weapons, making them reliable choices for use in Sorties and the like. Unfortunately, the entirely random nature of the system makes it an RNG-focused grind to obtain a Riven with stats that elevate a sub-par weapon to such a level, which really limits the potential of the system as a whole.

Granted, changes were swiftly made to the Riven system after its release, and Dev Workshop posts were made addressing concerns and detailing the changes, but getting the right Riven with the right stats to revive a weaker weapon remains entirely at the discretion of RNG.

As a quick recap, these changes were: the introduction of Riven Dispostions, reduction and capping of cycling costs, the ability to pick between the new and current cycle, and the removal of veiling when cycling.

Would you consider changing the cycling system to make these 'rejuvenating Rivens' more obtainable?

I have written more detailed feedback on the system in this thread:

 

 

[NovusNova]

"4. What do you think the watery teaser was about?"

Earth rework teaser or more likely teaser for the Harrow quest.

[TGDM]

1. Did 200 days in a row since U19 for loggin'... But I can't bother with that any more so if I see MDef + Defense/Excavation on the same day I just nope on out of there.

3. Tokens which can be redeemed for other Sortie rewards. Bad luck insurance for some, a meaningful way to earn potatoes or Rivens for others.

 

[Darkvramp]

yea i would rather earn tokens or sortie standing than this random system now, so if i dont want the abominations that are rivens i dont have to get them.

[Navarc]

4 hours ago, brawler58 said:

YAS. Normal versions of prime accesories are something I wanted for a while now but there's only hoping

The teaser meaning umbra is justified and I saw many people speculate about it

Smart minds think alike? :D

The sun wasn't setting, it's not turning from day to night implying Equinox. It's a shadow, specifically the umbra of a shadow.
Makes very much sense to me for it to be hinting at Umbra.
Glad you agree with standard version of primed equipment too.

[AdunSaveMe]

5 hours ago, Xekrin said:

There are a bunch of threads dedicated solely to making sorties "better" and with ideas on new conditions.  They are in the feedback section of your forums.  Feel free to take a look at those.

He didn't ask the question. I asked the question, and directed it at the people doing this podcast.

[Faulcun]

4 hours ago, Trichouette said:

Define hard.

Or rather, define hard that my warframes can't cheese through by simply using their abilities.

Isnt that the point though? I dont power cheese through the sorties, but 99% of the time I still finish them on the first try. Even with an organized group, id like us to have to attempt it a few times and then the reward to be worth it when we finally get it.

Sorties are supposed to be end game content. With all the power creep, they are a cake walk regardless. Maybe they need to up the level on Raid missions, limit it to 4 people, create a corpus raid and use the raid missions as sorties instead. Then create BETTER raid missions that work like multiple missions in a quest for the whole team of 8, make that harder and longer, and come up with a worthy reward for that.

I guess im just looking for content i can cut my teeth on again.

[Xekrin]

1 minute ago, AdunSaveMe said:

He didn't ask the question. I asked the question, and directed it at the people doing this podcast.

Yes, I know, but since I could not directly quote the question off the Poll, I used your question as a redirect.

[AdunSaveMe]

4 hours ago, Arandabido said:

I know most people will be angry at such things, but the fact that they will be angry is important

I believe the opposite. You should be challenged, not frustrated.

Frustration is absolutely not the same thing as challenge. They are mutually exclusive.

[AdunSaveMe]

I'd also like to respond to a particular point, where Rebecca says "you can't win" in response to "the people who need nitain can't do the alert, and the people who can do the alert don't need nitain"; this is not simply a matter of players being impossible to please.

People weren't saying it because they're never happy. People were saying that because it was a crazy unbalanced alert. It was level 80+ for three nitain. The people who are at that point do not need the nitain, but the people who really do need the nitain can't do it, because someone decided to make it level 80.

That is not fun. That's why people didn't like it.

Edited June 22, 2017 by AdunSaveMe

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

I would like sortie stipulations like *only powers* or warframe specific stipulations like *frost* only.

I want large Kuva rewards like 30k and 50k kuva rewards.

I hope its either Hydroid prime or Umbra plus a new enemy that isnt annoying or dumb.

Also i would like there to be solo raids.

Edited June 22, 2017 by (PS4)big_eviljak