Archwing is one step away from being the best open-world movement feature to date

[DeyjaVou]

To preface this, my body phyiscally cannot take any more hype. I actually numbed myself out on hype in less than 24 hours I'm so god damn excited for this patch.

But a major selling point for Plains of Eidolon is that you can 'seamlessly' enter your Archwing anywhere on the open field, and while in Archwing you can use your regular weapons. Don't get me wrong, I'm frothing at the mouth here, but I can see one potential problem with this.

This is the specific point in the gameplay demo at which they reveal OW Archwing.

Quote

We still feel that Warframe is a game about speed, and high mobility.

100%, I fully agree, and the only thing I'm currently even remotely concerned about regarding this feature is the calldowns.
We were shown what is ostensibly a consumable calldown that you have to craft, which is a minor but definitely annoying barrier to what should otherwise be a very freeing way to travel.

I'm going to compare this to two other games: Anthem, and Firefall.
In Anthem, going off of 'demo' trailer only, the iron man flight mode we saw was most likely only for travel, and did not facilitate any kind of combat whatsoever. Since it was attached to the player, it's likely you're able to go into it at any time, which will make it feel better, but at its core it's purely a travel feature, so it will lose to Archwing if we make some changes.
In Firefall, the player had jetboots/jetpacks, as well as gliders and futuristic motorcycles. All of these could be deployed at any time, with small cooldowns managing the gliders and motorcycles. Firefall was a game that oozed mobility, and it was what made it so fun.

Plains of Eidolon's Archwing is staged to upset BOTH of these games...

...but changes need to be made to how Archwing mode is entered.
For starters, remove the need for consumables. Either make it a calldown, or create a new binding for it and remove it from gear altogether. I'm aware that Archwing allows you to kill enemies with a massive aerial advantage, and presents a new challenge for those at Digital Extremes in terms of balance, but consumable calldowns are not the answer.

If I may offer an alternative to calldowns: bind the "call Archwing" button to something on the keyboard, or create a reusable, permanent calldown you have to make once as part of the build-up to accessing PoE.

When you activate it, please do apply it directly to the Warframe. Having it land in front of you is pretty cool, but by requiring the player to equip it on the ground, you miss out on all sorts of opportunities to bullet jump gracefully into the arms of an Archwing and fly away.

As a way to balance this out a little, give it a one minute cooldown. However, when you disembark from your Archwing, have it fly to the ground directly below where you left it and become mountable again, despawning after 20-40 seconds (prompting the player to re-call the Archwing).

If we do it this way, I think it will feel more like a vehicle, and an extension of the player, instead of a disposable personal travel jet that disappears the second you leave it. And I can't imagine the feeling of disappointment the player will experience when they use their last Archwing calldown while out in the Plains, and have to go make more instead of continuing to explore.

I know there's a hesitation to make it too accessible because of the aforementioned potential balance issues, but those are going to exist regardless of whether or not Archwing is behind a consumable. There will be players that'll sit at max altitude with snipers, and there's nothing pulling them down from there short of Grineer flak cannons, or a self-propelled Drakgoon.

Please make Archwing as accessible and open as possible, maybe with a short cooldown, so that its upkeep isn't a chore the player has to complete in order to continue using it in the Plains.

Edited July 9, 2017 by DeyjaVou

[cookieknife]

im quite happy with what i saw so far. it seems like they implimented what we've asked for. making archwing part of the main game and not just a mini sequel 

[SeaUrchins]

Just don't fly too high, lest you should hit the invisible ceiling and get teleported back to the ground lmao

Edited July 9, 2017 by SeaUrchins

[Wiz3rd]

I'm so hyped for Plains of Eidolon.
This update is actually going to make Archwing meaningful, instead of a necessary evil.

[DeyjaVou]

1 minute ago, cookieknife said:

im quite happy with what i saw so far. it seems like they implimented what we've asked for. making archwing part of the main game and not just a mini sequel 

And I'm right there with you, I'm absolutely elated that Archwing has taken such a critical role. 

But this one step will push it from being the Archwing we've always wanted to what I can easily consider the best open-world movement system in any game on market. 

 

I don't know this for sure, of course, but I pick games largely for how much mobility is afforded to the player, and tweaking this to be just a little bit more accessible and fluid would make a world of difference in terms of how it feels to use.

[cookieknife]

hopefully if you fly too high there will be a feature like. with winds that blows you out of control and damages you

[CY13ERPUNK]

basically arghwing needs its numbers tweaked down 

arghwing needs to not be a stupid stat-stick buff with huge numbers for no reason  

instead arghwing needs to be a symbiotic blend of on-foot combat 

in AW-mode each frame should have access to 2 signature abilities, which replace/take the 1/2 ability slots, and then the AW has 2 active abilities that take the 3/4 slots and additionally each AW brings 1-2 passive precepts ala sentinels [i have also been a fan of the sentinel docks in AW like R2D2 in an Xwing, but thats another matter] 

lastly all/most frame mods should work/function/transfer into AW-mode, and then AW mods should be tweaked to just be small boosts to the base stats instead of having to replace them completely 

now AW no longer has to steal the show and can be balanced combat-wise with the rest of the game, and for the open-world stuff, just make sure to give the enemies a bunch of units/weapons that have AA abilities to try to knock AWs out of the sky and return the WF to ground combat 

i also think that AW should not be a consumable call down, but potentially it should be some form of metered cooldown like how Focus currently is, so that there is a limit to how often you can jump back and forth, especially there should be some kind of delay for being shot out of the sky 

if anything is going to 'force' DE to finally really put the kind of work into arghwing that should have gone into it 2+ years ago, then this is going to be it

so im hoping for the best, but im not holding my breath =/

Edited July 9, 2017 by CY13ERPUNK

[-Krism-]

For what we saw so far, it's a becaon that you will craft in your Orbitor and equipe in you arsenal.

[Tesseract7777]

Yeah having to use a consumable to summon my archwing is ridiculous imo, but oh well. I am afraid they are already stuck on their latest resource sink. Sad. 

When I play MMO's with mounts, I don't need to consume resources every time I summon my mount, I just summon it. I don't see why we need to spend resources to do use what is basically a necessary mobility tool. 

Edited July 9, 2017 by Tesseract7777

[Markingway]

im hoping that it being a consumable was a placeholder deal and wont be on release cause as fun as the archwing on land would be having to build things to call our archwings wouldnt be very good considering the uranus tileset though i do believe it would be like the glyph prism and just unlimited

 

Edited July 9, 2017 by silverkil124
misspell

[PsiWarp]

Bind it to 6 rather than a consumable.

[Tesseract7777]

Just now, PsiWarp said:

Bind it to 6 rather than a consumable.

This! Excellent idea!

[(XBOX)AntiCaesar]

2 minutes ago, PsiWarp said:

Bind it to 6 rather than a consumable.

But consoles? RB + LT? Or whatever the ability thing is plus sprint?

[Kaotyke]

27 minutes ago, PsiWarp said:

Bind it to 6 rather than a consumable.

No, consoles already have all their binds full. This will be bad for them.

Make it an Emote: "Signal Ordis to Deploy Archwing"

[DeyjaVou]

11 minutes ago, Kaotyke said:

No, consoles already have all their binds full. This will be bad for them.

Make it an Emote: "Signal Ordis to Deploy Archwing"

Another user described how they wanted it to work to me, and they read my mind. Having it be in gear would be perfectly alright (since PC can bind gear slots to different keys, and could have it on 6, and Console is basically out of binds at this point).

If you give it a 2-3 second calldown time with an on-screen indicator and have it attach itself to you when the timer hits 0, you can call it down, run out of a building, and jump into the air to have it catch you and soar away.

[polarity]

Making them consumables/cooldowns is what ruined gliders in Firefall.

 

21 minutes ago, Kaotyke said:

No, consoles already have all their binds full.

That's a UI issue, and it's about time DE dealt with it properly instead of band-aiding the problem even more (like they did with long/short presses for operator functions), either by providing an improved gearwheel with nested levels, or a universal modifier binding for gamepads to give all the other buttons two different functions.

Edited July 9, 2017 by polarity

[ravend]

Don't get too happy, I'm sure DE will make you pay. I can see grineer working on surface to air missiles, flak cannons.

[Sablesword]

There are Dargyns flying around, so you can't just sit up there in complete safety. Unless you have an Itzal....

[(PSN)Kardello]

my only reservation is the means by which you equip your archwing. It's a consumable item, you'll either have to buy it or craft it, as opposed to submersible missions where you get in water and away we go.

 

A more elegant way of doing it would be to bullet jump and do something while in mid air, like a double jump afterwards. Bullet jump, double jump, and on the third press, archwing.

[jhmgrose]

To address the calldown functionality: I agree about having it not be a consumable. That's stupid lol. Have it in the emote menu, but at the top, because the top and bottom are free space where we already have ten bound emotes on the sides.

What I'd like to know is if we are unable to use Archwing weapons whilst in Archwing mode. I guess it'd upset game balance if we did, but maybe there could be a tradeoff. You could be interdicted by Archwing enemies or by anti-Archwing turrets developed by the Grineer.

[Brasten]

You can self-bind Gear use to buttons. I have Num-pad 1, 2, 3 bound to Gears 6, 7, 8 respectively and I use them for quick drop Team/Squad plates.

What I see as the biggest issue is Archwing as a whole. It's not very well balanced with the base Warframe experience, which is part of why many people don't like it. You can get a taste of this in Shark-Wing mode. Where the Amesha and Elytron powers can reach outside the water zones for quite some range. Additionally Archwing passive energy recharge (I know we have a lot of ways to do that on our Warframes), could become a crutch. Drop into Archwing, charge up a bit, and then overpower enemies with the Amesha bubble of super safety. Or the Itzal Crush Spam. Again you can see this play out with Shark-Wing on Uranus. 

I do like the idea of Archwing.... if it develops more in the "Zone of Enders" Beat-um-up style. But it's not a complete mode by a long shot. I'm still waiting for separate keybindings while in Archwing so I can bind Up/Down to Q/E and not having it conflict with Q (Gear wheel) and E quick (Melee). I find Up (Jump/Space Bar) and Down (Sprint, Shift) to be very awkward and not very responsive.  Archwing REALLY needs to act like a Battlefield Vehicle mode, which has completely different keybinds from the Infantry mode.

=====

I'm okay with a Gear based Call Down, you have to move to get into. We use Gear for all kinds of Odd things.

As to catching it in mid-air. How about a cinematic alternative. This will take some extra programming and design work, but should have the feeling of cool. Add a Trajectory line that the Archwing will come down on. If they player Bullet Jumps through that line, apply the Archwing in a "snag" animation in mid air. This is the "For Style" and maybe the "do it fast".

Here are the befits I see to a Trajectory Intercept.

1. "Rule of Cool" it will look and likely feel good to catch your Archwing in mid-air.
2. Add a delay to Archwing arrival. Making it something the player has to think about calling in advance. And not as reactive deploy.
3. Enemies can shoot down the Archwing. Either destroy before touchdown or apply pre-equip damage. This is to make it a gamble to bring the Archwing in too close during a big fire fight. This would be an extra UX layer to show where Enemy factions have Anti-Air emplacements, and their effective zones to possibly destroy/damage an incoming Archwing.
4. A possible "oh no" moment if the player gets CCed and knocked down, pulled, or otherwise is unable to make the mid-air catch in time. At which point they have to scramble to the impact point.

[TheGodofWiFi]

I kind of hope they make so you press a button for two seconds and you quickly jump into the air while you Archwing materialises behind you. Sort of how Destiny allows you to summon your Sparrow.

[(PSN)THE_HUNTER96929]

It could just be place holder, in the end it could be unlimeted just like placing your glyph around

[OniDax]

1 hour ago, Sablesword said:

There are Dargyns flying around, so you can't just sit up there in complete safety. Unless you have an Itzal....

I really loved that part. Hope there are a fair amount of mechanized units in this open world. Also eventually hope there are some Dargyns lying around that we can hop into.

[Darkvramp]

this introduces the need for Anti aircraft gun emplacements to defend against not only tenno but any airborne craft. we kind of have an example of what that would be in the grineer autocannon for arch wing, the grattler, all that there needs to be now is put one on a rotating turret and make it have a decent range and now you have a ground based AA flak gun.

the morter is also gonna need a team so a like a special morter grineer team that focuses on point defense (so something like a ice eximus as a variant would be cool) and long range bombardment is gonna be key for making the content in the open world more dynamic, and possible require tactics and strategy.

Also just having foot patrols is going to be boring so more grineer vehicles would be great. another thing is that grineer dont really have like a scout unit something that is real quiet that might be something to add, like if you dont kill it it will run back to a radio tower or radio troop(something else to add) and bring a company of lancers on your arse.