Lets Talk about Archwing!

[C-Core]

Now, before any of you begin talking about Plains of Eidolon, I want to address something that I think will happen. I still dont think POE will expand archwing in a big way. (Slightly off topic here) This is for a number of reasons.

1) You wont use normal archwing weapons when in POE as you're not in space and wont be able to wield these massive heavy weapons, so in theory this will remove an element of archwing which is a negative.

2) Archwings will probably only be used to fly around, or to take down big bosses. This is kind of a good thing, as they are being used more, but I cant see them being used a whole lot.

Ok, back to normal warframe. Archwing missions themselves are scarce, with only a few planets having an archwing mission. This is ONE mission. Archwing missions dont really have a reason to be played anymore, since archwing weapon parts have been removed from their drop tables, and have instead been added to syndicate rewards. Now, whereas this may be a good thing as it is much easier to get syndicate standing than it was to endure a bit of grind and hate from RNJesus, the change gives players no incentive or reason to play archwing. Farming for archwing weapon parts was the only reason some people even played archwing. Nowadays, there is no reason to play it, and I really wish there was.

Now, I personally love archwing. From the moment I got the Odonata, I was in love. But I slowly came to realise that archwing hasnt really been implemented enough, which is a shame because Archwing missions are a nice edition to the game, that are fun (At least in my opinion).

I think fun versus reward plays a big part here. A mission can be fun to play, but gives no reward, so players no longer have a reason to play, which is currently what is wrong with all archwing missions (Except the Jordas boss I guess?). If the mission has a great reward, but isnt fun to play (Much like the old archwing missions as it could have been argued that the grind was tedious and annoying just for 1 weapon part) then no-one will want to play it either. I think DE needs to find a balance on the archwing missions that makes them fun, but also make it so players are rewarded for playing them.

If you guys have any suggestions about what you think they should do to archwing, let me know. I'd love to hear other's opinions on this situation, as I feel like all archwing missions in general need a rework in terms of their reward, how fun they are, and more importantly, how many of them there are.

[peterc3]

Scarce? There's an entire planet devoted to it and one on every other planet.

[redeyedtreefrog]

What archwing needs is INTEGRATION.

You have archwing missions, and you have non-archwing missions. There is only one true instance of in-between, which is sharkwing, BUT sharkwing movement is slow and clunky which is the opposite of archwing's point.

Kuva fortress doesn't count; out of all the kuva fortress missions I've played, I only went into archwing mode once, and that was only for the extraction tile.

But what we need is more integration. Being able to go from normal movement to archwing movement (and combat) in the same mission will give archwing more prominence, and open up more opportunities to get the much-needed archwing mods (You have no idea how many archwing missions I played for electrified barrel to no avail).

One of the biggest things I noticed is, when I first started archwing, I HATED IT. Part of this is the modding system: you go from having a decent mod setup for your warframe and weapons, to having zero mods. Not even bad ones. But, once I got the necessary archwing mods, I now actually enjoy archwing missions. So being able to obtain the archwing mods you need should be easier, if only by method of having more possible areas to obtain them in.

Aside from that, my only complaint is, quite specifically, the relentless homing capability of almost every attack made by the jordas golem. He can spawn minions, which obviously home. Those can at least be killed, and obviously minions would head towards you. But then he can launch maggots, which ignore cover, and must be shot down or evaded, and unless you're facing them doing either will likely be difficult. Then he has a fire wave; the only method of dodging this is to keep your distance, which you actually don't want to do because most archwing weapons (imperator, fluctus, grattler, corvas) have limited range. Fourth and finally, the golem's gods-forsaken homing electric orbs. The ONLY ability that can counter these is odonata's disarray. Four archwings and only one can deal with these orbs, as they home relentlessly and cannot be shot down. Not to mention they deal a hefty amount of damage.

Finally; shield dargyns. You cannot take down their shields. Flanking them is usually out of the question as they track you. Passing through the shields imparts an electric proc. To counter you need fluctus or grattler. This needs to change; make it possible to ship down their shields like you can nullifier bubbles, because shield dargyns are the most unintuitive enemy type and is worse even than a nullifier in terms of annoyance.

In essence, aside from content and mod economy, archwing needs to focus less on nigh-impossible to dodge aura effects and homing missiles, and mechanics which only have one good counter mechanism spread among the four archwings.

[C-Core]

In my opinion (This may just be because I have lots of mods for archwing) I found the jordas golem extremely easy when I got some good gear. The velocitus is insanely good against him as it has no falloff damage. However, the first time I fought him, with my friends, it was a tedious half hour boss fight with nothing but a few Odonata's an itzal and a elytron, and we all had starter weapons. I like your idea of hybrid missions with both archwing and normal gameplay, and these type of missions should drop archwing mods, making them less annoying to get. (God, hollowed bullets was annoying).

The shield dargyns have always been a problem, I think they should just be removed entirely, as they aren't fun to play against. I also dont know if you're aware, but Itzals teleport removes all target locks. We wont even get started on how broken Amesha is...

But yes, archwing needs more implementation into normal missions.

[C-Core]

7 hours ago, peterc3 said:

Scarce? There's an entire planet devoted to it and one on every other planet.

An entire planet? You're talking about uranus correct? That planet isnt devoted to archwing at all, its full of submersible missions which first off you barely even use the archwing. And second, they feel slow, and clunky, not really how archwing was intended to be played, not fun either.

[Boese]

I've been thinking about this lately as well, hopefully this topic isn't tooo old that I shouldn't be posting in it.

I've really been craving a reason to play more archwing lately, and I really think that vastly increasing the amount of archwing nodes would go a long way toward improving the community's perception of archwing.

Like you said, with the removal of archwing weapons from archwing modes, there's very little reason to do any archwing content, so when the occasional quest requires archwing, players go in unlevelled and unprepared, which ends up giving players a bad taste in their mouths in regards to the archwing game mode. 

If there was a planet devoted to archwing, like a deep space or asteroid belt area, covering enemy levels from 5 to 20, with an archwing boss at the end that drops an archwing weapon bp or parts, it could act like the starchart does for regular Warframe. This would better prepare players, level their weapons, and give them a better supply of archwing mods without specifically needing to grind for them. 

[OmegaPaladin]

I like Archwing.  Honestly, I do.  But it needs some serious TLC.

Getting started - You get a starter archwing and starter weapons. However, the Odonata is sitting on the shelf while I still run Volt, Excal, and Mag from time to time.  It's a fairly lackluster archwing, and the weapons are pretty bad.   This would not be a problem if the archwing weapons weren't so difficult to obtain.  True, it is easier to get them from a syndicate rather than grinding them, but weapon parts are spread across multiple syndicates.  That means that trading is required to get the weapon parts.   There are a few exceptions via clan research, but it is still an issue.  Maybe have archwing part BPs show up in alerts?

Rewards -  Archwing specific drop tables need some modification.  Sabotage has only one reward per mission and only one tier.  Rush & Pursuit have tiers, but you only get the rotation you acheive, not the lower ones.  On other tiered missions, finding all the caches, hitting all the vaults, running 4 extractors will give you the best reward + the lower rotations.  This would an easy fix and make the missions more worthwhile to play.

Endless Missions -  It would not be that hard to add more endless missions to allow for better grinding.  Defense should be an easy implementation off of mobile defense - use the old landing craft model that gets blown up in the first mission.

I second the points about Shield Dargyns and the need for integration

Edited September 2, 2017 by OmegaPaladin

[Myrkrvaldyr]

I just want an entire planet devoted to archwing, more and better archwing mods, more enemies, more archwing varieties, and hybrid missions where both normal frame and archwing are used.

[(XBOX)CannyJack]

My hope is that archwing on Plains of Eidolon is strictly "getting around fast" stuff, and has nothing to do with missions besides maybe reaching the mission area.

Archwing is a interesting idea, poorly executed, completely unintegrated, and left to die on the vine. So let it die already: can the archwing missions, archive the equipment, convert the slots to Warframe and Weapon slots, pay every player the balance of whatever archwing Mastery was available, and drop it.