Void/Derelict Blues

[Teoarrk]

I've come back to the game after a long hiatus and I have to say that a lot has been added to the game that I really enjoy. For brevity's sake I will list them as bullet points:

-many new quests with lore

-new pets and companions

-a rework to the mod system

-new Warframes with unique acquisition methods

-boss reworks that give you a build up to the big event and provide a challenge

-new dailies that provide sizeable bonuses

-a pvp rework that is fully seperate from the PvE side of the game with interesting rewards and promotes a different play style to standard play.

-a new use for those challenge rooms in the Void and Orokin Derelicts

-a new key system that decompresses the loot tables for prime content.

-a skill tree system.

-a new planet, Lua.

-new collectibles.

I have enjoyed all these changes and it would be wrong of me to not cover the positives before going into my concerns. I could go at length into each of these but at some point a critique has to happen. With the removal of the old key system and the introduction of the Void tileset into the regular star chart, there now is a lack of that unique quality to a mission there that it had before, when a Void visit was an investment and now it feels cheapened to a place you go to farm Argon Crystals.

Don't get me wrong, Ayatan runs are fun and exciting, but they don't have the punishment that failing a Void mission in the old key system would. I understand that the conditional failure as a result of failing a vault challenge can and often will be the result of either a curious and unexperienced player, or one that wants to make the group fail in multiplayer and while under the old system that clearly would be a problem, it is lessened with a lower investment for entry. My point however being that now there is more freedom to explore the tower, there is less want or need to because short of one resource, there is little that the Void provides different to another tileset when it is supposed to have significance and be a source of treasure.

The Orokin Derelict has survived better in my opinion in terms of prestige, both due to the maintaining of the key system, the corrupted vaults and being the place to grind two Warframes. The replacement of void key sacrifice with easier to acquire resources fits in line with the new relic system and while those are both good, it does leave only 2 nodes that are relevant to most players for terms of progression purposes, that being Survival and Assassination. The other nodes can still offer a challenge and a source for relics, but in terms of completing a collection,  only those two nodes provide direct rewards.

Before I propose solutions to both of these tilesets, there are important things that need to be addressed, once again in bullet point form for brevity:

-Polishing older content with a few new gimmicks may not be as successful as focusing on new content or a complete overhaul as has happened before.

-My vision is purely my own and I do not have the experience or talent of a very successful game studio of which this game would not be possible.

-With Plains of Eidelon coming out, all hands are most likely focused on what is and will be a complete and utter game-changer.

-There are going to be people that are fine with things as they are now and to implement my ideas will be to upset their gameplay.

Now that I have all that said and done, here is my pitch.

The Void, being the source of void fissures should be filled with void traces. In an Orokin Tower, there must be relative safety from the void or else we would see many more environmental hazards than traps and the Corrupted. However, after as long a time as is implied between The Collapse and current day, there must have been leaks, failures and other such problems that resulted in the Void breaching the tower. Master builders as they are, surely there would be a way to isolate the problem via temporary storage and removal, except in this scenario let's assume that the proper removal system either has stopped working or is unable to access the fault and temporary fix.

What this light fix would entail would be the introduction of an extra cache type, similar to the Sabotage Cache which has a chance to spawn in during a Void Tower mission. Similar to a rare container, it would not be announced or given a UI hint of it's existence, but would give everyone an unknown loot notice when activated. At the end of the mission, the rewards list would tell each player that one of their void relics had been improved. The chances of improvement to each tier I would leave to the team. I would justify the implementation of this over the current scheme of void trace alerts because it gives the players an incentive to explore the tileset. It's beautiful and I feel like it's rushed through all too often because players do not see a reason to stay any longer than deemed necessary. It also makes sense in my mind for one to visit the Void to increase the power of something that came from it.

Another change that I would argue is that either the vault challenges should not contribute to a mission failure when not on Maroo's mission, or be inaccessible when not the main objective. 

For Orokin Derelicts, I would give the missions that do not drop Warframe parts a low percentage to spawn Mutagen Mass containers, or at least have Mutagen Masses included in the loot table. Given that the Derelict is supposedly the creation point of the Infested, it could be argued that the concentration of their essence and other such things would be extremely high. I would justify the introduction of this change as an alternative method of grinding mutagen masses beside invasions by arguing that while it would potentially reduce farming times, it would only potentially, without guaranteeing that every mission would immediately make you one craft-able resource richer.

I hope that I have been both reasonable with my suggestion and coherent in my explanation.

Teoarrk.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Teoarrk

[Katinka]

1 hour ago, Teoarrk said:

Another change that I would argue is that either the vault challenges should not contribute to a mission failure when not on Maroo's mission, or be inaccessible when not the main objective.

This is a known bug and will hopefully be fixed with the next update.

1 hour ago, Teoarrk said:

For Orokin Derelicts, I would give the missions that do not drop Warframe parts a low percentage to spawn Mutagen Mass containers, or at least have Mutagen Masses included in the loot table. 

This is something I'd like to see given that rare containers in Grineer/Corpus tile sets give Detonite Injectors/Fieldron but the Derelict gives Forma (same as Void).

1 hour ago, Teoarrk said:

The Void, being the source of void fissures should be filled with void traces.

Are you aware that any Alert that takes place in the Void and isn't for another item is a Void Trace Alert?  You never get credits only in th eVoid as they become 20 Void Trace Alerts instead.  This does make Control Module Alerts in the Void quite annoying though as I know I will get more than 1 Control Module in any Void mission anyway and the presence of that 1 Control Module is stopping it from being worth 20 Void Trace...

1 hour ago, Teoarrk said:

there is little that the Void provides different to another tileset when it is supposed to have significance and be a source of treasure.

The mods from the containers are somethign that I consider a great draw for new players.  Not so much us older players who have almost everything but for new players those treasure rooms with multiple mods coming from containers can supply such rare staples as Continuity, Intensify or Multi-shot mods.  That being said, I feel like the 4 branches of the Void should be given different drop tables for their containers so that players, on reaching a new branch, can use it to try to gain mods they might have missed on the way to that point.  A sort of omnibus set that lets you avoid chasing one specific enemy.

[Teoarrk]

Thanks for the heads up and further suggestions Katinka. The reason that I prefer a new cache system to a Void Traces alert is that the Void trace alert doesn't require you to do anything different to a standard mission of the said type. Why not make it an easter egg hunt when the tileset encourages you to explore?

Edited September 28, 2017 by Teoarrk

[Czin]

I agree that the Derelicts and specially the Void Towers have lost their prestige, their special place in the game (and my farming habits) with the new way to acquire prime parts.

 

I would hope both would get something a little bit more enticing than what was proposed here however. Void traces are not a very special commodity, and mutagen mass, while a good reward, won't have the same effect (at least on someone like me) that enjoyed running those void missions ALOT.I did it the way I wanted at the time, and if farming ducats was my choice for the day, I grinded, alone, or with my friends.

 

We were more compelled to go the extra mile in endless missions, specially TIV, to squeeze the all the loot we could from that key. I recall fondly the moments when we felt we just couldn't stay longer, we were starved for energy, health or even ammo, and scrambled to leave alive. Well at least some did. Many times it was the sole Tenno that left those runs alive and extracted, our friends left behind after burning their revives along the way.

Sure we still have Void fissures in the Void sometimes, but its just not the same.

 

TL;DR I hope we get new, strong, compelling reasons to farm in both of those tilesets. At least if not for new rewards, why not more enticing drop rates/quantities of already existing rewards? I would value my time more in the Void if it was significant more efficient to farm there. At least something besides resources dropped from enemies.

 

Oh and I hope Lua gets some love too.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Czin