Progression?

[(PSN)Elvenbane]

With the Plains of Eidolon update we are introduced to two new syndicates, the warrior operator, their amp weapon, and a new baddie that only they can hope to defeat using void powers.

Most things in the plains all circle back to the operator and amp, but not in any way that’s meaningful. Because of how the syndicate rewards/standing is structured, you’re basically required to take on the teralyst with your starter amp. This is as good as the teralyst fight gets, from this point on, it’s only going to get easier as you create better amps/arcanes. There aren’t tougher bosses to fight (yet?), you don’t gain access to additional missions, you just make the teralyst fight increasingly trivial. If your goal is to solo the eidolon, or get N+1 kills/captures a night…then I guess that’s something to strive for. I personally don’t find this structure very motivating. Below I’ll share a bit about what my experience regarding Quills, the amp, and teralyst was like now that I've had a chance to spend some time with this update.

tl;dr: The progression curve in Quills needs to be less steep and more meaningful; bounties should be more rewarding than fishing.

After gaining access to Quills and getting my amp, my initial inclination was that I should be looking to improve it before trying to tackle the new content for “vets”.

Wandering the plains at night, I found the vomvalyst that sometimes drop intact cores and figured, ok this is how I get standing to upgrade my amp or rank up. The vomvalyst isn’t a mini boss or anything, it’s a button sequence that requires your space kid…for me it goes like this: aim at vomvalyst, R2, up arrow+R1, R2, up arrow+R1, find next target, repeat. On a good night I can get around 20 intact cores, they are worth 100 standing a pop. You can grind out the next rank in Quills in a few night cycles, for which your rank up reward is choosing a piece for a new amp…or a clothing item.

It’s now less feasible to grind out the next rank by only collecting intact cores from vomvalyst…so should I be grinding out standing using vomvalyst to get the bps for the other 2 amp parts now…what about my starter amp? Oh, look…the starter amp has gained a few levels! Since amps don’t have mod slots, surely the reason you can level it is because it improves with level! Levels amp to 30…hmmm, that did nothing…it’s not any better than when it was unranked? Oh wait, I can guild it…oops, no I can’t I need to rank up again…and it’s another 5k on top of the 22k rank up standing.

Gives up on improving gear and decides to join teralyst capture squad using recruiting tab. A few captures/kills later, is able to rank up…chooses another prism. Shouldn’t be a problem to get enough standing to build another amp now…but the starter amp works well enough in a group and there’s nothing new to see/experience…why bother? What about the starter amp…why do I care about gilding it now? Apparently, you can get mastery points from it by doing so, that’s it? I also have no feel for how these new amps/parts will compare vs. gilding the base amp...and it's a lot of grinding to make them in order to experiment, do I just *trust* that any combination of prism, scaffold, and brace is a worthwhile improvement?

Now what about the Ostron syndicate…what purpose does ranking up in it serve? Fishing spears, mining tools, and bps for gems…stuff you need to build the amp parts and operator arcanes. There’s also zaws…but I haven’t built one yet, so I can’t comment on whether these are worthwhile (I have enough melee weapons, interesting idea though with the arcanes). Bounties can be a lot of fun, but there are serious gate loading/match-making issues to be addressed. The other oddity is that fishing appears to be the best way to get standing by a long shot? While I do like Warframe’s take on fishing, it should be a fun diversion, not the star of the show.

• Why is Quills so hidden by the way? I probably wouldn’t have found it/known about it without having watched the devstreams…

As for the teralyst fight itself, it’s not the worst boss fight in Warframe…but since it’s the newest it should be looked at more critically. While the fight can be fun in a squad, it’s simply not good because it’s centered around a mechanic that isn’t good. The teralyst pretty much galumphs around mostly ignoring the player. You are required to switch to space kid to take down its shields, space kid is broken and not fun. My space kid has the Zenurik energy perks half upgraded…I can already stay in the void a very long time…I’m invulnerable. My amp energy runs out quickly, so I am mostly just waiting around invulnerable for it to recharge. If space kid dies, it doesn’t matter, just press up arrow+R1 again. Sometimes you are warned that the teralyst is going to do a big lethal aoe, space kid doesn’t care, space kid is invulnerable. I can certainly appreciate the difficultly of designing bosses around so many different frames and abilities…if requiring the operator was a way to limit the power of frames, why introduce an invulnerability mechanic? I don’t have the option of not using space kid, it’s required for *reasons* if I want to play the new content…and it sounds like more and more eidolons are in the works. Teralyst also needs to stay off steep slopes...it's just annoying trying to flight on that much of an incline.

I would like to close by saying that the plains update is an impressive achievement, and while there are many things I like about it, lack of integration with the rest of the game is a problem. I’m hesitant to drag my one friend that plays casually into the plains with me as they won’t be making progress where it will have more impact and I don’t see them grinding enough in the plains to actually get anywhere with the 2 syndicates.

Most of the nitpicks about the plains can and I think will be addressed over time, but physical space kid and designing so much content around them is a huge problem in my mind. Frequent transference is bad, invulnerability is bad, overlap with frames is bad. I don’t see this changing in the future and I guess DE and I no longer agree on what Warframe should be…this new direction will undoubtedly drive me away in search of more compelling game play (MHW in Jan)…which is surprising because it’s always been Warframe’s game play that has kept me interested these past 4 years.

As a final suggestion, I think I might actually be able to enjoy space kid combat if they transferred in on hover boards and had a target lock toggle for the eidolon (I'm completely serious).

[(XBOX)N7 Tigger]

I'm not going to sugar coat it. Everything about the PoE update is garbage. None of it is remotely fun. None of it is worth my time. Some of it could be fun. But apparently DE don't want us to have fun so they put in mechanics designed to make sure it is not fun. Just one example - Archwing.

It could be fun to tear around the plains in my Archwing. And let's face it, it would be the only time anyone has ever had fun in an Archwing. But first you have to research the Archwing Launcher. Then you have to craft a consumable that lets you use the Archwing. Then, when you finally get to use it, after so much as looking at an enemy it's "PROJECTILE INCOMMING!" But never mind, I'm Amesha so I'll just press 1. But no. Despite being able to use your powers they don't actually work. So I take a single hit and fall out of they sky. Then I dashboard. Then I press Start. Then I scroll down to Quit.

Forget the massive grind for the several dozen new resources and what is there to do? Kill the Terralyst once, realise is is boring and unrewarding, and that's it. That's liteally all there is. A massive resource grind to hide the fact that there is no content.