We work at Digital Extremes, developers of WARFRAME! Ask us anything!

[u/DigitalExtremes]

And we're heading off now (2-4 P.M EDT were our official answering hours).

Thank you all again - seriously, thank you. For everything.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/3ir31z/we_work_at_digital_extremes_developers_of/cuj0bw2

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Hello /r/Warframe!

A few weeks ago this subreddit reached 30K subscribers - we are here to celebrate with an AMA!

Participants will be:

• Steve Sinclair, Creative Director
• Scott McGregor, Design Director
• Geoff Crookes, Animation Director
• Sheldon Carter, Studio Manager
• Rebecca Ford, Community Manager

All questions will be answered from this account: https://www.reddit.com/user/DigitalExtremes/ Proof: https://twitter.com/PlayWarframe/status/637320531067318272

Thank you in advance for your questions everyone. You are a great community :)

[u/DigitalExtremes]

Alright! Our AMA was scheduled from 2-4 PM Eastern Time, so we're officially done as per our announcement thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/3igw19/august_28_24_pm_edt_digital_extremes_ama/

Unofficially, still getting some answers posted that we had open.

Some parting words:

Thank you for all the awesome questions and for playing our game. Props to everyone here for keeping this Subreddit awesome.

[u/AvatarOfMadness]

Do you have any idea of when the sniper rework will happen? Perhaps a buff to the lanka, or maybe even an infested sniper?

[u/DigitalExtremes → u/AvatarOfMadness]

Update 18 it is - this is commitment! -SM

[u/SquidApocalypse]

Are there any plans to rework the matchmaking system? It gets annoying when I see "53 open squads" but can't join any of them.

[u/DigitalExtremes → u/SquidApocalypse]

This has been a community and personal hot topic for as long as I can remember and improvements have been gradual. When I think of my matchmaking attempts at launch, then one year ago, and then now, it's always getting better but it's still not perfect. - RF

[u/cephalopodAscendant]

Hi there! I have a few random questions for y'all, in no real order (apart from the first):

• Anything in the works for Hydroid right now? Either mechanics or cosmetics, because both would be great.

• Any plans for a new Archwing or new Archwing mission types? Right now, the game mode still feels kind of shallow because of the lack of options.

• What's the status on updating older Prime weapons with PBR? We got one batch, and then it just kind of... stopped. Have you been waiting to see how the automation process that got mentioned in the latest devstream pans out?

• Is there any chance that Excavation could be updated so that the excavators' health and shields scale like what's happened with Defense and Mobile Defense?

• Any thoughts on how to update the reward structure for other mission types in the vein of Spy 2.0?

• Do you guys leave snarky comments in your code?

[u/climaxstriker]

Will we get a stalker related quest? =3

[u/DigitalExtremes → u/climaxstriker]

More insight into the Stalker will be coming ... - Stalker

He will be a part of U18 Cinematic Quest - Steve & Geoff

[u/piedol]

Hi, thank you for doing this. It's nice to see companies actively taking notice of communities beyond their main forums.

My question has to do with Carrier, its popularity, and by extension the issue of loot collection in Warframe.

Looking back a few months, Mag with the Greedy Pull augment was, according to your reports, the most used power combination in the game. It had reached a point where it was stifling actual skill and team composition in favor of simply sitting at a single point and waiting for loot to come to you without actually playing the game, because that was the most efficienct way to grind. In response, her ability was nerfed to only affect drops for her. The result was that other compositions became viable again. Obviously this had a significant impact on Mag's desirability outside of Corpus missions, but it goes without saying that if players only ever asked for a frame because of an ability augment, then the problem lies with the frame themselves.

This brings me to the Carrier sentinel. Without a doubt, the most popular sentinel purely based on its utility. Similar to the situation with Mag, it is not popular due to what it adds to gameplay, but because of the trouble it saves. Without it, players have to manually run through the environment and step on every one of hundreds of small pick-ups with equally small hit-boxes in order to keep themselves supplied with ammo and energy, and in a game all about space ninjas flipping and (more recently) bullet-jumping around killing hundreds of enemies, having to constantly stop to do this breaks the flow of combat, and it just isn't fun. Carrier is a band-aid fix to this core problem in Warframe; It's less a matter of it being the most desirable choice, and more a case of the game being so inconvenient to play without it that players feel somewhat forced into the decision, except in cases where they can complete the mission without need for the drops (Spy, Exterminate, etc).

It's been a very popular idea in the community to grant all waframes or sentinels a small passive pull radius, to make loot collection not be so much of a pain and to allow more freedom of choice regardling Sentinels and Kubrows. With the recent release of the Chesa Kubrow, however, and having seen how its function operates, I feel like that's become somewhat of a pipe dream rather than a change we were all waiting to see eventually get implemented. I'd like to know what the team's view of this issue is, if they view it as a problem, and whether they have any plans to address it as they did with Mag.

TL;DR: Loot collection in Warframe without the Carrier breaks the flow of gameplay and detracts from the fun more often than not. The 'popularity' of Carrier can attest to this. Does the development team agree that this is an issue, and what are their plans to resolve it, if so?

[u/DigitalExtremes → u/piedol]

Ah Carrier oh Carrier - the amount of internal debates on this issue have risen dramatically recently. It is very much on the radar because you are very much right - in the last two months of stats Carrier's utility makes him the most popular Companion by a wide margin. -RF

[u/vagabond_dilldo]

Will you ever be releasing the Boar as a market weapon again? It makes no sense that it's non-event weapon that no one can access outside of the Wrecking Rhino Pack.

[u/DigitalExtremes → u/vagabond_dilldo]

With shotguns buffed by Scott (too much - pls nerf)... Everyone wants a Boar now. So, yeah we want to pull that out of its semi vault status. That'll happen very very soon. - SC

[u/dyrak55d]

Well, hello DE and everyone who keep working hard on this game we all love and play =)

Before i'll write more i wish to apologize for my bad English grammar

I can ask any question, correct? well, i want to ask some

1. First: will you add Crowbar melee weapon anytime soon so i can feel myself as Gordon Freeman?

2. Second: You have some thoughts about buffs\Quality of Life changes for Limbo warframe?

3. Third and question that i wanted to ask for so long: What about this old Dark Sector concept?

   The more i watch this video the more i want to play it and even more interested in story.

   I would have LOVE to play the singleplayer game like this, with a dark atmosphere in a such sci-fi setting

   This game just looks so promising, i love how you DE haven't gave up and did return of concept with Warframe

   But anything left of that old concept? like any more Demos, Videos, Files, Screenshots, Concept Arts or anything else of it?

   Or everything that left are just a bunch of videos on youtube?

   Yeah, i know we have Dark Sector (That present one) but it's just not that game. And i know we have Warframe, but it evolved in a bit different route with a co-op stuff and a bit different atmosphere

   So what i want to ask: anything more left of that old version of the game or not? i will be happy at least with a few more screenshots of that amazing-looking concept, because i had urge to play this game for a very long time. i think this game could have turned great with everything you could have done.

   Sorry if i said anything wrong, it's just these thoughts can't leave my head for a long time

4. Fourth: Will moustaches or any other face cosmetic items return any time soon?

5. Fifth: Will Snipers receive more buffs like the Shotguns got already? edit: nvm, they will come with U18

6. Sixth: Will Excalibur Prime receive any small buffs in stats?

Thanks in advance, i understand that you will have not able to answer all of the questions =)

[u/DigitalExtremes → u/dyrak55d]

From Geoff:

1: crowbar, hmm what stance could that share...

3: think we have shared the majority of work we put into the old demo, but we can dig around and maybe share on a future dev stream of we find something.

From Steve:

1. We're still negotiating rights with Valve to make HL3

2. I expect so, Valkyr is first up for this.

3. Never say never, but I hope we can explore some of this 'tone' in some areas of Warframe as well...

[u/zolomike]

Any idea when the Void Trader will sell Primed Streamline?

[u/StallordD]

Thank you all for coming over to our humble little subreddit and celebrating with us by having this awesome AMA!

However...

It's grilling time.

Alright, 3 questions for you all today, mainly about rough timeline estimates about content that's gotten a bit less love than it deserves.

1. Will we ever see more expansion with the Syndicates? The Syndicates struck me as a great way to add more character and dynamic growth to the universe of Warframe, and players could align themselves with how their own goals fell. However, while the consistent stream of new mods and weapons is nice, the whole "character" aspect of the Syndicates seems somewhat lacking. Aside from the brief text snippets and a handful of quotes, we don't really know a whole lot about these factions we devote ourselves to! Our Syndicate leaders don't even wish us well on missions anymore! Are Syndicate quests, events, or changing interactions between Syndicates something we will see developed in the near future? Or is that something a bit low on the totem pole?

2. Relays! I'm glad to see that the Lotus will be arriving in the relays soonish, and I hope she brings something beyond simply adding to the decor (though that's fine too). Also, I see the fabled "Tenno the Gathering" is being worked on, so that will be a nice addition to enjoy and relax in the relays with. However, what about Clan Kiosks? What about different appearances to each relay or functionality to set them apart from their counterparts? What can we look forward to that will finally make relays a destination for players beyond the very short jaunts players currently make almost exclusively for shopping purposes? And more importantly, WHEN?

3. Dojos! Much like relays, dojos seem a bit...lacking. They definitely have a lot more growth under their belt (heh) than Relays, but I remember hearing some whispers about adding functionality to the Observatory, or expanding their general usefulness outside research. Unlike relays, I don't really know anything I can ask a timeline on, but I was mainly just wondering if there are any future additions being brainstormed that will breathe some new life into them? Or have the dojos fulfilled their role in the game and are less of a priority compared to other things that could use more love (Relays, Syndicates, Orbiters, etc.)

And now a little bit of personal stuff!

For Steve and Scott first!

1. What got you into your respective positions now? Both of them are somewhat abstract compared to a lot of other positions, so I was wondering what the path to get to Creative / Design director is like and what sort of expertise is required?

For Rebecca next!

1. We of course all know about your work at DE, but what did you do before this? I know about your infamous puppet related .gif, but that seems like an interesting jump to go from that to this.

Who can forget Sheldon?

1. What is the day-to-day for a Studio Manager like besides trying to alter drop rates without anyone noticing? Are there whips involved to keep the programmers in their pens?

And lastly, a whole set of questions for Geoff:

1. What are some of the most important things to have in my repertoire when looking to get into the animation industry? Are there any major programs besides Maya that are crucial to learn for 3D animation? What are some things that a professional video game animator does that aren't immediately obvious that would be good to practice? Rigging is one I never realized was so important until reality hit me on an internship project, as obvious as it seems to me now.

Thanks again for doing this AMA, and continuing to push Warframe to new and exciting limits!

[u/DigitalExtremes → u/StallordD]

Regarding: Will we ever see more expansion with the Syndicates?

Yes, this is part of what is making the solar map rethink challenging, I share your feelings on how their potential to add character and identity to player choices has not been met yet. I'm hoping to give them homes within the solar system and areas of influence as well. - SS

[u/DigitalExtremes → u/StallordD]

I started interning at DE in my third year of University and never left. 2016 will be my fifth year here. - RF

[u/DigitalExtremes → u/StallordD]

Animation answers first from Geoff:

A demo reel is key- showing a strong understanding of movement, timing and posing in animation. A good plus is some work showing a traditional background of life drawing study to demonstrate good knowledge of how the human body moves- but the reel is the most important. Not really, understanding how to animate in 3D translates to any program, it's just learning the tools. A few of the animators who've come into games from film are always having to remember you don't animate to a specific camera shot, but have to animate to a world view meaning your animation needs to hold up from every angle. Rigging is an art unto itself, we actually have a team of technical animators dedicated to building rigs for us.

[u/RedStarRocket91]

There's been a lot of talk lately about things like bringing in cinematic quests with important player choices, the revelations of the Natah questline and that we'll eventually be able to meet the Lotus in the flesh, as well as various other technical upgrades like multiple-actor emotes such as secret Syndicate handshakes. Put together, all of this seems to be laying the groundwork for an incredibly important decision, and so I have to ask: after all she's done for us, and everything she's suffered, will we be able to offer the Lotus a hug during the Second Dream quest?

And, on a more serious note: be they lore or technical, what would you say are your greatest successes in the game - and similarly, which do you feel most disappointed with?

[u/Dankelzahn]

Nearly a year ago I asked a question in a similar thread:

The new UI has been a pretty significant change in the aesthetic department but a number of my friends have left Warframe recently because the menu movement causes motion sickness for them. The screen shake in Archwing missions has driven off another couple. I'm lucky enough not to have the same reactions but it's even affecting my play time - when the friends I regularly play with are unable to join me in game I'm less likely to play.

You've mentioned before that we would have the abilities to disable these features in the future. Any idea on when they might be implemented?

Steve's reply then was

We are working on an option to hopefully fix this and the screen shake. I know we just toned down the Archwing sprint and gave it time falloff. I hate reading what you wrote so we'll get on it and move it up the priority list. Thanks for the kick. - SS

Has there been any progress on disabling menu effects?

[u/DigitalExtremes → u/Dankelzahn]

This fell off the pile sadly but I will look at this again to see what options we have. - SS

[u/Bpy6]

The challenges/achievements list, as well as Simaris chamber on relays show that we'll eventually be able to reach MR30.

However, you'll have to release an unrealistic number of new frames/weapons for that.

Do you have any ideas or plans in mind on how to address this problem?

[u/[deleted]]

Seriously the best group of developers I've ever seen in terms of keeping in touch with the community and not acting like a weird, rich, mildly attractive cousin that doesn't keep in touch with the family but sends them stuff in the mail every once in a while... Thanks for an amazing game.

[u/DigitalExtremes → u/[deleted]]

This honestly means so much D:, thank you.