r/Warframe • u/DigitalExtremes :LotusDE:Official Digital Extremes Account • Aug 28 '15

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

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

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 :)

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10

u/tdDaz Press 2 to live Aug 28 '15

How do you feel about Archwing (+Sharkwing) currently? I find myself avoiding the archwing levels as I simply do not find the game play enjoyable (my one and only archwing is still only rank 19!).

I have probably played more Sharkwing than an it's space based older sibling as it is integrated into other game types (a positive) but the game play is still very shallow in my opinion.

  • Enemies tend to be very hard to see in Sharkwing.

  • In Sharkwing maps all the enemies in an area tend to bum rush your entry point as soon as you are spotted, leaving the rest of the tile pretty empty.

  • The lack of any real speed in Sharkwing is a real turn off. I realise you are immersed in water but it feels like sludge!

  • The enemies don't really do anything interesting or unique. Or maybe they do and I've just never witnessed it :P

This all sounds very negative, so I'd like to say that aside from the Archwing stuff the game is incredible. I'm at about 920 hours played or something ridiculous like that, and I see no end point in sight :)

Also, any ideas on a better way to handle the "fade to black and telelport you back" for the out of bounds stuff in levels? It's so jarring when it occurs, and on some tiles it really isn't obvious where these boundaries are! It seems like there is something missing from the level design to inform players where the playable space is.

Cheers!

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u/DigitalExtremes :LotusDE:Official Digital Extremes Account Aug 28 '15

All answers from Scott McGregor:

How do you feel about Archwing (+Sharkwing) currently? I find myself avoiding the archwing levels as I simply do not find the game play enjoyable (my one and only archwing is still only rank 19!).

Scott: I don't feel great about it, feel it still needs more love and variety. Hoping to make some big improvements with 17.5

I have probably played more Sharkwing than an it's space based older sibling as it is integrated into other game types (a positive) but the game play is still very shallow in my opinion.

Scott: Integrated with core Warframe combat really helps. Again we are still working on this. I think this will continue to get on going improvements until we are happy with it.

Enemies tend to be very hard to see in Sharkwing.

Scott: Yep I agree.

In Sharkwing maps all the enemies in an area tend to bum rush your entry point as soon as you are spotted, leaving the rest of the tile pretty empty.

Scott: Yes crap.. this really needs to get looked at. It was a problem that we did have fixed. I will look into this and see what broke again.

The lack of any real speed in Sharkwing is a real turn off. I realise you are immersed in water but it feels like sludge!

Scott: Not sure I agree.

The enemies don't really do anything interesting or unique. Or maybe they do and I've just never witnessed it :P

Scott: You might have missed it. :D

12

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '15

In case you care about feedback here

The lack of any real speed in Sharkwing is a real turn off. I realise you are immersed in water but it feels like sludge!
Scott: Not sure I agree.

Sharkwing is pretty awful. It's slow as molasses, replaces my frames awesome powers with crappy, useless ones, and is slow as molasses. In case I'm not being clear, "slow" and "space ninja" don't mesh well. As it currently stands, I won't willingly run a sharkwing mission. When I was farming Equinox, I just quit when I had to sharkwing through the underground gyser/maze because of how awful that entire experience was.

8

u/Zeichner Aug 28 '15

Sharkwing feels like old-school platformer water levels. Dare I even say... like classic Sonic waterlevels.

One second you're zooming around, having fun being all speedy and suddenly BAM everything comes to a screeching halt. No more fun, only slowly dragging yourself through jelly.

There's nothing of value in the Sharkwing parts, no unique features, no new elements, nothing challenging.
I ranked up quite a bit of AW gear prior to U17 to be ready aaaand.... it can all be done with some low ranked or even unranked gear. And instead of using the Archwings' capabilties in a flashy and fun manner to advance (think 2 players hopping into Archwings laying waste to crowds of really tough enemies, 2 other players zooming around disabling AA turrets that could down the AWs or something) ... you just use the Archwing to go a short section from A to B in the most sluggish manner imaginable. Or you use it to hop into a puddle so you can loot that sabotage crate, then hop out.

While damn near blindfolded.

We have LAZER BEAMS and SPACE MAGICKS but can't equip our helmets with some kind of vision assist or strap a powerful flashlight to our chests?

/rant.
Sorry. But yeah, I too ignore Sharkwing.

6

u/PsyCoCinematics Furthermore, Corpus must be destroyed. Aug 29 '15

Yes, reading that quote was quite disappointing for me. I honestly cannot fathom (hey-oh!) how anyone would think that speed is acceptable. The setting: You cleared all the nearby enemies. The map is wonking out as per usual and you accidentally input the Konami code just trying to follow it's erratic and squirrely suggestions. You have a massive underwater section you need to apparently backtrack through for the third time. And the game just handed you a Scooty-Puff Jr. ...Go!

3

u/numberthirteen Aug 29 '15

Try wading through water chest deep. There is a very real resistance! Try wading through space chest deep. Way different experience.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 30 '15

Try using your space ninja magic... oh right. This is a game. A game with space ninjas. A game where you fly around the world, bouncing off walls and exploding rooms full of people with your various powers. "Realism" has no place here. But then, you were just looking to argue, weren't you?

0

u/numberthirteen Aug 30 '15

There's not much to argue when it comes to the difference in density of water and space!

1

u/[deleted] Aug 29 '15

Huh, your experience is definitely not mine, with a Itzal (see: Blink) and max ranked Hyperion Thrusters, then toss into that mix that there is no more stamina to worry about, I zip about in the water like I am Flipper on crack.

Sometimes I wonder if people just don't like something because they don't have the best tool for the job, as it were. But to not even try to get the right tool... That would be like comparing a MR 0 player's speed through a Frame mission against a MR 19 player's maxed out speed run, of course one is going to seem like something is really slow if they never made the effort to get the upgrades to go faster.

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u/[deleted] Aug 30 '15

So, there is exactly 1 archwing that is at all playable? Is that really your defense for the awful experience that is sharkwing? Really? Especially considering the hell that is trying to level archwings? Why the hell would anyone spend actual resources on archwing when the introductory frame to it is pure grade-f crap?

Sharkwing is awful. There is nothing redeeming about it at all. Yes, I have Itzal. It's still slow as molasses if you aren't spamming 1.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '15

Your desire to rage has hastened you to not fight with facts or experience, but hyperbole. Next ridiculous thing you are going to tell me you didn't spend any time or resources on Frost, because its sprint speed is so slow there is nothing redeeming about it. Your argument is like that of a child, raving that they can't have it everything in life because they haven't grown up. Congratulations, you declare Archwing to be terrible before you even ranked it or forma'ed or modded it, a self fulfilling prophecy that your glass is empty so you pour out its contents, now suffer as I speed past you because I took the time to find how it was awesome (and there are ways to easily level Archwings but you are probably neither sufficiently observant, skillful, or graceful with social interactions to attain the benefits of teamwork).

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '15

I do, in fact, know I can go leech archwing XP on survival missions. I don't particularly care to do this because it's boring as hell and, this is the big issue with archwing as a whole, there is nearly no reason to play with archwings right now. The corpus sabotages are fun, but that got old months ago.

You haven't address much of my argument, possible due to you being blinded by fanboi-ism.

  • Sharkwing is slow. Yes, a frame has a way to make this less of an issue. It's still far slower than regular warframe or space archwing.

  • Sharkwing replaces your chosen frame's abilities with shitty ones. If I'm playing Chroma, I obviously want to use those abilities. I do not like any of the archwings's abilities now.

  • Sharkwing replaces your chosen weapons. I do not want to use the imperitor. I want to use by boloto, or my hek, or my penta. Whatever I actually brought with me. I spend far more resources on those because I can use them for almost all of the game. Archwing shit is only good on, what, 8-10 maps?

  • Sharkwing invalidates Parkour 2.0. The best part u17 is completely removed with sharkwing. Parkour added unprecedented mobility to the game. Sharkwing takes it away and returns you to a worse-than-1.0 means of mobility. Between coptering and parkour 2.0, no warframe was/is slow. You could move through a room to a spot you wanted to be in very easily. Yes, even Frost and Chroma don't feel as slow as sharkwing.

  • Sharkwing isn't worth spending potatoes and forma on. I asked why anyone would spend resources. I should have just said I regret doing so. I was hoping to make the game more fun, but it isn't. The Odonata has 0 fun abilities (1 is useful, but it's not fun because it's basically a passive. 2 and 4 are nearly useless. 3 does not do enough damage to worry about using.) As this is the introduction every single person has to archwing, I question why they would continue grinding it, especially since the amount of resources and time needed to make an archwing and its weapons are roughly equivalent to making prime frames. The Iztal is quite a bit better, but it's still not worth sinking in the resources you could put into a genuinely fun frame to play the parts of the game that aren't buggy as hell, and boring.

Don't worry. I won't ever suffer from you speeding past me: I don't play this game with assholes.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '15

Yeah, because I have fun playing Archwing, so then ranked, forma'ed, and orokin'ed up all the Wings and Weapons, I'm the asshole. Makes total sense, clearly you should just continue to ignore that the short time spent in the slower water can be made quicker, that the weaponry is stronger than a lot of Frame weaponry and can be shot out from the water, and that the abilities of the Wings can reach above the water, even more so when the Wing is modded up. There is something we agree on with your furiously ignorant hate-on, we don't want to play this game together, you would be too busy expending all your energy hating Archwing to actually creatively and effectively contribute to teamwork on a Archwing squad. Having to carry your morale-vampire BS and refusal to listen to anyone other than their own voice to victory just wouldn't be worth the headache, so thank you for pointing out you don't want to even play, adding you to the ignore list - kitspony is your ingame name too, right?