Delicious Information
The latest livestream finished this afternoon with enough new information and juicy teasers to keep people on their toes. Discussion of the Mission Architect System (I'm personally calling it MAS), working on Alert levels for stealth gameplay, and the new content coming down the pipe in the form of a new faction to face is amazing to fantasize about.
But then there's Artifacts.
The Artifact Cherry
It was a rite of passage for me to get my first Artifact in Warframe. Seeing an alert show up somewhere that I had previously unlocked and seeing the big question mark reward next to a credit bonus was exciting. The question of what I would get, and the possibilities such rewards entailed were amazing. It was an engaging thing which I felt immersed me further into the game, since I could get rewards from doing more than just running the same mission over and over again.
Admittedly I got Sniper Scavenger from the alert. Not the worst thing, but it got me to check the Warframe Wiki to see what else I could get and piqued my interest in learning more about the game as it stood back in Closed Beta.
The Rework
So now we get the teaser statement from Digital Extremes in Livestream 8 talking about a rework of the Artifact System, and the conjecture is endless. They briefly mentioned turning them into Mods, using some of our already precious 10 Mod slots and 30 or 60 Mod capacity to give us even more options. It's a fine idea, but I think Digital Extremes could go a bit further.
Forma!
We have a lot of uses for Forma currently, and it very much should be understood what Forma does. Platinum in Warframe is essentially how the developers can feed themselves. As a very serious analogy, every single dollar spent on Platinum or Founders Packs is another dollar they can use to pay the rent on their office, the mortgages of their houses, and the bill for their groceries. No hyperbole, they live and die by how well Warframe performs and how well they can balance the needs of players with what can be bought and what cannot.
Forma is a rare reward from various activities in the game, but can easily be bought with Platinum. It is already used in a great many forms (upgrading gear with custom Polarities and Dojo building), and certainly isn't begging for another application. But we could certainly get away with including it in the Artifact System.
As a Warframe has options to slot an Orokin Reactor for more Mod capacity and Forma can be used to Polarize existing Mod slots, it could be expanded to allow for Artifact slots.
Numbers are all conjecture. Would a frame start with an Artifact slot? Would they need to apply Forma to unlock one? Would you need to only apply a single Forma, or more to unlock one? What about more Artifact slots?
In a perfect world, I would like to see a blend of concepts:
- A default Artifact slot enabled on all Warframes, immediately after being purchased, crafted, or earned.
- Artifacts have a Rating of their own, working with the current rarity scale they possess. Rare would be three, Uncommon would be two, and Common would be one.
- Warframes would have an Artifact capacity, similar to the Mod capacity they currently possess.
- Forma could be used to unlock additional Artifact slots.
- Forma could also be used to boost the max Artifact capacity. Using an Orokin Reactor would be an acceptable alternative, since they are used for a smaller pool of gear than Orokin Catalysts.
This also allows Artifacts to be combined together, through their own system of drops (unlikely and unwieldy) or through the use of Cores (but not specific Mods) and other Artifacts.
The major downside I can see with this is the complication it would add to Warframe. Without a proper tutorial it would be a risky addition to make, since many new players would be lost as-to how the process works.
Expect a one-sided fanboy post soon about the Grapple Hook, as well as a look at the upcoming Weekend Alert.
And a long-winded discussion of Warframe Lore, and why MAS is going to kick ass.
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