The Datamass: Update 9 Highlights

WARFRAME is developed and published by Digital Extremes, the same development house that helped create Unreal and the Unreal Tournament line of First-Person Shooters. Digital Extremes doesn't disappoint its fans, releasing content at a break-neck pace that leaves their Creative Director Steve Sinclair and Lead Designer Scott McGregor with more and more ambitious projects after every release! So what's up with this update?

Hot off the presses at Digital Extremes we have a new Youtube Video with some great stuff being discussed and teased to the community. Let's check it out and look over what it talks about, after the break.

Eyes of the Twin Queens: Grineer Informer Farming

We'll cut right to the chase; the new event is up for the weekend and there are many people with many opinions on how to best farm for kills.

As always, Kappa seems to be the place to go.

90377 Sedna

Kappa - Sedna is one of the first missions unlocked in the Sedna-sphere. It is accessible from Saturn, and requires that you defeat General Sargas Ruk. The level range for Kappa ranges from 18 to 28, making for a fairly accessible mission.

Kappa is a Mobile Defense; requiring the Tenno and their Cell to bring a datamass to several computer terminals and wait for the Lotus to defeat the encryption. During the encryption countdown countless Grineer will assault the Tenno and their Cell, all attempting to destroy the terminal which the Lotus is currently hacking.

After defeating the encryption on both terminals the Lotus will announce a new objective; defend the cryopod (artifact, as she refers to it). This is also a timed defense, with the greatest risk to the cryopod being Grineer Rollers and lieutenants. Bombards, Napalms, and Heavies will all pose a great risk to the cryopod.

The Target

Floating idly by in a firefight, making a strange noise when approached and jamming Tenno radar within twenty meters, the Grineer Informer can be difficult to spot at first. Almost always hovering above eye-level of the Tenno, these Grineer drones are deployed with other Grineer units in order to collect information and disrupt the ability for Tenno to properly acquire targets or navigate through the use of their minimap.

Grineer Informer

Boldly Hiding in the Rafters

So where do we go, to slay these terrible constructs of metal and circuitry?

Our Playground

That's right folks, Kappa. Specifically the two main rooms containing the data terminal objectives of the first part of a Mobile Defense. These rooms allow us to fulfill the criteria needed to spawn Grineer Informers:

• Triggers
• Distance
• Room

The trigger we require to spawn Grineer Informers is the same as any other foe. The Lotus may announce Grineer attackers en route, the timer may be initiated for decryption, or the timer for the cryopod defense may be initiated. As new waves of foes are spawned to attack the data terminal or cryopod, Grineer Informers are spawned in various locations nearby.

Distance is a sphere or bubble around each member of the Cell present for the mission. Grineer will not spawn within this sphere, making it vital that Tenno not spread out too greatly during the mission for fear of suppressing spawns outright.

Room, or rather rooms, are the physical locations which Grineer Informers can spawn. There are various rooms surrounding the data terminals which Grineer can use as cover. Assuming the Tenno are far away enough, Grineer Informers will eventually spawn within them. As the core aspect of this farming method, it requires visual aids to properly convey. The Rhino Camera-Man used all of his acrobatic skill to gather these, as the album shows

Bottom-Level

Central to both data terminals is a squat room with three doors; one of these rooms has a number of containers in-front of it, while the other is clear. Both will spawn one or two Grineer Informers within.

Without Boxes

With Boxes

Grineer Informer Spotted in the With Boxes room!

Located to either side of the squat, central rooms are two additional rooms. The first room is identical on either side of the Mobile Defense map, placed in a corner with an automatic door. These rooms will often be ignored due to the lack of other spawns within them. Grineer do not take cover in them when spawning in other locations, and are thus almost always empty excluding a Grineer Informer.

Opposite these closed-off and ignored rooms are an entryway and a dead-end which sees a great deal more activity from the Grineer as they spawn. Grineer troops will often use this cross-entryway for cover as they approach the data terminal. The location of the Grineer Informer is beyond the cross-entryway shown, floating against the ceiling. Grineer will take cover from Tenno in the cross-entryway, but rarely where the Grineer Informer spawns.

Top-Level

There are three spawn locations on the top-level of this map for Grineer Informers. Two of these are fairly obvious, but we stumbled upon as the Rhino Camera-Man worked his magic.

First we have a fairly simple T-entry room. Grineer Informers spawn within even when defending the nearby data terminal, making it worthwhile for a member of a Cell to occasionally move to the top-level while not lingering for too long. Grineer Informers float here as they do elsewhere, being bothersome and hindering radar for nearby Tenno.

Another T-entry room and another location for the Grineer Informer to spawn, this location is slightly larger than the previous. As illustrated by the picture, it can be difficult to spot the drone without approaching the room and paying close attention to the ceiling. Both rooms on the top-level can spawn multiple Grineer Informers, making them worthwhile to check but not suppress with the presence of Tenno.

I came across the last spawn completely by accident. Or rather, spawns. Either side of the central divider for the top-level can spawn a Grineer Informer, while the opposite side (which the Rhino is facing away from in the picture below) does not seem to spawn anything.

They just float there. Mocking my weight.

And Other Spawns

Entering the juncture between the two data terminal rooms (which also serves as the location of the cryopod), Tenno will see two rooms to either side of the doorway. Both can contain Grineer Informers when initially entering the area, as well as when moving from one data terminal to the next.

The doorway leading out from this juncture also allows Grineer Informers to spawn, with upwards to five spawning in the adjoining room during the cryopod defense alone.

The Right Tool for the Jo- Wait We Used That Already?

A public group will hate you for leaving the data terminals or the cryopod. A public group full of random players (Pick-Up-Group, PUG, pugs, ect...) will not play the objective most of the time, and instead focus on either kills or hunting down Grineer Informers for the sake of their personal objective. This is why it is advisable for you, the player, to do this in a reliable group.

As always, cohesion and teamwork will pay off when attempting to get a personal objective. Teamwork in this case will allow you to hunt down and kill the required twenty Grineer Informers to receive the Snipetron Vandal, without impacting other players and their objectives.

Cohesion and teamwork will also serve to keep you from engaging in conflict with others!  Grineer Informer kills are not shared between players thus-far. I'll say it again:

Grineer Informer kills are not shared with your group!

You only gain credit for the killing blows you land. Your allies do not contribute to your own total. Your Sentinel does not contribute to your own total. Chaos- and Mind Control-affected foes do not contribute to your own total, should they somehow score the killing blow.

Remember this as you cut a bloody swath through the ranks of the Grineer! And be sure to shoot a Grineer Informer right in the recording-device as a message to the Twin Queens. It's going to take a lot more than surveillance devices and some radar disruption to stop a Tenno.

The Path of Enlightenment: Paris

I don't hate it.  I swear!

The Path of Enlightenment: Understanding

With the upcoming event against the Grineer and their spy drones across the system, I have my second Paris being crafted in the foundry ("baking in the oven").

I once had Paris, but went down the road of resetting my account for the sake of better Platinum spending and the sake of completeness.  And bug reporting.  This has so-far been successful.

Excluding the Paris and Snipetron.

All Aboard!

It's going to be a weekend of invading Galleons, putting down the Grineer, and disabling as many of their drones as possible.  And I am going to strive to do the entire run with a Paris.

As I had said previously on Reddit, I am at fault for not having leveled it to 30 recently or properly kitted a Paris with the right Mods for the job.  I've seen the second-hand performance of the Paris as a result, and must take a closer look at what it can do, and what I can do with it.

Thus I make my claim here, on The Orokin and the Lotus!

I will do the event with a Paris.  And so help me God, I won't suck.

Defense Mission Discipline: You Are Not Your Job

This won't take long, since the message is fairly simple in today's Discipline. So we're going to talk about it from the three perspectives of the Tenno.

The Role of the Tenno and the Pod

It is a very simple hierarchy for how objectives in a Defense mission should be managed. There are multiple layers of importance and different approaches to each, but they tend to follow the same formula.

• The safety of the Cryopod or Reactor is the primary objective; losing it loses the mission and your progress.
• The safety of your fellow Tenno is below the primary objective; you must not do things which will lead to their death.
• Your own safety is important; a wasted life is worthless.

You Are Not Your Job

It is very easy to fall into the false assumption that you, the Tenno, are not going to be the focus of the Defense Mission. The assumption tends to follow this thought process; you join a Defe the enemy to your presence in a Defense Mission. While they are already aware of other targets in the Defense Mission, they are not focused on the Tenno until the Tenno give them reason to be.

Shoot them.

As soon as a foe comes into view, fire at them. It does not matter which Warframe you are, you can manage the "threat" (or intent which a foe wishes to target you first) of the Defense Mission in two locations and three viewpoints with great ease. Using this understanding of how your enemy will move in a Defense mission helps enormously.

As we will be touching on both lower-level foes and higher waves of Endless Defense, our discussion will revolve around Tileset C, as defined on the Warframe Wiki's "Endless Defense" page.

First is the catwalk, which funnels foes into a straight line. It is important that you dispatch foes here quickly, but not pursue them down the catwalk and engage them further. While acceptable when alone or fighting lower-level foes, the damage and lack of cover from the forward position will kill you.

The catwalk will allow a melee-focused Tenno to hold Infested back should they be equipped with the proper Mods for their melee weapon, allowing allies to dispatch the group without fear of reprisal.

Second comes the main ramp, which has two separate points to cover from a single position.

Left of the main ramp is a collection of boxes which allow Tenno cover from enemy fire while bottle-necking enemies as they exit the large spawn points. This position overlaps some of the catwalk, and this is acceptable. Ensuring an entire wave does not clump in a single location is vital; splitting the wave into two parts allows a group of Tenno to better dispatch foes without wasted shots going into already-defeated enemies.

Right of the main ramp is a more open-air path to the primary objective, with spawns coming from the ground-floor and second-floor. This location sees somewhat less activity than the previous two, but spawns foes which come from multiple locations. Firing on your foes as they exit both doors on both levels ensures that they come either straight down the path leading from the bottom-floor doorway, or straight along the raised platform across from the primary objective.

You Are Not The Car You Drive

Any Warframe can fill the role of generating aggro in lower- and higher-level encounters, but not every Warframe is tailored to handle that aggro when it breaks your initial line. The Nyx can stop foes in their tracks while your allies finish them. The Frost can halt them in their tracks and slow their advance to a crawl. The Ember can lay down an area of flame which will weaken them as they attempt to advance. The Loki can distract and redirect the advance of your foes completely with a well-placed Decoy, or Radial Disarm to force your foes out of cover.

There are MANY different approaches, but after a certain point even the most unbalanced, God-tier Warframe will require backup and cover to do their job. This is why correct positioning is key as your enemy increases in difficulty. The best-Modded Mag in the game will still be overrun when they reach the limit of targets they can Crush.

You Are Not Your Fucking Khakis.

Weapons are important, but it is a broad-ranging subject that could take days to best analyze. The short of it can best be summed up by a concept in many First-Person Shooters; Time-To-Kill.

All weapons have this Time-To-Kill, or TTK. TTK represents the amount of shots a weapon can put out, the damage of these shots, and the reliability of these shots. Should the size of your weapons clip be less than the required shots to slay a foe, the TTK increases.

A Paris has a great deal of damage potential, but a single shot per clip limits it. Unmodded the Paris takes 86 seconds of reloading alone to fire 72 arrows with a base damage of 45. Compare this to the 27.6 seconds of reloading with a standard Braton that puts out 20 damage a shot with 45 shots per clip and a max ammo of 540, and the performance issues become impossible to ignore.

But Mods will improve this. They won't make the problem go away, but they can offer a crutch to weapons which do not perform general roles well. A Paris modded properly to one-shot anything from a Heavy Gunner to Corpus Tech and even a Toxic Ancient is going to perform better than a Braton for the same role. But the Braton will have a clear advantage in multiple targets due to a baseline superior TTK. And Endless Defense is very much about multiple targets. This is why many people streaming high-level Endless Defense missions use the Ogris; it is second-to-none in TTK for multiple targets.

Closing Thoughts

I can hear the rabble beginning; every time I mention what the Paris can't do, I get replies subtly or not-so-subtly stating that I'm just doing it wrong. This is why you are not your fucking Khakis, Tenno. Do not cling to a single weapon as the salvation of your gameplay. The Hek was nerfed. The Kunai and Despair will see nerfs as well. Diversity is the key to handling the multiple encounters and roles in Warframe. And as time goes on and new content is implemented (like the MAS!) we will see each play-style and each favored weapon shine.

And now for the entire quote, from Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club.

“You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”

I mean really, who doesn't like soap?

Defense Mission Discipline: The Right Tool for the Job

The recent event Digital Extremes implemented in Warframe this weekend seems like a success.  Whether I was duoing with my battle-wife as our Rhino/Frost pair, going solo as my newly re-finished Ash, or offering my services to Region chat to help finish off Artifact Defense missions; I rarely found myself failing at the event.

But I certainly did feel the strain from other people.

Bringing a Heat Dagger to a Snipetron Fight

There are so many weapons available to players in Warframe that it can be difficult to get a solid grasp of what you are supposed to do.  What is the difference between the Strun, Boar, and Hek?  How do I know if I should bring a Boltor over a Grakata?  What use is the Burston when compared top the Braton and Gorgon?  Why does everyone seem to always have a Paris or Dread for missions?

That last statement is important; we're going to have a birds-and-the-bees talk about it by the closing paragraph.

One of the biggest struggles is the "correct" use of weapons in Warframe.  Making sure to bring the appropriate weapon to the appropriate content isn't something a lot of people playing in Online games will really concern themselves with.  On a Raid or Spy mission there is no real concern beyond cutting a bloody swath through the enemy.  Your Tenno cell (what a group of players is called in the setting) gets to the objective and gets out.  You move on to the next mission.

Unless you're playing on an Endless Defense or Mobile Defense mission.  Then you need to be mindful of a few things.

Rectitude and Respect

A Tenno must be mindful of the other Tenno in their cell, when working together towards a goal.  The objective is the single most important thing you have in a mission, but your fellow Tenno are as much a means to completing the objective as you are.  You must Respect both of these factors in a Defense mission.  We're back to the basics of Bushido to best describe Defense Mission Discipline, as it helps put into perspective the problems and solutions at hand.

Using the right weapon in a Defense mission is important because it allows you to carry your own weight.  While certainly some weapons are enjoyable to use and other weapons have a pleasing aesthetic which matches your Warframe, the three other people in the mission with you will not appreciate it as much as they will appreciate a solid performance.  Carry your weight, and show your fellow Tenno Respect.

From Respect we must move on to Rectitude, and what it means to your arsenal.  In short, you must accept that you will have to play a certain role and be able to perform certain actions in a Defense mission.  You will be required to kill a great many foes with various strengths and weaknesses.  A Vulkar sniper rifle can kill a Corpus Shield Osprey with a single blow or cripple a Grineer Heavy Gunner, but so can a Latron or even a Braton with the application of a handful of bullets and the correct Mods.  These weapons can then be turned on a different foe without an impact on their time to kill (TTK).  This is where the idea of Rectitude comes in to play; to strike when it is right to strike.  And with the right tool for the right difficulty.

Difficulty?

Difficulty.  A Tier 1 Endless Defense mission is a cake-walk, as anything under level 15 can be mindlessly slaughtered without consideration to the threats they normally would hold at higher levels.  But reaching these higher levels in an Endless Defense mission is where the greater rewards and greater risks lay, and thus where teamwork and cooperation (the Respect towards your fellow Tenno) is required.

We will primarily be discussing the difficulty of Tier 3 encounters and the foes which you will face there, as this is where the most difficulty and misunderstanding of ones role comes in to play.  The easiest Tier 3 Endless Defense missions to complete to Wave 5 are Ceres-Casta and Ceres-Varro, while the highest is the infamous Pluto-Outer Terminus.  Casta and Varro start at level 25 and approach level 30 quickly, while Outer Terminus starts at level 39 and increases in difficulty.  Varro is the easier of the two Ceres Endless Defense missions, as it is located in the storage hold of a Grineer galleon; Casta is located in the infamously annoying asteroid cavern.

We'll start with levels, and work our way up.

Levels, Effective Levels, and Potatos

My Rhino is Rank 30 and has a Potato in it; an Orokin Catalyst which doubles the Mod Capacity of my Warframe.  Without a Potato, we can consider my Rhino to be able to perform as a Level 30 Warframe, with maximum Mod Capacity.  With a Potato, we can consider my Rhino to be able to perform as a level 60 Warframe, with maximum Mod Capacity.  But mine does not currently have the max Mod Capacity in use; it is only using 50 of the 60 Mod Capacity available.  The same applies to weapons, with the issue being further muddled with the application of Forma and Polarizing Mod slots.

This can act as a good indication of how well-prepared you are for an encounter and how well you can handle certain difficulties of Defense missions.  The same applies to weapons; more Mod Capacity allows higher-rank Serration or Point Blank Mods.  Higher-rank damage mods gain greater effect from Speed Trigger and Shotgun Spazz, as well as elemental damage Mods.

My high-level Redirection and Vitality combined with Iron Skin help to buy a great deal of time when wielding my Fragor to crowd-control Ancients, as an example.  Even in Wave 30+ or dealing with level 60 foes, the crowd-control of a fast-swinging Fragor with North Wind and Shocking Touch can lock anything down indefinitely.  It may not deal massive amounts of damage, but it serves to allow my fellow Tenno to safely dispatch the wave.

We'll Always Have Paris (and other Dreadful Puns)

A great many Tenno I encounter doing Defense missions make use of a Paris or Dread as their primary weapon, without understanding how they work or their place in the Tenno arsenal.  Bows are difficult weapons to use due to a combination of required skill and required mods.  Elemental effects will remove the ability to send a corpse flying in most cases, forcing a high Serration Mod and Piercing Hit.  As we briefly looked at, Serration acts as an aspect of your weapons strength and level as much as the functional rank which is displayed in-game.  A Rank 30 Hek without Mods installed can deal fair damage, but with Point Blank will deal 90% more.  Almost doubling the output of a weapon for 9 Mod Capacity.  9 levels, in essence.

Landing an arrow in a target requires leading and precision.  Endless Defense missions are not the environment for careful, precise shots.  Using a bow requires a solid grasp of damage values and high-rank Mods to perform against increasingly difficult foes; high-level Endless Defense missions are not the environment where someone should experiment with weapons they haven't put the effort into Modding correctly or completely.

Next Up?

Now that we're done with the bow-rant (I'm sure I'll see some grief for it too!), what comes next?

I don't have the experience in extremely high-level Endless Defense missions which TCPI has, as an example.  But we can go over the application of certain weapons and practices in various maps which can benefit a player.  Better understanding the behavior of Grineer in the asteroid cavern compared to the Grineer galleon, or the effect of establishing threat on Infected and herding them along specific kill corridors.

And a better view of what Warframes can fill which roles, and why you shouldn't rush into a crowd to use Mag Crush.

Grappling Hooks: What Might We See?

Flying Around at the Speed of Sound

Let's get one thing out of the way before we continue; it's a Grappling Hook.  There will be statements saying "Grapple Hook" and "Grapnel Hook" and various other instances of the English language eating away at itself.  A Grapnel is used in water, and a Grapple Hook simply incorrect English ("A wrestle mat" vs. "A wrestling mat").

Also all the video links in this post will (or should!) open a new window in your browser.  Be sure to check the volume settings when they come up, as these are from the era of bombastic industrial metal tracks as background music.  What once was Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly has turned into a cluster of wub-wubs and bass drops.

Now that we have that out of the way; holy shit Grappling Hook.

Ropes, Wires, Hooks, and Utility Belts

The very concept of a Grappling Hook is fantastic, especially in a game such as Warframe.  Attaching yourself to something and zipping around the map is one of the dreams which many first-person shooter  and third-person shooter players have.  We can blame it on Bionic Commando and The Legend of Zelda.

But what kind of Grappling Hook will we get?  And in what form will it interact with the physics of Warframe?

The Classic Grappling Hook

The original hook used in Ye Olden Days of FPS gaming, this is the one which paved the way for all others.  The properties of the Classic Grappling Hook are simple:

• Attach to a physical object
• Retain/inherit full inertia
• Pivot in a spherical area

As this video demonstrates (from the original Quake using one of the first three-dimensional examples of the Grappling Hook) the effect of the hook in spatial movement is substantial.  The implimentation of such a function in a game removes the Z-axis limitations which a majority of players are comfortable with.  As illustrated in this sequence of events, the player doesn't even reach the floor as they traverse a corner.  The location in question is a perfect choke and a prime location to gib a target with a shotgun blast, a railgun shot, or simply send them off-course with a direct or indirect rocket impact.

Removing the requirement for a player to be grounded for most of the match and moving through very specific zones of a hallway removed the expected locations which enemy players could reliably focus their aim.  Applying the same effect to enemy line-of-sight in Warframe (guards rarely look at the ceiling) is a fantastic way to create a faster method of stealth play which many players would feel more comfortable using.

The Physics Grappling Hook

Differing from the Classic Grappling Hook, this hook has properties which allowed it to be used for different methods of travel beyond slingshotting across a map:

• Attach to a physical object
• Retain/inherit limited inertia
• Reel the user towards the attachment point
• Decrease power of third function as user inertia changes

As we can see in this video, limited inertia and the various changes in the function of the hook offer a smoother and more natural functions.  If we were to compare the two hooks thus far (the Physics and the Classic), the Classic Hook would be a static iron bar which possesses no collision and swings the user along a pivot; the Physics Hook is a rope which quickly tugs the user towards the attachment point as it reels in and then slows the reeling process as time passes.

The Physics Hook does a great deal to open the possibilities for use, with limitations against exploiting.  The gravity- and inertia-controlled functions of the Physics Hook on the user ensure that objects in the world are still barriers, and that the user cannot ignore collision with surfaces while attempting to traverse the terrain.

The Inertia Grappling Hook

Anyone familiar with the Lithium Mod from the days of Quake 2 will understand the function of the Inertia Grappling Hook.  Another good title for this hook is the Zipline Hook, due to the function which inertia does not exibit as the user moves:

• Attach to a physical object
• Reset inertia
• Propel the user towards the attachment point
• Continue to propel the user towards the attachment point along a straight line

As a very loud video from Quake 2 helps illustrate, the Inertia Hook has no solid connection between the user and the attachment point.  The function of the Inertia Hook is to instead allow either brief periods of acceleration, or inter-spaced periods of acceleration and free fall   The method used to move with the Lithium Mod hook was to "skip" through the air by briefly attaching to a point and propelling yourself towards it, only to detach and sail through the air.  Repeating this allowed the user to continue to sail through the air, often while gaining momentum.

This is by far the hardest Grappling Hook cited thus far to balance around, and can cause numerous technical issues.  Desync from the host/server, exploiting movement speed to pass through objects, and out-ranging all but hitscan attacks are just some of the risks with implementing the Inertia Hook.

The Ninja Rope

We've saved the best for last, and it may be the best-known Grappling Hook from two completely different games:

• Attach to a physical object
• Inherit inertia
• Set maximum distance which user can move from attachment point
• Align user along maximum distance from attachment point when attempting to exceed maximum distance from attachment point

Explaining the Ninja Rope is hard. It involves Pi. Videos are the only way to really allow a user to better understand the effects, so instead of illustrating the various uses of the Ninja Rope we will look at where it has been best used.

Unreal Tournament: 2004 used a Ninja Rope as a Mutator (effectively a Mod), and the effect was profound.  As can be seen in the video, the ultra-balanced Facing Worlds Capture The Flag map was rendered a joke in the face of such a tool.

Worms Armageddon has one of the more memorable modern-gaming instances of the Ninja Rope.  Some of the things which you can do with it blow my mind even today.

Garry's Mod has a good implementation of the Ninja Rope as well, with a very Spider-Man feel to the controls.

Warframes Grappling Hook

So what will we get?  From the brief demo which Digital Extremes gave us, I'm not so sure we're going to see any of the above.  The closest example to take from above would be the Inertia Hook, without the ability to inherit inertia or disengage the hook before reaching the attachment point.  It is one of the simplest hooks to add, and ensures the hook isn't sued to exploit movement and trivialize Void content.

With any luck, we will see one of the more utility belt-like functions of the Grappling Hook in Warframe.  Upon reaching the attachment point of the Grappling Hook, the user is anchored in place and is unable to move until they manually disengage the Grappling Hook.  Be it through the use of the action key, jumping, or automatically after a brief period of time.

But just seeing a Grappling Hook in Warframe will be enough for me.  However it ends up working, the game will be made all-the-better for its inclusion.

Livestream 8: Artifact System

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.