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.

Account Reset: The Post-Mortem

Man, that took some balls!

Warframe has offered the very useful ability to reset your account, letting you reset to what you started with before doing the tutorial or spending any Platinum.  It's a fantastic option to give players in Beta, and you can read more about it right here.

But I'm looking to briefly touch upon the aftermath of resetting, and why not everyone should do it.  This won't be a long discussion, since it's a fairly simple issue.

Why?

Simply put, to make better choices.  Platinum spending, what to level, how to go about spending your time, and the simple fact that it can be fun to start from scratch.  Getting only your MK1-Braton and Lato helps a lot to make you a better player, as you need to be able to rely on your gunplay over the abilities of your Warframe.

Why Not?

Time.  Investment.  Progression.  Not everyone has the time or desire to re-grind the progress they made before, and many people would feel like a detriment or burden to those they play with while re-leveling and re-acquiring the tools they used previously.

Worth It?

Were it not for the release of Update 8: The Clan Dojo, I would have reset a lot sooner.  But I wanted to invest my resources before I did so, since I had amassed a great deal in a short time of playing.  Looking back on this I can identify that I would have possibly spent a bit of cash to get more Platinum to buy more Weapon and Warframe slots, but I have no regrets having reset.  Even with the new Orokin-sphere missions and large amount of grinding I have ahead of me, I look at it as a challenge to overcome.  Much the same as Forma and the Prestige-like system of re-leveling items will be.

Oh god I'm excited just thinking about it!

Vauban, Rhinoceros, and a Coat of Stars

What Is Perfection?

At the start of the weekend a new frame was released in Warframe.  The Vauban is a tactical frame with very interesting abilities, ranging from a static proximity attack to a black hole.  The frame its self has fairly favorable Polarities, low shields and standard health, a fair amount of armor, and good sprint speed.  As a caster-support frame, it has a good base power to work with.

It is also perfect in the eyes of players.

Perfection in a game such as Warframe is bad.  Single-frame self-sufficiency greatly impacts the balance of other frames and enemies encountered in missions.  No single frame should be able to handle every situation as favorably or more favorably than another frame, and certainly no frame should be mechanically and numerically better than another.  Outside of the line of Prime Warframes.

What is the point of an Ash or a Loki stealthing ahead and dealing favorable damage on targets when a line of Tesla mines can be planted in a choke-point?  Why bother crowd-controlling a group with the Frost's Freeze or the Excalibur's Radial Blind when you can lock them down in Bastille and fire at your leisure?

Don't misinterpret this as a complaint about the Vauban Warframe.  Creative use of a frame should allow the player to do amazing and fun things on their own or in a group setting.  Being able to one-shot threatening foes such as the Stalker with Tesla cheapens the experience though, which helps us identify the original question at the top of the page.  In this case, what is perfection?  Perfection is a lack of challenge.  And Warframe should be all about challenge.

Risk, Reward, and Rhino

The Rhino changes which came in the same patch as the Vauban help to illustrate the issues of Risk vs. Reward and shine a bright spotlight on the problem with challenge in Warframe.  Immunity and invulnerability in a game with such a focus on team-play and movement (remember, this isn't a cover-base shooter!) cheapens the experience.  This is what the Rhino suffered from.

Iron Skin originally granted complete immunity to damage, knock-back abilities, energy-drain abilities, movement-impairing effects, and the cold vacuum of space.  It was an "I Win" button for boss encounters, a hard counter to Toxic and Disruptor Ancients, and one of the few ways to safely hack a Terminal without risk of being moved or interrupted.

Iron Skin was imbalanced.

The Rhino took out any risk in playing Warframe.  Short of a hostage dying or a Mobile Defense overwhelming you with more foes than you can fire on at a single time, a Rhino could do any mission by themselves with almost no risk of failure.  As long as you Iron Skinned early and often, you could withstand any punishment thrown your way.  There was no risk in playing the frame, as none of the disadvantages inherit to the standard gaming definition of a "tank" were applied to the Rhino:

• Slower Speed
• Less Offensive Capability
• Less Utility
• Limited Usage*

*The standard build for a Rhino which undoubtedly lead to the nerf in the first place was to apply Continuity, Flow, and  Streamline.  This negated the issue of limited usage in practice.

None of these things were applied, if you simply built your Rhino like any other frame in Warframe.  A player could cycle between Iron Skin and taking damage through their shields, allowing the Iron Skin to give them time to regenerate to full.

The removal of risk serves to lessen the reward.  In a game with overwhelming challenges and boss encounters which typically require at least another player to safely defeat, the ability to fight something alone and not risk death made for a lessened reward.  There is no sense of accomplishment, and without a sense of accomplishment there is no true reward for your actions beyond a moment of superiority.  To adhere to the theme of the Bushido, there is no Honor in such a system.  And without Honor, players will become bored and move on to another game.

Imba?

Warframe doesn't balance abilities in a vacuum against one-another.  The Frost vs. Rhino debate has gone on since I started playing Warframe, and I suspect will always be something of a hot topic for tanks in the game.  As more Warframes are released, more opportunity for imbalanced play shows up; and no one likes having their own accomplishments cheapened through the use of "imba" mechanics.  So what is the solution?

Digital Extremes is doing a good job thus-far with balance.  But that is in-part because they do not release abilities until they get the chance to play with them, and do not have a problem with new uses for existing abilities.  If a damage coefficient needs to be adjusted or range needs to be toned down they do so, but they don't radically change the way abilities work unless it is absolutely required.

The Rhino could ignore mechanics, and that was a dangerous precedent to set for future abilities.  I welcome the change to Iron Skin, as I welcome the new Vauban Warframe.  I can only hope the Vauban sees a limiting to the effect some of its abilities have on the still-growing "metagame" of Warframe.

And maybe make it so Tesla doesn't attach to players, or multiple Tesla don't fire at once in an area.  Giving a Rhino a shimmering coat of stars that fire death at the Stalker the moment he engages is just silly.

The First Post: The Postening

An Introduction to Space Ninja

Warframe is a fantastic game.  Since playing in the Closed Beta at the start of 2013 I have had an amazing time getting into the setting and world of Warframe.  Running around space installations and on the decks of ships, destroying the space marines, corporate proxies and workers, and going toe-to-toe with the nanobot-infected victims of either; this game has got a lot of action going for it.

And teamwork.  As much fun as I have had playing alone and carving a path through Infected, playing with another person (or more!) has been infinitely more enjoyable.  Setting up combat standards (melee goes left, ranged goes right, shotgun goes for the middle) and sticking to them to flawlessly clear a room or level of hostiles is just great.  The myriad of choices you have in what to bring with you and how to survive combat adds to the depth, and the specific attributes of the various Warframes themselves further enhance a great experience.

But really, what the heck IS this game?

Well, it's a third-person action shooter.  You're a space ninja armed with a rifle, a pistol, a blade, and enough ninja-moves to out-flank foes while feeling like a badass.  You roam the solar system killing dudes, looting their bases for stuff, and killing the Big Bad of each area to gather up the materials needed to make more badass space ninja suits to flip out and kill people with.

There are no cover mechanics, nor any comprehensive stealth system in place (yet!).  There is virtually no instruction on how to progress beyond a comprehensive wiki and a community which is vocal in their favoritism towards certain weapons and character classes.  Clan support is fast approaching for a more group-friendly environment, while various quality-of-life changed are implemented almost constantly as they are finished and tested.  The game is still in beta; there will be bugs.

It's being designed and produced by Digital Extremes, as a free-to-play game with a purchased currency and an earned, in-game currency.  There are no limitations to play time beyond a daily life limit of four revives.  There are no level limitations, nor any restrictions on what a free player can use compared to a paying player.  The worst you will see is buying space for weapons and frames; something we'll go into another time.

Bushido, Tenno, and Lotus

You are a Tenno, awoken from your cryosleep to find a solar system in chaos.

There is no memory of the last time you woke, no friends or family to recall or mourn.  There is simply conflict, and a voice.  The voice of the Lotus, your only consult outside of your fellow Tenno.

Though you are few, you are strong and cunning.  Clad in Warframes inspired by the designs of the original masters of the solar system, the Orokin, you fight from the Mercury-sphere outwards along the Solar Rail Network.  You are the instrument of the Lotus, and she guides you to ensure the Orokin artifacts of the past are not abused for profit or destruction.

You face foes of various skill and threat across the solar system.  They outnumber you and your fellow Tenno millions to one.  The odds aren't good.  Someone should warn them.

The Grineer, a society of soldiers and commanders forcing their law on the solar system, fight without Honor or Respect.  They fight in squads, with bio- and cybernetic-augmented troop-clones bred for the purpose of domination and suppression.  Armed with rapid-fire Grakata rifles, Sicarus burst pistols, Strun shotguns, and heavy weapons, the Grineer use tactics and suppressive fire to eradicate their foes.  Be weary if you hear a female voice in the ranks of male clones; though many are sharpshooters supporting heavier troops, some are Heavy Gunners armed with fierce Gorgon machine-guns that will rip the strongest Tenno to pieces under sustained fire.

The Corpus, a natural evolution of the corporations of the 20th century and the mega-corporations proceeding them, attempt to subvert the legacy of the Orokin with their Dishonesty and Cowardice.  Minions in box-headed space suits and animal-like proxies of alloy plate patrol the corridors of Corpus ships and manufacturing worlds, treating technology they understand little about with an almost mystical attitude.  When not crafting crude imitations of Orokin technological masterpieces in strange religious ceremonies, they seek profit from any stolen tech they can capture or steal.  Even with their basic rifles, Snipetrons, and shock prods, the Corpus' most dangerous weapon are their proxies.  MOA, two-legged robots with gun-mounts and a pack-mentality, will overwhelm even the most fearsome Tenno if given the chance.  Threats from the Corpus are not only ground-bound; Ospreys will support troops with enhanced energy shields, energy mines, and even shield-leeching projectiles.

The Infested, humanoids infected with the Orokin Technocyte Plague, are a hive-mind which lacks Benevolence and Loyalty.  Created by the Orokin long ago, the Technocyte Plague infects any living sentient being with nanobots.  These nanobots proceed to change the structure of the being greatly, causing the inferior genetic template of the Grineer clones to revert to animal-like states while Corpus crewmen turn into shambling zombies of their former selves.  Striking with life-draining toxic clouds, shield- and energy-draining melee attacks, and suicidal explosions of blood and gore, the Infested are the greatest threat to a lone Tenno.  Even the vacuum of space is preferable to infestation.

Wait, Bushido?

There is one universal constant in all of the encounters Tenno will find themselves in; a single fact which must undoubtedly guide your blades and steady your aim no matter the circumstance.  Rectitude.

"To die when to die is right, to strike when to strike is right."

The Bushido teaches dedication in all things undertaken.

The strike of a blade cannot be halted due to indecision or doubt.  Knowing your steel is fit and your strike is true will ensure success.  An action undertaken only to be halted mid-way through is a waste of time and energy; both of which are valuable in battle.

The stroke of a brush ruins the lines of calligraphy if halted due to a change of message or differing intent.  The very symbol for Rectitude (義) is a complex array of strokes, which cannot be changed at a whim to another character without destroying the original intention.  

And so too does a Tenno require the dedication to follow-through with their actions in a righteous, just manner.  This is not simply deciding "A Toxic Ancient is through this door; I will strike it down."  The Tenno must accept the situation and his place, and take a course of action which is true in nature.  "A Toxic Ancient is through this door; I will fire on it from a distance to avoid the taint it gives off, and ensure its deadly remains do not block the doorway for myself and my fellow Tenno."  The Bushido can teach Tenno a great deal about being true to themselves.  They are in effect wandering ronin, serving no lord or master nor any Shinsengumi or Shinchōgumi.  Thus they should adhere to the Bushido.

Rectitude

Courage

Benevolence

Respect

Honesty

Honor

Loyalty

Expect to see more about the application of Bushido in the activities of the Tenno.  It blends well with the setting, and can teach players a great deal.

So now what?

Next is going to be an honest look into the most important part of Warframe; its business practices and pricing model.  Though this is a free-to-play game, there are purchased aspects which must be understood to have a better idea of the undertaking this game is for the developers.  We as players have the rare opportunity to show the developers what we think and what we want to support.  We shouldn't let it go to waste.